Prepare thy anus

[r0ach]

Social Security (as well as whatever exists in other countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, etc) is ponzied out at 15:1 leverage.  When politicians allow social systems like this to collapse, regime change is always next and that's always the number one thing people in power try to avoid.  First step to avoid this is ZIRP, then NIRP, meaning they want new generations to pay into the Ponzi for older generations while receiving no benefits themselves.  Since the older generation is much larger, and newer generations don't actually have any money, it will require a combination of both NIRP and debasement (printing).  The only way for people who acquire any money to not lose everything is Bitcoin or gold.

I'm personally not a big fan of gold because it's already failed in the past.  It didn't function as a currency because it's high friction in use and low granularity.  The bandaid for this to achieve higher granularity and lower friction was to use vaults and IOUs.  The IOU system allowed scam artists to create fractional reserve.  Gold and cryptocurrency will go against each other in the future, and since gold has already failed as a currency once, it will most likely fail even harder in a more modern world.  The only way gold wins is with global war sending society back to the stone age.

If you think the world will go back to the dark ages, buy gold.  If don't think that will happen, buy Bitcoin.  Or buy both.  One or each of them is going to the moon.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-06/congress-proposes-chilling-resolution-social-security

[1713935623]

1713935623

[zimmah]

Joke's on them, I have almost all my money in bitcoin and silver anyway, and not at the bank.

The couple of bucks i have at my bank are for paying bills, and if they seize them, well then i just cant pay my bills anymore, so who cares? Not me.

[jaredboice]

Joke's on them, I have almost all my money in bitcoin and silver anyway, and not at the bank.

The couple of bucks i have at my bank are for paying bills, and if they seize them, well then i just cant pay my bills anymore, so who cares? Not me.

I agree with this.  If they cypress the money we use to pay our bills, then I'd say that's either the beginning of the next American Revolution, or a really big class action lawsuit that cancels debts.

[jasonjm]

nothing against bitcoin, but how has gold failed?

plot gold vs example the euro since its inception

see here
http://imgur.com/VTbRyDx

how do you see that as a fail? looks like gold is kicking ass to me.

Plus remember pretty much every central bank wants gold to fail, since a rising gold price causes nothing but headaches for them. Why invest in bonds, stocks, real estate or hold cash in banks if gold is crushing them all?

not saying bitcoin cannot be a big winner down the line, but I am sure gold will be a big winner a decade from now.

gold was not supposed to be a currency that you actually pay for stuff with. It was meant to be a check on central banks, forcing them to back their currency with something that cannot be duplicated infinitely, in other words they couldn't just print more gold. That is why gold was abandoned, it was causing them too many problems.

Bitcoin has the same property as gold in that way, in other words you cannot turn on your computer and just decide to print 100 bitcoins.

Gold has one and only one advantage over bitcoin that I can see, it has no counterparty risk. Bitcoin has some form of counterparty risk in terms of 51% attack. Others will say electrical grid/internet, but realistically if the internet / electricity world wide was off, last thing you would be looking for is your gold or bitcoins.

[jasonjm]

Joke's on them, I have almost all my money in bitcoin and silver anyway, and not at the bank.

The couple of bucks i have at my bank are for paying bills, and if they seize them, well then i just cant pay my bills anymore, so who cares? Not me.

I agree with this.  If they cypress the money we use to pay our bills, then I'd say that's either the beginning of the next American Revolution, or a really big class action lawsuit that cancels debts.

considering most people basically have zero savings, it will be a very small revolution indeed. Most people will just ask when their next govt check is coming, and watch some reality TV.

[jaredboice]

Joke's on them, I have almost all my money in bitcoin and silver anyway, and not at the bank.

The couple of bucks i have at my bank are for paying bills, and if they seize them, well then i just cant pay my bills anymore, so who cares? Not me.

I agree with this.  If they cypress the money we use to pay our bills, then I'd say that's either the beginning of the next American Revolution, or a really big class action lawsuit that cancels debts.

considering most people basically have zero savings, it will be a very small revolution indeed. Most people will just ask when their next govt check is coming, and watch some reality TV.

If they can't afford to pay their bills, how will they watch TV?  How will they drive to work?  There would likely be chaos and riots.  But there would also be organization that came from it.  There's a lot of smart people out there who have been prepping who aren't just going to take it lying down

[jasonjm]

they will afford their bills, with your cypressed money - that's where some of the money would go.

that is why historically whenever any society has more than 50% getting free handouts, it fails.

those that get free stuff vote for more free stuff, and then the game never ends.

The USA has just reached that point.

so sorry but your mental of image of people taking to the streets ain't gonna happen.

however if you cut medicare, social security, EBT, etc etc all those programs, then there would be a riot from hell. But that will never happen, that is why somewhere down the line we will get some sort of hyper inflation as programs that should fail will not be allowed to, they will be papered over.

nevermind those programs, if the fed normalized interest rates (which they are threatening to do), the govt will never be able to make the interest payments on normalized rates on 19 trillion dollars in debt.

so the endgame is either a deflationary collapse, or a hyper inflationary print your way out of everything sprint. Take your pick.

gold and bitcoin will not be a good choice in a deflationary collapse, cash would be king assuming its not confiscated by some means.

in the inflationary outcome, gold would kick butt and certainly bitcoin too.

[vuduchyld]

Social Security is ponzied out at 15:1?  What is your source for that?

$2.73 trillion in trust fund reserves doesn't sound like a 15:1 ponzi.  Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/exposing-the-social-security-solvency-hype-2013-06-12

[Miracal]

Joke's on them, I have almost all my money in bitcoin and silver anyway, and not at the bank.

The couple of bucks i have at my bank are for paying bills, and if they seize them, well then i just cant pay my bills anymore, so who cares? Not me.

I agree with this.  If they cypress the money we use to pay our bills, then I'd say that's either the beginning of the next American Revolution, or a really big class action lawsuit that cancels debts.

The would be crazy to pull a cyprus here it will call for massive Government bashing. people are not going to take it easy that is obvious. Makes you wonder how can people really screw it up so bad.

[More Coin]

nothing against bitcoin, but how has gold failed?

plot gold vs example the euro since its inception

see here
http://imgur.com/VTbRyDx

how do you see that as a fail? looks like gold is kicking ass to me.

Gold is doing very well long term. But it does not beat the inflation since the 1980 bubble.

There is no problem for gold to be an investment. But it is difficult to buy goods with gold at present.

[suda123]

Social Security (as well as whatever exists in other countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, etc) is ponzied out at 15:1 leverage.  When politicians allow social systems like this to collapse, regime change is always next and that's always the number one thing people in power try to avoid.  First step to avoid this is ZIRP, then NIRP, meaning they want new generations to pay into the Ponzi for older generations while receiving no benefits themselves.  Since the older generation is much larger, and newer generations don't actually have any money, it will require a combination of both NIRP and debasement (printing).  The only way for people who acquire any money to not lose everything is Bitcoin or gold.

I'm personally not a big fan of gold because it's already failed in the past.  It didn't function as a currency because it's high friction in use and low granularity.  The bandaid for this to achieve higher granularity and lower friction was to use vaults and IOUs.  The IOU system allowed scam artists to create fractional reserve.  Gold and cryptocurrency will go against each other in the future, and since gold has already failed as a currency once, it will most likely fail even harder in a more modern world.  The only way gold wins is with global war sending society back to the stone age.

If you think the world will go back to the dark ages, buy gold.  If don't think that will happen, buy Bitcoin.  Or buy both.  One or each of them is going to the moon.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-06/congress-proposes-chilling-resolution-social-security

In all honesty gold is not even a choice, one of my friends group got convinced if we had a situation like that you'd rather buy guns and rob people with metals and resources.

The best actual proof is the event of a collapse from estonia stories told about collapses and how they survived it.

[r0ach]

In all honesty gold is not even a choice, one of my friends group got convinced if we had a situation like that you'd rather buy guns and rob people with metals and resources.

The best actual proof is the event of a collapse from estonia stories told about collapses and how they survived it.

In the Bosnian war they used the guns to hunt and eat pigeons.  I guess full scale cannabalism breaks out after the pigeons disappear.

[americanpegasus]

If you think the world will go back to the dark ages, buy gold.  If don't think that will happen, buy Bitcoin.  Or buy both.  One or each of them is going to the moon.

 
 
Or buy Cryptonote currencies such as Monero and Aeon.  This way, the powers that be cannot track your every move on a public blockchain (because true privacy is enabled via coin mixing on a protocol level using cryptographic rings) and you will be purchasing pieces of the true "bitcoin 2.0" standard that we've all been waiting for.

[talks_cheep]

Social Security is ponzied out at 15:1?  What is your source for that?

$2.73 trillion in trust fund reserves doesn't sound like a 15:1 ponzi.  Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/exposing-the-social-security-solvency-hype-2013-06-12

Shhhhhh, get on with the program here!

We don't want to hear the truth. "15:1 Ponzi scheme" sounds so much better. We anarchists/conspiracy theorists/anti-governments fringe nuts only want to hear what we want to hear.

We just don't care about truth, as long as you say bitcoin is the best, gold/silver/precious metals are bad, big government is bad, then you're aokay in our book.

[r0ach]

Social Security is ponzied out at 15:1?  What is your source for that?

$2.73 trillion in trust fund reserves doesn't sound like a 15:1 ponzi.  Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/exposing-the-social-security-solvency-hype-2013-06-12

Shhhhhh, get on with the program here!

We don't want to hear the truth. "15:1 Ponzi scheme" sounds so much better. We anarchists/conspiracy theorists/anti-governments fringe nuts only want to hear what we want to hear.

We just don't care about truth, as long as you say bitcoin is the best, gold/silver/precious metals are bad, big government is bad, then you're aokay in our book.

He failed to read the original post:

"Social Security’s various trust funds currently hold about $2.7 trillion in total assets; yet the government itself estimates the program’s liabilities to exceed $40 trillion."

[BillyBobZorton]

Gold's all absolutely network effect. Bitcoin has actual properties ready for the 21th century. The potential for growth on Bitcoin is insanely high as opposed to gold. Gold bugs are on denial, just like the ones thinking the fiat ponzi is not about to pop.

[vuduchyld]

Social Security is ponzied out at 15:1?  What is your source for that?

$2.73 trillion in trust fund reserves doesn't sound like a 15:1 ponzi.  Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/exposing-the-social-security-solvency-hype-2013-06-12

Shhhhhh, get on with the program here!

We don't want to hear the truth. "15:1 Ponzi scheme" sounds so much better. We anarchists/conspiracy theorists/anti-governments fringe nuts only want to hear what we want to hear.

We just don't care about truth, as long as you say bitcoin is the best, gold/silver/precious metals are bad, big government is bad, then you're aokay in our book.

He failed to read the original post:

"Social Security’s various trust funds currently hold about $2.7 trillion in total assets; yet the government itself estimates the program’s liabilities to exceed $40 trillion."

You are correct.  If that was in the original post when it was made, I didn't see it.

The link I posted goes on to say:

--Social Security has $2.73 Trillion in trust fund reserves.
--Social Security reserves are still growing and will continue to grow through 2020.
--Beginning in 2021, program costs are projected to exceed income, shrinking the trust funds.
--The trust funds will be exhausted in 2033, the same year projected in the 2012 report.
--After 2033, income will cover 77% of scheduled payments.

That can't be right. I've heard that Social Security has been losing money since 2010.

Read the fine print. Starting in 2010, Social Security expenses exceeded "non-interest" income — primarily payroll taxes. But that ignores the interest Social Security earns on invested funds. If you take all income into account, Social Security had a surplus of $54 Billion in 2012 operations.

It's a more detailed look, for sure.  If there are $2.73 trillion in current assets and $40 trillion in current liabilities, it is leveraged at almost 15:1.  But zerohedge is mixing and matching to suit their rhetoric.  It's $2.73 trillion in current assets and $40 trillion in estimated long-term liabilities.  The estimate is that there are $54 trillion in assets over the period that matches the liabilities. 

Interesting to look at at.  I'm sure the truth is somewhere in between.  Thank you for sharing and bringing it to everybody's attention.

[r0ach]

Gold's all absolutely network effect. Bitcoin has actual properties ready for the 21th century. The potential for growth on Bitcoin is insanely high as opposed to gold. Gold bugs are on denial, just like the ones thinking the fiat ponzi is not about to pop.

Yea, first thing the uninformed armchair economists says when you mention Bitcoin is, "it's not backed by anything and gold has intrinsic value!".  Gold has no intrinsic value.  The "intrinsic value" of gold is the $10 an ounce or whatever it would be if used only as an industrial product.  Since gold trades for over $1000, where does the 100x markup come from?  You're fabricating $990 out of thin air.  This is not intrinsic value, the markup is derived entirely from network effect.  When gold's actual, real value is that low, it might as well be 0.

The only reason people are not trading lead instead of gold is due to rarity.  The odds of some guy discovering a metric ton of gold and bringing it in to disrupt your economy is lower with gold than lead.  Rarity and network effect are the key components of a currency.

[ssmc2]

Is this anything like Peppering my Angus?  

[vvv8]

Gold is just a shiny yellow metal, nothing more, nothing less. It only has high value because we're still somewhat primitive. Cryptocurreny is da future, GG