2013-04-06 This is Money.co.uk - "How bankers mesmerised the politicians"

[Roger_Murdock]

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2304989/How-bankers-mesmerised-politicians-Labour-era.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Now let us consider the Central Bank of Japan. Last week it announced the most radical new monetary policy of our times. It plans to inject billions of newly created yen into its economy in a bid to create a little bit of inflation.

The idea is that this will encourage people to spend and kick-start Japan’s economy, which has been moribund for more than two decades.

It is a controversial plan –  a kind of quantitative easing with knobs on – and some warn that it will bring disaster.

But I for one would rather trust the economists at the  Bank of Japan than the unknown creators of Bitcoin.

If anyone is going to conjure money out of thin air, I would rather it were a living, breathing human being whose motives and judgment I stand some chance of understanding, rather than an anonymous computer formula.

Bitcoin has already made some speculators some money, of that there can be no doubt. But the value of this virtual currency is extremely volatile.

On Friday, one Bitcoin was worth about $140, up from less than $100 a mere week ago.

What is more, the criteria on which it is being summoned into existence are likely to remain a mystery to most of us for ever.

Bitcoin or yen? I’ll take the yen every time.

I don't even have the heart...

[Mike Christ]

And who is this cunt supposed to be? 

[Rincewind]

What is more, the criteria on which it is being summoned into existence are likely to remain a mystery to most of us for ever.

Paying accountants for keeping the ledger. I just can't wrap my head around this concept!!11! 

[Roger_Murdock]

What is more, the criteria on which it is being summoned into existence are likely to remain a mystery to most of us for ever.

Paying accountants for keeping the ledger. I just can't wrap my head around this concept!!11! 

Well, that's certainly a fine theory, but how could one ever really be sure? It's not like those payments, that ledger, or the rules underlying them are available for inspection. 

[Kazu]

If anyone is going to conjure money out of thin air, I would rather it were a living, breathing human being whose motives and judgment I stand some chance of understanding, rather than an anonymous computer formula.

Tl;Dr:
The author has, in his own words, "no chance of understanding" the computer formula behind Bitcoin.

[jbreher]

"If anyone is going to conjure money out of thin air, I would rather it were a living, breathing human being whose motives and judgment I stand some chance of understanding, rather than an anonymous computer formula."

That's an astonishing declaration. Anonymous computer formulae are deterministic. Living, breathing humans are subject to bias, error, and corruption.

Should economic policy not be driven by intellect rather than by passion?

Methinks the question answers itself.

[goxed]

If he Can't understand a simple whitepaper, he has no business writing such articles on a public forum. This is no more than some random blog.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

What is the connection between the Central Bank  of Japan and the online phenomenon known as the Bitcoin? The answer is that they are both making money out of nothing.

Any time any writers call it "the bitcoin" instead of just "bitcoin", their opinion should be immediately discarded due to lack of familiarity & research.

Similar to Bush using "the Google".

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

TLDR; It is ok for a guy in a suit and tie to steal from me, I don't know how it works anyway, I just prefer the human touch.

[Mike Hearn]

To be fair, this guys attitude is going to be shared by the vast majority of the worlds population. You can trash these people all you like, it doesn't change the fact that people can't trust what they don't understand.

How Bitcoin works is NOT understandable by the layman today, mostly because we lack good educational materials designed for them on our website. A series of videos or well thought out tutorials that explain how it works would be a big help, unfortunately 99% of Bitcoin tutorials out there massively suck. For instance they often dive right into mining as the very first thing they mention, when that's really something that needs to be explained much later.

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Mike,

you have a point, but not entirely. Most people have no idea how central banking works. But there's this magical belief in authority fueled by propaganda. That's what irritates me. The stupidity and lack of critical thinking. It's one thing saying "I don't understand it, so I don't trust it" and another thing saying "I don't understand either X or Y, but I'm accustomed to authority so I'm sticking with X, and I'll tell the others to do the same.".

Merely because educational material is available, that does not automatically make people less stupid. Mises Institute does a fantastic jobs making literature available for everyone, but it's still being read only by a tiny proportion of the population. We need counter-propaganda, debunking of myths, and exposing the controversies in a simple way, understandable for everyone. Like, say, Henry Hazlitt did. Everyone should be able to make the choice for themselves. Sure, that's not perfect, some sheeple don't care about critical thinking, but most do have some vague concept of being responsible for their own future.

[Mike Christ]

The older folk may buy into this drivel, but anyone born around computers knows an "anonymous algorithm" translates into "computers are making our lives easier."  Instead of having a human make poor decisions, we now have computers making hard decisions set by humans, which can't be changed because one single human up and changed his mind.  Your computer isn't going to load software against your will because it's bored; we understand this.  Trusting a computer to be fair in the creation of money should come as a pro when compared to Bernanke who, despite most of us displeased with all this money he's printing off, will not stop doing it.  Perhaps this is why the article writer decided not to use America as the counter (because it would've worked marvelously for a currency which comes out of a banker's ass,) and opted for the yen instead; most of us don't know what's going on in Japan and what's going on with the yen, thereby comparing Bitcoin to something foreign that you're not supposed to understand--mark my words, this was not an oversight.

[TraderTimm]

This was too stupid, I had to write at least a short blurb in response.

What a collection of financial muppetry. You'd prefer an actively debased currency over one that has a fixed issuance? Are you ill?

Just for posterity and google-indexing sake - I'll leave this here:

World currency purchasing power, in Bitcoins

1 Japanese Yen will buy 0.0000664 BTC
1 Pound will buy 0.009772 BTC
1 Euro will buy 0.008163 BTC
1 Canadian Dollar will buy 0.00625 BTC
1 US Dollar will buy 0.0063 BTC

The whole world is sliding into the debasement/debt abyss, and you recommend holding on. Completely mind-boggling...

I have no words for the article I just read, except - give me that time back.