Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[billyjoeallen]

Unskilled labor is honest work and there's nothing wrong with it, but if I get cancer, I don't need Consuela the cleaning lady to light a candle to Santa Maria de Guadalupe. I need a f*#!ing doctor.

[ardana123]

So it seems like Zeroblock is able to make a real time ticker (https://i.imgur.com/weMGcfU.jpg) of bitstamp like we used to have on http://trading.i286.org/ with Gox. Can anyone make a free ticker like that so we can see the depth changing in real time? Also, at 20$ a month or $168/year they are fucking outrageous. 10$ a year, I can live with. But fuck if I'm paying 170 bucks for a ticker and some graphs.

[chessnut]

Unskilled labor is honest work and there's nothing wrong with it, but if I get cancer, I don't need Consuela the cleaning lady to light a candle to Santa Maria de Guadalupe. I need a f*#!ing doctor.

That is a good example for monetary incentive, and it will be provided because we need that. but lest we forget that because of much larger problems with our corrupt monetary incentive system, most people on earth could never dream of receiving treatment for cancer, regardless of their skill or hard work.

[billyjoeallen]

Innovation used to be this; a man builds a well. he is rewarded because he doesnt have to walk 5 hours a day to get water from a stream (free rider), and society is thankful to have a well in the community, he is praised.

today if a man builds the metaphorical well, he privatises the water system and everyone dies of thirst.

innovation does not naturally need monetary incentive.

I agree with you when it comes to patents, but privatized water systems usually come before the wells are dug. If anybody can trespass on my land to get free water, I might not dig the well in the first place. Also, letting everybody die of thirst would probably be bad for business if that business was selling water or even if it wasn't.

[billyjoeallen]

if robots are the foundation of society, then we should all benefit equally from them.

Says who? We didn't all benefit equally from the domestication of cows. Some people are lactose intolerant. I really don't understand this obsession with equality that is unheard of in nature. It's completely subjective. Equality in outcomes or equality in opportunity? Equal rewards for effort or for productivity? The former produce what economists call "perverse incentives". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

You really should read this: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

[Denton]

if robots are the foundation of society, then we should all benefit equally[/i] from them.

Says who? We didn't all benefit equally from the domestication of cows. Some people are lactose intolerant. I really don't understand this obsession with equality that is unheard of in nature. It's completely subjective. Equality in outcomes or equality in opportunity? Equal rewards for effort or for productivity? The former produce what economists call "perverse incentives".

You really should read this: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Even equality of opportunity is really bad because when driven to its logical conclusion it means putting everyone on the level of the lowest common denominator.
EDIT: I see now that this is one of the subjects in your link.

[billyjoeallen]

if robots are the foundation of society, then we should all benefit equally[/i] from them.

Says who? We didn't all benefit equally from the domestication of cows. Some people are lactose intolerant. I really don't understand this obsession with equality that is unheard of in nature. It's completely subjective. Equality in outcomes or equality in opportunity? Equal rewards for effort or for productivity? The former produce what economists call "perverse incentives".

You really should read this: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Even equality of opportunity is really bad because when driven to its logical conclusion it means putting everyone on the level of the lowest common denominator.

I would go even farther. The only way to make everybody perfectly equal is to blow up the planet and leave everybody equally dead and in exactly the same place.

[Denton]

if robots are the foundation of society, then we should all benefit equally[/i] from them.

Says who? We didn't all benefit equally from the domestication of cows. Some people are lactose intolerant. I really don't understand this obsession with equality that is unheard of in nature. It's completely subjective. Equality in outcomes or equality in opportunity? Equal rewards for effort or for productivity? The former produce what economists call "perverse incentives".

You really should read this: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Even equality of opportunity is really bad because when driven to its logical conclusion it means putting everyone on the level of the lowest common denominator.

I would go even farther. The only way to make everybody perfectly equal is to blow up the planet and leave everybody equally dead and in exactly the same place.

I'd gladly take that over this dystopia you linked.

[arepo]

There are skilled labor shortages in many industries. There are unskilled labor surpluses. The free market could easily and quickly solve both these problems if the government would get out of the way.

i agree that government and bureaucracy is in a large part obstructing some of the natural restructuring that would otherwise occur in the free market in today's stratified society. however, it is obvious that a paradigm shift occurred around 1970 when productivity, employment rates, and wages decoupled. i don't think it is a coincidence that this lines up with a shift towards automative replacement of many jobs, in both unskilled and skilled labor.

this coupled with the severe contraction of the economy in 2008 and the jobless recovery since has produced and maintained feedback loops manifesting themselves as rapid stratification in both income and wealth distribution in the US and the world: wage suppression, natural monopolization and other effects of economies of scale, globalization of economies corresponding to globalization of inequality, and large profits for the business and financial elite corresponding to large negative externalities for everyone else. each of these items could be expanded into an entire thesis, but i won't go into more detail. the point is that each of these things are independent feedback loops that support and accelerate wealth inequality.

these issues are not directly traceable to meddling governments but may be exacerbated by them. it is particularly misguided to place the blame on governments when these problems are endemic to the apparatus as it stands now that we call Modern Capitalism. it is difficult for some to accept that the sacred cow of "capitalism" may have some natural tendencies towards non-optimal states, but the truth is that the free market is not an ideal, it is a thing that exists in practice, in many forms. some forms may be more desireable than others, and i certainly do not think the state of the apparatus as it exists now is desireable.

--arepo

[Arcas]

Man this volume sucks.

So slow.

[chessnut]

wow arepo very detailed +1

[chessnut]

@arepo

I'm sure I'm not the first pedant to say your sig should read:

This sentence has fifteen words, seventy-five letters, three commas, one hyphen and a period.

 

when ya think about it, its kinda hard to construct a sentence like that haha

[billyjoeallen]

i agree that government and bureaucracy is in a large part obstructing some of the natural restructuring that would otherwise occur in the free market in today's stratified society. however, it is obvious that a paradigm shift occurred around 1970 when productivity, employment rates, and wages decoupled. i don't think it is a coincidence that this lines up with a shift towards automative replacement of many jobs, in both unskilled and skilled labor.

There's another explanation. "On 15 August 1971, the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US$ to gold." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

"this coupled with the severe contraction of the economy in 2008 and the jobless recovery since has produced and maintained feedback loops manifesting themselves as rapid stratification in both income and wealth distribution in the US and the world: wage suppression, natural monopolization and other effects of economies of scale, globalization of economies corresponding to globalization of inequality, and large profits for the business and financial elite corresponding to large negative externalities for everyone else. each of these items could be expanded into an entire thesis, but i won't go into more detail. the point is that each of these things are independent feedback loops that support and accelerate wealth inequality."

There is no such thing as "natural monopolization". Governments create monopolies. The free market resists them as mass resists acceleration. The only business model that can't be copied is government-mandated exclusivity. Bitcoin is probably the best example of free market dominance and even it faces hundreds of competitors eating into it's market share.

these issues are not directly traceable to meddling governments but may be exacerbated by them. it is particularly misguided to place the blame on governments when these problems are endemic to the apparatus as it stands now that we call Modern Capitalism. it is difficult for some to accept that the sacred cow of "capitalism" may have some natural tendencies towards non-optimal states, but the truth is that the free market is not an ideal, it is a thing that exists in practice, in many forms. some forms may be more desireable than others, and i certainly do not think the state of the apparatus as it exists now is desireable.

--arepo

Judging by the context, you aren't referring to capitalism at all, but crony capitalism or more formally corporatism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism. 

The free market is the best system we can aspire to, and even that will not be fully possible so long as monopoly governments exist. Due to the economic calculation problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem, the price system is the most efficient, pragmatic way to allocate scarce resources. There are losers in the free market, but the only alternative is that everybody becomes losers as they squabble for ever shrinking surpluses until there aren't any anymore.

[Arcas]

Not sure what this conversation has to do with Bitcoin Bid Walls, but it sure is damn interesting.

[JorgeStolfi]

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


             !    Wed !    Thu !    Fri !    Sat !    Sun !    Mon !    Tue !    Wed !                     
  EXCHANGE   !  03/05 !  03/06 !  03/07 !  03/08 !  03/09 !  03/10 !  03/11 !  03/12 ! Currencies considered

  Bitstamp   |  12.72 |  10.40 |  21.45 |   9.70 |   9.12 |  13.40 |   9.17 |  12.70 | USD                 
  BitFinEx   |   8.38 |   7.06 |  17.23 |  10.97 |   8.29 |  11.60 |   3.63 |   7.29 | USD                 
  BTC-e      |  11.19 |   5.69 |  13.54 |   8.71 |   6.52 |   7.16 |   5.09 |   7.96 | USD,EUR,RUR         
  Kraken     |   0.87 |   0.71 |   1.20 |   0.55 |   0.64 |   0.57 |   0.45 |   0.56 | EUR                 
  Bitcoin.DE |   0.40 |   0.34 |   0.38 |   0.31 |   0.20 |   0.39 |   0.41 |   0.37 | EUR                 
  CaVirtEx   |   0.22 |   0.22 |   0.24 |   0.12 |   0.15 |   0.13 |   0.18 |   0.13 | CAD                 
  CampBX     |   0.04 |   0.03 |   0.07 |   0.03 |   0.02 |   0.05 |   0.06 |   0.04 | USD                 

  SUBTOTAL   |  33.82 |  24.45 |  54.11 |  30.39 |  24.94 |  33.30 |  18.99 |  29.05 |                     

  OKCoin     | 286.05 | 139.37 | 109.70 | 146.46 | 136.24 | 119.00 |  68.50 |  90.60 | CNY                 
  Huobi      | 196.00 |  92.40 |  96.37 | 119.46 | 103.51 |  95.10 |  55.00 |  77.90 | CNY                 
  BTC-China  |   8.04 |   5.58 |   4.87 |   5.08 |   4.24 |   3.34 |   3.11 |   3.16 | CNY                 
  Bter       |   0.31 |   0.32 |   0.32 |   0.28 |   0.21 |   0.27 |   0.34 |   0.49 | CNY                 

  SUBTOTAL   | 490.40 | 237.67 | 211.26 | 271.28 | 244.20 | 217.71 | 126.95 | 172.15 |                     

  TOTAL      | 524.22 | 262.12 | 265.37 | 301.67 | 269.14 | 251.01 | 145.94 | 201.20 |                     


All numbers were collected by hand from the site http://bitcoinwisdom.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column. Trade between BTC and other cryptocoins, such as LiteCoin, is NOT included.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)

[billyjoeallen]

If it were really true that replacing backhoe operators with shovels would improve employment, then why wouldn't we go further and replace shovels with spoons? The fact is that employers face competition for employees in a free market just as much as job seekers face competition for jobs. Wages are bid down AND up, so what ultimately determines wages is productivity. Backhoe operators are so much more productive than manual ditch diggers that society can afford to pay the manufacturers and servicers of backhoes, manufacturers of the parts , the miners and harvesters of raw materials and the suppliers of fuel substantially more than the unskilled laborers they displace.

I'm sorry, but if you are too stupid or stubborn to upgrade your skills when technology makes them obsolete, it's your problem-not society's.

[aminorex]

huobi might cause a rush into LTC.

Buy the rumor, sell the news.

[Wary]

a paradigm shift occurred around 1970 when productivity, employment rates, and wages decoupled.

Look at it from global perspective and you'll see the opposite: gap between West and China is closing, both in productivity and wages. Nowadays the world's Gini is much better than it was in 1970s. As for employment, it's thanks to governments. There is no involuntary unemployment in free market.

[chessnut]

If it were really true that replacing backhoe operators with shovels would improve employment, then why wouldn't we go further and replace shovels with spoons? The fact is that employers face competition for employees in a free market just as much as job seekers face competition for jobs. Wages are bid down AND up, so what ultimately determines wages is productivity. Backhoe operators are so much more productive than manual ditch diggers that society can afford to pay the manufacturers and servicers of backhoes, manufacturers of the parts , the miners and harvesters of raw materials and the suppliers of fuel substantially more than the unskilled laborers they displace.

I'm sorry, but if you are too stupid or stubborn to upgrade your skills when technology makes them obsolete, it's your problem-not society's.

You cannot convince a starving person to die quietly when society leaves him behind, that he doesn't deserve to live because he is 'not good enough'. shit is going to get ugly under this model. no matter the perceived level of skill a person needs, the vast majority will always be relatively stupid.

and why should we leave them behind, there is more wealth in the world than ever before!

.......unless you want to argue that we need to self propagate. that is a sad truth.

[Arcas]

Bitstamp is pushing up and up, but Bitfinex doesn't want to follow. Strange.