2013-04-24 TechCrunch "Obama’s Fmr. Chief Economic Advisor On Bitcoin’s Use"

[Manticore]

2013-04-24 TechCrunch "Obama’s Fmr. Chief Economic Advisor On Bitcoin’s Usefulness: “Hahahaha. ROTFL”"
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/24/austan_goolsbee-on-bitcoins-usefulness-hahahaha-rotfl/

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[Zomdifros]

Wow, these guys are going full retard. The usefulness of Bitcoin as a method of payment is hardly affected by it's price fluctuations, for the simple reason that merchants can easily get all their bitcoins converted to USD or EUR or whatever, through Bitpay. And with a .99% fee, this is still a lot cheaper than credit cards or paypal.
 
For consumers it doesn't matter either, because they can always buy more bitcoins once they've spent some.

[Morblias]

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I thought we were already past the laughing point. Apparently not.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

I would've been deeply concerned if survey results had been reversed.  These people have proven that they can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag.

As such, this almost unanimous negative opinion is excellent news.

[101111]

I would've been deeply concerned if survey results had been reversed.  These people have proven that they can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag.

As such, this almost unanimous negative opinion is excellent news.

this +1

[StarfishPrime]

I would've been deeply concerned if survey results had been reversed.  These people have proven that they can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag.

As such, this almost unanimous negative opinion is excellent news.

+1
Perhaps it would be more interesting to ask economists who foresaw the current crisis, rather than those who were responsible for it.

[Dusty]

Still, people are investing their own money in Bitcoin. Question is, do you want to bet against 87 percent of top economists?

You bet I do.

[BurtW]

I think this quote (from the comments after the article) sums it up nicely:

Well, given that economists are almost always wrong, especially when they nearly all agree, this could be read as bullish for Bitcoin.

[RodeoX]

This from the "experts" who said bitcoin would never reach parity with the dollar. 

[kiba]

This from the "experts" who said bitcoin would never reach parity with the dollar. 

Name those "experts".

[RodeoX]

This from the "experts" who said bitcoin would never reach parity with the dollar. 

Name those "experts".

I mean the financial services industry more broadly. I think they simply do not understand bitcoin... yet.

[Birdy]

Still, people are investing their own money in Bitcoin. Question is, do you want to bet against 87 percent of top economists?

You bet I do.

So do I.

[Manticore]

Wow, these guys are going full retard. The usefulness of Bitcoin as a method of payment is hardly affected by it's price fluctuations, for the simple reason that merchants can easily get all their bitcoins converted to USD or EUR or whatever, through Bitpay. And with a .99% fee, this is still a lot cheaper than credit cards or paypal.
 
For consumers it doesn't matter either, because they can always buy more bitcoins once they've spent some.

I have to call BS on this one, sorry.

If I purchased BTC @ $166 this morning to make a transaction 5 seconds ago @ $146.....that transaction would cost 12% (12% more bitcoin, which is 12% more USD as the store of value has changed) plus the spread, which is usually 0.5% - 1% and must be taken into account in merchant pricing through BitPay. And don't forget BitPay's 1% fee....minimum 13.5% in fees.

No, foreign exchange risk (currency risk) is actually a very serious issue. Hedging for this type of risk was impetus for the futures/forex industry.

And I would hesitate to call a panel that contains Nobel Laureates 'full retard'.

[meanig]

Wow, these guys are going full retard. The usefulness of Bitcoin as a method of payment is hardly affected by it's price fluctuations, for the simple reason that merchants can easily get all their bitcoins converted to USD or EUR or whatever, through Bitpay. And with a .99% fee, this is still a lot cheaper than credit cards or paypal.
 
For consumers it doesn't matter either, because they can always buy more bitcoins once they've spent some.

I have to call BS on this one, sorry.

If I purchased BTC @ $166 this morning to make a transaction 5 seconds ago @ $146.....that transaction would cost 12% (12% more bitcoin, which is 12% more USD as the store of value has changed) plus the spread, which is usually 0.5% - 1% and must be taken into account in merchant pricing through BitPay. And don't forget BitPay's 1% fee....minimum 13.5% in fees.

No, foreign exchange risk (currency risk) is actually a very serious issue. Hedging for this type of risk was impetus for the futures/forex industry.

And I would hesitate to call a panel that contains Nobel Laureates 'full retard'.

Yes full retard is highly offensive to all those sincere people with learning difficulties. Instead I'd call a panel populated with economic Nobel Laureates a cabal of propagandists willing to do the bidding of their pay masters. 

As for the volatility - that will lower as the market matures.

[cypherdoc]

This from the "experts" who said bitcoin would never reach parity with the dollar. 

Name those "experts".

uh...

[Bitware]

And I would hesitate to call a panel that contains Nobel Laureates 'full retard'.

Our Dear Beloved Leader, President Obama won the Nobel Prize for Peace simply because he is a black Marxist that finally got elected as the American President, so let's not place more prestige on those prizes than is warranted.

Those financial/economy side-talkers are the reason a $.04 loaf of bread now costs $2.00.

Science is often simply made up or bought by and sold to the highest bidder or biased ideolog.

They have everything to lose should people move away from fiat.

[Manticore]

And I would hesitate to call a panel that contains Nobel Laureates 'full retard'.

Our Dear Beloved Leader, President Obama won the Nobel Prize for Peace simply because he is a black Marxist that finally got elected as the American President, so let's not place more prestige on those prizes than is warranted.

Those financial/economy side-talkers are the reason a $.04 loaf of bread now costs $2.00.

Science is often simply made up or bought by and sold to the highest bidder or biased ideolog.

They have everything to lose should people move away from fiat.

I'm a libertarian so I'm sold on the concept.

But, I am also not delusional enough to discount a real problem.....foreign exchange risk is real and pretending it doesn't exist won't make it go away.

Early adopters with more substantial BTC holdings are less aware of this issue than newcomers.

Bitcoin will remain a speculative investment that enables investors to make purchases with their investment, purchases that are hedged for the merchant by BitPay but where the purchaser assumes full currency risk....until it becomes less volatile.

[Jutarul]

Science is often simply made up or bought by and sold to the highest bidder or biased ideolog.

To be fair - that's not completely true.

Science funding is and always was a grant driven economy, relying on sponsorship. It thus very much mimics the economy of donation based services.

Those with money can determine which kind of science gets favored. However - they cannot control scientists thinking and their research. The only think they can do is to perform reputation based selection, favoring scientists who are aligned with the political agendas.

[aigeezer]

This from the "experts" who said bitcoin would never reach parity with the dollar. 

Name those "experts".

Does this count? (Timothy B. Lee, writing in Forbes)

"The first post I ever wrote about Bitcoin was in April 2011. At the time, the crytpocurrency had recently surpassed parity with the dollar. I declared it a bubble, predicting that it would never displace conventional currencies, and that therefore it could never achieve a stable value. Over the next two months, the value shot up to almost $32. Then it crashed, eventually hitting a low of $2 in late 2011.

Most people, including me concluded that Bitcoin was a fad whose moment had come and gone. We expected its value to continue declining indefinitely."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/02/28/the-bitcoin-bubble-that-wasnt/

[Jutarul]

This from the "experts" who said bitcoin would never reach parity with the dollar.  

Name those "experts".

...
Most people, including me concluded that Bitcoin was a fad whose moment had come and gone. We expected its value to continue declining indefinitely."
...

The problem is, most of these experts monetize on the fact that people confuse currency for money. So don't expect an honest opinion.

Money in essence can be anything which allows people to transact and store wealth without counter-party risk (fraud). That's why bitcoin is perfect internet money.

Max Keiser put it nicely recently, when he said that we live in times of "price propaganda". The price of something shapes the value perception. People who lost faith in bitcoin as the price declined in 2011 should check their believe system to how easily they are influenced by price manipulations.

[kiba]

Does this count? (Timothy B. Lee, writing in Forbes)

"The first post I ever wrote about Bitcoin was in April 2011. At the time, the crytpocurrency had recently surpassed parity with the dollar. I declared it a bubble, predicting that it would never displace conventional currencies, and that therefore it could never achieve a stable value. Over the next two months, the value shot up to almost $32. Then it crashed, eventually hitting a low of $2 in late 2011.

No. Because Lee didn't said that the bitcoin price won't reach dollar parity. Instead, he said that bitcoin will spiral down to zero.

[Gordonium]

Still, people are investing their own money in Bitcoin. Question is, do you want to bet against 87 percent of top economists?

Yes I do.

[Raoul Duke]

* The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

* As the rate of technological change in computing slows, the number of jobs for IT specialists will decelerate, then actually turn down; ten years from now, the phrase information economy will sound silly.

- Paul Krugman, 1998
http://web.archive.org/web/19980610100009/www.redherring.com/mag/issue55/economics.html


The Internet never forgets...

[Kazu]

This is the stupidest thing I've read all day.

[proudhon]

Wow, these guys are going full retard. The usefulness of Bitcoin as a method of payment is hardly affected by it's price fluctuations, for the simple reason that merchants can easily get all their bitcoins converted to USD or EUR or whatever, through Bitpay. And with a .99% fee, this is still a lot cheaper than credit cards or paypal.
 
For consumers it doesn't matter either, because they can always buy more bitcoins once they've spent some.

I have to call BS on this one, sorry.

If I purchased BTC @ $166 this morning to make a transaction 5 seconds ago @ $146.....that transaction would cost 12% (12% more bitcoin, which is 12% more USD as the store of value has changed) plus the spread, which is usually 0.5% - 1% and must be taken into account in merchant pricing through BitPay. And don't forget BitPay's 1% fee....minimum 13.5% in fees.

No, foreign exchange risk (currency risk) is actually a very serious issue. Hedging for this type of risk was impetus for the futures/forex industry.

And I would hesitate to call a panel that contains Nobel Laureates 'full retard'.

Volatility is probably the best criticism of bitcoin.  I think these are among the important questions to ask related to the volatility criticism:

Is bitcoin a compelling enough idea for enough people that its adoption will continue to increase over time despite that it will likely be very volatile during this adoption phase?  And, once bitcoin has been adopted by a large enough population, will its value stabilize enough to make it a better currency?  I think these are open questions that can't be answered confidently one way or another, and that's why bitcoin is, in a sense, a huge social experiment.

Are there good reasons to think adoption will increase in spite of violent exchange rate swings, and are there good reasons to think that if adoption increases enough the exchange rate volatility will fall to acceptable levels such that bitcoin is a better currency?

[gogxmagog]

And HE did such flawless work on Obama's economic strategy! LMFAO

[foggyb]

But proudhon!

How can we have volitility if we are at single digiks? The price needs to be at $150 so we don't hit bottom on the downswings.

[Manticore]

Volatility is probably the best criticism of bitcoin.  I think these are among the important questions to ask related to the volatility criticism:

Is bitcoin a compelling enough idea for enough people that its adoption will continue to increase over time despite that it will likely be very volatile during this adoption phase?  And, once bitcoin has been adopted by a large enough population, will its value stabilize enough to make it a better currency?  I think these are open questions that can't be answered confidently one way or another, and that's why bitcoin is, in a sense, a huge social experiment.

Are there good reasons to think adoption will increase in spite of violent exchange rate swings, and are there good reasons to think that if adoption increases enough the exchange rate volatility will fall to acceptable levels such that bitcoin is a better currency?

Yes. Yes. These are THE questions. The answers will lead to success/failure, but it will certainly be interesting in the meantime.

[kjlimo]

Wow, these guys are going full retard. The usefulness of Bitcoin as a method of payment is hardly affected by it's price fluctuations, for the simple reason that merchants can easily get all their bitcoins converted to USD or EUR or whatever, through Bitpay. And with a .99% fee, this is still a lot cheaper than credit cards or paypal.
 
For consumers it doesn't matter either, because they can always buy more bitcoins once they've spent some.

Be sure you don't mislead people.  I believe 0.99% is the bitcoin fee.  If you want it converted to USD, the fee is north of 2% last I checked.  However, it's still more competitive than credit cards.

Just don't want to mislead people.  Go Bitpay!

[Roger_Murdock]

The best-rated comment is great:

In other news... 87% of the King's astrologers agree the earth is flat and at the center of the universe.

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Be sure you don't mislead people.  I believe 0.99% is the bitcoin fee.  If you want it converted to USD, the fee is north of 2% last I checked.  However, it's still more competitive than credit cards.

Just don't want to mislead people.  Go Bitpay!

Actually they did drop the price recently to 0.99% for a transaction including forex. Check it out: https://bitpay.com/pricing.

Yay go Bitpay!

[No_2]

I would've been deeply concerned if survey results had been reversed.  These people have proven that they can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag.

As such, this almost unanimous negative opinion is excellent news.

+1

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

The best-rated comment is great:

In other news... 87% of the King's astrologers agree the earth is flat and at the center of the universe.

Priceless.

The quality of reader rebuttals I've seen on many of these hit pieces these past months has pleasantly surprised me.  Quite a few very knowledgeable people who have taken the red pill, and many apparently not from these forums and new to Bitcoin.  There might still be hope for humanity.