Watching amateur finance types flail

[Capitan]

Nagle, everything you've mentioned has already been discussed ad nauseum on this forum. None of your obvservations are anything new. I'm trying to figure out the point of you posting this. Was there one, or did you have something new to contribute that you perhaps forgot to mention?

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[Nagle]

We predicted the mortgage crisis in October 2004, again in 2006, again in 2007, and said it was here in March 2008.

This rather plays in to the criticism of many long term bears, in that it's said if you predict a big crash, correction or recession sooner or later you're bound to be right at some point and you can accept your 15 minutes of fame. Trying to act on those regular predictions can be much riskier though, as the classic quote goes "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent".

Agreed.  But that wasn't the situation with the housing crash. There was this weird mind-set that housing price increases created wealth, while in reality they were just a form of inflation. What we saw was that historically, the median house sells for 2 to 2.5x the median income. When that number hit 4 across the US, and 10 in some areas, it was blindingly obvious that something had to give. Nobody could make those payments.

The housing crash was delayed two years by Greenspan, who had the Fed cut interest rates when it should have been raising them. ("It is the job of the Fed to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going" - William McChesney Martin, early Fed chairman.) When the crash came, it was much worse.

The dot-com crash was straight cash flow. There were people saying "revenue doesn't matter." What mattered was "clicks".  When the initial funding ran out, so did the company. It was a very strange time. I'm in Silicon Valley, and watched it all happen.

The current real-world economic situation is so driven by public policy that we've given up making predictions.
 

It's amusing watching the Bitcoin community flail around. Most of the classic financial disasters are being re-enacted in miniature. We have pyramid schemes, tulipomania, bucket shops, pump and dump... This would be fun if it were an MMORPG.

I agree that this makes the entire phenomenon fascinating. The communities openness to such transparent hucksterisms like the pyramid schemes seems to speak volumes about the main interests in bitcoins. And while I'm not schooled in such things, this also seems to be a rather unique twist on the pump in dump where there appears to be no central actor with the pumping actually done by all the market participants themselves through some kind of ad hoc understanding. It really feels to me like it's been taken hold at least in part by penny or otc manipulators. Very interesting to watch, seldom do you get such a raw view of it because of the legal implications. I just hope nobody is risking their retirement of college fund.

Agreed.

[FlipPro]

I like how many these posts are just flaming the guy who started the thread. Great community!

I was being dead serious about my offer to rebuild his site for 10btc.

He has no understanding of the coins. He thinks that the computers mining these coins are operating a "useless task". How is securing millions of dollars worth of transactions a "useless task".

You have no understanding of the currency Mr. Nagle , and I mean that with all sincerity and respect.

[bitcoinminer]

How is securing millions of dollars worth of transactions a "useless task".

+1.  In fact, Mt. Gox is keeping a lot of money extremely secure!!!

[tavi]

I wouldn't be in equities if you paid me, because the dollar is about to keel over and die a horrible death. Good luck moving anything out of that deathtrap once it collapses.

That goes for standard banks too, I wouldn't have anything in there you aren't prepared to lose. Because when it happens, you better believe they'll clamp down on anyone pulling out any funds at all.

John N -- you've got great insights into the world of finance & trading it seems.

So please help us wrest control of money away from the elites (AKA powerhungry bloodthirsty homocidal maniacs).
Bitcoin seems to be the only solution to this persitent problem.
Got anything better? Any other ideas?

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." -Baron Rothschild

P.S. No one would help the poor, freshly robbed & hunted european jew in the late 30's. Now, a jew with coins stashed offshore, which the "authorities" couldn't confiscate -- was a very different story.

[bitcoinminer]

P.S. No one would help the poor, freshly robbed & hunted european jew in the late 30's. Now, a jew with coins stashed offshore, which the "authorities" couldn't confiscate -- was a very different story.

So bitcoin is the answer to preventing the holocaust?

[finnthecelt]

August 16, 2001: "If you've earned any Beenz on your travels around the Web, you'd better hurry up and spend them." "Internet surfers have only 10 days to use up their Beenz after the company announced Thursday that its online operations will cease Aug. 26. Any outstanding Beenz will be worthless after that date. A short message on the Beenz Web site announced the close and said any Beenz in a member's account after Aug. 26 "will be invalidated by Beenz.com, and the member will not be entitled to any compensation of any kind for such invalidated Beenz."

That's a problem with CENTRALIZED ISSUED CURRENCIES, actually you can see that to happen with US Dollar, Euros or any fiat/country currency around the World. Bitcoin is immune to that, nobody can say from date X on you can't use bitcoins.

Come on Anduril, you troll, defend the dollar and fiat currencies.....

Allude to other threats with weaponry and drugging people. That's what the US does is it not. The value of the dollar down the barrel of a gun..... Nice.

[FlipPro]

P.S. No one would help the poor, freshly robbed & hunted european jew in the late 30's. Now, a jew with coins stashed offshore, which the "authorities" couldn't confiscate -- was a very different story.

So bitcoin is the answer to preventing the holocaust?

Bitcoin could have prevented many things if it would have been around in the past. I think it would have been impossible for Hitler to go as far as he did, if he wasn't able to confiscate the "hard funds" that he took from every country he conquered.

[bitcoinminer]

P.S. No one would help the poor, freshly robbed & hunted european jew in the late 30's. Now, a jew with coins stashed offshore, which the "authorities" couldn't confiscate -- was a very different story.

So bitcoin is the answer to preventing the holocaust?

Bitcoin could have prevented many things if it would have been around in the past. I think it would have been impossible for Hitler to go as far as he did, if he wasn't able to confiscate the "hard funds" that he took from every country he conquered.

lol wow.  Wish I had heard about Silk Road before it went down - sounds like you've been getting some KILLER dope on there!!!

[FlipPro]

P.S. No one would help the poor, freshly robbed & hunted european jew in the late 30's. Now, a jew with coins stashed offshore, which the "authorities" couldn't confiscate -- was a very different story.

So bitcoin is the answer to preventing the holocaust?

Bitcoin could have prevented many things if it would have been around in the past. I think it would have been impossible for Hitler to go as far as he did, if he wasn't able to confiscate the "hard funds" that he took from every country he conquered.

lol wow.  Wish I had heard about Silk Road before it went down - sounds like you've been getting some KILLER dope on there!!!

Lol, I don't do drugs .
And if I did I wouldn't buy them from silk road. 

[bitcoinminer]

Lol, I don't do drugs .
And if I did I wouldn't buy them from silk road. 

Maybe if they had invented Zoloft back then is a more plausible sollution than BTC preventing the holocaust.  I mean seriously.  Bitcoin wouldn't have prevented paintings, jewelry, real estate, and many other things from being confiscated.

It just makes you look not only ignorant of BitCoin, but really shows you have absolutely no knowledge of what the holocaust entailed.

[FlipPro]

Lol, I don't do drugs .
And if I did I wouldn't buy them from silk road. 

Maybe if they had invented Zoloft back then is a more plausible sollution than BTC preventing the holocaust.  I mean seriously.  Bitcoin wouldn't have prevented paintings, jewelry, real estate, and many other things from being confiscated.

It just makes you look not only ignorant of BitCoin, but really shows you have absolutely no knowledge of what the holocaust entailed.

I think if bitcoins were around that war would have never happened, genius.

[Nagle]

John N -- you've got great insights into the world of finance & trading it seems.

So please help us wrest control of money away from the elites (AKA power hungry bloodthirsty homicidal maniacs).
Bitcoin seems to be the only solution to this persistent problem.
Got anything better? Any other ideas?

You're thinking of Bitcoin as the modern equivalent of "the free and unlimited coinage of silver". (Read up on the Free Silver movement.) That was a different problem, though. That period had a growing economy with a fixed money supply tied to gold. The result was severe deflation. That's not the problem in the current US economy.

[Anduril]

Come on Anduril, you troll, defend the dollar and fiat currencies.....

Allude to other threats with weaponry and drugging people. That's what the US does is it not. The value of the dollar down the barrel of a gun..... Nice.

Your quote has nothing to do with what I said BTW, I think you replied to the wrong post.

However, the xkcd cartoon is in jest to exemplify that the currency can be as secure as you can make it, and there will still be problems with security (like with unencrypted wallets and website exploits). Just as with everything in the world. It is simply a reminder that all of this hubris must be met with sanity.  

By the way, look up tu quoque fallacy. Just because there are problems with fiat currencies it does not validate BTC.

And ffs people, not everyone who is critical of Bitcoin is a troll. I am very interested in it from various perspectives, yet it seems like it has become impossible to even post a cartoon without receiving an insult!

[Anduril]

Bitcoin could have prevented many things if it would have been around in the past. I think it would have been impossible for Hitler to go as far as he did, if he wasn't able to confiscate the "hard funds" that he took from every country he conquered.

[finnthecelt]

Come on Anduril, you troll, defend the dollar and fiat currencies.....

Allude to other threats with weaponry and drugging people. That's what the US does is it not. The value of the dollar down the barrel of a gun..... Nice.

Your quote has nothing to do with what I said BTW, I think you replied to the wrong post.

However, the xkcd cartoon is in jest to exemplify that the currency can be as secure as you can make it, and there will still be problems with security (like with unencrypted wallets and website exploits). Just as with everything in the world. It is simply a reminder that all of this hubris must be met with sanity.  

By the way, look up tu quoque fallacy. Just because there are problems with fiat currencies it does not validate BTC.

And ffs people, not everyone who is critical of Bitcoin is a troll. I am very interested in it from various perspectives, yet it seems like it has become impossible to even post a cartoon without receiving an insult!

I'm aware of what I did and it was intentional. And I don't mind critics of BTC. I think I'm pretty realistic about the risk involved. I also have a pretty decent memory and recognize constant negativity. Perhaps you are just an observer but others are observing you as well. You're an experiment just like BTC.

I'll read your link.

[NO_SLAVE]

I'm John Nagle, the person behind Downside.

Guess this makes you a professional attention seeker. What other motivation do have to be here other than to appease your immature attention seeking?

An "aha" moment for you.....now use it to grow into a useful human.

[BCEmporium]

Just a side note, that site resembles those car chase commentators on TV to me: «And now, he his behind bars! Will do no more harm!»

[Steve]

I've been looking at the Bitcoin world. It's amusing watching the classic forms of financial trouble happen in miniature.

What amuses me are are watching people like you that believe they have it all figured out.  See, the upside is that this truly is the first pure money civilization has ever seen.  But, you wouldn't be able to see those fundamentals looking at your daily charts and bollinger bands.

[jerfelix]

But to compare it to Digicash and Beenz really shows that you haven't done your homework.  Probably a lot like predicting "the dot-com crash over the last Decade".  (That would have been a little more impressive if done in 1998, and not over the last decade.)

Look at the dates on Downside.com's "deathwatch".  Deathwatch ran from 2000-2001, starting at the peak of the dot-com boom. We predicted the crash when others were hyping the boom.

Nasdaq peak March 10,  2000 at 5048
Nasdaq a decade ago:  2035

If you had been "predicting the dot-com crash over the last decade", you would have predicted a crash, as the Nasdaq went UP from 2035 to its current 2652.

In other words, "predicting the dot-com crash over the last decade" means you did it after the crash.