Portugal on the Brink

[TomUnderSea]

Is Bitcoin popular, or easily accessible in Portugal???

Your ignorant question means that either you're an American (who typically can't pinpoint any European country on a map), or elementary school was too hard for you.

Your obnoxious reply is why Americans can't be bothered with worrying about the NSA knowing everything there is to know about you.

You are just another effing foreigner with a bad attitude who hates your betters.

/troll

[Lohoris]

But people need to start thinking beyond the borders of their own countries if we are going to thrive as a species, patriotism means nothing, it's just imaginary borders. More and more we need to have a global plan for free flow of people and goods, and to achieve great things that no one nation can achieve alone.

I agree wholeheartedly.

The cyprus-news-induced portion of the bubble did not come from Cypriots (for the most part.) [...] The vast majority of the funds responsible for the "cyprus-news-induced" portion of the bubble came from others in Europe (either scared that the same would happen to them, or speculating that others would buy on this fear) and elsewhere in the world.

Exactly.
I'm in Italy, and when the news about Cyprus came out, I immediately bought some more BTC while they were still relatively cheap (~25€ IIRC?).
And the BTC price started skyrocketing just 1 or 2 days after the news... I've no idea how can anyone think it was a coincidence.

[Lohoris]

Is Bitcoin popular, or easily accessible in Portugal???

Your ignorant question means that either you're an American (who typically can't pinpoint any European country on a map), or elementary school was too hard for you.

Why?

They aren't stupid questions.

"is is popular" is quite obviously an honest question, and "is it easily accessible" isn't stupid as you might think: if there were no banks accepting small transfers, it would be a problem. Of course thanks to Bitstamp and SEPA we know that from Portugal you can easily buy bitcoins, but that's exactly what the OP didn't know.
For instance AFAIK in UK there is no way to cheaply buy a small amount of bitcoins, save trading them in person with someone.

[Lohoris]

Imho Bitcoin is easily accessible to anyone in Europe with a bank account, SEPA transfers go through in a couple of days. If anything they've got quicker since the start of the year, some took up to 4 days in the past for me and now they're almost always next day or even the same day sometimes.

Sure it is, but SEPA isn't everywhere.

[worldinacoin]

Is there a deal reached among the major news papers to hush up Portugal's problems?  I hardly get to read about their issues in the major newspapers.

[johnyj]

How is this different from the 52 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

The difference is Portugal along with some of the other PIIGS are serial defaulters.

Portugal has defaulted on its national debt five times since 1800, Greece five times, Spain no less than seven times (and 13 times in all since 1500).

By contrast, Anglo-Saxon countries rarely, if ever, default. In this country, we haven’t reneged on our debts in nearly 1,000 years, though there have been close shaves. The same applies to Canada, Australia and the United States.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100081316/some-european-countries-are-in-the-habit-of-going-bankrupt/

This is a good example of how people don't understand today's monetary system. They think if everyone work hard and never default, everyone will be rich and no debt    This is true in a gold backed monetary system, but not in today's debt based monetary system

Since all the money is debt based, in the whole EURO area, if some country is getting a surplus, then there must be some other country in debt, and the whole EURO area must be in net debt, unless they could gain some surplus through trading with some other countries outside EU, which just kick the debt to some other parts of the world

[DPoS]

How is this different from the 52 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

The difference is Portugal along with some of the other PIIGS are serial defaulters.

Portugal has defaulted on its national debt five times since 1800, Greece five times, Spain no less than seven times (and 13 times in all since 1500).

By contrast, Anglo-Saxon countries rarely, if ever, default. In this country, we haven’t reneged on our debts in nearly 1,000 years, though there have been close shaves. The same applies to Canada, Australia and the United States.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100081316/some-european-countries-are-in-the-habit-of-going-bankrupt/

This is a good example of how people don't understand today's monetary system. They think if everyone work hard and never default, everyone will be rich and no debt    This is true in a gold backed monetary system, but not in today's debt based monetary system

Since all the money is debt based, in the whole EURO area, if some country is getting a surplus, then there must be some other country in debt, and the whole EURO area must be in net debt, unless they could gain some surplus through trading with some other countries outside EU, which just kick the debt to some other parts in the world

you forgot the interest on debt creation of money..  as time goes, there is never enough money to pay back the debt.

that is why usury was condemmed by the church all the way up to the 1600's..  it is against nature's law and god's law... but here we are.. beyond deep in its abyss

people would be amazed how adamant people were against interest lending...  one quote, I cant remember the source, 'Murder removes a man from his troubles, usury bleeds him of it'

[Azrael_PT]

Leaving for vacation and travel in Portugal tomorrow. I shall make it my mission to teach everyone about Bitcoin!

Welcome to Portugal.
Have a nice stay.

If you are going to Algarve, stop by Lagos for a beer.

[Nemo1024]

How is this different from the 50 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

FTFY

I stand corrected. I always though of Hawaii as the 51st state. And the running joke about Norway being the Last State of America got at me from there, resulting in number 52

[TomUnderSea]

How is this different from the 50 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

FTFY

I stand corrected. I always though of Hawaii as the 51st state. And the running joke about Norway being the Last State of America got at me from there, resulting in number 52

At least you are better informed than Obama.  He is on record as having visited the 57 states in the union, with one left to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EpGH02DtIws

[TomUnderSea]

Is this the kind of "brink" you are thinking of?

"Are subduction zones invading the Atlantic? Evidence from the southwest Iberia margin"
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2013/06/05/G34100.1.abstract

If correct, Europe and North America can look forward to a much closer relationship in about 220 million years.

[600watt]

To be honest, I don't really understand the whole EURO thing

Because money is printed out of nothing, how could Portugal give up this right to ECB?

For a normal citizen, he might not have any choice but obey the government rules, but for a government of the country, how could they give up this biggest right of the country to someone else?

I think none of the government officials understand how money creation works

within the euro-zone it works like this:
the ezb does not give money to states/governments. it only lends to banks, mostly private banks. the banks pay 0.5% interest. the banks lend that money to states/governments for - let´s say 8 or 10 % interest and make a large profit.

why on earth would a private owned bank (most of them zombie-banks, already bankrupt) get it´s € for free but entire economies/countries (with cities, streets, schools, millions of people, etc...) have to ask those banks and pay more than 10 fold the interest rate than a bank ?

banksters have taken it all. they let the people in greece or portugal suffer. banksters pay 0.5%

[Inedible]

...and pay more than 10 fold the interest rate than a bank ?

How the hell else are they going to afford all those luxury yachts and playboy lifestyles?

Now if you'll just sign here, here and here I'll get your loan approved for you.

[hashman]

How is this different from the 52 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

It's same everywhere, but before 1971 fiat money were backed by gold, so they were not printed out of nothing

If you can devise a system in which paper is provably backed by gold without counterparty risk, I'll give you a bitcoin

[Inedible]

How is this different from the 52 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

It's same everywhere, but before 1971 fiat money were backed by gold, so they were not printed out of nothing

If you can devise a system in which paper is provably backed by gold without counterparty risk, I'll give you a bitcoin

I might have misunderstood but how is counterparty risk just a gold backed currency problem?

[johnyj]

How is this different from the 52 states (plus the rest of the world) borrowing dollars from the Federal Reserve, dollars, which too get printed out of thin air?

It's same everywhere, but before 1971 fiat money were backed by gold, so they were not printed out of nothing

If you can devise a system in which paper is provably backed by gold without counterparty risk, I'll give you a bitcoin

I think it was 40% backed by gold under a gold standard, so it did have a risk of bank run, but that is very low risk, from a FRB point of view (The commercial banks usually have a 10% FRB without a bank run)

Anyway, even in gold FRB, each dollar is backed by some gold, that practice has proved to be working most of the time. But in today's system, it is backed by nothing, 0% FRB, how could this keep the value of new money? Purely by people's consensus and they have no alternative medium of trading (I want to get rid of these useless paper but what other money can I use to do my trading with?)

The ultimate thing that back the gold's value is still its high degree of payment acceptance: Gold is accepted everywhere on the planet, especially the governors in other nations. Even one nation went down, you could still move to other part of the planet with your gold and live a good life there. So it is actually backed by a gold culture formed in thousands of years

Similarly, if a bitcoin culture established widely around the globe, then it will reach the same status as gold, as the gold for internet

[Adrian-x]

If you can devise a system in which paper is provably backed by gold without counterparty risk, I'll give you a bitcoin

I see what you did there, Gold 2.0?
The principal less the gold or the paper! I like it this is going to take off.

[ErisDiscordia]

Leaving for vacation and travel in Portugal tomorrow. I shall make it my mission to teach everyone about Bitcoin!

Welcome to Portugal.
Have a nice stay.

If you are going to Algarve, stop by Lagos for a beer.

I'm going to be in Lagos for a week