The root of the problem!

[Sjalq]

Folks,

The root cause problem with today's economy is that money can be created out of nothing and used to buy up real world goods and services and that this right is legally centred (monopolized) with only a few people. Everything else; high frequency trades, resource miss-allocation, decreasing real wages, inflation, deflationary collapse, oil prices, expensive wars (most of the modern ones) etc. etc. etc. is just symptomatic. If this right was taken away from the banking-government elite I dare say most of the shenanigans would stop within a year. Of course a soft landing would be hard to guarantee.

Why do you think Satoshi created bitcoin?

[vector76]

+1

[Jack of Diamonds]

Real money can be printed infinitely and it's only backed by assurements and faith.

Bitcoins, gold, silver are scarce.
I.e. there is a very finite amount of them in existence. Some precious metals also have real world utility that no other metals can match.

BTC, AU and AG are not backed by anything. They are the backing itself.

Banks or governments can't control the price of those commodities. They have tried to ban their ownership by private individuals (at least in the US) which only caused hoarding and further appreciation in value.

Similarly, bitcoins have anonymizing properties that no other digital currency can match, and you can transport them across the world in a split second.
Correctly used, the owner of any single bitcoin is 100% impossible to trace.

[Sjalq]

Real money can be printed infinitely and it's only backed by assurements and faith.

Bitcoins, gold, silver are scarce.
I.e. there is a very finite amount of them in the existence. Some precious metals also have real world utility that no other metals can match.

Banks or governments can't control the price of those commodities. They have tried to ban their ownership by private individuals (at least in the US) which only caused hoarding and further appreciation in value.

Similarly, bitcoins have anonymizing properties that no other digital currency can match, and you can transport them across the world in a split second.
Correctly used, the owner of any single bitcoin is 100% impossible to trace.

Clearly you are a terrorist! ;-)

[bitcon]

agree 100%  with OP. +1.        BUT... prove to a non techie that bitcoin cannot be counterfeited. The bitcoin system requires faith also.  For all granny knows, some hacker is out there in cyberspace creating bitcoins on his palm pilot.

[vector76]

Bitcoin is regulated by technological fiat, instead of government fiat.

So far there has been a decent consensus that the current bitcoin inflation policy is a good one.

If the consensus were to shift, nothing prevents changing the formula in the future.

[misterbigg]

Well, technically speaking the problem is not so much that the Federal Reserve can simply print more money, but rather - the problem is the legal tender laws combined with the threat of government-approved force that gives citizens no alternatives.

A full return to gold and silver as legal tender, with implicit allowance for competing currencies, could still accomodate a central bank. It's just that if they let their interest rate go below the market rate, everyone will switch over to the more sound currency - an option not available to us now (due to legal tender laws).

So, one or more competing fractional reserve currencies alongside gold and silver as legal tender, are fine.

[FreeMoney]

+1 more to the OP

agree 100%  with OP. +1.        BUT... prove to a non techie that bitcoin cannot be counterfeited. The bitcoin system requires faith also.  For all granny knows, some hacker is out there in cyberspace creating bitcoins on his palm pilot.

Come on. Is that granny's requirement for using paper money? Proof that no one is making more by magic? Granny doesn't have your suggested paranoid fantasy she'll use what you tell her is safe. The people who care if Bitcoin can be counterfeited are the people who know who to find out if that's actually possible everyone else always uses their trusted advisers.

[marcus_of_augustus]

+1 to the OP

... bad money is the root of the problem!

Let's get rid if it.

[TheMalon]

Folks,

The root cause problem with today's economy is that money can be created out of nothing and used to buy up real world goods and services and that this right is legally centred (monopolized) with only a few people. Everything else; high frequency trades, resource miss-allocation, decreasing real wages, inflation, deflationary collapse, oil prices, expensive wars (most of the modern ones) etc. etc. etc. is just symptomatic. If this right was taken away from the banking-government elite I dare say most of the shenanigans would stop within a year. Of course a soft landing would be hard to guarantee.

Why do you think Satoshi created bitcoin?

The answer to your question is in the Bitcoin white-paper written by Satoshi:

Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main
benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.

So, the Bitcoin is not born as a solution to the "today's economy" but a solution to the "double-spending problem" when you don't use third party entities!
Don't let you fooled by easy interpretations ...
Both Bitcoin and $ are created from "thin air" the difference is Bitcoin has a built-in rate of generation (50BTC /600 sec) and a maximum but the $ don't.

Ciao.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Actually, the easiest interpretation is encoded into the genesis block .... just one sentence.

[TheMalon]

... bad money is the root of the problem!

Let's get rid if it.

 
There is no such a thing as "bad money" ... you can't say "bad stone" because someone smashed your head with it!
Currencies are essential because they facilitate the interchange of goods/services.

Ciao.

[myrkul]

... bad money is the root of the problem!

Let's get rid if it.

 
There is no such a thing as "bad money" ... you can't say "bad stone" because someone smashed your head with it!
Currencies are essential because they facilitate the interchange of goods/services.

Ciao.

'Bad money' in the sense of a poorly managed currency... not as in all money is evil.

[TheMalon]

Actually, the easiest interpretation is encoded into the genesis block .... just one sentence.

Do you mean this sentence:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

If you do ... this is an ironical text that Satoshi choosed to calculate the first hash ... but as he said ... any random text will be good.

But lets talk about this sentence. It doesn't say anything about the fact the $ is BAD ... but that some people are bad (is not the $ that decided to bailout some banks)

Ciao.

[TheMalon]

poorly managed currency...

Amen!

[Sjalq]

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"
-Satoshi's quote in the genesis block

"Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.
Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.
It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than with words though."
-Satoshi Nakamoto

[TheMalon]

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"
-Satoshi's quote in the genesis block

"Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.
Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.
It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than with words though."
-Satoshi Nakamoto

It seems to be a phrase from larger text. Extracting some sentences from their context let you interpret them as you like.
Could you, please, copy/paste the entire text.

Ciao.

[Sjalq]

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"
-Satoshi's quote in the genesis block

"Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.
Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.
It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than with words though."
-Satoshi Nakamoto

It seems to be a phrase from larger text. Extracting some sentences from their context let you interpret them as you like.
Could you, please, copy/paste the entire text.

Ciao.

So you think he built this as his cool little side project, all the things about a limited money supply, safeguards against both govt control and malicious hacking were just nice to haves and that he did not have a fundamental problem with the current system?

[marcus_of_augustus]

... bad money is the root of the problem!

Let's get rid if it.

 
There is no such a thing as "bad money" ... you can't say "bad stone" because someone smashed your head with it!
Currencies are essential because they facilitate the interchange of goods/services.

Ciao.

Fine point.

But don't bring a knife to a gun fight .... and then praise the knife for being expertly crafted .... but inevitably not up to the job.

There is such a thing as bad money, good money, better money and best money and it is a technological continuum.

Cowrie shells and tally sticks are obviously past their use by date. Centrally issued fiat paper notes and their electronic ledgers representations are smelling pretty bad right about now too.

[TheMalon]

So you think he built this as his cool little side project, all the things about a limited money supply, safeguards against both govt control and malicious hacking were just nice to haves and that he did not have a fundamental problem with the current system?

Let me make it clear:
Bitcoin is a "proof of concept" project!
The "concept" is a solution to the problem "How to send something to someone without the need of a centralized third-party to guarantee the transaction?"
Now you can (as very often happens) to use this solution to make different thing, because not only the currencies have this problem. For example another project born with the same solution is namecoin (just search the net for it).
Now pretending that Bitcoin is a solution to the actual socio-economic-political shit in which we live ... its FAR TOO SIMPLISTIC...

Trust me ... i'm not a anti-Bitcoin moron ... i just trying to say that the Bitcoin's core is truly important and not the Bitcoin itself and that the problems of our world can not be solved by it.

Ciao.