Bitcoin simply cannot replace fiat

[jaked]

People used money long before they invented writing.
It wasn't fiat money, not even gold, but rather other mediums of exchange, such as neck-lets and shells.

Undoubtedly, they should have been able to count and thus had to write their calculations somewhere. So serious doubts arise as to whether they had been using money before they invented some primitive form of writing...

You can count with your fingers, and with sticks. Ole numeric methods used exactly that.
You can have a numeric system without an alphabet.

And anyway, the main point here is not about how ancient civilization did their counting.
I'll argue that modern illiterate people can and do definitely grasp the concept of accounting.
They do it daily with fiat money, I don't see any reason they should find it difficult with Bitcoin.

[jballs]

In the end, the only reason fiat works is that it is coercive. Government requires taxes paid in legal tender, and that is how banks control government and serf alike.

I wouldn't say so. Governments do require taxes to be paid in legal tender, but before that you have to earn this legal tender somehow to pay those taxes with. So, in the first place, we have the public sector of the economy where governments themselves pay in this legal tender, and what is important here, pay before they collect taxes. This proves that the reasons fiat works have rather economic roots...

Presently governments borrow the legal tender from the central bank to operate. And I am guessing you have never tried to go off the grid. If you own land, you have to pay taxes on it, in legal tender. If all of your money is in btc form, you have to sell enough each year to at least pay your taxes in fiat. If you rent, your landlord pays the taxes. If nobody pays the taxes the gov seizes the land and sells it to someone who will.

Coercive by nature. All citizens must partake in legal tender games or live in shopping carts/jails. About 20% of GDP is collected in taxes each year. I won't venture a linear comparison to btc to tax sale conversion as it's a nonlinear world in its current state, but ideally you would have rapid fungibility to the degree the gov will take it as currency (which again they seemed to have no problem doing with silk road).

[deisik]

I wouldn't say so. Governments do require taxes to be paid in legal tender, but before that you have to earn this legal tender somehow to pay those taxes with. So, in the first place, we have the public sector of the economy where governments themselves pay in this legal tender, and what is important here, pay before they collect taxes. This proves that the reasons fiat works have rather economic roots...

Presently governments borrow the legal tender from the central bank to operate. And I am guessing you have never tried to go off the grid. If you own land, you have to pay taxes on it, in legal tender. If all of your money is in btc form, you have to sell enough each year to at least pay your taxes in fiat. If you rent, your landlord pays the taxes. If nobody pays the taxes the gov seizes the land and sells it to someone who will.

You describe the system which is already on the run and in full steam. This doesn't answer the question which is hidden in my post. I didn't actually expect that I would have to ask it directly. So, where would people get money from to pay the taxes when the system has just started?

[jballs]

I wouldn't say so. Governments do require taxes to be paid in legal tender, but before that you have to earn this legal tender somehow to pay those taxes with. So, in the first place, we have the public sector of the economy where governments themselves pay in this legal tender, and what is important here, pay before they collect taxes. This proves that the reasons fiat works have rather economic roots...

Presently governments borrow the legal tender from the central bank to operate. And I am guessing you have never tried to go off the grid. If you own land, you have to pay taxes on it, in legal tender. If all of your money is in btc form, you have to sell enough each year to at least pay your taxes in fiat. If you rent, your landlord pays the taxes. If nobody pays the taxes the gov seizes the land and sells it to someone who will.

You describe the system which is already on the run and in full steam. This doesn't answer the question which is hidden in my post. I didn't actually expect that I would have to ask it directly. So, where would people get money from to pay the taxes when the system has just started?

They get it from the system that will be full steam. The banks simply issue loans at interest, and do so with money they print from nothing. That is fractional lending. They start with nothing, you borrow money at interest, they give you money they invented. That is why a bank ledger shows outstanding loans as an asset, and money in the vault as a liability. Exactly opposite the way a borrower sees it. A bank wants no money in the bank, all money in your hands paying them interest 24/7. Compounding effect assures that they will always make more, the public will always grow poorer. Or why I hate this system.

(The strikeout text is just a suggestion, drop that shit from your communicating and you will make more friends and get laid more often)

[deisik]

They get it from the system that will be full steam. The banks simply issue loans at interest, and do so with money they print from nothing. That is fractional lending. They start with nothing, you borrow money at interest, they give you money they invented. That is why a bank ledger shows outstanding loans as an asset, and money in the vault as a liability. Exactly opposite the way a borrower sees it. A bank wants no money in the bank, all money in your hands paying them interest 24/7. Compounding effect assures that they will always make more, the public will always grow poorer. Or why I hate this system.

So your assumption is that I'm forced to borrow money from the bank to pay taxes when the system is started? What did I get wrong? It seems that you actually ignored my question. I have previously given you a textbook answer how that happens, i.e. through the public sector. Government pays people it hires, those buy goods from the private sector, the private sector pays wages, so everyone gets money to pay taxes, and there is no direct coercion from the state to use its currency...

I understand that you hate the current financial system, just don't let this blind hatred render you impotent

[jballs]

They get it from the system that will be full steam. The banks simply issue loans at interest, and do so with money they print from nothing. That is fractional lending. They start with nothing, you borrow money at interest, they give you money they invented. That is why a bank ledger shows outstanding loans as an asset, and money in the vault as a liability. Exactly opposite the way a borrower sees it. A bank wants no money in the bank, all money in your hands paying them interest 24/7. Compounding effect assures that they will always make more, the public will always grow poorer. Or why I hate this system.

So your assumption is that I'm forced to borrow money from the bank to pay taxes when the system is started? What did I get wrong? It seems that you actually ignored my question. I have previously given you a textbook answer how that happens, i.e. through the public sector. Government pays people it hires, those buy goods from the private sector, the private sector pays wages, so everyone gets money to pay taxes, and there is no direct coercion from the state to use its currency...

I understand that you hate the current financial system, just don't let this blind hatred render you impotent

Clearly you are not a property owner or there would be no discussion of whether tax payments are coercive.

Yes, government pays out currency they borrow from the bank, at interest. Simultaneously the bank makes loans to the public at interest. No, you are not forced to borrow money. You can alternatively perform labor  or services for somebody who chooses to borrow it from the bank, and get paid in their borrowed money, and pay your landlord, who will use it to pay taxes, which will return to the bank as government debt payments. Or you can live in a shopping cart/jail. All money returns to the bank.

I have previously given you a textbook answer

Probably the crux of a lot of delusions. College is great but... real life is a different game.

[deisik]

Clearly you are not a property owner or there would be no discussion of whether tax payments are coercive.

Yes, government pays out currency they borrow from the bank, at interest. Simultaneously the bank makes loans to the public at interest. No, you are not forced to borrow money. You can alternatively perform labor  or services for somebody who chooses to borrow it from the bank, and get paid in their borrowed money, and pay your landlord, who will use it to pay taxes, which will return to the bank as government debt payments. Or you can live in a shopping cart/jail. All money returns to the bank.

I have previously given you a textbook answer

Probably the crux of a lot of delusions. College is great but... real life is a different game.

Taxes are coercive (and yes, I'm a property owner and just yesterday paid for it), but this doesn't prove that it is just taxes that make people use the currency government issues (the reasons I set forth earlier). And I know about the role the public sector plays in the economy not only from textbooks (I was on public service), and actually I see no substantial contradiction between what is written there and real life...

Your opinion seems to be skewed by your life experiences

[jballs]

Clearly you are not a property owner or there would be no discussion of whether tax payments are coercive.

Yes, government pays out currency they borrow from the bank, at interest. Simultaneously the bank makes loans to the public at interest. No, you are not forced to borrow money. You can alternatively perform labor  or services for somebody who chooses to borrow it from the bank, and get paid in their borrowed money, and pay your landlord, who will use it to pay taxes, which will return to the bank as government debt payments. Or you can live in a shopping cart/jail. All money returns to the bank.

I have previously given you a textbook answer

Probably the crux of a lot of delusions. College is great but... real life is a different game.

Taxes are coercive (and yes, I'm a property owner and just yesterday paid for it), but this doesn't prove that it is just taxes that make people use the currency government issues (the reasons I set forth earlier). And I know about the role the public sector plays in the economy not only from textbooks (I was on public service), and actually I see no substantial contradiction between what is written there and real life...

Well, you can go see real world examples currently underway in both India and Venezuela where the government will arrest you for not using their currencies. I don't know what more to say on that point. Is there a hypothetical dreamland where coercion is not the main tool? I suppose. The government could create all of the money, in the US it was designed to, but the banks did not like that. See Andrew Jacksn, Abe Lincoln, and Jekyll Island for further. And really I don't like it either, as again it is time to move forward and not backwards...and hope we are.

Your opinion seems to be skewed by your life experiences

I certainly hope so, else I would still be shitting in my diapers.

[Slingshot]

Re: Bitcoin simply cannot replace fiat


 What one currency (Bitcoin) to replace around 200 countries currencies?

 Well some are dreaming that will be the case.


 It doesn't seem realistic though.




 On the Other Hand:


 Debt based fiat and fractional reserve banking is a giant, still almost secret scam. The worst scam in all modern history in fact. And the gravest crime in modern history.

 Governments need Crypto as much as people and business needs them too.


 Only the dawn of electricity could hope to compare to this Crypo-Currency Revolution! This has the potential to be that big or even much, much bigger going forward centuries from now. Maybe even bigger than the entire Industrial Revolution is how big this Monetary Revolution may be ultimately, centuries from now for mankind. So far no one talks of that by myself in private mail. But I believe it's very likely to be true.


But I fail to see how Bitcoin captures the entire global populations embrace when regular people can now mine alt currencies for a fraction of the cost of mining Bitcoin. In fact most are priced out of asic mining now, which is required for Bitcoin from here on.


 So no, I don't suppose that Only Bitcoin can succeed replacing all fiat. But Bitcoin may well be the King of Crypto for a long time, maybe.


 It Depends...It's now up to the marketplace to decide and some don't like that either. All because they want power and control over what gets accepted and what doesn't. Their acting as badly as banksters and governments here. This is the very 1st time I stated any of this paragraph too, but that's what is quickly becoming clear in my mind from this last month of what I already termed the Birthing of Crypto-Currencies in the global marketplace. (birthing - the point of their first real mass acceptance is November 2013).



 Decentralization is the Future. That's fact. But it wont be easy. Nor without battles. But it's begun. And it's not stopping either.


 Crypto-Currency is the Future too. Decentralized Crypto-Currency Currencies, which no Banksters nor any Governments control their issue, nor their inflation/deflation rates. Indeed Crypto is vastly superior to what we suffer from today. Of course some wont like that. Well they had their fun. Their rein is about up. They best make plans. The Peoples have Spoken. The message is clear. Crypto it is.



Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware!

[deisik]

Taxes are coercive (and yes, I'm a property owner and just yesterday paid for it), but this doesn't prove that it is just taxes that make people use the currency government issues (the reasons I set forth earlier). And I know about the role the public sector plays in the economy not only from textbooks (I was on public service), and actually I see no substantial contradiction between what is written there and real life...

Well, you can go see real world examples currently underway in both India and Venezuela where the government will arrest you for not using their currencies. I don't know what more to say on that point. Is there a hypothetical dreamland where coercion is not the main tool? I suppose. The government could create all of the money, in the US it was designed to, but the banks did not like that. See Andrew Jacksn, Abe Lincoln, and Jekyll Island for further. And really I don't like it either, as again it is time to move forward and not backwards...and hope we are.

Governments could take to coercion or even direct violence (it would be just stupid not to try all available means if such a need arises), but this is something any sane government should take to only as a means of last resort. It is in government's best interests to stick to economic pathways to reach its aims whenever possible, and issuance and introduction of a new currency belongs right here. Taxes can be important for such an aim only if economic routes fail. There are states with robust currency systems which have very low taxes if ever...

[deisik]

Your opinion seems to be skewed by your life experiences

I certainly hope so, else I would still be shitting in my diapers.

Should I take it as a confirmation that shitting in your diapers would mean an unbiased view on life?

[jballs]

Taxes are coercive (and yes, I'm a property owner and just yesterday paid for it), but this doesn't prove that it is just taxes that make people use the currency government issues (the reasons I set forth earlier). And I know about the role the public sector plays in the economy not only from textbooks (I was on public service), and actually I see no substantial contradiction between what is written there and real life...

Well, you can go see real world examples currently underway in both India and Venezuela where the government will arrest you for not using their currencies. I don't know what more to say on that point. Is there a hypothetical dreamland where coercion is not the main tool? I suppose. The government could create all of the money, in the US it was designed to, but the banks did not like that. See Andrew Jacksn, Abe Lincoln, and Jekyll Island for further. And really I don't like it either, as again it is time to move forward and not backwards...and hope we are.

Governments could take to coercion or even direct violence (it would be just stupid not to try all available means if such a need arises), but this is something any sane government should take to only as a means of last resort. It is in government's best interests to stick to economic pathways to reach its aims whenever possible, and issuance and introduction of a new currency belongs right here. Taxes can be important for such an aim only if economic routes fail. There are states with robust currency systems which have very low taxes if ever...

Forgot to ask last post, did you just buy property with btc profits? Just curious, not pertinent to the discussion.

There is a lot of shorthand here and I'm going to cut to the point to stay on topic or try anyway. I would like to see broadly less need for government. I don't view most governments as sane given the current state of humanity. I see them as self-interested primarily, their raison d'etre being to serve the people but that being not their current agenda. I'm fairly ignorant on how btc would interface in a global system that was fully unfettered by national agendas. I can see how governments would adopt altcoins, 99% of my fiat is already digital and the banks have wanted to go cashless for a long time (bluetooth was partnered with US banks early on to try and implement it but fell a little short). If governments did accept bitcoins for the coercive side of the economy (taxes, fees & fines), yes that would be a massive incentive to stop using fiat entirely. So long as any legal tender is coercive, then no, nothing else can fully replace it unless the government is replaced instead. Both can coexist in the meanwhile though, certainly.

Your opinion seems to be skewed by your life experiences

I certainly hope so, else I would still be shitting in my diapers.

Should I take it as a confirmation that shitting in your diapers would mean an unbiased view on life?

'An unbiased view on life' is an oxymoron.

Find me two people with the same view on life and I will rescind that conclusion...or find me the one unbiased person would also suffice.

[BittBurger]

Well it will remain as an alternative to fiat, since 25% of the adult population of world is Illiterate. They can't even read numbers, how would they handle virtual wallets.

Nice article there btw John.

The more important number is what percent of the world has a smart phone.  Or will have a smart phone.

That's all that will be needed.

[pand70]

Well it will remain as an alternative to fiat, since 25% of the adult population of world is Illiterate. They can't even read numbers, how would they handle virtual wallets.

Nice article there btw John.

The more important number is what percent of the world has a smart phone.  Or will have a smart phone.

That's all that will be needed.

I remember some news from a tribe in africa that an organization gave them 200 tablets or something for free as an experiment.
The tribe people was illiterate and knew no english. Some months later they 've hacked the tablets already and they were teaching each other english.

[deisik]

There is a lot of shorthand here and I'm going to cut to the point to stay on topic or try anyway. I would like to see broadly less need for government. I don't view most governments as sane given the current state of humanity. I see them as self-interested primarily, their raison d'etre being to serve the people but that being not their current agenda. I'm fairly ignorant on how btc would interface in a global system that was fully unfettered by national agendas. I can see how governments would adopt altcoins, 99% of my fiat is already digital and the banks have wanted to go cashless for a long time (bluetooth was partnered with US banks early on to try and implement it but fell a little short). If governments did accept bitcoins for the coercive side of the economy (taxes, fees & fines), yes that would be a massive incentive to stop using fiat entirely. So long as any legal tender is coercive, then no, nothing else can fully replace it unless the government is replaced instead. Both can coexist in the meanwhile though, certainly.

There is nothing more far from truth than this!

If governments decided to accept bitcoins for taxes and all that stuff on par with fiat, people would still be paying with fiat whenever possible while hoarding bitcoins in their wallets. Just another example of Gresham's law in action, i.e. bad inflating money (dollars or whatever) driving good deflating money (Bitcoin) out of circulation...

[deisik]

Forgot to ask last post, did you just buy property with btc profits? Just curious, not pertinent to the discussion.

No, I bought it long before Bitcoin ever started... Having regrets that you failed to grab at this opportunity in time and did not get rich for doing nothing?

[deisik]

I certainly hope so, else I would still be shitting in my diapers.

Should I take it as a confirmation that shitting in your diapers would mean an unbiased view on life?

'An unbiased view on life' is an oxymoron.

But it was you who said that your skewed by life experiences opinion helped you stop shitting in your diapers! I did nothing but reversed your logic a little...

[Mike Christ]

Fiat rules the world because it’s what people are used to.

This is the equivalent of starting your argument with, "Well..."

Carriages rule the world because it's what people are used to.

We clearly see where the argument against the horseless wagon went: out one hole and into another.

[johnyj]

No need to replace fiat unless there is a hyper fiat inflation and render it totally useless. Fiat is for spending, bitcoin is for saving, no overlap

[jballs]

Forgot to ask last post, did you just buy property with btc profits? Just curious, not pertinent to the discussion.

No, I bought it long before Bitcoin ever started... Having regrets that you failed to grab at this opportunity in time and did not get rich for doing nothing?

Probably I would be if I weren't still pissed off at Steve Jobs for not giving me my credit for inventing the ipod. Thought I'd at least get a deathbed confession. Such is life. We all miss a thousand opportunities a day, were I in this thing I would be pretty sketched out, opaque exchanges with long exit queues are not my cup of tea. But 'doing nothing' is terribly inaccurate, Banks printing themselves $85 billion a month, because they wrote themselves a law that says they can, that is much closer to nothing. People took risk, which isn't nothing, and spent time, which also isn't nothing, free markets drive capital where it already wants to go. No shame in profits. As for Gresham's Law you're probably right, with the open question that should apply to all economic theory at this point...are we moving forward or backward. The internet has already killed a swathe of "laws". I'll reserve judgment until I am better informed.