Governments will want their TAX ??? The solution is obvious but scary.

[wb3]

As this new currency becomes popular, governments will want their tax.  But that would be hard to collect from consumers, but could be done for sellers (of physical products).

Taxes used to provide a service to citizens. They still do but citizens have less control over the use of said taxes. If this currency takes off, taxes of the future will be donations to the Government. If you want a military, roads, water, etc..., you will have to voluntarily pay taxes to the FED, State, Town, etc...   The problem is how would the Government give the money back. They would have to know who to send it to and then they could track it.  I too, think there is lots of corruption in the centralize monetary system and that taxes are misused but taxes are a necessary thing for modern society. IMO, citizens have been lazy in not demanding proper use and transparency of their tax dollars.

If this works, it should be pegged to an element of intrinsic value. (Gold, etc..)  Has anyone notice that we did not get into trouble until countries left the gold standard. Markets were forced to correct (ie 29 depression) or completely fail. Today they just print more money and tell everyone it is OK. It is funny if you think about it.  Hey, turn in your gold, we have paper for you instead, TRUST US. They even put it on our money, In God We Trust.  How prophetic.  Pennies have more value than the dollar.  BTW, <1982 pennies are worth 2¢. Instantly double your money.  This is because a penny has intrinsic value in copper.

I do like the system though, it is like the swiss password account. Even utilizing the two key system. One public and one private. You have to have the private key and the account number to access the account. We just need a way of properly protecting the .dat file from all the things that can go wrong.  The biggest threat will be keyloggers and spyware and when people have enough money in their files it will become a serious threat.

[fergalish]

If this currency takes off, taxes of the future will be donations to the Government.

I'm surprised you haven't been shot down by the free-marketers & anarchists already.... haven't you realized yet?  The bit-future is devoid of any government!!!  (that's me being sarcastic, I sympathize with the free-market/libertarian guys but suspect that, like communism, it'd be great in theory and terrible in practice.)

Tell me, why did you say taxes-by-donation would be scary?  Do you think nobody would donate and so society would crumble?  Or do you mean it would be scary because the govt could trace bitcoins?  A bitcoin mixer would be enough to fool that (see other discussions).

[Nefario]

Well that begs the obvious question, if a government collects taxes by "donation" for it to provide services, why not simply pay a company to provide those services instead? I can guarantee they'll be able to offer a much better service at a lower price than the government.

I've never seen a government do anything better than a private company (except mess up or waste money).

Governments, even the best of them are ineficient, and only manage to survive not by competition, but by banning competition, and forcing people to pay for it's services with tax. Once a tax becomes voluntary it ceases to be tax by definition.
   

[Anonymous]

Mutual aid societies existed before government welfare .

[Nefario]

Mutual aid societies existed before government welfare .

Don't forget simple charity.

[no to the gold cult]

I really don't think that Libertarians know what Society is. They want to get rid of the state because it's corrupted and serves "shady power interests" but they have no real grasp of what society without the state is. They think it's all just self-interest and market forces, as if the combination of all that would some how lead to a better world.

Hemingway said "The world is a fine place indeed, and worth fighting for". I agree. The state can suck in a lot of ways, but it's worth fighting for control of. What I'm saying here is that the state is useful and thus must be subject to democratic forces, not just abandoned in disgust because power-elitists have riddled it with their agendas.

Anyway, it's one thing to reject the state, but if you don't know what society is, then disposing of the state isn't going to solve your problems. The kind of things Libertarians come out with leads me to strongly believe they have no real conception of society, furthermore, in my opinion this is a characteristic of American culture.

The American state and the "We're-number-1" super-nationalism it has carefully fostered in the US is the only glue that holds Americans together in some sort of substitute for society. One Katrina and we see how the culture over there degenerates into a rabble of gun-weilding possies and the undignified wretchedness of the socially disempowered and abandoned.

America was built initially by grumpy unsociable frontiersman and religious fanatics looking to get away from other goddamn people dag-nabit! Out into the wilderness they went, where they could do what they want without nobody that ain't kith or kin around to get in their way. The US has changed a lot since then but still seems largely unable to grasp fundamental concepts that most cultures in the rest of the world seem not to have forgotten. Thus, your Libertarian tends to be confused and puzzled by some concepts, to not see the point of some ideas that involve sharing their toys with others.

Another thing I've noticed about the US is that there's no class conscience, everyone over there from the working man and woman to millionaires seems to consider themselves Middle Class. This is a delusion that suits the ruling class well. In Europe the working class was able to grab the state by the throat after the war-years, and force it to damn-well do something for them, after filling the ranks of state armies and capitalist factories, the working class were able (through the pressure of communist, socialist, social democrat parties) to MAKE the state provide them with decent (decommodified) healthcare, housing and education and the right to eat.

In the US where everyone thinks they're Middle Class (bless em), none of this has happened. They seem to think the only possible use for the state is to collect taxes to pay for military adventures in far away lands and provide welfare for big business. So really if you think about it, Libertarianism is the only authentically dissident response one can expect of a culture in which certain concepts were defeated long ago or never really made it across the ocean in the first place.

Ron Paul for President 2012!

[ribuck]

In Europe the working class was able to grab the state by the throat after the war-years, and ... MAKE the state provide them with decent (decommodified) healthcare, housing and education and the right to eat.

...thereby dooming them to miserable lives of semi-poverty and blocking them from fulfilling their potential.

There are plenty of statistics showing that people who receive government benefits have lower job satisfaction, lower educational attainment, poorer health, shorter lifespan, are more likely to be in prison, etc. Some of these are quite good controlled studies (e.g. of families on opposite sides of the same street who happen to be in different towns and therefore qualify for different government "benefits").

However, time is short and I'm not going to dig out the references right now. I accept that this makes this post fairly unconvincing.

[rebuilder]

In Europe the working class was able to grab the state by the throat after the war-years, and ... MAKE the state provide them with decent (decommodified) healthcare, housing and education and the right to eat.

...thereby dooming them to miserable lives of semi-poverty and blocking them from fulfilling their potential.

There are plenty of statistics showing that people who receive government benefits have lower job satisfaction, lower educational attainment, poorer health, shorter lifespan, are more likely to be in prison, etc. Some of these are quite good controlled studies (e.g. of families on opposite sides of the same street who happen to be in different towns and therefore qualify for different government "benefits").

However, time is short and I'm not going to dig out the references right now. I accept that this makes this post fairly unconvincing.

And  yet, somehow, the Nordic countries consistently rank high in education, health and life satisfaction studies, despite having rather generous welfare programs.

[ribuck]

...Nordic countries consistently rank high...

This is because the Nordic countries don't waste a huge amount of their wealth on overseas warfare.

[wb3]

Well that begs the obvious question, if a government collects taxes by "donation" for it to provide services, why not simply pay a company to provide those services instead? I can guarantee they'll be able to offer a much better service at a lower price than the government.

I've never seen a government do anything better than a private company (except mess up or waste money).

Governments, even the best of them are ineficient, and only manage to survive not by competition, but by banning competition, and forcing people to pay for it's services with tax. Once a tax becomes voluntary it ceases to be tax by definition.
   

Governments goto war like no company ever did. Not saying war is good, but sometimes it is a necessary evil. And on the brighter side, governments will provide improvements and/or services that no company would ever do because of profit reasons. Roads in rural areas, telephone to rural areas, government "cheese" as it were. With out centralizing "greed", there won't be oversight. Greed is a key part of all monetary systems, trying to eliminate it is futile. Proof, look at the BitCoin Miners.

Maybe a novel idea, 1 hour = 1 BTC(or what ever), period. All most all companies track ManHours. In theory all systems, if you limit profit, the only real need for money is to pay people for their work. Profit is the Greed factor. Rather than eliminate it, set it to a fixed value and share it among all in a company. For example: You want to buy a car: It takes 2000 ManHours to make the car, plus a 10% profit margin; total cost of car = 2200 BTC. The two hundred is spread among all who provided the 2000 ManHours evenly.

The current argument is that if you don't pay quality people more, you end up with low quality. I propose that is false. Look at it this way, Take a CEO's position. How many people would take the CEO's position if there was no increase in pay?  I see all the hands going up, because people realize it is a good position over being the janitor (even though the janitor makes the same). Why would anyone would anyone work harder if there is no incentive to do so, because you don't want to be in a lower position.

In reality a fair system would reward those that work harder and accomplish more, the guy sitting at his desk in the air conditioning shouldn't make more than the sweetshop worker.  The sweetshop worker should make more.

No more "Head" work, or I am a "Harvard" Grad, or hmm "MIT" grad. The smartest man in the world is stupid unless he utilizes the knowledge. You would have the comfortable job because you are capable of performing it.  Pieces of paper mean nothing from universities. This is seen everywhere. Universities hoard knowledge and sell it to the highest bidder rather than provide free knowledge and award those who "can" utilize the knowledge. Take a look at the l33t Hax0r's. Usually "uneducated" but very smart because they are driven toward understanding knowledge and then utilizing it. I find it hilarious that they still sell new math text books every year for public schools, like the answer to 2+2=4 might have changed. Except for the change in knowledge, it has remained the same year to year. Textbooks could be PDF'ed and given out for free or close to it. But no, lets hoard it, repackage it, and resell it.

Sorry got carried away for a bit. Anyways, a fair system of Taxing the system should be built into the system. It could even be a voted system. Have everybody put a tax rate into the program. After the distribution of the P2P blocks, the tax rate could be computed through a statistical mean average. Value of the vote is depended on the transactions conducted through unique IP's. Or something like such.

That way everyone can contribute to deciding tax increases and the elusive mythical "tax decreases".  Don't you just love when the government increases your taxes ( ie. health care) and then gives you a tax break of a lessor amount (extending bush tax) while calling it a tax cut.  Hmm...  Pay me $100 but you get to keep $20. Hey thanx for the tax cut. "Sheeple"

OK, my rant is over, sorry.

[Sultan]

Whatever the government uses to tax cash-in-hand jobs, this is the way they will track taxes.

Back to the original point, being that governments will indeed want their tax, and the only solution is that we will revert to voluntary payments. Every company is strictly audited, taxing anything that comes out etc.

It would be the same.

Fair enough you can still do "BitCoin-in-hand" jobs, but if there if you apply for a job and there's a 6 year gap in your employment, they will ask. "were you unemployed all this time?" then you go, "yeah I was" they go "who by?" and u say who. THEN they will ask that employer how much tax you paid, and if you haven't, they will make you catch up.

Simples

[fergalish]

...thereby dooming them to miserable lives of semi-poverty and blocking them from fulfilling their potential.

Dude, something tells me you don't live in europe - you are deluded: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index  The U.S. is doing quite well too, but I think you might want to moderate your statement about "miserable lives of semi poverty".

In reality a fair system would reward those that work harder and accomplish more, the guy sitting at his desk in the air conditioning shouldn't make more than the sweetshop worker.  The sweetshop worker should make more.
Pieces of paper mean nothing from universities. This is seen everywhere. Universities hoard knowledge and sell it to the highest bidder rather than provide free knowledge and award those who "can" utilize the knowledge.

But if skilled labour is in shortage with respect to unskilled labour, then any reasonable market will pay a higher price for it.  Although, lately, I understand there are plenty of PhDs working the till in McDonalds all over the U.S. - can anyone confirm that?  So even though a sweatshop worker works hard, he's competing with many many others for the same job, unlike the air conditioned guy.  And, sorry, I would hate a CEO's job, even if it paid me twice what I'm currently earning (and I ain't earning much by my country's standard).  Just the idea of having to wear a suit & tie everyday... [shudder].

Tell you what, though, you're right about greed.  I read an article a short while ago about greed & capitalism being bedfellows.  I wasn't sure if the argument has since been refuted, but I understand that, irrespective of that, people are happy when their wealth and income are comparable to the national average.  Therefore... large wealth or income inequalities cause social unrest and greed, because everyone wants to be as rich as the rich ones they know ("keeping up with the joneses"), but not everyone can.  Any comments, libertarians?

Something tells me you don't have a piece of paper from a university.  While I agree that many universites are a sham, and many decent universities have courses that are a sham, I think there are still plenty of decent, real, qualifications to be obtained.  I suspect that the problem lies in the fact that many universites' funding are tied to the number of students, so therefore universities have turned into graduate factories with little care for how those graduates fare in the real world (e.g. PhDs working McD).  E.g. degree in "web design"  By the time you graduate, the web will have completely changed and all you learned will be useless - if you do decide to go to university, make sure your degree teaches you critical thinking, problem solving, how to be adaptable, and how to learn (i.e. instead of just making you learn stuff, you need to learn *how to learn*, so when you finish univ. you can continue learning).

Lastly, check out mit opencourseware, or do a search for free university courses on google.  They're wonderful and I've used them.  Universities aren't hoarding knowledge so much anymore.  They'll give you all the knowledge you want for free, but they'll still make you pay for that little piece of paper.

EDIT, for Kiba :-)
TL;DR (whatever that means):
1. Europe ain't that bad.
2. Skill shortage commands higher price.
3. Greed is nasty.  Is it inherent to capitalism, or just a result of severe social inequality?
4. I agree, many universities and university degrees are useless, but there are some good ones still.  Look for these qualities (see above).
5. Check out free online university courses, they're great.

[kiba]

Will people stop creating all those essay length posts so I can digest whatever you're trying to get across?

[ribuck]

Dude, something tells me you don't live in europe - you are deluded

Yes I live in Europe.

[fergalish]

Dude, something tells me you don't live in europe - you are deluded

Yes I live in Europe.

Do you live a miserable life of semi-poverty?  Perhaps you live in eastern Europe where things are not so cosy?

[Anonymous]

What's poverty?

[kiba]

Happiness is an emotional state, a state of mind. Why should we care about such measure when we can just administer the population with dopamine?

Greed? For some people, it's nasty. For me, I am totally fine with that. Greed for greater lifespan, for intellectual enjoyment, for things...What's wrong with that?

Yet people forget the other sin, envy. Envy is to me, the nastiest of sins. If greed is simply the desire of wealth, than envy is based on what you don't have and hating other guys for being wealthier than you.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

And on the brighter side, governments will provide improvements and/or services that no company would ever do because of profit reasons. Roads in rural areas, telephone to rural areas, government "cheese" as it were.

Demonstrably wrong, look up Lysander Spooner.

[Anonymous]

I think wb3 either came from r/politics on Reddit or is a master troll.

[kiba]

I think wb3 either came from r/politics on Reddit or is a master troll.

Indistinguishable in either case.