Is Buffet right or wrong?

[IrishFutbol]

If you look at Buffet's track record, he has a few huge scores, and a lot of investments that did not go great.   I don't think his shares have out performed the S&P 500 in the last bunch of years (I could be wrong).  Obviously his big scores were astronomical, but those few investments have made the world believe that he is the investment wizard of the world.

Buffet has an absolutely amazing track record, and he absolutely is one of the few wizards that can beat the market.

And his decline in returns is due to the amount of assets that BH manages.  In the old days, he could pick his top few investments, and score astronomical returns.  Now that he's managing the amount of cash that he is, he needs to invest in more than a handful of companies, and can't limit himself to investments that he thinks are sure thing home runs.

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[HDSolar]

I am very happy he said what he said because he said the same thing about the internet.  If BTC becomes only half of what the internet turned out to to be then we will see Buffet and Tony from Bitpay in 10 years talking about "if we only knew".

[IrishFutbol]

I am very happy he said what he said because he said the same thing about the internet.  If BTC becomes only half of what the internet turned out to to be then we will see Buffet and Tony from Bitpay in 10 years talking about "if we only knew".

Buffet didn't have an issue with the internet, he had an issue with the way internet companies were being valued at the time.  Buffet was still valuing businesses based off of cash flows, whereas many were experimenting with valuations based off of page views or searchability, and Buffet was absolutely right that that the idiots doing the latter were off the mark.

When he said this, there really werent' internet companies with proven models like Google and Amazon.  You had hundreds of Pets.com sites that had no profits whatsoever, yet were being valued at insane prices.  Big difference between the current internet world and 15 years ago.

[amspir]

There is already research showing it can be done. The block chain is very traceable. Nothwithstanding that, I argued at the above legal analysis link that a more likely equitable restitution for widespread theft in mixed funds is a tax to pay for deposit insurance on Bitcoin, i.e. a shared and collective solution to theft.

Functionally, how would this even be possible?   If I put some bitcoin on a paper wallet and stuff it in my mattress, how would the authorities seize my asset without conducting a door to door mattress search?

The authorities could tax at the point where fiat and bitcoin are exchanged, but this would encourage the affluent to use offshore exchanges out of the taxing authority's jurisdiction, and the less affluent to use unlicensed street-level exchangers.

[MarketNeutral]

The ghost of Jesse Livermore whispers—to those with ears to listen—to invest in bitcoin-based enterprise logistics and commerce support systems.

[MarketNeutral]

In this thread I have learned a lot about the way people think. Explains to me about why society is impossible to organize away from banksters.

In the abstract, not much has changed since when you could give a native a mirror and he would give you his vast acreage of land in exchange.

You are correct. People may claim they want to 'organize away from the banksters' yet they never have and likely never will.

"Hello friend. Aren't you worried about the safety of your gold? I can keep it safe for you in my vault and give you an easy-to-carry claim receipt you may use in its place. I won't even charge you for the first 12 months."

I often hear "Who is John Galt?" but a better question would be "Who is Faust?" Whether it comes from hubris, cupidity, or ignorance, the end result is always the same. Per Alexander Pope, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

The temptation of the Confidence Man's special deal on Magic Beans, the Big Shiny Thing, The Easy Money, etc is impossible to resist for most people, so the tyranny of the majority rules where laws don't have to.

Whether it's Pirateat40, DPR, or Buffett....the song and dance is largely the same.

[AnonyMint]

There is already research showing it can be done. The block chain is very traceable. Nothwithstanding that, I argued at the above legal analysis link that a more likely equitable restitution for widespread theft in mixed funds is a tax to pay for deposit insurance on Bitcoin, i.e. a shared and collective solution to theft.

Functionally, how would this even be possible?   If I put some bitcoin on a paper wallet and stuff it in my mattress, how would the authorities seize my asset without conducting a door to door mattress search?

The authorities could tax at the point where fiat and bitcoin are exchanged, but this would encourage the affluent to use offshore exchanges out of the taxing authority's jurisdiction, and the less affluent to use unlicensed street-level exchangers.

They can make it illegal for you to do that if you are not anonymous. They don't have to go to every door, just to the ones who are bold enough to try to circumvent capital controls. And make a good example whipping of them for the rest to see.

The G20 is already planning to cooperate on tracking down tax evasion.

It amazes me that so many people think the governments are impotent when it comes to taxation.

In this thread I have learned a lot about the way people think. Explains to me about why society is impossible to organize away from banksters.

In the abstract, not much has changed since when you could give a native a mirror and he would give you his vast acreage of land in exchange.

You are correct. People may claim they want to 'organize away from the banksters' yet they never have and likely never will.

One of the key points is that we want the government involved to stop theft, when we trust another party (such as Mt.Gox). Yet we don't want the government to take control of our coin by regulating the fractional reserves of those offchain activities. How can any person with a brain stem conclude that we can have the former without also giving up the latter?

But people are not yet ready to do decentralized paradigms (where the protocol or algorithm eliminates the need to trust a single central party), because they still think with their hindbrain which was programmed (over the eons by evolution) by social orders within the tribe. We are still stuck on our Dunbar number effect, where we value+trust personal reputation and feeling more than algorithmic trust.

If I am correct about the coming Mad Max economic implosion of law & order 2016 - 2020ish (at which year it goes feral I can't reliably estimate), then those who prosper will be those who adopt decentralized solutions.

[amspir]

They can make it illegal for you to do that if you are not anonymous. They don't have to go to every door, just to the ones who are bold enough to try to circumvent capital controls. And make a good example whipping of them for the rest to see.

I'm not seeing this happening.  A sales tax might be enforceable, but subject to a lot of cheating just like a cash business.  But to seize bank assets like Cyprus or USA's 1933 gold seizure is not really going to be possible with bitcoin.

[AnonyMint]

They can make it illegal for you to do that if you are not anonymous. They don't have to go to every door, just to the ones who are bold enough to try to circumvent capital controls. And make a good example whipping of them for the rest to see.

I'm not seeing this happening.  A sales tax might be enforceable, but subject to a lot of cheating just like a cash business.  But to seize bank assets like Cyprus or USA's 1933 gold seizure is not really going to be possible with bitcoin.

If they can track who owns which coins, the IRS can simply send you a bill for tax you did not pay. If you don't pay, they put a lien on your assets and if necessary put you in jail. Simple.

So most people will pay.

Cash is not traceable on a public ledger.

I don't understand why this is so difficult for you guys to understand. I feel like I am talking to 5 year olds.

Lack of anonymity is the key.

[amspir]

If they can track who owns which coins, the IRS can simply send you a bill for tax you did not pay. If you don't pay, they put a lien on your assets and if necessary put you in jail. Simple.

To anonymize usage, it's as simple as using a wallet that generates a unique public/private key for each address, and never reusing an address after it is spent.  

The idea is as silly as the IRS sitting down with me and demanding me to account for the whereabouts of USD 100 bill with serial number LF72648054A which I withdrew from a bank 6 months ago.   Sorry tax man, I think I gave it to a homeless veteran that lost his leg fighting for freedom that looked like he needed it.

[jonald_fyookball]

If they can track who owns which coins, the IRS can simply send you a bill for tax you did not pay. If you don't pay, they put a lien on your assets and if necessary put you in jail. Simple.

To anonymize usage, it's as simple as using a wallet that generates a unique public/private key for each address, and never reusing an address after it is spent.  

The idea is as silly as the IRS sitting down with me and demanding me to account for the whereabouts of USD 100 bill with serial number LF72648054A which I withdrew from a bank 6 months ago.   Sorry tax man, I think I gave it to a homeless veteran that lost his leg fighting for freedom that looked like he needed it.

Hmm. Not that simple. (how would you get the coins into the new address without creating a transaction from the old address.). That's why there exists mixing services, tumblers, alt coins with privacy features, etc.

But I advise to ignore anonymint.  He's a troll disguised as an intellectual.

[amspir]

To anonymize usage, it's as simple as using a wallet that generates a unique public/private key for each address, and never reusing an address after it is spent.  

The idea is as silly as the IRS sitting down with me and demanding me to account for the whereabouts of USD 100 bill with serial number LF72648054A which I withdrew from a bank 6 months ago.   Sorry tax man, I think I gave it to a homeless veteran that lost his leg fighting for freedom that looked like he needed it.

Hmm. Not that simple. (how would you get the coins into the new address without creating a transaction from the old address.). That's why there exists mixing services, tumblers, alt coins with privacy features, etc.

Definitely use a mixing service when doing something that may be considered shady.   But if I use a wallet with unique pub/priv keys, it really can't be tracked that I put a BTC into a paper wallet that's now in my mattress vs. giving it to a homeless veteran.   Reusing a public key is what gives away anonymity, as it is exposed when spent and can be attached to your identity.  If the money is transferred to a new address with a new public key, the blockchain isn't going to tell the government that I really own that address; that it was simply an internal transfer of my own assets instead of actually being spent and given to someone else.

But I advise to ignore anonymint.  He's a troll disguised as an intellectual.

I realize that.  I'm just waiting for him to somehow say "Nazi" so I know that I won the argument.   Oh crap.  I just lost.

[AnonyMint]

To anonymize usage, it's as simple as using a wallet that generates a unique public/private key for each address, and never reusing an address after it is spent.  

The idea is as silly as the IRS sitting down with me and demanding me to account for the whereabouts of USD 100 bill with serial number LF72648054A which I withdrew from a bank 6 months ago.   Sorry tax man, I think I gave it to a homeless veteran that lost his leg fighting for freedom that looked like he needed it.

Hmm. Not that simple. (how would you get the coins into the new address without creating a transaction from the old address.). That's why there exists mixing services, tumblers, alt coins with privacy features, etc.

Definitely use a mixing service when doing something that may be considered shady.   But if I use a wallet with unique pub/priv keys, it really can't be tracked that I put a BTC into a paper wallet that's now in my mattress vs. giving it to a homeless veteran.   Reusing a public key is what gives away anonymity, as it is exposed when spent and can be attached to your identity.  If the money is transferred to a new address with a new public key, the blockchain isn't going to tell the government that I really own that address; that it was simply an internal transfer of my own assets instead of actually being spent and given to someone else.

Duh.

Both of you forget that your IP address ties you to those transactions, regardless if you started with unique spend keys or mixed keys with others.

Tor+VPN will not reliably stop the G20+NSA+GCHQ from knowing who you are and taxing you.

[amspir]

Duh.

Both of you forget that your IP address ties you to those transactions, regardless if you started with unique spend keys or mixed keys with others.

Tor+VPN will not reliably stop the G20+NSA+GCHQ from knowing who you are and taxing you.

For a targeted person of interest under surveillance, sure -- the G-men might eventually get you.   But to imply that the NSA devotes hundreds of gigabytes of storage for the internet traffic of every internet user in the world to be used for later analysis in hard thing for any reasonable person not wearing a tinfoil hat to believe.  Sure, they've got every text message I've ever sent or received, but I have a hard time believing that they have the resources to transmit and store the 200-400 GB of my monthly internet traffic for later analysis, while not being a person of interest.

The reason I say that is that if the NSA has the network and storage capability to transmit and store all of our internet traffic, this is a horrific waste of resources (paid for by taxpayers) that would be better served for actual real, economic activity.

Besides, today I put funds that I just received on a paper wallet while eating at a deli that had public wi-fi.  It just worked out that way.

[AnonyMint]

The person's of interest will be those who coins which are not showing up in their database as having paid the tax. Via regulation of exchanges, they will know which coins they don't know about.

You going to Wifi won't stop them from drag-netting a person of interest. If too many people are using Wifi to avoid detection, the government will make it illegal to run a Wifi without identification registration. I think this may already be the case in some places in Europe, e.g. London.

1000 or 10,000 high profile prosecutions of those who don't comply, will scare the rest into complying.

I don't know why you naive can't grasp that they don't need to go after every single person, because most people would rather comply than be ass raped in jail.

Also since we were talking about an equitable restitution for massive illegal activity and theft on the mixed funds in the coins, this means the poorer are going to be benefiting from a tax to create an FDIC and then a blacklist on stolen coins (which can be enforced very easily...but I am not going to tell you how). So the middle-class (they are coming poorer) will comply.

This notion that 1 million people can get insanely rich while the middle-class get insanely poor doesn't make any sense. The middle-class will comply when the government promises to ass rape those 1 million nerds.

Bottom line: the government isn't going to give up its power over money, nor is the middle-class going to be able to help you defeat the government.

mo·rass
məˈras,mô-/
noun
noun: morass

    1.
    a complicated or confused situation


clusterfuck

    A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong. It is often caused by incompetence, communication failure, or a complex environment; To fuck (something) up, to make a total mess of

[amspir]

The person's of interest will be those who coins which are not showing up in their database as having paid the tax.

You going to Wifi won't stop them from drag-netting a person of interest.

A 1000 high profile prosecutions of those who don't comply, will scare the rest into complying.

I don't know why you 5 year olds can't grasp that they don't need to go after every single person, because most people would rather comply than be ass raped in jail.

You sound like the character Hopper in A Bug's Life before he was disposed of.  We 5 year olds love that movie.

[AnonyMint]

Do you sit there and reload the page every 15 seconds? I didn't even have 45 seconds to edit my message to add some more details, you had already quoted the old version.

[jonald_fyookball]

To anonymize usage, it's as simple as using a wallet that generates a unique public/private key for each address, and never reusing an address after it is spent.  

The idea is as silly as the IRS sitting down with me and demanding me to account for the whereabouts of USD 100 bill with serial number LF72648054A which I withdrew from a bank 6 months ago.   Sorry tax man, I think I gave it to a homeless veteran that lost his leg fighting for freedom that looked like he needed it.

Hmm. Not that simple. (how would you get the coins into the new address without creating a transaction from the old address.). That's why there exists mixing services, tumblers, alt coins with privacy features, etc.

Definitely use a mixing service when doing something that may be considered shady.   But if I use a wallet with unique pub/priv keys, it really can't be tracked that I put a BTC into a paper wallet that's now in my mattress vs. giving it to a homeless veteran.   Reusing a public key is what gives away anonymity, as it is exposed when spent and can be attached to your identity.  If the money is transferred to a new address with a new public key, the blockchain isn't going to tell the government that I really own that address; that it was simply an internal transfer of my own assets instead of actually being spent and given to someone else.

But I advise to ignore anonymint.  He's a troll disguised as an intellectual.

I realize that.  I'm just waiting for him to somehow say "Nazi" so I know that I won the argument.   Oh crap.  I just lost.

Not sure this pub key thing has anything to do with it.  Anyone can see what address is sending to what address and how much....
the only thing that really gives away your identity is if companies (like an exchange) keep records of who you are when you first get the coins.  
or if a company you buy from records who say you are when you order a product with coins.

[AnonyMint]

Not sure this pub key thing has anything to do with it.  Anyone can see what address is sending to what address and how much....
the only thing that really gives away your identity is if companies (like an exchange) keep records of who you are when you first get the coins.  
or if a company you buy from records who say you are when you order a product with coins.

Your ISP has your identity.

[amspir]

Not sure this pub key thing has anything to do with it.  Anyone can see what address is sending to what address and how much....
the only thing that really gives away your identity is if companies (like an exchange) keep records of who you are when you first get the coins.  
or if a company you buy from records who say you are when you order a product with coins.

Sure, your bank knows that you withdrew a $20 bill from the ATM, and may even record the serial number.   But if a drug dealer is later caught with it, does that prove you bought drugs?

Maybe AnonyMint's black-magic, omnipresent, map-every-IP-address-in-the-world-to-a-person NSA can.