Will this CA law be a boon for BTC?

[carbonpenguin]

http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley

It seems like it'll hose corporate payment processors and allow the bitcoin network to collect an economic rent, IMHO

[1713497639]

1713497639

[1713497639]

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[1713497639]

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[Nefario]

I was thinking the same. The fact is people want to do business with each other, it's been normal activity since we started doing this kind of thing.

The  government saying we can't unless we play by their (pain in the ass) rules means nothing if there is an alternative.

Yes bitcoin is probably going to be illegal, but if everyone's doing it, and very few, if any are caught then it doesn't matter. We don't have to deal with the government anymore if we don't want to.

[Cryptoman]

It's pretty scary that even states are passing crap like this.  It seems that no government, large or small, wants you to have control over your money.

The author posted this in the comments section:

I'm not a lawyer but I think it's inevitable that for a variety of reasons (tax evasion, non-sanctioned currency, and money transmission among them) Bitcoin is legally a lost cause.

[hazek]

It seems that no government, large or small, wants you to have control over your money.

It's the sole source of their power.

[hazek]

Yes bitcoin is probably going to be illegal, but if everyone's doing it, and very few, if any are caught then it doesn't matter. We don't have to deal with the government anymore if we don't want to.

Oh how I wish exactly this happens.

[no to the gold cult]

http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley

It seems like it'll hose corporate payment processors and allow the bitcoin network to collect an economic rent, IMHO

Thanks for posting, very interesting link. Self-serving money monopoly abuse helps to feed the bitcoin.

[no to the gold cult]

It's pretty scary that even states are passing crap like this.  It seems that no government, large or small, wants you to have control over your money.

The author posted this in the comments section:

I'm not a lawyer but I think it's inevitable that for a variety of reasons (tax evasion, non-sanctioned currency, and money transmission among them) Bitcoin is legally a lost cause.

In the US, government is entirely enthralled to the major forces of Finance and Industry (Finance more, now that non-military industry at least has been mostly exiled to China). The influence these interests and agendas wield is mistaken by some as an inherent characteristic in the concept of government itself. This is an error, and not at all useful.

[rezin777]

You could not pay me to live in California.

[FreeMoney]

You could not pay me to live in California.

If someone is paying people to live in CA, I'm available.

[malditonuke]

No surprise California was recently evaluated as the worst state for business.

http://smallbusiness.aol.com/2011/05/11/the-five-best-and-worst-states-for-business/

[MoonShadow]

You could not pay me to live in California.

At one time, I was paid to live in California.  Southern California is a continuous slum.  I lived near Oceanside, and it costs a fortune to live anywhere within walking distance of the ocean, and the water is freezing.  The best views are from the "Coaster" commuter train, but if you get off and walk over the berm from the tracks, nothing but slum.

[caveden]

The influence these interests and agendas wield is mistaken by some as an inherent characteristic in the concept of government itself. This is an error, and not at all useful.

This is not an error. Government, by definition, will attract the worst elements of society who will use its unique powers on their interest. An industry cannot use guns itself to rule out competitors, but it can bribe government to pass laws which end up doing the same thing.

Just think in terms of costs and incentives. Put it in numbers to make it simpler. For example, imagine there is some particular law which, if approved, would cost every 300 million US citizens the equivalent of $1 each. On the other hand, this same law would benefit a small group of 100 individuals making them earn the equivalent of $2 million each.

Net = 100*2.000.000 - 300.000.000*1 = -100.000.000

The entire society loses the equivalent of $100 million. It's clearly a "bad law", even if we just get the net results, ignoring the unethical aspects of income redistribution. And it's clearly a law that inevitably will be approved.

That is simply because, if you're among those who would lose $1, you won't even bother knowing about such law, not to mention organize with others in order to prevent it from being approved. Those in loss will not do anything to stop the law, because the costs for doing so would largely exceed the losses they will suffer with the law.
On the other hand, those earning $2 million each would probably be among the ones writing the law, and would even invest more than one million each in lobbying and organization to get such law passed. They will win.

This "overtake by unscrupulous interests" is inevitable, and it is an inherent characteristic of government.

[db]

caveden, that was the best explanation of that problem (does it have a name, I think "public choice" is broader?) I've read. Well said.

[malditonuke]

caveden, that was the best explanation of that problem (does it have a name, I think "public choice" is broader?) I've read. Well said.

it's called 'rent-seeking'.

from wikipedia: "Rent-seeking agents will spend money in socially unproductive ways, such as political lobbying, in order to attain, maintain or increase monopoly power."

[caveden]

caveden, that was the best explanation of that problem (does it have a name, I think "public choice" is broader?) I've read. Well said.

Glad you liked it. The first time I saw this explanation was in the video of a speech done by Patri Friedman for the first Austrian Economic Seminar done in Brazil. Judging by the slide he shows while talking about such incentive structure, the author is a guy named Mancur Olson and in the slide it names "The logic of collective action".
This speech, about seasteading, is quite good an inspired me. If you want to watch, it is in English, here: http://mises.org.br/FileUp.aspx?id=47

[no to the gold cult]

The influence these interests and agendas wield is mistaken by some as an inherent characteristic in the concept of government itself. This is an error, and not at all useful.

This is not an error. Government, by definition, will attract the worst elements of society who will use its unique powers on their interest. An industry cannot use guns itself to rule out competitors, but it can bribe government to pass laws which end up doing the same thing.

Just think in terms of costs and incentives. Put it in numbers to make it simpler. For example, imagine there is some particular law which, if approved, would cost every 300 million US citizens the equivalent of $1 each. On the other hand, this same law would benefit a small group of 100 individuals making them earn the equivalent of $2 million each.

Net = 100*2.000.000 - 300.000.000*1 = -100.000.000

The entire society loses the equivalent of $100 million. It's clearly a "bad law", even if we just get the net results, ignoring the unethical aspects of income redistribution. And it's clearly a law that inevitably will be approved.

That is simply because, if you're among those who would lose $1, you won't even bother knowing about such law, not to mention organize with others in order to prevent it from being approved. Those in loss will not do anything to stop the law, because the costs for doing so would largely exceed the losses they will suffer with the law.
On the other hand, those earning $2 million each would probably be among the ones writing the law, and would even invest more than one million each in lobbying and organization to get such law passed. They will win.

This "overtake by unscrupulous interests" is inevitable, and it is an inherent characteristic of government.

Yes, it's true. Sweden for instance is ruled by a small clique of mink-clad gold-toothed government beaurocrats that rule by balance-book dictat over vast apathetic swarthes of a population that languishes uneducated and diseased in the dark and sprawling slumps of Stokholm.

Have you ever considered that the problem might be with the kind of governments that are produced by the  Market-Liberal tradition? If your political sphere is a mere market-place, you should expect trade. Ironically people who talk like you do tend to want precisely that, unfettered market fundamentalism. That's why things like democracy and socialism is opposed by such people, it would interfere with their profit margins. That's why I'm against libertarianism, I don't want a government that is free to be bought and sold by the highest bidder with the necessary market power.

I want a government that is kept honest by a well-informed enpowered population that demands quality for it's tax-money, a government restricted to spending its taxes on public goods and subsidizing the value of non-commodified human existance. If bitcoin takes off then the shaddowy handlers of payment companies wouldn't think they get to pull levers in the background to stiffle innovation at the expense of everyone else like this.

Market-liberalism and libertarianism mean oligopolies and monopolies get to get together and game the system to their own benefit with precisely those Austrian calculations you posted. This is precisely what communism, democracy, anarchy and socialism  etc are strategies to oppose. People taking government seriously as a common-good, engaging and demanding it to be used for common-goods is what crashes your Austrian School calculation. Political decision is not a market and if it behaves like one then you should change the architecture. I'm no communist or socialist or anarchist (I'm social democrat) but I am against being ruled by private dynasties and corporations of various kinds lording it over politically unconcious and unempowered populations that vehemently oppose their own interests.

Anyway all that aside, this particular payment-system game has already been outmanouvered by the coin, and that's very satisfying. It's almost Thai-Chi... use the energy of their attack against them. Unjust legislation like this just goes to help the bitcoin value.

It's a classic example of bitcoins democratization of money dissempowering price-makers and causing their basis to buy government for their own ends to dissapear. An elegant solution in my opinion.

[malditonuke]

People taking government seriously as a common-good, engaging and demanding it to be used for common-goods...

And on that day, Satan will be skating to work.

[just_someguy]

Very nicely put nttgc.

[ryepdx]

1000 internets to nttgc! :-)

[MoonShadow]

I want a government that is kept honest by a well-informed enpowered population that demands quality for it's tax-money, a government restricted to spending its taxes on public goods and subsidizing the value of non-commodified human existance.

Then you want what has never been, and can never be.  No matter how one might look at it now, the establishment of the United States as a federated republic was an experiment to do exactly what you profess you desire; and that experiment was a failure by any metric I can imagine.  Yet, it was also literally the closest any nation in the history of the world has ever come, and that includes modern Sweden.  After a point, a rational person looks at the evidence and concludes that the concept of government itself is fundamentally flawed, and therefore the ideal is impossible.  The irrational person convinces himself that the implimentation (or some other detail) was flawed, and in this way continues to advocate against his own interests and those of his principles.  Have you ever stopped to consider, what if my premises are wrong?