I had a thought today

[Sophia1029]

I find myself spending a lot of time reading these forums, trying to understand economics and lately my mind has been on bitcoin a lot. I grew up in a broken home with poor conditions and looking back on my past I tend to find myself having more regrets in my past. I have made bad financial decisions and I wish I knew how to invest or understand the stock market but it all seems so complicated and I feel like I have nothing to work with. The ones that do understand how the system works seem arrogant or insult me for being "stupid", ...at least in these forums XD.
Being a college student with stupid debt from bad decisions, working part time at night as a janitor for a private school, I tend to sometimes feel trapped at the bottom of the social status, not knowing how to get out and seeing my dreams slowly fade away out of reach, an overwhelming feeling of my life possibly amounting to nothing. That is why I decided I will start buying Bitcoin with a small percent of my paychecks, because even as unstable as it is, I see it as a small glimpse of hope. The chances feel slim, but this could be my way out of this mess I am in, and it gives me something to hope in.

Anyways... kind of unrelated, I had an incomplete thought today while cleaning a toilet. It might not even have a good point or relevance...
I don't know where I am going with this but maybe someone can help complete it haha: It is interesting to me how we base the value of Bitcoin off of USD, but at the same time for the value of bitcoin to go up the value of USD needs to go down (I think this is what I have been reading, correct me if I am wrong). So when Bitcoin is valued by more USD, won't the large amount of USD mean nothing? I just think about how when I think of the value of USD I don't compare it to other currencies I just hold a value to it within myself along with others around me. Do we want USD to crash and bitcoin to rise, or do we want them both to carry a stable value together?

[Lethn]

My thinking is along the same line as yours but no offence, I have a better explanation for it, it's like with Gold and Silver, while it's a good thing that there's such demand people will be willing to trade that much USD for it there's also another factor that you're not taking into account and that's hyperinflation. The establishment hate precious metals but lately Bitcoin in particular has become an extreme target of their hatred because all three are accurately representing just how many Dollars are being printed, if the dollar was really connected to gold as it was back in the day then 1 Bitcoin should have been worth 1 dollar or maybe slightly higher depending on the demand but that's not how the Dollar works.

They've been printing like crazy so naturally all that cheap money is going to flood the markets and it's going to push the price up because everyone will be rushing into precious metals and now cryptocurrencies to safe guard themselves from inflation. I get into conversations with some people about keeping my scrap silver from my work and then they ask whether I keep the dust and my basic line of thinking that if something as little as silver dust is worth that many paper notes then hyperinflation has already occurred and it's just not worth saving it, you wouldn't even really be able to do anything with that much anyway.

If you're really interested in studying economics, you should look at currency history and how currency and money is actually created, don't just read bullshit news articles because they barely explain the surface of what's going on and try to draw conclusions without going into any detail of how the economy works, fyi, Mike Maloney's videos are very good and have been linked a number of times so I'll leave it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

Oh and there are several schools of economic thought, not just one, the one that's mainstream right now and has been around for centuries is this weird and butchered brand of Keynesian economics that central bankers constantly peddle so they can justify their money printing. You're clearly just getting started, so it's time to go look at some proper history and not the shit you were taught in public school which is going to be pretty damn useless.

[Realpra]

Well ideally we would want everyone to be rich, but money is just a "meaningless" token system humans use to prioritize what needs doing without central planning.

If everyone switches to Bitcoin the USD would loose all value yes. The value you know within yourself is based on experience; ~0.4$ = 1 apple and so on. If you compare prices of items now and 15 years ago you'll notice your perception of normal has actually changed slowly towards accepting higher prices.

Bitcoin aims to be a better token for prioritizing and hence the world as a whole may make better decisions - leading to increased wealth for all - but at the beginning it is a zero sum game.

I think we need to brace ourselves for Bitcoin being blamed when people loose their pensions. Unfortunately.

[Rampton]

You're a female janitor?  

Anyways... kind of unrelated, I had an incomplete thought today while cleaning a toilet. It might not even have a good point or relevance...
I don't know where I am going with this but maybe someone can help complete it haha: It is interesting to me how we base the value of Bitcoin off of USD, but at the same time for the value of bitcoin to go up the value of USD needs to go down (I think this is what I have been reading, correct me if I am wrong). So when Bitcoin is valued by more USD, won't the large amount of USD mean nothing? I just think about how when I think of the value of USD I don't compare it to other currencies I just hold a value to it within myself along with others around me. Do we want USD to crash and bitcoin to rise, or do we want them both to carry a stable value together?

Well that's just what people peg it to and how much they are willing ti pay for it in fiat money. 1 bitcoin will always be worth  1 bitcoin though.

[Lethn]

You're a female janitor?

I was being polite, but hawt lololoololol

Oh and Sophia, I get called stupid by people on this forum, mainly by morons who haven't studied any mathematics behind what they say and think they know everything a lot of economists treat their shit like religion and so when they're confronted with logic they tend to get really angsty about being called out.

[Sophia1029]

In a way, the adaptation of Bitcoin would be like reverting back to old times before a centralized bank was even established. Back like trading Gold coins, except it is electronic, it is amazing. Would reverting back be an "advancement" for the human race? =P

[Lethn]

Go look up the Byzantine Empire and you'll understand why, they established a gold currency and they lasted for 1000 years, Ron Paul made a couple of references to them in his talks with journalists.

[Realpra]

In a way, the adaptation of Bitcoin would be like reverting back to old times before a centralized bank was even established. Back like trading Gold coins, except it is electronic, it is amazing. Would reverting back be an "advancement" for the human race? =P

Actually gold is quite cumbersome to use in real life.

As much as people here hate fiat, fiat is very likely cheaper to use for society than gold.
If you start to count the gold storage, transportation, splitting, accounting and counterfeiting costs you quickly realize gold probably costs more than the inflation of most stable nations - at least SOME of that inflation money goes to healthcare and such, all gold costs are wasted entirely.

However I believe Bitcoin is the next thing, so not a step back at all.

[Sophia1029]

I think we need to brace ourselves for Bitcoin being blamed when people loose their pensions. Unfortunately.

I was thinking about that, most of the rich now or those that rely on centralized currency will lose all their value and investments. So many people would have to lose a lot before the "better" way of life is established. Everyone would kind of like reset and start equally at zero except for those that already have bitcoin. But the endless amount of fake money not backed by anything being created is bound to fail sometime regardless of bitcoin isn't it?

[Lethn]

I think we need to brace ourselves for Bitcoin being blamed when people loose their pensions. Unfortunately.

I was thinking about that, most of the rich now or those that rely on centralized currency will lose all their value and investments. So many people would have to lose a lot before the "better" way of life is established. Everyone would kind of like reset and start equally at zero except for those that already have bitcoin. But the endless amount of fake money not backed by anything being created is bound to fail sometime regardless of bitcoin isn't it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Cr_ipD13o

[Sophia1029]

I think we need to brace ourselves for Bitcoin being blamed when people loose their pensions. Unfortunately.

I was thinking about that, most of the rich now or those that rely on centralized currency will lose all their value and investments. So many people would have to lose a lot before the "better" way of life is established. Everyone would kind of like reset and start equally at zero except for those that already have bitcoin. But the endless amount of fake money not backed by anything being created is bound to fail sometime regardless of bitcoin isn't it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Cr_ipD13o

Watching now, that first line "could bitcoin be the death of the US dollar" I can imagine so many investors and self proclaimed economists just laughing at that. A lot of people make fun of bitcoin =P

[Lethn]

Well, I'll be laughing even harder when I see them in denial next year when the stock market crashes again and Bitcoin goes past $500

[Sophia1029]

I think we need to brace ourselves for Bitcoin being blamed when people loose their pensions. Unfortunately.

I was thinking about that, most of the rich now or those that rely on centralized currency will lose all their value and investments. So many people would have to lose a lot before the "better" way of life is established. Everyone would kind of like reset and start equally at zero except for those that already have bitcoin. But the endless amount of fake money not backed by anything being created is bound to fail sometime regardless of bitcoin isn't it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Cr_ipD13o

In the video the reporter said that the Federal Reserve has not established much regulation on btc yet but she can't imagine they will let it remain that way, that scares me.  How much control/regulation can the federal reserve actually establish on bitcoin? Sorry I have a lot of questions.

[Sophia1029]

Well, I'll be laughing even harder when I see them in denial next year when the stock market crashes again and Bitcoin goes past $500

Haha even the comments on the video people are calling Ron Paul a Nutcase and no one should listen to his conspiracy theories...

[Lethn]

Yeah, those are the people who are in denial, you get it on here as well, especially when people are talking about countries who are planning to dump the Dollar.

[Sophia1029]

I am becoming more convinced that Bitcoin is better to hold onto than USD and that USD will have to fail. I wish we knew how long though until it crashes. I can totally see why we look completely crazy to outsiders though haha! ....being all lame on our bitcointalk forum, prophesying a collapse of a nation. No one wants to face reality, everyone is distracted by their stuff, USD, and it is a general human condition for someone not to believe something simply because they don't want to believe. Americans are spoiled and do not think something bad can happen because we are blinded by our prosperity.

[Sophia1029]

1 bitcoin will always be worth  1 bitcoin though.

I like this answer, I totally get what you are saying XD I was just overthinking it.

[Rampton]

I am becoming more convinced that Bitcoin is better to hold onto than USD and that USD will have to fail. I wish we knew how long though until it crashes.

Fiat currencies will fail eventually, but like you said we can't know for sure when. They're unstable if they keep printing more to try magically solve their problems.

[cp1]

I am becoming more convinced that Bitcoin is better to hold onto than USD and that USD will have to fail. I wish we knew how long though until it crashes. I can totally see why we look completely crazy to outsiders though haha! ....being all lame on our bitcointalk forum, prophesying a collapse of a nation. No one wants to face reality, everyone is distracted by their stuff, USD, and it is a general human condition for someone not to believe something simply because they don't want to believe. Americans are spoiled and do not think something bad can happen because we are blinded by our prosperity.

You have the opposite problem -- your debt has caused you to cling to even the smallest hope that bitcoin will make you rich.  So you're blindly hoping that the dollar crashes because then you think you'll be OK.  You're the one who is blinded.

You should just fix your debt problems.

[Sophia1029]

Lethn, I have some questions.

1. are you an investor in stock?

2. I get payed around $400 a month and a lot of it goes to food, gas, payments. Is there a way to use the stock market to make a little extra per month? Or is it only a long term type of thing.

3. How much % of my pay should I put into bitcoin? If I only have enough to put around $5 - $20 a month in it, do you think that that small amount would have potential to be a lot?

4. Where can I even buy stock? Can I buy it online? Are there any companies you recommend?