Money is an imaginary concept, but humanity is enslaved by it

[BobK71]

As soon as the "financial system" breaks down, which would actually break (you/me) the citiciens of the world down and not the "power-holding organizations", we ll face horrific scenarios... It would actually be one of "their goals" and it would rise their power. Democrazy isn't what we think/hope it might be. Did you know: The global financial institutions and exchanges are trading more gold than the world holds in reserves.... ?? So virtually theres more gold in existence than in realities existence... "funny" enough. as i said: Sad truth.

There's definitely more paper gold, much more, than the physical stuff that's supposed to be backing it.  Leveraging is what banks do.  For citizens of the world like you and me, avoid paper gold.  The worst of both worlds.

When you're faced with a Herculean task, you have the choice, to fight the fight, or say it's hopeless.

Regardless of the merits of each choice, what we have are just theories, when it comes to the difficulty of the battle.  With this much complexity and uncertainty, every theory looks about right.  We don't even know for sure the market pressures the elites are really facing.  For all these reasons, I'm not throwing in the towel.

[1714543390]

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[1714543390]

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[BobK71]

Technically, this slavery is self-imposed. If people can live without using fiat currency, then there will be no slavery. But it seems they'd rather have a unit of value and become the slave instead. In fact the slavery also comes from the fact that they are desperately dependent on the banks, so when banks failed, all their deposits will be gone, so banks must be bailed out

In a planned economy system like Soviet Union, the resources are allocated to each person equally without the need for money, thus this kind of slavery is not possible. But you have other kind of slavery from the communist governors, and you really don't know how much of your work went to the government, since most of your income are not salary but equally allocated food/residence/cloth. However, under such a system there is no motivation to improve, you get equally allocated resources no matter how hard you work

Is it possible to have a type of money without being enslaved?

To avoid slavery, this money must be created by a cost close to its face value, but then you have to keep the cost at a constant level to use this money as a universal standard of value. Since the productivity is always increasing, the cost tends to go down over time, to compensate for that, the supply should also shrink over time. From this point of view, the bitcoin design is on the right track

Enslavement is the right word.  The first line of the Internationale says, stand up, you who don't want to be enslaved.  (The lyrics have a footnote that the Party is an exception.)

Money is necessary in any society beyond bartering (which would be horrible.)  As soon as you have money, you're introducing something which may not have intrinsic value, but represents real value in the world.  As long as everyone agrees on the standard, there should be no problem, and there hasn't been for millennia.

The value of each unit of money, until states and banks learned how to manipulate it, always fluctuated with market forces, and humanity lived fine.  In fact, the economy thrived under this system during the Italian Renaissance and under the Scottish "free banking" system in the 18th and early 19th centuries.  (Scottish per-capita GNP went from half to equal of England's during this time.)

Bank failures would not be horrible at all, systemically speaking, if every "depositor" was fully aware of what they were getting into.  The real trouble is the implicit (if partial) government guarantee that gave "depositors" a false sense of security to begin with.

It's a fiction of modern elite-inspired economics that the value of money must be managed or all hell will break loose.  The truth is the opposite.

[freeyourmind]

Technically, this slavery is self-imposed. If people can live without using fiat currency, then there will be no slavery. But it seems they'd rather have a unit of value and become the slave instead. In fact the slavery also comes from the fact that they are desperately dependent on the banks, so when banks failed, all their deposits will be gone, so banks must be bailed out

I agree that this is possible, but only living "off the grid", in nature, with a sustainable hunter/gatherer tribal type of lifestyle.  However living without FIAT is not possible in urban areas.  Just from a taxation perspective, everyone is liable for paying taxes and only FIAT an acceptable form of payment.

Banks don't need to be bailed out.  If deposits weren't government backed via bailout, then depositors would be much more interested in understanding the risk and solvency of the bank, and choose stable vs. risky/speculative banks.  With government backed banks in the event of bankruptcy, banks are able to take considerably more risk because either it goes well and they profit huge, or they go bust and get bailed out.  In a free market, the shitty banks would fail, depositors would lose money, but taxpayers would not and better banks would be created in their place.

It really shouldn't be treated much differently than any other business that fails.  If I create a business that can't stay profitable, why is it the problem of the taxpayer to keep my business afloat?  Furthermore, could those resources be reallocated to someone else who could do a better job of running the business?

Failing is a healthy part of the economy; it gets rid of the parts that couldn't adapt to change and lose relevancy.  To start taking resources from productive parts of the economy to subsidize the failing parts is foolish.

[mjoseph]

i would gladly switch to crypto completely, but i do realise that its impossible. atleast for now.

[aso118]

Banks don't need to be bailed out.  If deposits weren't government backed via bailout, then depositors would be much more interested in understanding the risk and solvency of the bank, and choose stable vs. risky/speculative banks.  With government backed banks in the event of bankruptcy, banks are able to take considerably more risk because either it goes well and they profit huge, or they go bust and get bailed out.  In a free market, the shitty banks would fail, depositors would lose money, but taxpayers would not and better banks would be created in their place.

Banks don't necessarily need to be bailed out. It is only the small depositors who are protected by insurance. Large depositors and equity holders take a hit when banks close down.
It is only the large banks which are systemically important that the government considers supporting. If most banks are at risk, then the government has to step in because failure of these banks would result in chaos.

[Q7]

The reason for central banks to intervene by providing funds for bailout is always done in the interest of preventing a chain of collapse. Most of these financial institutions are inter-related to each other controlled by the same bunch of corrupt people and I wouldn't be surprised if they actually lend the money to each other to cover their own a**es. So you can imagine if one of it go down, it will pull the rest of it together.

[BobK71]

To be totally blunt, modern banking is essentially fraudulent.

Bank profits are treated as fruits of private labor, but bank failures are shouldered by the public sector.

The reason this is legal, beyond the payoffs to politicians (a minor factor in the big scheme of things) is that the political elite have an enduring partnership with finance to jointly extract wealth from everyone else via issuing their respective financial assets.

It's true that banks *are* too big to fail, but this wouldn't be the case if banks were not backed by the public in the first place (ie everybody would be more careful when lending to a bank.)

Read the new book "Fragile by Design" and it becomes clear.

[pereira4]

Im just hoping when Bitcoin starts becoming more mainstream the concept of "becoming your own bank" arises and starts making banking as we know it effectively obsolete. Once we can store everything we need at home and all over the internet safely and decentralized, then who the hell is going to handle their stuff to others? I guess there will always be people that want that but a big % of people don't want to, but they don't know any better.

[johnyj]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

[GreenStox]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Not really, some people die at 20 some people die at 90. Should we have a "time welfare" where we would take out the "life energy" of 50 year olds who could live till 90, and let them die at 50, and give it to the 20 year old that would die in 20 just to live till 50, is that moral?

Time socialism?

Good lord that "life energy" can't be robbed from you by the governments, otherwise this would be the first thing to legislate.

Unfortunately Money can be robbed from you by the government! So there is a fundamental difference!!!  

[manselr]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Yeah I don't really get your point. Some die at birth and some make it to 110 years of age. Also, life quality is as important as living for a long period of time.

[GreenStox]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Yeah I don't really get your point. Some die at birth and some make it to 110 years of age. Also, life quality is as important as living for a long period of time.

Yea, i bet many 30 year odls who die young lived much better, and probably died because of their extreme sports or whatever.

Than many people who live until 110 and regret alot of things that they didnt have chance to do.

So quality is a big think, thats why i think money should not be distributed.

[Nicolas Dorier]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Yeah I don't really get your point. Some die at birth and some make it to 110 years of age. Also, life quality is as important as living for a long period of time.

Yea, i bet many 30 year odls who die young lived much better, and probably died because of their extreme sports or whatever.

Than many people who live until 110 and regret alot of things that they didnt have chance to do.

So quality is a big think, thats why i think money should not be distributed.

Add life to years, not years to life. (forgot the author )

[johnyj]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Not really, some people die at 20 some people die at 90. Should we have a "time welfare" where we would take out the "life energy" of 50 year olds who could live till 90, and let them die at 50, and give it to the 20 year old that would die in 20 just to live till 50, is that moral?

Time socialism?

You get maximum 2 magnitudes of difference, while in fiat money, money creators can claim trillions of fiat money with a flip of a pen and many people barely make their ends meet

If you want to define something's value to be universally equal to everyone, thus can be used as a unit of value, then fiat money is definitely not a good candidate, since it worth so little for the money creator while worth so much for poor people. However, if you take 10 years time, it would worth similar to any one with normal health: 1/7 of his life

[GreenStox]

You get maximum 2 magnitudes of difference, while in fiat money, money creators can claim trillions of fiat money with a flip of a pen and many people barely make their ends meet

If you want to define something's value to be universally equal to everyone, thus can be used as a unit of value, then fiat money is definitely not a good candidate, since it worth so little for the money creator while worth so much for poor people. However, if you take 10 years time, it would worth similar to any one with normal health: 1/7 of his life

I bet if time could be traded, socialists would want to rob us from that too.

There was actually a movie i forgot the title, but it was about trading time... so its not totally impossible

[Cluster2k]

Unfortunately bitcoin doesn't solve the problem of who controls the money. 

There's no central issuing authority so I'm not talking about the traditional form of currency control, but the control that comes from the fact that anyone adopting bitcoin today probably has to buy it from an existing bitcoin holder.  Creating your own is barely economical for people in China with access to some of the world's cheapest and most polluting energy sources.  It's no longer a currency that anyone with some knowledge and a little bit of cash can have a go at generating and not lose value overall in the process.

I believe the bitcoin price mania that occurred in mid/late 2013 was stifled by the simple fact that people began to look at one bitcoin and wonder why it should be worth more than the other traditional and ancient form of currency, one troy ounce of gold.  I know we can shift decimal places, use mBTC and declare the above statement doesn't matter, but it's impossible to hide from the maths.

[Light]

If you want to define something's value to be universally equal to everyone, thus can be used as a unit of value, then fiat money is definitely not a good candidate, since it worth so little for the money creator while worth so much for poor people. However, if you take 10 years time, it would worth similar to any one with normal health: 1/7 of his life

Just a side note, there never has nor will be something that has universally agreed value - people are willing to adjust their perceptions of value for convenience and simplicity (for example converting USD to YEN, some might feel the USD is valued correctly - but they'll still convert because they need it for their holiday).

The reality is that you need a medium of exchange (hence fiat currency) - because a pure bartering system is difficult when dealing with items (how do you have 1.5 oak tables for example?).

[sidhujag]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Not really, some people die at 20 some people die at 90. Should we have a "time welfare" where we would take out the "life energy" of 50 year olds who could live till 90, and let them die at 50, and give it to the 20 year old that would die in 20 just to live till 50, is that moral?

Time socialism?

You get maximum 2 magnitudes of difference, while in fiat money, money creators can claim trillions of fiat money with a flip of a pen and many people barely make their ends meet

If you want to define something's value to be universally equal to everyone, thus can be used as a unit of value, then fiat money is definitely not a good candidate, since it worth so little for the money creator while worth so much for poor people. However, if you take 10 years time, it would worth similar to any one with normal health: 1/7 of his life

Its not about time but work output some are faster.

[johnyj]

In fact time has almost equal value to everyone. Each person owns about the same amount of time during his entire life. But unfortunately, time can not be transferred

Not really, some people die at 20 some people die at 90. Should we have a "time welfare" where we would take out the "life energy" of 50 year olds who could live till 90, and let them die at 50, and give it to the 20 year old that would die in 20 just to live till 50, is that moral?

Time socialism?

You get maximum 2 magnitudes of difference, while in fiat money, money creators can claim trillions of fiat money with a flip of a pen and many people barely make their ends meet

If you want to define something's value to be universally equal to everyone, thus can be used as a unit of value, then fiat money is definitely not a good candidate, since it worth so little for the money creator while worth so much for poor people. However, if you take 10 years time, it would worth similar to any one with normal health: 1/7 of his life

Its not about time but work output some are faster.

Is there any output more valuable than life itself? Of course when your life is threatened by not getting enough food and shelter, those things seems more important than time, but in today's society, those basic needs are never a problem in most of the countries

[johnyj]

If you want to define something's value to be universally equal to everyone, thus can be used as a unit of value, then fiat money is definitely not a good candidate, since it worth so little for the money creator while worth so much for poor people. However, if you take 10 years time, it would worth similar to any one with normal health: 1/7 of his life

Just a side note, there never has nor will be something that has universally agreed value - people are willing to adjust their perceptions of value for convenience and simplicity (for example converting USD to YEN, some might feel the USD is valued correctly - but they'll still convert because they need it for their holiday).

The reality is that you need a medium of exchange (hence fiat currency) - because a pure bartering system is difficult when dealing with items (how do you have 1.5 oak tables for example?).

True, for modern commercial based society, a medium of exchange must be used. In fact time is already used in existing standards of value: Gold has been selected as the best candidate, because it records unbiased labor time: People use similar amount of time to produce one ounce of gold when the latest mining technology is used

But fiat currency does not record unbiased labor time: By using the latest fiat money creation technology QE, all it needs is to write some numbers in the account, it does not contain any labor time, so the value should be zero