Slashdot Mirror
Krugman On Bitcoin and the Gold Standard
twoallbeefpatties writes "Prominent Keynesian economist Paul Krugman has left a note on his blog at NYTimes about his view of Bitcoin, discussing its similarity to the gold standard and suggesting a drop in 'real gross Bitcoin product' as its users hoard the currency rather than spend it."
First of all, taking electricity from the hallway is obviously theft.
But more importantly you are trolling because each 6990 consumes at least 300 watts during mining, which means you need 7.2kw for your whole setup. This far exceeds what a single outlet can provide.
By "discussing its similarity to the gold standard" the summary means "he points out one way Bitcoin is flawed." Specifically, that people hoard it instead of spending it (creating an unstable monetary system). Fewer transactions actually means less value, since the whole point of a monetary system that lacks intrinsic value (gold at least had that) is that it gets spent. Since the amount of Bitcoins is limited, and as time goes on the early adopters get "richer" (since less is being mined), they have an incentive not to spend. But the system will only succeed if they do spend and create a thriving system.
This is a massive gaping flaw in Bitcoin that I haven't seen pointed out yet. It means that Bitcoin will nearly always be a deflationary system. It also requires people to keep investing computing time, while their return on investment only gets less and less over time, and early adopters have no reason to spend, creating fewer transactions to be verified. And this can't be fixed: the limit to the number of Bitcoins is builtin to the system and cannot be changed.
So to everyone going "not another Bitcoin story!": read it. It actually points out a way that Bitcoin is (possibly) flawed (unlike so many of the stories on /.) And from a real economist, too.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Qualifying Krugman as a "prominent Keynesian economist" is like calling Stephen Hawking a "prominent Einsteinian physicist".
I call shenanigans.
That analogy would make sense only if the theories of John Maynard Keynes were as universally accepted as those of Einstein. Economics never has been and probably never will be as testable a science (if it's a science at all) as physics.
how easy it was for people to scam you out of bitcoins by contesting Paypal payments
1. Scammer buys bitcoins on ebay.
2. Seller sends the bitcoins
3. Scammer pretends he never received them, and reports this as a fraudulent transaction to Paypal
4. Paypal asks the seller for evidence that he has sent the goods (i.e. a tracking number)
5. Sellers explains what bitcoins is, digital revolution, bring back the gold standard, Ron Paul 2012 et cetera
6. Instead of a tracking number, Paypal gets a bunch gibberish, so it rules in the scammer's favor
7. Rinse and repeat
This applies to pretty much all virtual goods on eBay, so it's not really a bitcoin problem as much as it is a Paypal problem.
This whole digression is moot in the end because there are dozens of bitcoin exchanges out there now, so there's no need to rely on Paypal. Admittedly it was a problem in the early days before exchanges were established, so that's no longer the case.
. I don't have electricity costs as I take it from the hallway
There ain't no free lunch. Either you're still paying for that electricity indirectly, or someone else is bearing that cost. If the latter - which seems to be more likely - then it's about as moral as tapping that electricity and reselling it directly, then pocketing the profit.
Just because something is provided to you "for free" (really, at the expense of your community) doesn't mean that you should feel free to abuse it for your own sake.
But you can learn from historic reactions to varies pressure. For example Austerity has never gotten anyone out of a recession. Now, if people would look at that, look at it's history and act upon that, we wouldn't be having these issue in Washington.
So the testing part is looking at previous success a failure, and the prediction side would be using the previously success as a reaction to current economic situation and seeing the results.
You can't really do it in the lab, yet, but you can apply it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The peace prize is a real Nobel, it's one of the original group set up by Alfred Nobel. The economics one isn't, it's a separate award that uses a very similar name, set up by the bank that handles the Nobel grant because they wanted to give their field some legitimacy off of the name.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The over extension of debt can be corrected by devaluing the the currency. You pump more money into the economy during the process, which creates jobs and stimulates economic activity. It will make your exports more attractive to other nations and while decreasing the demand of imports, which improves the trade balance.
This works and is how the US got out of the great depression with help from the New Deal and WW2.