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Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Says Bitcoin 'Ought to be Outlawed' (cnn.com)
Bitcoin "is drawing harsh criticism from Wall Street investment firms," writes Slashdot reader rmdingler -- and even from some prominent economists. CNN reports:
The harshest assessment came from Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who said that bitcoin "ought to be outlawed. Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention," he told Bloomberg TV. "It doesn't serve any socially useful function." Robert Shiller, who won a Nobel for his work on bubbles, said the currency appeals to some investors because it has an "anti-government, anti-regulation feel. It's such a wonderful story," he said at a conference in Lithuania, according to Bloomberg. "If it were only true."
Wall Street titans were getting in on the action, too. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told Bloomberg that the currency serves as "a vehicle for perpetrating fraud." Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said on CNBC that it "seems like a bubble." The digital currency previously attracted the derision of JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon, who called it a "fraud" that would "eventually blow up." Warren Buffett has warned of a "real bubble."
Wednesday the price of bitcoin shot past $11,000 -- just ten days after rising past $8,000.
Wall Street titans were getting in on the action, too. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told Bloomberg that the currency serves as "a vehicle for perpetrating fraud." Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said on CNBC that it "seems like a bubble." The digital currency previously attracted the derision of JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon, who called it a "fraud" that would "eventually blow up." Warren Buffett has warned of a "real bubble."
Wednesday the price of bitcoin shot past $11,000 -- just ten days after rising past $8,000.
Companies making big bucks out of traditional currencies are upset when a currency they're not making big bucks out of appears on the scene, totally unpredictably!
Yes, of course Bitcoin is a scam. But that isn't all there is to it, there is a need that it fills: we currently lack any kind of digital cash. Banks and other payment processors are currently taking about 3% of all the money spent on the internet, and this is an enormous amount of money that's just disappearing with virtually no return. A lot of internet vendors with thin margins jumped on the Bitcoin bandwagon for just this reason.
What we really need, of course, is a real government-backed digital currency. I can think of a few reasons why this hasn't been implemented yet, but it will happen eventually.
The times that governments printed money to 'sustain its false value' are long over.
Money is now moved into the economy via credits etc.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I would love to see you trying to educate an Afghan elder in some isolated mountain village about how to use his brand new MasterCard. Should be good for weeks of entertainment!
A MasterCard would be stupid yes, but not a mobile SMS pay system used to pay government employees as well as rural transactions, such as a tribal elder would use.