I wonder what happens in a "world economic downturn like what happened in the 1930s and what's happening today. Is the world suddenly worth less? Is humanity suddenly worth less in the aggregate?
You're thinking about it wrong. The downturn occurs because people are realizing that the sum product of humanity is worth less than they thought. The bad investments already occurred in the past, the bubble popping is just the valuation catching up with reality.
The world isn't losing wealth, it's being sequestered among fewer people.
It is both. Well, the wealth has already been lost in the form of opportunity cost (bad investments have been made instead of good investments). I would also say that, rather than one causing the other, the economic downturn and increase in wealth disparity are both effects of a common cause: Corruption of our government leading to corporatist and cronyist policies.
I'm pretty sure that's baloney. The American "lifestyle" is the one dictated by the most powerful corporations. Our "lifestyle" is determined by banks, by energy companies, by agricultural conglomerates. There could easily be enough food to go around. If we weren't forced into a high energy-consumption lifestyle, everyone in the world could live comfortably. Example: houses are cheapest very far away from the workplace. You'll notice that in the last 5-10 years, there has been a concerted effort by groups like the American Enterprise Institute and Koch Industries and other Republican/right-wing think tanks and organizations to smear public transportation, railroads, any mode of transportation that doesn't require enormous amounts of oil to be burned. The only acceptable solutions are the ones that require oil. Solar energy is minimized. It's oil or nothing for them. If you make that the standard of "developed lifestyle" then of course there's not enough for everyone.
Do you really think houses are cheaper far away from the workplace due to some manipulation/conspiracy rather than supply and demand? I guess I just don't follow what you meant by all this. If everyone in the supply chain for creating, for example, a cell phone, had your personal standard of "developed lifestyle", do you think they would be cheaper or more expensive than now? Also I think a big enabler of all this is inflationary monetary policy.
You will need some central authority responsible for forcing people distribute wealth "fairly"
OK, I'll do it. Problem solved.
I hope you're kidding....
Not to make it fair, to make it sustainable.
First of all, I can't imagine why you think a government could be capable of doing anything sustainable. What evidence do you have that the things do anything but grow and become ever more wasteful? Anyway, I don't think a society that attempts to purposefully restrain technological advancement (i.e., makes inventing illegal, which our patent system is coming close to doing anyway... so you may get your wish) or, alternatively, pays a large swath of the population to do nothing could be sustainable. I think the failure mode of the former would be loss of sovereignty to a society that does not prevent its citizens from improving their lives, while the latter it will lead to a dystopian nightmare of extreme wealth disparity that eventually collapses due to internal strife. Your a priori estimates may differ. How do you envision either type of society would look 3 generations down the line?
Why you think an inflationary currency is needed to "stimulate people to invest"? What stimulated people to invest, invent, and improve before fiat currencies (ie 99 percent of human history)?
It may be sufficient but it is not necessary. I would also put part of the blame for consumerism and our unsustainable lifestyles on this constant, artificial "need" to invest.
1) It will lead to economic inefficiencies. Probably far more so than we see under the current system. However, that is not to say that economic efficiency is the only thing worth worrying about.
2) You will need some central authority responsible for forcing people distribute wealth "fairly" like this. In the past these central powers have pretty much always become corrupted, leading to the opposite effect as intended (more wealth disparity). The more power you give this authority at the outset, the more tools it has to use against you.
3) Under the current system, government interventions pervade every aspects of our lives, you cannot ignore this when trying to model how our society works (and therefore in trying to understand why we have the problems we have today). Minimum wage laws, barriers to travel, etc. Perhaps these factors have helped lead us to the perceived problem of of "not enough jobs".
4) The american lifestyle is completely unsustainable and is built on the backs of billions of people living in relative poverty around the world. That is in addition to the USD as the worlds reserve currency and our huge military. Remember this when thinking about what is fair.
5) If our country is made less efficient because its citizens decide they want the government to make everything fair, it may be weakened relative to other countries and taken over by a new authority that is not so worried about fairness.
You lose money in the short term. That is why these businesses are in the practice of converting enough to meet expenses to a more stable store of value ASAP. They are taking a risk for the perceived benefit of being established already if bitcoins ever become widely popular.
And my understanding is that we moved away from a gold standard precisely so that we could regulate the economy to some degree by controlling the flow of money. We gave up the stability of having some real-world backing (gold) so that we could have more flexibility. Bitcoin has the worst of both worlds: its "backing" is a mathematical function, the supply is uncontrollable, and its value is unstable. Wooo, where can I sign up?
The idea behind this is that the central bank and government would be responsible with the power to regulate the money supply. That means to not create more in times of plenty and growth, so that it could be done to stave off recessions/depressions without causing constant inflation. What has happened in reality is constant pumping of bubbles in times of plenty, and then even more creation of money in times of need. This occurs because it is politically advantageous to do so, but has lead to the creation of absurd amounts of credit/debt that each following generation needs to deal with. Noone knows how to deal with this in a politically acceptable way so the can keeps getting kicked down the block. The original idea is utopian, and is at the root of the financial problems plaguing the world today.
Think about what gives a bitcoin its value and you will realize what you propose makes no sense (how will you force people to pay more for the later bitcoins?). A plausible way to get the same result would be for later miners to generate and increased quantity of bitcoins for the same work. The problem here is this will lead to hyperinflation as the number of miners increases. Early adopters will be rewarded either way.
So you will just use whichever currency suits your needs. That makes sense, congratulations. NOONE WOULD ADVISE AGAINST THIS.
Wouldn't you agree that it is nice for people (including future you) to have a choice? Or do you think that everyone in the world should be expected to have the same priorities as you do, specifically, right now?
I am not sure what "money for nothing" bullet point you are referring to.The people buying bitcoins from the miners are either using them to facilitate some trade or speculating that the price will rise in the future due to increased popularity... There is an opportunity cost to these miners that they pay by selling the newly generated coins at the current market rate rather than speculating they could be worth more later.
As more people use bitcoin, the combination of a limited supply and increased demand is expected to cause the "trade-in value" to rise. Therefore, using normal definitions, the value is not inversely linked to popularity.
Your Definitions:
Trade-in Value= cost of electricity, equipment to generate a bitcoin (you are basically a proponent of the labor theory of value) Popularity= the number of people attempting to generate bitcoins
Normal Definitions:
Trade-in Value= what people are willing to pay for a bitcoin (subjective theory of value) Popularity= the number of people using bitcoins to pay for items and services
And anyway, the real purpose of "miners" is to verify transactions are not fraudulent, for which the people involved in the transaction pay a small fee. Mining is just a way to reward early adopters.
Bitcoin is considered an improvement over the current financial system because there is no central power that can manipulate the money supply for itself and cronies. The rules of bitcoins "monetary policy" are set beforehand, constant, and easily known to all who choose to use the currency. These rules can be altered if a majority of the network chooses to go along with the change. This is, once again, in contrast to some central power.
If you have better ideas for a cryptocurrency (or any on how the bitcoin protocol could be improved), then you are free to suggest them or implement them yourself by creating a competing currency.
Sure, my property taxes are astronomical compared to Mississippi, but knowing that my son, and all of the kids in his generation, are growing up with the assumption that graduating highschool and persuing secondary education and a career is the "normal" thing to do is damn well worth it!
I don't think secondary education in and of itself should be seen as a goal.
You get people paying universities to give them communications and art degrees. They graduate tens of thousands of dollars in debt and still don't think critically or have any skill they wouldn't have gotten on the job anyway. This is made much worse by allowing people to put off paying for the schooling. When you are 18 you don't care about paying off some debt 4 years later. You care about having a hopeful future, doing what your friends are doing (the normal thing), partying, etc. Every parent wants what is best for their child so they will encourage this. The universities know exactly what is going on and are taking advantage of it by price gouging. I would even say we are in the middle of a "higher education bubble." Our government is pumping this bubble by taking on so much student loan debt, just like they did the housing bubble.
I understand that people want equal opportunities, and that higher education facilitates social mobility... which is desirable for a country, but the federal government (via college loans, and federal school funding) does not seem to be the answer. The bureaucracy is just too vast and corrupt. What at first seems like a good idea gets perverted by everyone playing CYA and politics, striving to meet politician-defined metrics, and filling out paper work the whole time. Cronyism becomes king.
It sounds like your wife's school was in a failing neighborhood and she moved away wanting a better life for herself and her children. There were likely other problems with that neighborhood besides the lack of school funding. If the feds payed for everything she would have needed to move to a new country when/if that government stops functioning correctly and the infrastructure begins to fall apart.
So I would say decentralization of power and responsibility (relative to now) is a better idea. Also, if it became cool to be smart and do good in school (e.g. gets you laid and paid), I think lots of our problems with the educational system would go away. As it is, it is cooler to cheat your way through, party, and play sports.
You think all public schools are equal under the current system? Do you also think that the quality of public schooling is equal to private schooling or home school?
Slashdot Mirror
You're thinking about it wrong. The downturn occurs because people are realizing that the sum product of humanity is worth less than they thought. The bad investments already occurred in the past, the bubble popping is just the valuation catching up with reality.
It is both. Well, the wealth has already been lost in the form of opportunity cost (bad investments have been made instead of good investments). I would also say that, rather than one causing the other, the economic downturn and increase in wealth disparity are both effects of a common cause: Corruption of our government leading to corporatist and cronyist policies.
Do you really think houses are cheaper far away from the workplace due to some manipulation/conspiracy rather than supply and demand? I guess I just don't follow what you meant by all this. If everyone in the supply chain for creating, for example, a cell phone, had your personal standard of "developed lifestyle", do you think they would be cheaper or more expensive than now? Also I think a big enabler of all this is inflationary monetary policy.
I hope you're kidding....
First of all, I can't imagine why you think a government could be capable of doing anything sustainable. What evidence do you have that the things do anything but grow and become ever more wasteful? Anyway, I don't think a society that attempts to purposefully restrain technological advancement (i.e., makes inventing illegal, which our patent system is coming close to doing anyway... so you may get your wish) or, alternatively, pays a large swath of the population to do nothing could be sustainable. I think the failure mode of the former would be loss of sovereignty to a society that does not prevent its citizens from improving their lives, while the latter it will lead to a dystopian nightmare of extreme wealth disparity that eventually collapses due to internal strife. Your a priori estimates may differ. How do you envision either type of society would look 3 generations down the line?
Why you think an inflationary currency is needed to "stimulate people to invest"? What stimulated people to invest, invent, and improve before fiat currencies (ie 99 percent of human history)?
It may be sufficient but it is not necessary. I would also put part of the blame for consumerism and our unsustainable lifestyles on this constant, artificial "need" to invest.
The fact that it is so much cheaper despite being a middle man in that transaction should tell you something,
This is always an interesting argument.
1) It will lead to economic inefficiencies. Probably far more so than we see under the current system. However, that is not to say that economic efficiency is the only thing worth worrying about.
2) You will need some central authority responsible for forcing people distribute wealth "fairly" like this. In the past these central powers have pretty much always become corrupted, leading to the opposite effect as intended (more wealth disparity). The more power you give this authority at the outset, the more tools it has to use against you.
3) Under the current system, government interventions pervade every aspects of our lives, you cannot ignore this when trying to model how our society works (and therefore in trying to understand why we have the problems we have today). Minimum wage laws, barriers to travel, etc. Perhaps these factors have helped lead us to the perceived problem of of "not enough jobs".
4) The american lifestyle is completely unsustainable and is built on the backs of billions of people living in relative poverty around the world. That is in addition to the USD as the worlds reserve currency and our huge military. Remember this when thinking about what is fair.
5) If our country is made less efficient because its citizens decide they want the government to make everything fair, it may be weakened relative to other countries and taken over by a new authority that is not so worried about fairness.
==???
Gold?
This makes no sense. You will spend a currency because you want/need to buy something.
You lose money in the short term. That is why these businesses are in the practice of converting enough to meet expenses to a more stable store of value ASAP. They are taking a risk for the perceived benefit of being established already if bitcoins ever become widely popular.
The idea behind this is that the central bank and government would be responsible with the power to regulate the money supply. That means to not create more in times of plenty and growth, so that it could be done to stave off recessions/depressions without causing constant inflation. What has happened in reality is constant pumping of bubbles in times of plenty, and then even more creation of money in times of need. This occurs because it is politically advantageous to do so, but has lead to the creation of absurd amounts of credit/debt that each following generation needs to deal with. Noone knows how to deal with this in a politically acceptable way so the can keeps getting kicked down the block. The original idea is utopian, and is at the root of the financial problems plaguing the world today.
Think about what gives a bitcoin its value and you will realize what you propose makes no sense (how will you force people to pay more for the later bitcoins?). A plausible way to get the same result would be for later miners to generate and increased quantity of bitcoins for the same work. The problem here is this will lead to hyperinflation as the number of miners increases. Early adopters will be rewarded either way.
So you will just use whichever currency suits your needs. That makes sense, congratulations. NOONE WOULD ADVISE AGAINST THIS.
Wouldn't you agree that it is nice for people (including future you) to have a choice? Or do you think that everyone in the world should be expected to have the same priorities as you do, specifically, right now?
I am not sure what "money for nothing" bullet point you are referring to.The people buying bitcoins from the miners are either using them to facilitate some trade or speculating that the price will rise in the future due to increased popularity... There is an opportunity cost to these miners that they pay by selling the newly generated coins at the current market rate rather than speculating they could be worth more later.
As more people use bitcoin, the combination of a limited supply and increased demand is expected to cause the "trade-in value" to rise. Therefore, using normal definitions, the value is not inversely linked to popularity.
Your Definitions:
Normal Definitions:
And anyway, the real purpose of "miners" is to verify transactions are not fraudulent, for which the people involved in the transaction pay a small fee. Mining is just a way to reward early adopters.
Bitcoin is considered an improvement over the current financial system because there is no central power that can manipulate the money supply for itself and cronies. The rules of bitcoins "monetary policy" are set beforehand, constant, and easily known to all who choose to use the currency. These rules can be altered if a majority of the network chooses to go along with the change. This is, once again, in contrast to some central power.
If you have better ideas for a cryptocurrency (or any on how the bitcoin protocol could be improved), then you are free to suggest them or implement them yourself by creating a competing currency.
There is no set "cost of electricity". If less people mine, it will become easier (cost less) to generate the coins.
Just kidding. That was an interesting read.
You sound smart. Do you think the price is gunna go up or down?
The money replacing that which was stolen is coming out of someone else's pocket.
I bought an e-cig. That worked out well. Add it to the list.
Right, so the "problem" is on the USD end of the transaction.
Why would you need to go through an exchange?
I don't think secondary education in and of itself should be seen as a goal.
You get people paying universities to give them communications and art degrees. They graduate tens of thousands of dollars in debt and still don't think critically or have any skill they wouldn't have gotten on the job anyway. This is made much worse by allowing people to put off paying for the schooling. When you are 18 you don't care about paying off some debt 4 years later. You care about having a hopeful future, doing what your friends are doing (the normal thing), partying, etc. Every parent wants what is best for their child so they will encourage this. The universities know exactly what is going on and are taking advantage of it by price gouging. I would even say we are in the middle of a "higher education bubble." Our government is pumping this bubble by taking on so much student loan debt, just like they did the housing bubble.
I understand that people want equal opportunities, and that higher education facilitates social mobility... which is desirable for a country, but the federal government (via college loans, and federal school funding) does not seem to be the answer. The bureaucracy is just too vast and corrupt. What at first seems like a good idea gets perverted by everyone playing CYA and politics, striving to meet politician-defined metrics, and filling out paper work the whole time. Cronyism becomes king.
It sounds like your wife's school was in a failing neighborhood and she moved away wanting a better life for herself and her children. There were likely other problems with that neighborhood besides the lack of school funding. If the feds payed for everything she would have needed to move to a new country when/if that government stops functioning correctly and the infrastructure begins to fall apart.
So I would say decentralization of power and responsibility (relative to now) is a better idea. Also, if it became cool to be smart and do good in school (e.g. gets you laid and paid), I think lots of our problems with the educational system would go away. As it is, it is cooler to cheat your way through, party, and play sports.
I agree And you think the answer is what?
Sounds like backwards thinking to me.
So... you are always right?
You think all public schools are equal under the current system? Do you also think that the quality of public schooling is equal to private schooling or home school?
You have no idea what you are talking about.
No.
I see... so what if the investment fails?