You don't speak for all libertarians, I am against all regulations completely. There should be no government involvement in anything beyond what is absolutely minimal authorisation provided by the Constitution and there is nothing there about any air or soot.
I am FOR regulations, I am for regulations by the free market, not by any person, don't care who that person is and what they think they know and what they think we should do.
We can see people voting against their best interests... (including so-called libertarian)
- tell me, what is my best interest?
How do you know what my best interest is? I know what my best interest is, when you say what you said there, you assume you know better than I do, so what do you have to say?
Silly absent-minded AC, I didn't say that investments grew because of deflation, I said that deflation didn't prevent investments. I pointed out that USA economy was the strongest during a period of slight deflation, you dummy.
As to imperialism, if you consider the federal gov't being the empire over the United States, then you can score a point, but I don't believe that is what you talk about. Then you mix everything with 'undeveloped resources'. More nonsense, to develop the resources it takes a tremendous amount of capital. If you don't think that and don't understand it, how about you try to develop the basically pristine, untouched resources that are hiding on the floors of the oceans or maybe in space, you'll quickly learn that you can do nothing without a substantial capital and supply chain being developed around you due to a booming economy, which was booming only for one reason: individual freedom.
The USA economy was not booming because of imperialism, USA wasn't an empire.
The USA economy was not booming because of deflation, the booming economy caused the deflation.
The USA economy was not booming because of raw untouched resources, those resources needed massive amount of investment and development, so it took a growing economy to achieve that result.
The USA economy was booming due to one thing: freedom of the individuals to try and improve their life and the government was negligible, no income or payroll or Medicare taxes, no paper money (except for a short experiment, which ended in a disaster and number of bank runs and a depression, well, that's the expression: not worth a Continental... soon to be replaced with: not worth a Federal)
Zuckerberg can afford any amount of protection he likes in any nation on this planet. He can make much more real wealth for others and himself today if he actually took your advice and moved on with his money (whatever he can take out) to somewhere in Southeast Asia, like Myanmar (Burma), he could start a number of companies there actually doing all sort of infrastructure development and in 10 years time he'd grow his wealth by a huge factor.
Be careful what you wish for, people with savings are doing exactly that.
When the bubble finally bursts, Bitcoins' value will hover around the cost of the electricity & equipment to mine them, so investors can write off the purchase as a slight loss or slight profit.
- disclosure (if you need it), from my point of view gold is the real money, not US dollars, not Bitcoins, not Euros, not any fiat.
however
I disagree with your premise that Bitcoins have no intrinsic value (just like I disagree with the notion that gold doesn't have intrinsic value, it obviously does or that the US dollar has intrinsic value, it obviously does not)
Bitcoins do have intrinsic value, which is tied to the value of the Internet or generally networking and being able to pass information around computer networks.
What is the value of Bitcoins? Ability to transfer purchasing power almost instantaneously from one part of the world to any other without suffering any government and banking regulations, delays, banking uncertainty in general.
The ability to transfer money around without it being subjected to various government controls is the intrinsic value. Now, can it be taken away? I suppose it can be reduced by governments of the world uniting to crash Bitcoins by attacking the exchanges.
So exchanges will have to operate in the black market rather than in the open, but exchanges cannot be destroyed or controlled, some will, but there will be many of those that will satisfy the market need to transfer purchasing power around.
Notice that there are stores that sell in Bitcoins but they also often cite the current exchange rate to whatever currency and they take a little commission to cover the fluctuation or maybe there is some cost of doing business via an exchange for a merchant.
What do you think they do? They have an account on an exchange, the moment they get a Bitcoin as part of a transaction they transfer it to an exchange and get some of their preferred currency deposited into their account with the exchange instead of the Bitcoins. But that means Bitcoins are like VISA only it's without debt and it's better from POV of transaction costs and regulations obviously.
Bitcoins do have value and it's different from what you propose.
If you think it's hard to attract investment and develop industry amidst inflation, try doing it amidst even mild deflation.
- you mean like the time when USA actually grew to be the biggest industrial nation on the planet Earth in history of humanity? That mild deflation? Where the US dollar started the 19th century at half the value that it ended the 19th century at? Curious definition of 'hard'. Give me that type of difficulty any time.
The entire globe, all national governments on this planet are currently destroying the value of their respective currencies, which is a crime AFAIC. They are destroying the value of the work of their citizens, they are destroying the competitive advantage that the stronger currency gives them to buy materials and goods from other countries. Having an appreciating currency is godsend, it's like being the first student in class, getting straight A++s, the some idiots tell you that you should be getting Fs, because that's what is really valuable, utter and total nonsense.
The productive nations, the nations of producers, savers and low government spending are able to achieve this, that's why there are so few of them on this planet where even Switzerland committed a huge idiotic move to hard link their currency to Euro. What a complete failure of understanding of economics.
The moment currency begins deflating, investment grinds to a halt, because it ends up being safer and more profitable to just lock your cash in a vault and forget about it for a year.
- pure nonsense. It is absolutely the opposite of what happens (and happened), as INPUT COSTS FALL, the ability of a manufacturer or any other business to lower their prices and simultaneous rise in purchasing power of the customers leads to more real term profit. Of-course it's also completely false from POV of consumers, who do not wait for prices to rise to go shopping however any time there is a sale and prices drop they run to the stores.
What, exactly, do you manufacture for sale when the ultimate retail value of whatever you make is likely to end up being less than the cost of manufacturing it in the first place? You can't spend $30,000 building cars that sell for $25,000 and expect to remain in business for long.
- more faulty logic. If your car costs 30,000 to manufacture, it's a pretty expensive freaking car! But that's not the point, as all input costs fall in price (because your exchange rate is improving and so you can buy energy and materials for less) you can build your products for less money.
Obviously if you manufacture cars at 30,000 and sell them at 50,000 and then all of a sudden your cars cost 25,000 and you have a large stock, you will take a hit in nominal terms while your costs of input are going down, however that 25,000 is now buying more than 50,000 used to buy, that's the only way it drop that way (and that's NOT exactly "mild deflation", I'd say that's a case of serious deflation and when serious things like that happen everybody gets shocked for a little while, however deflation is absolutely better than inflation, you can lower everybody's pay and they are still ahead).
With deflation, any investment with a timeframe longer than "buy hot dogs and buns from Sam's club in the morning, and make sure they're all sold before the prices drop again" becomes extremely risky. Deflation makes long-term capital-intense investments nearly impossible to justify.
- except that this completely false, every company that was built in USA before about 1917 was built during deflation era.
Rockefeller and Standard Oil didn't stop, they grew the business and produced more every year and the prices fell partially because of deflation too, but mostly because of investment. That company grew to become one of the largest in history and that's just one company in one industry.
Never mind how much was done in every other industry in USA, never
Sure, and I don't promote absolutes, USA used to have a Constitutional government that was good enough to prevent foreign nations from taking over and as to thieves, that's a local matter. In USA the individual States decide how to deal with the criminal code, it can be on a municipal level. In fact there is no need for any government to take care of the criminal element, it can (and used to be) done privately, still with court systems and yet society thrived.
However today it is the governments that are thieves and you want them to be thieves, so who is going to protect "the weak" from the governments?
Again, people in Southeast Asia do not have governments stealing to "take care" of their employment, retirement, savings, businesses, they have to figure out all these things in the private market, that's why their economies are booming as opposed to the Western world, that stinks of government rot.
Again, you are redefining words, nice work, every comment with more double or even tripple speak.
Warlords, ha? So how is it that in Southeast Asia people take care of their own employment, retirement savings, health care and yet you call people "not strong enough", WTF does that mean?
Not strong enough... you have already defined people as slaves of the system, you wouldn't even give them a chance at actual individual freedom. Of-course you don't want them to have actual individual freedom, you want gov't to destroy their freedom so that gov't can have "funds" as you put it earlier to do what you want gov't to do.
Funds... the work, labour, productivity stolen from actual individuals who create it, people who you call 'weak'.
It's interesting to see such a perverted mind in action, defying every single bit of rationality and integrity.
Unfortunately for you, your understanding of the issues is upside down, inside out, completely perverted by the system and media obviously. Every single sentence, it's tiring.
Tax revenue as a percentage as a % of GDP is the lowest in US history. So taxes aren't killing innovation.
- first of all how do you come up with 2 disjoint statements like that and think they complement each other?
1. Effective taxes in USA on the very people who are crucial to the development of the economy are highest in history of USA. The people I am speaking of are the ones who have savings that can be used as investment. This concerns people that run businesses as well as individual savers and even the retired with fixed incomes who have savings. The real interest rates are negative, that's partially why businesses get out of USA, to protect the savings, but that's not the only reason. The big reason is the high tax environment and regulations are taxes.
2. GDP is a meaningless number that doesn't have any value, its structure is meaningless, even the number itself is misleading simply due to the much higher real inflation rate that what is used as a deflator. In real terms productivity and productive output has been falling since the seventies, that's why the once large trade surpluses have been turned into trade deficits that grew larger and larger since about mid-eighties (as a response to the industry that started leaving since 1971 default on the dollar and the inevitable growth of inflation).
3. Taxes are absolutely killing innovation, the only innovation that is happening is the innovation in the financial sector figuring out ways to attempt to avoid, minimise the taxes. The real innovation is taking place where the real manufacturing is happening, guess what, the trade deficit proves that manufacturing isn't happening in USA.
If by inflation you mean CPI, this has gone up but only marginally.
-
By inflation I mean expansion of the monetary supply, nothing else. The redefinition of inflation as CPI (or chained CPI or any other gov't manufactured number) or as rise in prices is a consequence of inflation, not the cause of it. The cause is the expansion of monetary supply, which is happening all the time now thanks Fed.
Inflation on the other hand is targeted at 2% which is the norm for most OECD countries.
- the propaganda is targeted at 2%, real inflation is many times that, that's why USA economy is shrinking, not growing regardless of the meaningless GDP, which again, is a manufactured number.
Real inflation and GDP are not in gov't numbers, the economy that relies on imports more and more and cannot export to pay for imports (trade deficit), the economy where the only way to 'reduce unemployment rate' is to stop counting people that are not 'actively searching for work' and people on 'disabilities' and people who are under-employed (part time, many part time jobs), the never-ending students that don't leave school until they are almost in their thirties, living on gov't debt, all of this shows that the real productivity is falling.
The risk-free rate in finance is the lowest it's ever been. Even the 10-year treasury note is at an all time low.
- 'risk free', it's a funny term. Maybe the Fed used to provide "risk free return", today it's "return free risk".
The entire ponzi scam of the USA economy relies on the Fed propping it up. The moment Fed stops, US economy goes through the necessary restructuring. To avoid that (which will be extremely painful), the gov't does what it can to push that inevitable day of reckoning into some indefinite future.
But that future is not too far away from now. The only question is: will the American gov't prevent the hyper inflation by allowing the interest rates to achieve their real rate and stop the printing presses, or will the US politicians just go off that cliff because they will nev
Orwell (well, really it's Henry Hazlitt) strikes again. How can I possibly accuse somebody of being "anti-government", whose entire premise starts with: government must take care of me?
How can you be anti-government if you want government to impose your entitlements as obligations on the people that you purport you "care about"? You only care about them in the sense that you want them to live long enough and have enough energy to support your entitlements, that you want the government force them to provide you with.
By the way, I do not now live in USA, nor is my business there.
I think Bitcoins have value, I don't know what it is. Whoever wrote TFS here doesn't understand what 'collapse' is doesn't know anything about economics or mechanics of trading.
The volume is thin and there is no good way to take a short position, this is what MtGox needs to do if they are interested in a more stable current price against most currencies. People have to be able to take a short position, that's part of the balance that's missing. The Bitcoin protocol allows for trades, but it doesn't allow for borrowing that provides a contract back of some sort into the system, but it's not clear that a contract is possible in the protocol, so it has to be a central exchange for now to allow shorting of the coins.
You want broadband internet? Crush city hall and hand control over to the state or federal government
- ha ha, I think this qualifies for mega crazy, do the same thing as before on a grander scale and expect different results.
I would suggest doing the opposite of what is known not to work and this means allowing people to exercise their property rights instead giving it up to any level of sata.... government bureaucrat.
Once again with the Orwellian nonsense equating dictatorship with individual freedom, taking 2 exact opposite and equating them or switching their meaning.
The parasite is you, you want to enslave those very children that you say you supposedly care about, you want them to provide you with the pension and medical expenses and whatever it is you think you must get from the welfare state.
You also equate the individuals with slaves saying that they are at the core weak and unable to do what they must to improve their own situation in life, you are a disgusting excuse for a human, a slave owner wannabe. It will be fun watching your ideology die in flames in the months and a few short years to come as it consumes itself in fire of bureaucracy and debt.
Of-course this is IRS, they are above the law, they don't have to comply with any laws, their entire operation is completely lawless, not based on any laws. They are used to violating your private property rights, that's what income taxes are - a violation of your private property rights. They are used to discriminating against people, that's what graduated ('progressive') income taxes are - discrimination against individuals, the laws are not applied equally. They are used to taking away your freedom of movement.
Saying that your email is not private is not something out of character for IRS.
Just because some third party hosts your emails it doesn't mean they are not your property, there is your NAME on it, the company gave you your space. Is your BANK ACCOUNT your property?
Of-course I have ulterior motives, they are very simply reduction of power of the government, reduction of power of the collective over the individual. I personally find governments to be abhorrent, contrary to the individual freedom and to the sound economy and society.
It is an ulterior motive to want to see a better economy and a wealthier society and this is only done with a freer individual.
The children won't be supporting your welfare state, they won't be paying your social security or whatever pension you believe you deserve to be paid by the children. YOUR ulterior motives are clear as day to me, you want to enslave the children. I want children to be able to build a better economy for themselves.
What an Orwellian comment, stalinism is freedom, war is peace. You are accusing me of 'poisoning the minds of gullible youths to turn them into useful idiots', when in fact useful idiots are people supporting the status quo, the system where the many are fodder for the few, where the few are the ruling class, eating the many.
Useful idiots - a phrase coined to explain the nonsensical support of the Westerners to the ex-Soviet system of government because they (the Westerners who were ideologically aligned with the ex-Soviet ideology) actually believed the nonsense they were talking about and thus promoted and propagated that nonsense to the minds of those very 'gullible youths' that you supposedly care about.
The gullible youths, you call them, the people who have to live through the nightmare that the existing governments have handed to them. They are only gullible as long as they accept and support this status quo, where they inherit the debt, the unsustainable levels of government and the welfare state without any opportunity to get from underneath this mountain of debt and lack of productivity. How are they going to live in a world where they have no capital, no skills, no chance of getting a meaningful income that is not immediately destroyed by those governments, that you want them to support.
Maybe they are not as gullible as you think, maybe they are doing what they can to escape the oppression. I think that you are personally benefiting from the status quo or you are one of the useful idiots who actually believe the nonsense of the socialist welfare state and think that you will be able to live that way for much longer.
We'll see, won't we? I think I shall see the end of the welfare state (hopefully still within my life time), which will allow people to restore their economies.
As to 'anarchist', clearly you are jumping from one extreme to another, why should the extremes be the socialist (or fascist) state and central planning vs anarchy exactly?
Though I do prefer economic anarchy personally, I am not pushing anybody into my belief. However I am explaining the opposite point of view to people, probably some have learned something over the years that I spent writing a few things here and there.
What, it's not performing very well? It's the only thing that actually worked to improve people's lives, specifically without it we wouldn't have any new development that we observed in the last 300 years at least. Private property ownership and operation is what allowed us to develop the productive economies that gave us everything we have today without having to produce every single thing we need to survive on our own. Private property is the means and the incentive to do anything in business, explaining such basic things to somebody who is capable of actually typing (while doing it on a computer produced by people owning and operating private property) is like trying to explain that people need air to live.
Does that means you take position against inheritance rights?
- the owner of property is in his right to transfer his property to whoever he sees fit, at that point the property (like in all other transactions) belongs to the people who are now in possession of that property.
In fact if you read this comment of mine, you will see that I think that the problem with short term thinking in companies is that they have no owners and the large part of that problem is created by death taxes (and inflation of-course, which is also theft of property, of savings).
At least! This means you agree that means there is a limit to your freedom, right?
- you mean that I cannot murder somebody because I wouldn't want somebody else to murder you?
That's criminal code, we don't need central government to set it up, never needed it. We don't need government at all to follow such simple concepts. We don't even need formal criminal law to understand it. It doesn't limit my rights, my right to swing my fists stops at your nose, where your right to your private property start (your nose, it's your private property unless I am mistaken and you loaned it out or sold it to somebody else).
You are confusing the country and the nation. Come on, try harder.
- that's my definition, you don't like it I can't help you.
Your definition of the word "lie" is now a suspect.
If you can't understand what governments do to destroy the economies that they are leeching off of, it doesn't change the fact that they are leeching off of economies.
But it's worse than just leeching, it's actively working to undermine the economies, like parasitic bacteria or virus, any time gov't prints money, regulates business, creates laws that are not applied equally, taxes income and savings, any time any government official gets in the private matters of individuals, any time gov't is involved in any business activity at all is destructive, it's parasitic, it's theft, it's a disease and today it's like cancer.
How many societies have to fall until this simple truth becomes apparent even to the most hard-headed people like you?
How many more economies have to fail the way so many failed over the last 150 years for you to even begin grasping a glimmer of understanding of the reality?
I personally think that no amount will be enough for people like you, you won't be satisfied with any amount of failure. ALL of the failed economies and societies and countries in the last 150 years are directly related to governments that tax income, redistribute it, tax work, tax savings, regulate businesses, centrally plan their economies, prop up monopolies and destroy competition.
A lie? Again, government has its roles, today almost all governments around the world are destroying the economies of their societies, if you can't understand it that doesn't make it a lie.
Examples don't have to be 'private anecdotes', they are in the open: debasing of currencies.
Almost all governments are actively engaged in debasing currencies of their people, stealing purchasing power from their people, destroying the savers and thus investors into their own economies.
Governments are actively stealing income from people, not taxing consumption based transactions but taxing people's work and savings, that is stealing and again, it's parasitic.
The governments of the world are actively regulating businesses, which is again parasitic, since it means they are giving support to some businesses and taxing others, creating monopolies and hurting their economies.
Your definition of the word "lie" is not a suspect.
People are envious, jealous and the ruling class (politicians) are capitalising on class war-fare-mongering (that word is likely not in a dictionary).
There is a legitimate problem with some people getting artificial advantage from the money that is created out of thin air by the Fed, money which shouldn't exist and it's given to the banks that shouldn't exist anymore. That money props up the Treasury (which doesn't exist, there is no treasure, only debt).
All of this allows the banks to give themselves a pat on the back, to give the politicians themselves a pat on the back and everybody gets paid with that fake money.
That's a problem, because it is inflation and it causes drop in real value of the money for EVERYBODY else who is not involved in this giant counterfeiting and laundering machine.
This free money for decades has been flowing into the system destroying it.
This story is on Electrical Engineers unemployment and simultaneously there are complains that there is no talent among EEs. It's obvious to me that the inflation and all the taxes and regulations have crushed investment opportunities in USA (at the least since 1971) and that's why manufacturing was and is leaving, because investment was leaving, running away from the anti-business, anti-saver, anti-investor climate.
The fall of the manufacturing sector eventually causes the fall of the employment among EEs and other professionals needed for manufacturing and eventually this causes reduction in quality of the available professionals.
At the same time the inflation, taxes (income and especially death tax) and regulations make it impossible for the companies that are still in USA to think long term. They are forced to find ways to beat inflation and to make 5-6% return on the investment and that's hard, try to make a return of 11-21% a year, you are going to fail, so MOST companies will fail in this environment.
Those who will not fail immediately will be the biggest entities and there because of death taxes the companies no longer have real owners, the kids of the original founders are not there, the companies were sold to liquidate to pay the taxes, the companies turn public.
A public company is like a public property, nobody owns it really, so whoever succeeds in becoming the management just works for their own benefit and it's short term benefit because of high inflation and taxes.
So this entire system is set to destroy private business, private property while doing it with spectacular amounts of fake money and in that climate average people are getting poorer and easier to manipulate by the politicians who in fact created this problem in the first place (well, the mob let them, the mob cheered for them while they turned the Republic into this quasi-socialist-fascist state).
So the inflation and lack of owners due to taxes and lack of competition due to regulations and taxes create all of these problems and part of it is that some people manage to get huge compensation where in a free market they couldn't, competitive forces would take care of inefficiencies like that.
Again, it's stupidity, envy, jealousy, class warfare and those are symptoms of a dying economy.
First: Google business was growing with the developers that worked there, so they knew and understood the business model and processes. It's unlikely that in most other companies business is fully understood by the developers.
Second: Google hiring practice ensures they have above average employees, I know that many companies say this sort of thing, but it's just not true for most companies. Their hiring practice and pay levels are nowhere near sufficient to attract and retain top level talent.
Third: Google can survive many failed projects and still get publicity out of some of them, they are an advertising agency, but they are a tech company. Most other companies have tech bolten on top somehow, but their core is some other business, not tech itself. The more tech things Google does, the more it has to invest in tech infrastructure and this always heps their business model, so even many failed projects force thinking about further growth of tech infrastructure and from Google perspective that's what grows their business anyway.
Today anybody working for government is a parasitic organism that should be removed before it causes more damage to the host society regardless of what their specific function within the virus or bacteria colony that is destroying the host organism is.
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You don't speak for all libertarians, I am against all regulations completely. There should be no government involvement in anything beyond what is absolutely minimal authorisation provided by the Constitution and there is nothing there about any air or soot.
I am FOR regulations, I am for regulations by the free market, not by any person, don't care who that person is and what they think they know and what they think we should do.
We can see people voting against their best interests ... (including so-called libertarian)
- tell me, what is my best interest?
How do you know what my best interest is? I know what my best interest is, when you say what you said there, you assume you know better than I do, so what do you have to say?
Silly absent-minded AC, I didn't say that investments grew because of deflation, I said that deflation didn't prevent investments. I pointed out that USA economy was the strongest during a period of slight deflation, you dummy.
As to imperialism, if you consider the federal gov't being the empire over the United States, then you can score a point, but I don't believe that is what you talk about. Then you mix everything with 'undeveloped resources'. More nonsense, to develop the resources it takes a tremendous amount of capital. If you don't think that and don't understand it, how about you try to develop the basically pristine, untouched resources that are hiding on the floors of the oceans or maybe in space, you'll quickly learn that you can do nothing without a substantial capital and supply chain being developed around you due to a booming economy, which was booming only for one reason: individual freedom.
The USA economy was not booming because of imperialism, USA wasn't an empire.
The USA economy was not booming because of deflation, the booming economy caused the deflation.
The USA economy was not booming because of raw untouched resources, those resources needed massive amount of investment and development, so it took a growing economy to achieve that result.
The USA economy was booming due to one thing: freedom of the individuals to try and improve their life and the government was negligible, no income or payroll or Medicare taxes, no paper money (except for a short experiment, which ended in a disaster and number of bank runs and a depression, well, that's the expression: not worth a Continental... soon to be replaced with: not worth a Federal)
Good luck to you with your magical thinking.
Zuckerberg can afford any amount of protection he likes in any nation on this planet. He can make much more real wealth for others and himself today if he actually took your advice and moved on with his money (whatever he can take out) to somewhere in Southeast Asia, like Myanmar (Burma), he could start a number of companies there actually doing all sort of infrastructure development and in 10 years time he'd grow his wealth by a huge factor.
Be careful what you wish for, people with savings are doing exactly that.
When the bubble finally bursts, Bitcoins' value will hover around the cost of the electricity & equipment to mine them, so investors can write off the purchase as a slight loss or slight profit.
- disclosure (if you need it), from my point of view gold is the real money, not US dollars, not Bitcoins, not Euros, not any fiat.
however
I disagree with your premise that Bitcoins have no intrinsic value (just like I disagree with the notion that gold doesn't have intrinsic value, it obviously does or that the US dollar has intrinsic value, it obviously does not)
Bitcoins do have intrinsic value, which is tied to the value of the Internet or generally networking and being able to pass information around computer networks.
What is the value of Bitcoins? Ability to transfer purchasing power almost instantaneously from one part of the world to any other without suffering any government and banking regulations, delays, banking uncertainty in general.
The ability to transfer money around without it being subjected to various government controls is the intrinsic value. Now, can it be taken away? I suppose it can be reduced by governments of the world uniting to crash Bitcoins by attacking the exchanges.
So exchanges will have to operate in the black market rather than in the open, but exchanges cannot be destroyed or controlled, some will, but there will be many of those that will satisfy the market need to transfer purchasing power around.
Notice that there are stores that sell in Bitcoins but they also often cite the current exchange rate to whatever currency and they take a little commission to cover the fluctuation or maybe there is some cost of doing business via an exchange for a merchant.
What do you think they do? They have an account on an exchange, the moment they get a Bitcoin as part of a transaction they transfer it to an exchange and get some of their preferred currency deposited into their account with the exchange instead of the Bitcoins. But that means Bitcoins are like VISA only it's without debt and it's better from POV of transaction costs and regulations obviously.
Bitcoins do have value and it's different from what you propose.
If you think it's hard to attract investment and develop industry amidst inflation, try doing it amidst even mild deflation.
- you mean like the time when USA actually grew to be the biggest industrial nation on the planet Earth in history of humanity? That mild deflation? Where the US dollar started the 19th century at half the value that it ended the 19th century at? Curious definition of 'hard'. Give me that type of difficulty any time.
The entire globe, all national governments on this planet are currently destroying the value of their respective currencies, which is a crime AFAIC. They are destroying the value of the work of their citizens, they are destroying the competitive advantage that the stronger currency gives them to buy materials and goods from other countries. Having an appreciating currency is godsend, it's like being the first student in class, getting straight A++s, the some idiots tell you that you should be getting Fs, because that's what is really valuable, utter and total nonsense.
The productive nations, the nations of producers, savers and low government spending are able to achieve this, that's why there are so few of them on this planet where even Switzerland committed a huge idiotic move to hard link their currency to Euro. What a complete failure of understanding of economics.
The moment currency begins deflating, investment grinds to a halt, because it ends up being safer and more profitable to just lock your cash in a vault and forget about it for a year.
- pure nonsense. It is absolutely the opposite of what happens (and happened), as INPUT COSTS FALL, the ability of a manufacturer or any other business to lower their prices and simultaneous rise in purchasing power of the customers leads to more real term profit. Of-course it's also completely false from POV of consumers, who do not wait for prices to rise to go shopping however any time there is a sale and prices drop they run to the stores.
What, exactly, do you manufacture for sale when the ultimate retail value of whatever you make is likely to end up being less than the cost of manufacturing it in the first place? You can't spend $30,000 building cars that sell for $25,000 and expect to remain in business for long.
- more faulty logic. If your car costs 30,000 to manufacture, it's a pretty expensive freaking car! But that's not the point, as all input costs fall in price (because your exchange rate is improving and so you can buy energy and materials for less) you can build your products for less money.
Obviously if you manufacture cars at 30,000 and sell them at 50,000 and then all of a sudden your cars cost 25,000 and you have a large stock, you will take a hit in nominal terms while your costs of input are going down, however that 25,000 is now buying more than 50,000 used to buy, that's the only way it drop that way (and that's NOT exactly "mild deflation", I'd say that's a case of serious deflation and when serious things like that happen everybody gets shocked for a little while, however deflation is absolutely better than inflation, you can lower everybody's pay and they are still ahead).
With deflation, any investment with a timeframe longer than "buy hot dogs and buns from Sam's club in the morning, and make sure they're all sold before the prices drop again" becomes extremely risky. Deflation makes long-term capital-intense investments nearly impossible to justify.
- except that this completely false, every company that was built in USA before about 1917 was built during deflation era.
Rockefeller and Standard Oil didn't stop, they grew the business and produced more every year and the prices fell partially because of deflation too, but mostly because of investment. That company grew to become one of the largest in history and that's just one company in one industry.
Never mind how much was done in every other industry in USA, never
Sure, and I don't promote absolutes, USA used to have a Constitutional government that was good enough to prevent foreign nations from taking over and as to thieves, that's a local matter. In USA the individual States decide how to deal with the criminal code, it can be on a municipal level. In fact there is no need for any government to take care of the criminal element, it can (and used to be) done privately, still with court systems and yet society thrived.
However today it is the governments that are thieves and you want them to be thieves, so who is going to protect "the weak" from the governments?
Again, people in Southeast Asia do not have governments stealing to "take care" of their employment, retirement, savings, businesses, they have to figure out all these things in the private market, that's why their economies are booming as opposed to the Western world, that stinks of government rot.
Again, you are redefining words, nice work, every comment with more double or even tripple speak.
Warlords, ha? So how is it that in Southeast Asia people take care of their own employment, retirement savings, health care and yet you call people "not strong enough", WTF does that mean?
Not strong enough... you have already defined people as slaves of the system, you wouldn't even give them a chance at actual individual freedom. Of-course you don't want them to have actual individual freedom, you want gov't to destroy their freedom so that gov't can have "funds" as you put it earlier to do what you want gov't to do.
Funds... the work, labour, productivity stolen from actual individuals who create it, people who you call 'weak'.
It's interesting to see such a perverted mind in action, defying every single bit of rationality and integrity.
Unfortunately for you, your understanding of the issues is upside down, inside out, completely perverted by the system and media obviously. Every single sentence, it's tiring.
Tax revenue as a percentage as a % of GDP is the lowest in US history. So taxes aren't killing innovation.
- first of all how do you come up with 2 disjoint statements like that and think they complement each other?
1. Effective taxes in USA on the very people who are crucial to the development of the economy are highest in history of USA. The people I am speaking of are the ones who have savings that can be used as investment. This concerns people that run businesses as well as individual savers and even the retired with fixed incomes who have savings. The real interest rates are negative, that's partially why businesses get out of USA, to protect the savings, but that's not the only reason. The big reason is the high tax environment and regulations are taxes.
2. GDP is a meaningless number that doesn't have any value, its structure is meaningless, even the number itself is misleading simply due to the much higher real inflation rate that what is used as a deflator. In real terms productivity and productive output has been falling since the seventies, that's why the once large trade surpluses have been turned into trade deficits that grew larger and larger since about mid-eighties (as a response to the industry that started leaving since 1971 default on the dollar and the inevitable growth of inflation).
3. Taxes are absolutely killing innovation, the only innovation that is happening is the innovation in the financial sector figuring out ways to attempt to avoid, minimise the taxes. The real innovation is taking place where the real manufacturing is happening, guess what, the trade deficit proves that manufacturing isn't happening in USA.
If by inflation you mean CPI, this has gone up but only marginally.
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By inflation I mean expansion of the monetary supply, nothing else. The redefinition of inflation as CPI (or chained CPI or any other gov't manufactured number) or as rise in prices is a consequence of inflation, not the cause of it. The cause is the expansion of monetary supply, which is happening all the time now thanks Fed.
Inflation on the other hand is targeted at 2% which is the norm for most OECD countries.
- the propaganda is targeted at 2%, real inflation is many times that, that's why USA economy is shrinking, not growing regardless of the meaningless GDP, which again, is a manufactured number.
Real inflation and GDP are not in gov't numbers, the economy that relies on imports more and more and cannot export to pay for imports (trade deficit), the economy where the only way to 'reduce unemployment rate' is to stop counting people that are not 'actively searching for work' and people on 'disabilities' and people who are under-employed (part time, many part time jobs), the never-ending students that don't leave school until they are almost in their thirties, living on gov't debt, all of this shows that the real productivity is falling.
The risk-free rate in finance is the lowest it's ever been. Even the 10-year treasury note is at an all time low.
- 'risk free', it's a funny term. Maybe the Fed used to provide "risk free return", today it's "return free risk".
The entire ponzi scam of the USA economy relies on the Fed propping it up. The moment Fed stops, US economy goes through the necessary restructuring. To avoid that (which will be extremely painful), the gov't does what it can to push that inevitable day of reckoning into some indefinite future.
But that future is not too far away from now. The only question is: will the American gov't prevent the hyper inflation by allowing the interest rates to achieve their real rate and stop the printing presses, or will the US politicians just go off that cliff because they will nev
Orwell (well, really it's Henry Hazlitt) strikes again. How can I possibly accuse somebody of being "anti-government", whose entire premise starts with: government must take care of me?
How can you be anti-government if you want government to impose your entitlements as obligations on the people that you purport you "care about"? You only care about them in the sense that you want them to live long enough and have enough energy to support your entitlements, that you want the government force them to provide you with.
By the way, I do not now live in USA, nor is my business there.
I think Bitcoins have value, I don't know what it is. Whoever wrote TFS here doesn't understand what 'collapse' is doesn't know anything about economics or mechanics of trading.
The volume is thin and there is no good way to take a short position, this is what MtGox needs to do if they are interested in a more stable current price against most currencies. People have to be able to take a short position, that's part of the balance that's missing. The Bitcoin protocol allows for trades, but it doesn't allow for borrowing that provides a contract back of some sort into the system, but it's not clear that a contract is possible in the protocol, so it has to be a central exchange for now to allow shorting of the coins.
You want broadband internet? Crush city hall and hand control over to the state or federal government
- ha ha, I think this qualifies for mega crazy, do the same thing as before on a grander scale and expect different results.
I would suggest doing the opposite of what is known not to work and this means allowing people to exercise their property rights instead giving it up to any level of sata.... government bureaucrat.
Once again with the Orwellian nonsense equating dictatorship with individual freedom, taking 2 exact opposite and equating them or switching their meaning.
The parasite is you, you want to enslave those very children that you say you supposedly care about, you want them to provide you with the pension and medical expenses and whatever it is you think you must get from the welfare state.
You also equate the individuals with slaves saying that they are at the core weak and unable to do what they must to improve their own situation in life, you are a disgusting excuse for a human, a slave owner wannabe. It will be fun watching your ideology die in flames in the months and a few short years to come as it consumes itself in fire of bureaucracy and debt.
Sounds useful to future serial killer sailor who is finally fed up with the increasing % of fat chicks.
- and you can make it profitable at the same time if you wish, market the product as: whale in a tub.
Gahd, the women are not supposed to be of that size, if you need a crane to lift them out of the hot tub on your private yacht you are doing it wrong.
Of-course this is IRS, they are above the law, they don't have to comply with any laws, their entire operation is completely lawless, not based on any laws. They are used to violating your private property rights, that's what income taxes are - a violation of your private property rights. They are used to discriminating against people, that's what graduated ('progressive') income taxes are - discrimination against individuals, the laws are not applied equally. They are used to taking away your freedom of movement.
Saying that your email is not private is not something out of character for IRS.
Just because some third party hosts your emails it doesn't mean they are not your property, there is your NAME on it, the company gave you your space. Is your BANK ACCOUNT your property?
Of-course I have ulterior motives, they are very simply reduction of power of the government, reduction of power of the collective over the individual. I personally find governments to be abhorrent, contrary to the individual freedom and to the sound economy and society.
It is an ulterior motive to want to see a better economy and a wealthier society and this is only done with a freer individual.
The children won't be supporting your welfare state, they won't be paying your social security or whatever pension you believe you deserve to be paid by the children. YOUR ulterior motives are clear as day to me, you want to enslave the children. I want children to be able to build a better economy for themselves.
What an Orwellian comment, stalinism is freedom, war is peace. You are accusing me of 'poisoning the minds of gullible youths to turn them into useful idiots', when in fact useful idiots are people supporting the status quo, the system where the many are fodder for the few, where the few are the ruling class, eating the many.
Useful idiots - a phrase coined to explain the nonsensical support of the Westerners to the ex-Soviet system of government because they (the Westerners who were ideologically aligned with the ex-Soviet ideology) actually believed the nonsense they were talking about and thus promoted and propagated that nonsense to the minds of those very 'gullible youths' that you supposedly care about.
The gullible youths, you call them, the people who have to live through the nightmare that the existing governments have handed to them. They are only gullible as long as they accept and support this status quo, where they inherit the debt, the unsustainable levels of government and the welfare state without any opportunity to get from underneath this mountain of debt and lack of productivity. How are they going to live in a world where they have no capital, no skills, no chance of getting a meaningful income that is not immediately destroyed by those governments, that you want them to support.
Maybe they are not as gullible as you think, maybe they are doing what they can to escape the oppression. I think that you are personally benefiting from the status quo or you are one of the useful idiots who actually believe the nonsense of the socialist welfare state and think that you will be able to live that way for much longer.
We'll see, won't we? I think I shall see the end of the welfare state (hopefully still within my life time), which will allow people to restore their economies.
As to 'anarchist', clearly you are jumping from one extreme to another, why should the extremes be the socialist (or fascist) state and central planning vs anarchy exactly?
Though I do prefer economic anarchy personally, I am not pushing anybody into my belief. However I am explaining the opposite point of view to people, probably some have learned something over the years that I spent writing a few things here and there.
What, it's not performing very well? It's the only thing that actually worked to improve people's lives, specifically without it we wouldn't have any new development that we observed in the last 300 years at least. Private property ownership and operation is what allowed us to develop the productive economies that gave us everything we have today without having to produce every single thing we need to survive on our own. Private property is the means and the incentive to do anything in business, explaining such basic things to somebody who is capable of actually typing (while doing it on a computer produced by people owning and operating private property) is like trying to explain that people need air to live.
Does that means you take position against inheritance rights?
- the owner of property is in his right to transfer his property to whoever he sees fit, at that point the property (like in all other transactions) belongs to the people who are now in possession of that property.
In fact if you read this comment of mine, you will see that I think that the problem with short term thinking in companies is that they have no owners and the large part of that problem is created by death taxes (and inflation of-course, which is also theft of property, of savings).
At least! This means you agree that means there is a limit to your freedom, right?
- you mean that I cannot murder somebody because I wouldn't want somebody else to murder you?
That's criminal code, we don't need central government to set it up, never needed it. We don't need government at all to follow such simple concepts. We don't even need formal criminal law to understand it. It doesn't limit my rights, my right to swing my fists stops at your nose, where your right to your private property start (your nose, it's your private property unless I am mistaken and you loaned it out or sold it to somebody else).
You are confusing the country and the nation. Come on, try harder.
- that's my definition, you don't like it I can't help you.
Your definition of the word "lie" is now a suspect.
If you can't understand what governments do to destroy the economies that they are leeching off of, it doesn't change the fact that they are leeching off of economies.
But it's worse than just leeching, it's actively working to undermine the economies, like parasitic bacteria or virus, any time gov't prints money, regulates business, creates laws that are not applied equally, taxes income and savings, any time any government official gets in the private matters of individuals, any time gov't is involved in any business activity at all is destructive, it's parasitic, it's theft, it's a disease and today it's like cancer.
How many societies have to fall until this simple truth becomes apparent even to the most hard-headed people like you?
How many more economies have to fail the way so many failed over the last 150 years for you to even begin grasping a glimmer of understanding of the reality?
I personally think that no amount will be enough for people like you, you won't be satisfied with any amount of failure. ALL of the failed economies and societies and countries in the last 150 years are directly related to governments that tax income, redistribute it, tax work, tax savings, regulate businesses, centrally plan their economies, prop up monopolies and destroy competition.
A lie? Again, government has its roles, today almost all governments around the world are destroying the economies of their societies, if you can't understand it that doesn't make it a lie.
Examples don't have to be 'private anecdotes', they are in the open: debasing of currencies.
Almost all governments are actively engaged in debasing currencies of their people, stealing purchasing power from their people, destroying the savers and thus investors into their own economies.
Governments are actively stealing income from people, not taxing consumption based transactions but taxing people's work and savings, that is stealing and again, it's parasitic.
The governments of the world are actively regulating businesses, which is again parasitic, since it means they are giving support to some businesses and taxing others, creating monopolies and hurting their economies.
Your definition of the word "lie" is not a suspect.
People are envious, jealous and the ruling class (politicians) are capitalising on class war-fare-mongering (that word is likely not in a dictionary).
There is a legitimate problem with some people getting artificial advantage from the money that is created out of thin air by the Fed, money which shouldn't exist and it's given to the banks that shouldn't exist anymore. That money props up the Treasury (which doesn't exist, there is no treasure, only debt).
All of this allows the banks to give themselves a pat on the back, to give the politicians themselves a pat on the back and everybody gets paid with that fake money.
That's a problem, because it is inflation and it causes drop in real value of the money for EVERYBODY else who is not involved in this giant counterfeiting and laundering machine.
This free money for decades has been flowing into the system destroying it.
This story is on Electrical Engineers unemployment and simultaneously there are complains that there is no talent among EEs. It's obvious to me that the inflation and all the taxes and regulations have crushed investment opportunities in USA (at the least since 1971) and that's why manufacturing was and is leaving, because investment was leaving, running away from the anti-business, anti-saver, anti-investor climate.
The fall of the manufacturing sector eventually causes the fall of the employment among EEs and other professionals needed for manufacturing and eventually this causes reduction in quality of the available professionals.
At the same time the inflation, taxes (income and especially death tax) and regulations make it impossible for the companies that are still in USA to think long term. They are forced to find ways to beat inflation and to make 5-6% return on the investment and that's hard, try to make a return of 11-21% a year, you are going to fail, so MOST companies will fail in this environment.
Those who will not fail immediately will be the biggest entities and there because of death taxes the companies no longer have real owners, the kids of the original founders are not there, the companies were sold to liquidate to pay the taxes, the companies turn public.
A public company is like a public property, nobody owns it really, so whoever succeeds in becoming the management just works for their own benefit and it's short term benefit because of high inflation and taxes.
So this entire system is set to destroy private business, private property while doing it with spectacular amounts of fake money and in that climate average people are getting poorer and easier to manipulate by the politicians who in fact created this problem in the first place (well, the mob let them, the mob cheered for them while they turned the Republic into this quasi-socialist-fascist state).
So the inflation and lack of owners due to taxes and lack of competition due to regulations and taxes create all of these problems and part of it is that some people manage to get huge compensation where in a free market they couldn't, competitive forces would take care of inefficiencies like that.
Again, it's stupidity, envy, jealousy, class warfare and those are symptoms of a dying economy.
Of-course they create problems.
First: Google business was growing with the developers that worked there, so they knew and understood the business model and processes. It's unlikely that in most other companies business is fully understood by the developers.
Second: Google hiring practice ensures they have above average employees, I know that many companies say this sort of thing, but it's just not true for most companies. Their hiring practice and pay levels are nowhere near sufficient to attract and retain top level talent.
Third: Google can survive many failed projects and still get publicity out of some of them, they are an advertising agency, but they are a tech company. Most other companies have tech bolten on top somehow, but their core is some other business, not tech itself. The more tech things Google does, the more it has to invest in tech infrastructure and this always heps their business model, so even many failed projects force thinking about further growth of tech infrastructure and from Google perspective that's what grows their business anyway.
What is "my own backyard" exactly?
Today anybody working for government is a parasitic organism that should be removed before it causes more damage to the host society regardless of what their specific function within the virus or bacteria colony that is destroying the host organism is.