To be clear, speculation in traditional markets CAN be productive. When some of the traders are in it for the underlying product, speculators (in a well-functioning market) promote the most efficient producers at best, and provide liquidity at worst. But when there is no underlying product, it's just as a Ponzi scheme: there is still no such thing as a free lunch.
You do realise that at any instant there is a finite, fixed number of units of every currency in the world, yes? And the only way to create more is by printing them, which is exactly what bitcoinites don't like.
Increasing WEALTH - i.e. the sense in which economists like to talk of the market as non-zero-sum - means actually creating something, e.g. a more efficient tool or process. The very problem with bitcoin speculation is that it does not create anything. You cannot make money from bitcoins without taking from someone else. You're making the very argument in favour of capitalism which does NOT apply to bitcoins.
When a friend got a job as a senior admin at Yahoo Europe just from knowing the right people, but certainly not having enough experience to demonstrate requisite talent, I decided that it was unlikely to do anything interesting in the foreseeable future. That was about a decade ago.
USD is probably not the best example, because a lot of foreign stores do accept it. The point is that you can buy nearly everything by type in USD, not everything by quantity in USD.
Well, given that everyone continued using the US dollar at the ending of the gold standard, my bet will be that people are going to go for the currency that receives the support of the government they've elected.
Every definitions exercise is a line-drawing game, lol.
The important property here is that you can buy nearly everything on general sale with US dollars. You can't buy everything with US dollars everywhere, but that's not what matters.
Jesus Christ, this is how scientologists really think.
Any government could change the algorithms to give itself the power to create new bitcoins. Sure, you can create a fork of bitcoin, just like people could have created a fork of the US dollar at the ending of the gold standard... but you know what almost everyone chose to continue using?
And if it were really true that all US wars are about the currency used to trade oil, the fuck do you think is going to happen to bitcoins the moment some oil speculator even has an idle daydream about trading in bitcoins?
Paying the deposit doesn't get you campaign financing, lol. And loads of small parties lose most of their deposits - the deposit being nothing more than a way of limiting the number of people on the ballot paper to the usual suspects. We have no such thing as a write-in candidate in the UK, remember.
Sure: real money is any token which can be used to pay for all debts and nearly everything available on general sale. It is supported by systems to ensure it maintains a fairly stable value.
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To be clear, speculation in traditional markets CAN be productive. When some of the traders are in it for the underlying product, speculators (in a well-functioning market) promote the most efficient producers at best, and provide liquidity at worst. But when there is no underlying product, it's just as a Ponzi scheme: there is still no such thing as a free lunch.
You do realise that at any instant there is a finite, fixed number of units of every currency in the world, yes? And the only way to create more is by printing them, which is exactly what bitcoinites don't like.
Increasing WEALTH - i.e. the sense in which economists like to talk of the market as non-zero-sum - means actually creating something, e.g. a more efficient tool or process. The very problem with bitcoin speculation is that it does not create anything. You cannot make money from bitcoins without taking from someone else. You're making the very argument in favour of capitalism which does NOT apply to bitcoins.
When a friend got a job as a senior admin at Yahoo Europe just from knowing the right people, but certainly not having enough experience to demonstrate requisite talent, I decided that it was unlikely to do anything interesting in the foreseeable future. That was about a decade ago.
Well, she is in the bottom 10% of CEOs at Yahoo.
This. Sometimes you make more money by destroying a company.
USD is probably not the best example, because a lot of foreign stores do accept it. The point is that you can buy nearly everything by type in USD, not everything by quantity in USD.
Well, given that everyone continued using the US dollar at the ending of the gold standard, my bet will be that people are going to go for the currency that receives the support of the government they've elected.
Every definitions exercise is a line-drawing game, lol.
The important property here is that you can buy nearly everything on general sale with US dollars. You can't buy everything with US dollars everywhere, but that's not what matters.
Unlike "real identification: you're not allowed to "get it back" once you lose it for one simple reason
So, when you say "totally incorrect", you mean "totally incorrect except for this little caveat which makes it totally correct".
I'm pretty sure US businesses and governments still accept the US dollar even if you're abroad.
Ignoring its tendency to eat humans, the lion makes a much better pet than the chihuahua.
Jesus Christ, this is how scientologists really think.
Any government could change the algorithms to give itself the power to create new bitcoins. Sure, you can create a fork of bitcoin, just like people could have created a fork of the US dollar at the ending of the gold standard... but you know what almost everyone chose to continue using?
And if it were really true that all US wars are about the currency used to trade oil, the fuck do you think is going to happen to bitcoins the moment some oil speculator even has an idle daydream about trading in bitcoins?
But don't you see??? Bitcoins will deliver us from the evil of central banking!
All that has to happen is for everyone to agree to use and control them only in the ways the Bitcoin Founding Fathers claimed to intend.
THE PLAN IS FLAWLESS.
Gold ownership doesn't mean having to carry around the gold, just having some evidence that you own it.
And if you lose that evidence, well, at least there's a record elsewhere to confirm it.
You lose your bitcoin, and it's lost.
Indeed. Bitcoin, like party politics, is enjoyed by people who are out of their mind and should be out of the question.
Or maybe the nerds saw the boat but decided not to ride it.
There's a word for people whose interest is making money without working, and it's not "nerd".
Yeah, everyone who fails to make bank off a scam is just bitter.
Boiler Room is also a good film.
Is it, "What would be the response of a smartass who doesn't live in the US?"
Excellently summarised.
Paying the deposit doesn't get you campaign financing, lol. And loads of small parties lose most of their deposits - the deposit being nothing more than a way of limiting the number of people on the ballot paper to the usual suspects. We have no such thing as a write-in candidate in the UK, remember.
Sure: real money is any token which can be used to pay for all debts and nearly everything available on general sale. It is supported by systems to ensure it maintains a fairly stable value.
That's one simple, practical definition of money.
Not 99% at all, but do you understand how that method consolidates existing power?
Many successful political parties were created through the union movement in Europe.
That was just a bunch of working men and women throwing money into a pot.
It's not about the money, but the propaganda.
The only thing bitcoins have going for them is that nobody's bothered to regulate them properly yet.
Apart from that, they're something way less convenient than pretty much any first world currency or precious metal.
Do we also restrain speech because everything is politics and freedom of the press belongs to the owners of the presses?