Traditional stocks are coupled to actual assets (and debts) as well as speculation on the total value of the company. In some cases dismantling a company for its assets produces value.
Some companies have been rolled up because their owned real estate was worth more than the value of operating the company.
At least you can do something with newly-found prime numbers. Perhaps there would be public benefit to a cryptocurrency where the computation results in the publication of some more useful datum, rather than just being a complete waste of power. While this might be useful work, it would not assign any particular value to the coin.
Everyone knows why Bitcoin's value plummeted. It's because Bitcoin doesn't have any value other than the belief of people in Bitcoin. What I said about Bitcoin is generally true for the Dollar too, but in the case of the Dollar at least the U.S. Government will take it for your tax payments. Nobody has to take Bitcoin for anything.
People confuse creation of money with creation of value. Value is food, materials, information, useful work. Dollars/bitcoins are unreliable media for exchange of value, not the value itself. Creation of $300B in bitcoin won't help the world to feed one more mouth.
Speculators jumped on it as a get-rich-quick scheme to make money from other speculators who would - they hoped - not time the market as well as they did. But inherent in this strategy is that all speculators will cash in on their speculation, driving Bitcoin back to low values as they abscond.
Because of this obvious opportunity, for the next several months I will be referred to as "Bruce Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain Millionare Billionare Perens"
Bitcoin mania: people confuse creation of money with creation of value. Value is food, materials, information, useful work. Dollars/bitcoins are unreliable media for exchange of value, not the value itself. Creation of $300B in bitcoin won't help the world to feed one more mouth.
This capsule flew on CRS-6. We have yet to see the new sealing capacity result in reuse. SpaceX took a while to tell us that the first reused Dragon cost as much or more than (their words) a new one. I would assume this one's the same. Hopefully when they fly a later Dragon the'll tell us something of how much was reused.
It's worth it just to piss off the flat-earthers, the luddites, and the science-deniers. But we shouldn't be thinking of it just as a science mission. The eventual purpose is to get human colonies going off of earth permanently. Got to get the baby out of the cradle.
So far, it looks like the booster is substantially reused, and the block 5 will be even more reusable. However, SpaceX said the first reused Dragon was stripped to the pressure vessel and completely rebuilt, due at least in part to salt water intrusion. This cost as much as a new one. It's not clear how much they can save on the Dragon without ground landing, and NASA pretty much shot down the path that SpaceX was taking to develop that when they rejected having legs pass through the heat shield.
Nobody's going to be able to sell non-reusable rockets, with SpaceX and Blue Origin competing. Unfortunately, ULA's current re-use strategy, so-called "SMART reuse" isn't going to be competitive and they are going to have to come up with another plan, but both ULA and Arianne understand that they can't compete without reuse
ULA's so-called "SMART reuse" is the wrong kind of efficient. It's actually more efficient in use of fuel and lifting power than SpaceX, but because they throw away the tanks and booster body, they are less efficient economically, and they lack the readiness aspect that has been a big seller for SpaceX of late - SpaceX has recovered boosters on hand and ready to go, and can mount a satellite launch quickly because of it. So far, this has been at least as important to customers as the total cost.
They're switching to methane-LOX anyway. And you can consider that the reduction in CO2 from Teslas and solar panels still means Elon Musk is Carbon-Negative.:-)
I have seen this story in other venues, and am having trouble believing it's for real. The SPCA? Not a particularly wealthy organization or one that is so on the technological leading edge that they'd be using robots.
If you want to understand the economics I am citing,
(it's not my philosophy, it's conventional economics) read up on why only final goods are counted in the GDP. The service of business consulting is a cost in the production of some final good. If you could somehow eliminate it and do the same job, the production of the final good would be more efficient.
No, of course business management is not a desirable good.
I have published on economics in a refereed journal. And on law, computer science, and telecommunications for that matter. Show me just one example that you've done the same.
One small function that determines the reward for computation does not in any way assure that bitcoin can not be manipulated!
You believe in the bitcoin. I don't. I understand that annoys you tremendously. Sorry, but not changing my opinion. Check back with me in a year when bitcoin is all over. By then, things will be a lot more clear.
Some things belong in a cost center, and some in a profit center. This is hardly a Marxian principle! It's simple business economics. Management, insurance, banking, are things that a business other than one that offers those things commonly spends money upon, thus they are cost centers. The companies that farm, manufacture, and in other ways produce desirable goods. are the ones that actually create new value. The others are necessary, but they don't either add to or subtract from the overall economy.
Entertainment is value creation, it's a new desirable good where none existed before.
The invention of money increased economic efficiency and, along with transportation and communications, money made large economic networks possible. But the value was still in the things made rather than the transfer medium. Bitcoin has not been a socially beneficial addition for two reasons: 1) There wasn't a money shortage, and 2) Due to the various shady customers of anonymous funds transfer acting as a net detriment to society.
Also, you're being optimistic that bitcoin is manipulation-proof. The algorithms might be (and that's hard to prove), but the whales can tank bitcoin, etc.
It doesn't actually matter who I am. I can show benefit from work when that work has concrete results such as feeding someone, transportation, etc. That work actually produces value. Money is not value, it is an unreliable medium for exchange of value. Creating money does not create value, doing useful work does. People investing in bitcoin have lost sight of this. The world will not be able to feed one person more because 300 Billion (or whatever) in fictional value was created. Nor would one more person be fed because dollars are printed.
The problem with bitcoin, now, is that it costs so much more than printing a dollar to calculate a new bitcoin. You are confusing this with creating value, while losing the benefit of all of that electricity is a net cost to society greater than the cost of printing a dollar.
I don't need to cite authorities, this isn't a court. And the only authority I saw you cite was a dictionary and Wikipedia, on the use of a word, and obviously words and their meanings change over time.
Bitcoin embodies the bad characteristics of fiat currency without being the product of a government. So, fiat currency need not be the product of a government any longer. Not so difficult to understand.
It doesn't do you credit if you have to pile on the insults because you've failed to make your point.
Work going into mining bitcoins doesn't create any value whatsoever. Bitcoin value is a fiction for the fatuous, and its holders will realize that soon enough. And the work has not gone to create any benefit to society whatsoever, where a silver-based currency, for example, would at least have resulted in the extraction of a useful material.
I understand that gold won't feed me directly, and that technology could change its value, but it always has a value in connection with its utility for practical things. In contrast, a bitcoin is a large number created to satisfy a set of arbitrary rules. It represents a potentially large amount of work which has been made useless and can never be made useful again. So, there is a fundamental difference in that bitcoin can never have any intrinsic value, while hard currency bases always have some.
Indeed, bitcoin is a sort of potlatch, in that it represents wasted computing effort and the power and materials that went into that effort, to the detriment of society. Nothing but a cryptocurrency so efficiently wastes work to no purpose. Currencies should in general cause something that arguably benefits society, like the creation or extraction of a usable commodity.
Slashdot Mirror
Traditional stocks are coupled to actual assets (and debts) as well as speculation on the total value of the company. In some cases dismantling a company for its assets produces value.
Some companies have been rolled up because their owned real estate was worth more than the value of operating the company.
At least you can do something with newly-found prime numbers. Perhaps there would be public benefit to a cryptocurrency where the computation results in the publication of some more useful datum, rather than just being a complete waste of power. While this might be useful work, it would not assign any particular value to the coin.
Everyone knows why Bitcoin's value plummeted. It's because Bitcoin doesn't have any value other than the belief of people in Bitcoin. What I said about Bitcoin is generally true for the Dollar too, but in the case of the Dollar at least the U.S. Government will take it for your tax payments. Nobody has to take Bitcoin for anything.
People confuse creation of money with creation of value. Value is food, materials, information, useful work. Dollars/bitcoins are unreliable media for exchange of value, not the value itself. Creation of $300B in bitcoin won't help the world to feed one more mouth.
Speculators jumped on it as a get-rich-quick scheme to make money from other speculators who would - they hoped - not time the market as well as they did. But inherent in this strategy is that all speculators will cash in on their speculation, driving Bitcoin back to low values as they abscond.
And retitle his song "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll and Cryptocurrency". Hm. That doesn't quite scan...
Because of this obvious opportunity, for the next several months I will be referred to as "Bruce Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain Millionare Billionare Perens"
Actually, a hundred dollar bill is vastly less expensive to print than it is to mine a bitcoin. Even a dollar bill is.
I don't think much of dollars either. Especially at the moment.
Any investment counselor can tell you how to diversify.
I am welcome in a number of countries and have a way to make a living there if necessary. That's about the best you can do.
It's all in GNUCoin, I have over 300,000 Stallmans of GNUCoin. :-)
Bitcoin mania: people confuse creation of money with creation of value. Value is food, materials, information, useful work. Dollars/bitcoins are unreliable media for exchange of value, not the value itself. Creation of $300B in bitcoin won't help the world to feed one more mouth.
I didn't say anything about stars. That's not for this century. The solar system, though, isn't so science-fictional.
If electric power is what you want, we have the technology. It's just too dangerous to keep around on Earth.
I know a few people who have wintered at the South Pole. It's not a self-sufficient colony, but it doesn't need to be.
This capsule flew on CRS-6. We have yet to see the new sealing capacity result in reuse. SpaceX took a while to tell us that the first reused Dragon cost as much or more than (their words) a new one. I would assume this one's the same. Hopefully when they fly a later Dragon the'll tell us something of how much was reused.
It's worth it just to piss off the flat-earthers, the luddites, and the science-deniers. But we shouldn't be thinking of it just as a science mission. The eventual purpose is to get human colonies going off of earth permanently. Got to get the baby out of the cradle.
So far, it looks like the booster is substantially reused, and the block 5 will be even more reusable. However, SpaceX said the first reused Dragon was stripped to the pressure vessel and completely rebuilt, due at least in part to salt water intrusion. This cost as much as a new one. It's not clear how much they can save on the Dragon without ground landing, and NASA pretty much shot down the path that SpaceX was taking to develop that when they rejected having legs pass through the heat shield.
Nobody's going to be able to sell non-reusable rockets, with SpaceX and Blue Origin competing. Unfortunately, ULA's current re-use strategy, so-called "SMART reuse" isn't going to be competitive and they are going to have to come up with another plan, but both ULA and Arianne understand that they can't compete without reuse
ULA's so-called "SMART reuse" is the wrong kind of efficient. It's actually more efficient in use of fuel and lifting power than SpaceX, but because they throw away the tanks and booster body, they are less efficient economically, and they lack the readiness aspect that has been a big seller for SpaceX of late - SpaceX has recovered boosters on hand and ready to go, and can mount a satellite launch quickly because of it. So far, this has been at least as important to customers as the total cost.
They're switching to methane-LOX anyway. And you can consider that the reduction in CO2 from Teslas and solar panels still means Elon Musk is Carbon-Negative. :-)
I have seen this story in other venues, and am having trouble believing it's for real. The SPCA? Not a particularly wealthy organization or one that is so on the technological leading edge that they'd be using robots.
"We'll leave a light on for you!" I never understood before!
If you want to understand the economics I am citing, (it's not my philosophy, it's conventional economics) read up on why only final goods are counted in the GDP. The service of business consulting is a cost in the production of some final good. If you could somehow eliminate it and do the same job, the production of the final good would be more efficient.
No, of course business management is not a desirable good.
I have published on economics in a refereed journal. And on law, computer science, and telecommunications for that matter. Show me just one example that you've done the same.
One small function that determines the reward for computation does not in any way assure that bitcoin can not be manipulated!
You believe in the bitcoin. I don't. I understand that annoys you tremendously. Sorry, but not changing my opinion. Check back with me in a year when bitcoin is all over. By then, things will be a lot more clear.
Some things belong in a cost center, and some in a profit center. This is hardly a Marxian principle! It's simple business economics. Management, insurance, banking, are things that a business other than one that offers those things commonly spends money upon, thus they are cost centers. The companies that farm, manufacture, and in other ways produce desirable goods. are the ones that actually create new value. The others are necessary, but they don't either add to or subtract from the overall economy.
Entertainment is value creation, it's a new desirable good where none existed before.
The invention of money increased economic efficiency and, along with transportation and communications, money made large economic networks possible. But the value was still in the things made rather than the transfer medium. Bitcoin has not been a socially beneficial addition for two reasons: 1) There wasn't a money shortage, and 2) Due to the various shady customers of anonymous funds transfer acting as a net detriment to society.
Also, you're being optimistic that bitcoin is manipulation-proof. The algorithms might be (and that's hard to prove), but the whales can tank bitcoin, etc.
It doesn't actually matter who I am. I can show benefit from work when that work has concrete results such as feeding someone, transportation, etc. That work actually produces value. Money is not value, it is an unreliable medium for exchange of value. Creating money does not create value, doing useful work does. People investing in bitcoin have lost sight of this. The world will not be able to feed one person more because 300 Billion (or whatever) in fictional value was created. Nor would one more person be fed because dollars are printed.
The problem with bitcoin, now, is that it costs so much more than printing a dollar to calculate a new bitcoin. You are confusing this with creating value, while losing the benefit of all of that electricity is a net cost to society greater than the cost of printing a dollar.
I don't need to cite authorities, this isn't a court. And the only authority I saw you cite was a dictionary and Wikipedia, on the use of a word, and obviously words and their meanings change over time.
Bitcoin embodies the bad characteristics of fiat currency without being the product of a government. So, fiat currency need not be the product of a government any longer. Not so difficult to understand.
It doesn't do you credit if you have to pile on the insults because you've failed to make your point.
Work going into mining bitcoins doesn't create any value whatsoever. Bitcoin value is a fiction for the fatuous, and its holders will realize that soon enough. And the work has not gone to create any benefit to society whatsoever, where a silver-based currency, for example, would at least have resulted in the extraction of a useful material.
That statement should be kept with this ship is unsinkable.
I understand that gold won't feed me directly, and that technology could change its value, but it always has a value in connection with its utility for practical things. In contrast, a bitcoin is a large number created to satisfy a set of arbitrary rules. It represents a potentially large amount of work which has been made useless and can never be made useful again. So, there is a fundamental difference in that bitcoin can never have any intrinsic value, while hard currency bases always have some.
Indeed, bitcoin is a sort of potlatch, in that it represents wasted computing effort and the power and materials that went into that effort, to the detriment of society. Nothing but a cryptocurrency so efficiently wastes work to no purpose. Currencies should in general cause something that arguably benefits society, like the creation or extraction of a usable commodity.
You forgot the proliferation of unregulated derivatives.