What value would a currency have if only 1 person held the entire supply?
Quite a lot actually.
In most assets, the majority share is held by a minority. That's what gives it value. If you distribute stuff widely, it has no value (because it's widely distributed).
However, we've got to look at this in the context of a remark that
distributeToMePls made:
Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says
The basis for the asymmetry of wealth in the world is asymmetry in the money creation process. It's nothing to do with politics.
People without a banking licence cannot repay their loans on the same basis as they borrowed (i.e. by levering up liquidity on a fixed asset base). If banking was decentralised you'd be able to pay your mortgage off 10 times faster that you would than with the current system.
Let me explain it another way:
[1] - when you borrow for a mortgage, you are not borrowing PAST wealth. You are borrowing FUTURE wealth (worth nothing)
[2] - when you repay your mortgage, you are paying PAST wealth
Thats the reason for the asymmetrical wealth in the world. To get your hands on any money you need to do work. The lenders only need to print.
************ Solution ***************
There are 2 solutions to this scam. 1 is the old gold standard (which limits the ability of banks to print).
The other is to continue the current banking system but decentralise and granulise it so that people CAN repay their mortgages on the same basis that they borrowed.
Bitcoin and Dash are electronic equivalents of gold. There are no others that closely match the historical properties of money in the top 20 cryptos.
For [2], the solution is Bitshares. Bitshares is a decentralised bank. I have nowhere near the same holdings in BTS as I do in Dash (because it isn't as much fun) but economically. Bitshares is an incredibly liberating concept - probably way ahead of its time - except it actually works now.
It takes the banking model and makes it available to anyone that cares to own a share in that model. Not only that, it establishes a natural commercial interface between the market for risk assets and the market for stable currencies. (See if egg heads like GMaxwell or ABack are even interested in economics. They are not - they are coders).
Dash, on the other hand is a token.
Until 2009 there were no electronic, uncounterfeitable tokens. Now that they've been discovered, their value will follow the classic characteristics of cash: e.g. instant, verifiable, anonymous (not private). Dash is a value basis - like gold nuggets. A very different concept from Bitshares.
Great post. It deserves another look.
It is so surprising that banks have problems. Really, how can you possibly lose money if you can make loans with nearly 0 collateral. If the borrower doesn't pay you take the asset and sell it off. If the borrower does pay, you get the amount loaned with interest.
A comment on the second solution. If loans are required to have 100% collateral, they still will cause problems since the interest needs to come from somewhere(Future wealth). It does slow down the process, but is still going to end in collapse. Most long term civilizations that use interest have debt jubilees. They basically wipe all the debts and start over. Alternatively, countries can revalue their currency every 30 years to postpone the problem until it is is worth nothing.
Another solution to manage this is to have all the banks owned by the government. Then any interest they collect is used for public works, taxes, and government expenses. There would not need to be an income tax or sales tax. This is actually the ideal scenario, but a little unpopular with the private banks. Lincoln and Kennedy were assassinated because they wanted to get rid of the privately owned federal reserve and use greenbacks. (For those that took the red pill, I mean the assassinations were by single individuals(Booth/Oswald) and as a bonus Oswald used a magic bullet. They were totally unrelated to any unpopular policies.)
