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Topic: Economic Totalitarianism - page 20. (Read 345738 times)

sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
May 05, 2016, 04:03:12 PM
Because POW is flawed.
If Bitcoin was invented with a POS consensus mechanism, we'd all be happy campers. Now there is no choice but to wait for Bitcoin to run itself to the ground in order to let more secure designs take over.

As if POS would not be centralized? With the current % of bitcoin distribution, about 5-10 people would decide the fate of bitcoin. Most likely anonymously.

With the current setup atleast we know who the miners are, the pool operators, while their miners can just quit and join from them, it's much safer.

Because if 1 pool goes rogue, then the miners mining there can just go to another one.



In a POS system, 5-10 anonymous people would have a secret backdoor meeting and would decide whatever they want. That would be horrible.

And this is terrible. Tomorrow the chinese government will visit them and tell them "nihao, we cut off your megawatt power lines, we've had enough of your internet play money, game over". An event like that will destroy the bulk of hashrate and effectively kill Bitcoin. The pools are the miners these days, no miners can go nowhere because close to entire mining is now industrial scale, running on industrial scale facilities, fully permissioned by the government while Bitcoin is small. Anonymous POS stakers cannot be shut down this easily. And Bitcoin miners have secret backdoor meetings all the time just the same but you have an external danger with them being dependent on the benevolence of government precisely because they are known.

Just yesterday the chinese government ordered their journalists to make only favorable and good looking economic forecasts and reports, you really believe they'll think twice to shut down the Bitcoin mining farms if Bitcoin somehow gets big and dangerous to their fiat? It would be a kindergarden level of naivete to think so.
hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 1009
JAYCE DESIGNS - http://bit.ly/1tmgIwK
May 05, 2016, 03:08:36 PM
Because POW is flawed.
If Bitcoin was invented with a POS consensus mechanism, we'd all be happy campers. Now there is no choice but to wait for Bitcoin to run itself to the ground in order to let more secure designs take over.

As if POS would not be centralized? With the current % of bitcoin distribution, about 5-10 people would decide the fate of bitcoin. Most likely anonymously.

With the current setup atleast we know who the miners are, the pool operators, while their miners can just quit and join from them, it's much safer.

Because if 1 pool goes rogue, then the miners mining there can just go to another one.



In a POS system, 5-10 anonymous people would have a secret backdoor meeting and would decide whatever they want. That would be horrible.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
May 05, 2016, 02:06:13 PM
China's centralization of Bitcoin mining:

China's centralization of Bitcoin mining:

Chinese Mining Expands

Guo said the mine, operating 24 hours a day, mines 50 bitcoins all day.

Guo launched the operation two years ago. At that time, mining in China represented about 40% of the world’s mining equipment. China now has 70% of all the equipment, he said.

Guo has established two mines in China and is building another one that, once complete, will be the largest in the world and will produce more than 30% of the entire world’s bitcoin.

he said he mine 50 bitcoin all day, and then if he add another farm he will mine 30%?, somethign wrong with his math, because 30% now are 1200 coins, and after halvign still 600 coin, very far away from 50 with just 2 farm

That really depends if the third one it is actually the largest farm in the world--he never stated that they are the same size.

Well if his claim ends up occurring and his mining farm has a lower cost than the 28.75% of the most marginal miners (and assuming no miners mine unprofitably), then simple algebra says China's share of mining will increase to 98.75% from currently estimated 70%.

Btw, I did that in my head in 30 seconds or less, including reasoning out the impact on mining difficulty. Please check my calculation. (note I assumed 30% share is 1200 coins pre-halving)

Anyone ASIC mining Bitcoin now should sell their ASICs while they still can.

Because POW is flawed.
If Bitcoin was invented with a POS consensus mechanism, we'd all be happy campers. Now there is no choice but to wait for Bitcoin to run itself to the ground in order to let more secure designs take over.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 05, 2016, 02:37:01 AM
China's centralization of Bitcoin mining:

China's centralization of Bitcoin mining:

Chinese Mining Expands

Guo said the mine, operating 24 hours a day, mines 50 bitcoins all day.

Guo launched the operation two years ago. At that time, mining in China represented about 40% of the world’s mining equipment. China now has 70% of all the equipment, he said.

Guo has established two mines in China and is building another one that, once complete, will be the largest in the world and will produce more than 30% of the entire world’s bitcoin.

he said he mine 50 bitcoin all day, and then if he add another farm he will mine 30%?, somethign wrong with his math, because 30% now are 1200 coins, and after halvign still 600 coin, very far away from 50 with just 2 farm

That really depends if the third one it is actually the largest farm in the world--he never stated that they are the same size.

Well if his claim ends up occurring and his mining farm has a lower cost than the 28.75% of the most marginal miners (and assuming no miners mine unprofitably), then simple algebra says China's share of mining will increase to 98.75% from currently estimated 70%.

Btw, I did that in my head in 30 seconds or less, including reasoning out the impact on mining difficulty. Please check my calculation. (note I assumed 30% share is 1200 coins pre-halving)

Anyone ASIC mining Bitcoin now should sell their ASICs while they still can.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1001
May 04, 2016, 06:43:23 PM
http://m.wect.com/wect/db_355635/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=XH1Xlo8a 

The average joe is getting fed up with socialism   Cheesy
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 04, 2016, 01:26:55 AM
Yea, gold is guaranteed to not be fiat, but where do you draw your claim from that it's guaranteed to continue to be a form of money at all?  This is an unknown.  Maybe gold is wothless in the future except for jewlery and anti-corrosive plating and only Bitcoin and a Helium3 backed dollar or something exists.  Then gold loses it's entire network effect derived value and becomes the same thing as current day copper.

Quote
Napoleon III reserved a prized set of aluminum cutlery for special guests at banquets. (Less favored guests used gold knives and forks.)

Well I agree that man has gradually changed what is money to what has superior attributes such as durability, divisibility, transportability. But remember (pure not legal tender) gold's main function has always a hedge against government. Thus my argument is that until crypto-currency can prove it is immune to centralization and centralized control over the internet, then it can't replace gold's function. That is entirely my point.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 03, 2016, 12:05:45 PM
that a majority of people will vote for strong man who promises Free Stuff.

...

In the video, Vitalik has fallen for the standard technocrat fallacy where he embraces this system of top down control because he fantasizes about himself being part of the controller class.

Vitalik drank the Koolaid that says if good people like him are in control of the technology, then the other 99% can be happy because he is good guy and loves everyone. What he fails to grasp is the Iron Law of Political Economics which says that centralized governance is a power vacuum. That means that whom ever is nice, is pushed aside by those who are more ruthless and can lie better.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 03, 2016, 12:01:33 PM
Both Bitcoin and gold have value in that department, but it's difficult for someone to build and guard their own gold vault all day.

Very weak argument. One who can't hide well 100 Kruggerands, is an inept person. Rather the strong points for Bitcoin are:

1. Transportable without confiscation at airports.
2. Electronically spendable and transferable.
3. Effortlessly divisible.
4. No assay needed (cheating is mathematically impossible).

The strong points for gold are:

1. Can't fail.
2. Untraceable.
3. Eternal

Clearly I think crypto-currency is better for most needs, but gold still has some unique use cases, i.e. 1 - 5% of networth as a hedge against apocalypse.



Both Bitcoin and gold have value in that department, but it's difficult for someone to build and guard their own gold vault all day.

Very weak argument. One who can't hide well 100 Kruggerands, is an inept person.

How is that a weak argument?  [...] On the other hand, there's obviously little future for gold due to this scenario.  Almost everyone would place their gold in a 3rd party vault and now it's the same thing as fiat. [...]

You are evaluating gold systemically in terms of whether it is a replacement for fiat. I am pointing out that for the wealthy person, the use case of gold is irrelevant to whether the masses don't adopt gold:

One who can't hide well 100 Kruggerands, is an inept person.

[...]

Clearly I think crypto-currency is better for most needs, but gold still has some unique use cases, i.e. 1 - 5% of networth as a hedge against apocalypse.

The utility of crypto-currency from a personal standpoint is it much more prone to become a top-down controlled fiat and thus lose its permission-less quality.

Gold systemically doesn't solve the fiat problem, but to a wealthy person it is personally it is guaranteed to not be a fiat, as I hold it in my hand and no government can cancel gold as they routinely do for cash[1]. They can erect capital controls, but my gold can remain buried until the government has changed.

In short, gold is more durable than crypto-currency. Whether that is useful to me personally or not, is a matter of personal analysis, perspective, and opinion.

[1]https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/europes-practice-of-cancelling-currency-the-dirty-little-secret-everyone-overlooks/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/north_america/americas-current-economy/the-war-on-cash-2/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/writings/2012-2/the-truth-about-gold-why-you-should-buy-it/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/says-law/
legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 1852
May 03, 2016, 11:41:49 AM
...

Venezuela is in deep doo-doo now.  I have read a couple of stories that they cannot even afford to buy the paper to print their money (and that they are past-due on paying their bills to foreign bank note printers).

Venezuela is the classic modern example of a blow-hard Socialist strong-man government that we had hoped was all gone, all in the past.  Nope!  The people VOTED for Chavez and Maduro (as the Germans did for Hitler).  This is distressing, as it looks like we will never learn, that a majority of people will vote for strong man who promises Free Stuff.

The FSA will have to learn the hard way.  In Venezuela, and later to even the USA.  Americans voted for "Hope & Change" after all.
hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 1009
JAYCE DESIGNS - http://bit.ly/1tmgIwK
May 03, 2016, 11:31:44 AM
"QE does not inject money to the people."

Correct. Think of it as a pump that drains money from savers
via ultra low interest rates and sprays that money onto selected
banks' balance sheets.

Of course the current QE doesnt inject money, they just inject loans not money.

But under different circumstances, say a massive debt default, they have to print M1 money to prop up the bubbles.

This is how the Weimar Republic collapsed, they devalued their currency to pay the war reparations, then asset bubbles formed where people tried to save their wealth. Then the bubbles collapsed, and the central bank went in to pump them up by printing M1 money and buying them up. Then hyperinflation came.

Its the same pattern.

Is this similar to Venezuela and Greece?

Greece no, because they use the EUR, they are dependent on the ECB, so they rather just roll out austerity there and cut the costs. The ECB will obviously not sacrifice the entire europe for greece.

But Venezuala is similar, they had a massive asset deflation, especially oil, which makes up their bulk of their economy. The oil market collapsed in the previous months, and they had to print their bolivars to pay their debts as their income shrunk.

They are very indebted and they promised not to default on their bonds, so they just rather print out all their money and directly pay all debts and pump back their assets. This caused hyperinflation once it got out of control, like it always does.

So Venezuela is just another event of the same pattern.
legendary
Activity: 1834
Merit: 1019
May 03, 2016, 10:35:12 AM
"QE does not inject money to the people."

Correct. Think of it as a pump that drains money from savers
via ultra low interest rates and sprays that money onto selected
banks' balance sheets.

Of course the current QE doesnt inject money, they just inject loans not money.

But under different circumstances, say a massive debt default, they have to print M1 money to prop up the bubbles.

This is how the Weimar Republic collapsed, they devalued their currency to pay the war reparations, then asset bubbles formed where people tried to save their wealth. Then the bubbles collapsed, and the central bank went in to pump them up by printing M1 money and buying them up. Then hyperinflation came.

Its the same pattern.

Is this similar to Venezuela and Greece?
hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 1009
JAYCE DESIGNS - http://bit.ly/1tmgIwK
May 03, 2016, 09:25:30 AM
"QE does not inject money to the people."

Correct. Think of it as a pump that drains money from savers
via ultra low interest rates and sprays that money onto selected
banks' balance sheets.

Of course the current QE doesnt inject money, they just inject loans not money.

But under different circumstances, say a massive debt default, they have to print M1 money to prop up the bubbles.

This is how the Weimar Republic collapsed, they devalued their currency to pay the war reparations, then asset bubbles formed where people tried to save their wealth. Then the bubbles collapsed, and the central bank went in to pump them up by printing M1 money and buying them up. Then hyperinflation came.

Its the same pattern.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 03, 2016, 05:26:23 AM
“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

    p. 413 ; Francisco d’Anconia to Bertram Scudder
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 03, 2016, 04:57:24 AM
But gold has a utility that crypto-currency doesn't have, which is that it can't disappear due to the centralization inherent in profitable mining of proof-of-work or the centralization inherent in any proof-of-stake variant (don't make me justify this statement as we've discussed it ad nauseum before).

The utility of crypto-currency from a personal standpoint is much more prone to become a top-down controlled fiat.

Gold systemically doesn't solve the fiat problem, but to me personally it is guaranteed to not be a fiat, as I hold it in my hand and no government can cancel gold as they routinely do for cash[1]. They can erect capital controls, but my gold can remain buried until the government has changed.

In short, gold is more durable than crypto-currency. Whether that is useful to me personally or not, is a matter of personal analysis, perspective, and opinion.

[1]https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/europes-practice-of-cancelling-currency-the-dirty-little-secret-everyone-overlooks/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/north_america/americas-current-economy/the-war-on-cash-2/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/writings/2012-2/the-truth-about-gold-why-you-should-buy-it/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/says-law/
sr. member
Activity: 268
Merit: 256
May 02, 2016, 05:46:10 PM
"QE does not inject money to the people."

Correct. Think of it as a pump that drains money from savers
via ultra low interest rates and sprays that money onto selected
banks' balance sheets.
hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 1009
JAYCE DESIGNS - http://bit.ly/1tmgIwK
May 02, 2016, 08:30:58 AM
Yes thats true, but everytime there is a massive deflation, the central banks start injecting M1 money into the economy via QE.

QE does not inject money to the people.

The current QE scheme pumps M3 and M2 money into the economy (that are conditional, loan based) by doing the repo scams between the banks and CB. Or by giving loans to banks that they will pass onto borrowers like corporations, or anyday mortgage owner.

In an event of all-out deflation, the central bank would inject money directly (M0 or rather M1 if they ban cash), and not via loans. They would just print out the money directly and buy up directly all assets that are falling.

Then everyone who is selling those assets (land,property, commodities,bonds, stocks etc) will still exit, and with the extra cash he got, and the printed money would be injected directly into the economy via those sellers.

And this way the injected money would directly increase prices, all around the board , resulting in hyperinflation.

This is exactly how the Weimar Republic went down.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
May 01, 2016, 06:21:56 PM
Yes thats true, but everytime there is a massive deflation, the central banks start injecting M1 money into the economy via QE.

QE does not inject money to the people.
hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 1009
JAYCE DESIGNS - http://bit.ly/1tmgIwK
May 01, 2016, 07:43:58 AM
If the interest rates rise globally, there will be hyperinflation

Utter nonsense.

It will be massive deflation due to sovereign debt defaults. The governments are not going to drop money from helicopters. Please understand what is really going on.

Yes thats true, but everytime there is a massive deflation, the central banks start injecting M1 money into the economy via QE.

It will always result in hyperinflation.


Massive bailins and asset deflation will cause big riots, so they rather just print out the money and pump it back.


sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
April 30, 2016, 10:01:09 PM
Enslave?  I think one wotld currency would be a good thing.   Anything to bring humanity together instead of dividing us. We need to tear down political boundaries and remake the world.   And hey, isn't that what bitcoin is for?

It would help a lot if you'd my prior posts in this thread (when I used to have the username 'iamback'):

I chose to agree. This would be the single biggest issue that would cause an enslaving of nations.
thats why we need country fiat and bitcoin.

I thought we are already in this situation.

*Ahem the US dollar? last time I checked everyone loves it, despite its covered bad value.

So why would it recourse into another world reserve currency.

The difference will be that the new one-world reserve coming approximately 2020, will not be controlled by any nation, but rather by a world government body.

This will be viewed by the world as more fair. But in reality it will be much less fair, because the world government will act basically the way the Troika does in the EU now, lending to the nations and never letting them default. They will lend in the world currency, but the people will be paid in their nation's shit currency which is debased like hell by the national politics. So then when the national currency loses value, the people are stuck paying back loans in the relatively more expensive world currency.

This is precisely what the Troika did to the PIIGS to destroy them. They will then do this on a global scale to enslave us all.



I hope everyone understands the implied point in the OP of comparing the Euro vs. Greece to the one-world reserve currency vs. nations.

Greece was forced to borrow denominated in Euros during the speculative inflow of investment at the turn of the 21st century, but as Germany was more productive they benefited more from the Euro and Greece had no way to devalue their debt. So they are repaying the debt with a lower productive economy with massive egress of speculative investment.

The same problem with happen when the reserve currency for debt is SDRs and then all nations will be repaying their debts in SDRs while they won't have the policy tools to inflate nor deflate their debt burdens to respond to volatility in relative productivity and speculative ingress and egress of capital. Effectively they become a slave to the international central bank who can issue fractional reserve debt denominated in SDRs, which the banksters will surely have in their back pocket again. Just like the Fed now is pumping debt into the developing world making them short the dollar, then it will pull the rug from under them by raising interest rates sending the dollar higher and causing them to repay debt in more expensive dollars.

The only solution to this problem is for the Knowledge Age to rise and say "I don't need stored monetary capital, I need knowledge". I will quote from myself about this as follows.

[...]



So Armstrong has been pitching this idea that governments could just print the money they need for taxes. So the model he is proposing is where national currencies float against an international reserve currency, so governments can then mess up their own currencies if they wish. He prefer the governments just print the money from their central banks, and the relative success of nations at managing their economic and fiscal policies will determine their relative value of the national currencies relative to the inevitable one-world reserve currency.

But by Armstrong's own admission, trade only accounts for 10% of the world's capital flows and thus the vast majority of the world's wealth will choose the one-world reserve currency as its unit-of-account and thus who ever has their hands on the levers for the debasement and fractional reserves rules of the one-world reserve currency (e.g. the elite who run the World Bank, BIS, IMF, etc..) can then speculate and manipulate the national economies at-will. This will be just Goldman Sachs take over of Europe and Greece but on a global economy-of-scale level.

For analogous reasons as to why the Euro failed, the one-world reserve currency with national government debts denominated in separate currencies will also cause the nations to fail just like Greece did. The bottom line is that who ever controls the reserve currency of the world, holds the power to destroy and enslave the other nations.

Also Armstrong is contradicting himself on claiming above that the impetus for a move to a one-world reserve currency will be only for economic reasons and "not political".



coinits, calm down you are preaching to the choir. You perhaps don't realize I wrote the syndicated essay Bitcoin : The Digital Kill Switch. I am the one who has been writing that Bitcoin is owned by TPTB.

In spite of the arguable fact that Bitcoin is controlled by the global elite, my guarantee that it won't be the "winner take all" global currency remains certain.

First of all, simpleton readers don't seem to understand the distinction between a reserve currency and a circulating currency. Crypto-currencies are the latter. Dollar and Euro cash are examples of the latter. US Treasury and Euro-denominated bonds are the former (Tier 1 reserve assets in the BIS Basel model). IMF SDRs are the former.

The global elite are planning for a national (or regional) currencies floating against a global reserve currency. And they are planning for circulating currencies which are all digital. Bitcoin is one gambit in that mix.



Nope, but it would probably enslave Russia. Just look at what happened to the Ruble!

Incorrect! The one-world reserve currency will enslave all of the nations. Study my post #11 more carefully. You didn't comprehend it.



I suggest you relate that to "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. And also relate that to the Asian crisis in 1998, which was caused by speculative international capital flows fleeing to Europe to take advantage of the ingress in investment that corresponded with the launch of the Euro.

Nations are inherently prone to short-term capital ingress and egress. Without their own central bank to inflate out of an egress crisis, they are enslaved by the unit-of-account which is imposed on them by investors.

The problem is fundamentally rooted in the ability of stored money to be a claim on future production. Instead when profitable production results from a diversity of knowledge innovations that are DIRECT (e.g. the customer uses your software, or they 3D print your design) and not just proxies diluted by mass production (e.g. factories make a million copies of your design), then stored money becomes incredibly difficult to invest. The more stored money you have, the faster it withers in relative value.

This is the paradigm shift coming on now due to the Knowledge Age.

In short, investing will become active instead of passive, and investing will be small and numerous (i.e. bottom-up) instead of large economy-of-scale fascism (i.e. top-down).

Sorry Armstrong! Storing capital in money instead of fine-grained (maximum division-of-labor) knowledge thus causing international capital flows that are the problem! That paradigm must be eliminated! We need capital flows to be instead actual finely-grained, bottom-up knowledge exchange, where capital becomes knowledge and not stored claims on future production.

Then there won't be any more nations, nor any one-world top-down slavery.

You say "no one will save and be productive"? Wrong! They will save up their knowledge gained by being productive instead of lazy! This is the paradigm shift of epic proportions and nearly no one sees it is happening.



I am very surprised that Armstrong can not conceptualize what I wrote above. He responded by pretending to himself that I am some simpleton who is only learning from him. He failed to understand I am not talking about the existing debts. I am talking about the new debts that will form after the global monetary reset (restructure or default).

My point is if we look at Greece, it sold its sovereign bonds denominated in the Euro(pean) reserve currency and thus it suffered pernicious (and self-reinforcing downward spiral of) austerity because it was not able to devalue the debt it owed by printing money to devalue its own currency and stimulate its economy by lowering the international cost of its exports and tourism industries.

Even more importantly as we can see with the dollar reserve currency now, countries that sell debt in denominated in their national currencies pay an interest premium compared to when they sell debt denominated in the reserve currency. This is one example of many reasons[1] that those who have control over the reserve currency's central bank, have enslaved the other nations. This is why a USA Treasury official famously said to his Third World cohort, "its our dollar, but it is your problem".

Armstrong is failing to understand that a reserve currency is inherently an enslavement paradigm. And the only possible way to eliminate this paradigm, is to make debt not profitable for investors. I explained how that will become the case with the shift from an Industrial Age to a Knowledge Age. But I think Armstrong is not smart enough to grasp the concept. Or he is too lazy to read the essays I wrote, which I had provided him links to.

Additionally I am shocked that Armstrong is conflating unit-of-account with unit-of-exchange. That is the most basic error. The coming one world reserve currency will not be a circulating currency that is used for retail transactions. If that were the case, then the nations wouldn't even have their own currencies any more. The reserve currency will be used for settlement internationally for exchange between the national currencies which will float against the one world reserve currency. I don't think the nations will agree to give up their control over their national currencies, rather they will just agree to a reserve currency that isn't controlled by the USA exclusively.

[1]   http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/an_exorbitant_privilege
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2009/09/cohen.htm
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/john-butler/curse-reserve-currency-triffin-dilemma
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1001
April 30, 2016, 09:09:17 PM
This is yet another reason why we need a successful decentralized social network:

Illegal immigrant is arrested over murder of American nanny in Austria after she took him in to stop him being deported - and is revealed to have raped underage girl



(nb: facebook owns the © on her picture. You know who owns your digital stuff after you get killed.)

The first thing I was ever told NOT to do on the internet was publish my real info, it's pretty fucked up how it has transformed from those days.  Angry
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