Topic: Is Bitcoin a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme & what are the ramifications? - page 2. (Read 10949 times)

Its planned - and therefore in Austrian terms, its not money.  Please don't debate semantics on an article that you recommended. 

If the planning part is not convincing enough for you, surely the "BITCOINS ARE NOT MONEY" in bold and in caps should do it.  Your guy does not think Bitcoin is money.  Given that he feels the same way about the dollar, its hardly a surprise!

In response to the fact that in Western countries, the biggest killers of the very poor are diseases caused by too much food and diseases caused by too much leisure, you are wittering about some weird US thing that is fuck all to do with poor people being well fed and not needing to work.  What do you propose? That we police people's diets and chase them with dogs for an hour a day?  Would that be better? 

Noted.  Not sure I'd say that makes it centralized though.


Reminds me of the US RDA (recommended daily allowance).  It's what's necessary to keep you alive, not healthy.  That's not my definition of "fine".

M

It would probably be clearer if you glanced over the Satoshi papers.  Bitcoin is very much a centrally planned project - its the execution that is decentralised.  So the exact amount of Bitcoin is regulated, the difficulty is planned and the end date for mining is set in stone.

In Western countries, the biggest killers of the very poor are diseases caused by too much food and diseases caused by too much leisure.  You can argue that things might be better but in terms of economies doing the stuff I want, things are fine.  

How is Bitcoin planned?  It's virtually the antithesis of centralized planning, unless I'm missing something (always possible).


You and I clearly have a different definition of "fine".

M

Impaler: My take is that you and mint are essentially arguing the same point.
You are arguing that hard money accumulates into a few hands over time based on the natural tendency of individual actors acting in what they see as their own best interests and that no government is required for this process to occur.

Mint is arguing that once this occurs to a sufficient degree (gross income inequality) people will demand redistribution via government or if government is not responsive via a new government a la French Revolution. He is arguing that redistribution via government naturally arises as a result of your hording individuals above.

My question for you Mint is what makes you confident that starving governments via an anonymous coin would necessarily improve things. I agree with your underlying premise that we appear to be in a cycle of boom and bust based on finance/fractional banking/debt -> collectivism -> collapse -> gold standard -> restart cycle again. However at the end of each cycle so far knowledge has advanced and passive capital has declined compared to the same point in the cycle before it aka progress.

Removing the governments ability to tax will create other problems such as the inability to regulate and prevent tragedy of the commons type situations that require collective action.

"Here is the central fact of money. Money is the product of the market process. It arises out of an unplanned, decentralized process. This takes time. It takes a lot of time."

Thats both the dollar and Bitcoin ruled out.

Today's systems are working fine.  You could argue that things might be a bit better but overall things are fine.

I did.  Where did I state he said otherwise?  I gave my $.02 worth, which differs from his.


And today's systems are working great, aren't they?

M

Have you read the article?  He is very clear that Bitcoin cannot be a currency as currencies can't be planned.

I'm familiar with the Austrian guff.  Basically all growth since the invention of paper money is regarded as unnatural and all forms of economic management are regarded as intrinsically bad.  It does nothing for me.

Do you disagree?


If you're new to Austrian economics, it takes a bit to adjust to it.  I've been reading his stuff for a while, and I think it's good stuff.

I think what he's basically saying is Bitcoin has the capacity to become money, ie, something used by the common person as a medium to exchange goods.  However, because it's currently viewed by many as an investment (buy now, sell later), sooner or later you run out of buyers.  When that happens, it's going to crash, and a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money.  That will cause a stigma to be associated with it, which will kill its ability to be used as money.

My $.02: every fiat currency out there is doomed.  It's just a matter of time.  Bitcoin might survive solely because the banksters that think they run the world use fiat because it works well for them.  When the world wakes up from its lethargy and decides to use real money, bitcoin might survive vs real money (gold/silver), but then again, it might not.

M

Mint:  If your arguing that hard money will be rejected by the people and can only be forcefully imposed by government that is indeed a more nuanced position then I had originally though you had.  But I would still disagree.

I believe that individuals DO crave hard money, everyone knows that if they possess a harder form of money then everyone else they will be advantaged.  It's like the classic prisoners-dilemma where you win by betraying your partner, hard money is when everyone is betraying everyone.  This is why people (particularly 'libertarian' types who view other people only as means to their own ends) are attracted to things like BTC, their is a natural greedy response to acquire hard money like a 'sweet tooth' that makes us eat too much sugar, the systemic effects are terrible but most people do not think systemically so we end up stuck in a sub-optimal situation.  Basically I see a logical bottom-up explanation for how we got here so I don't attribute it to a top-down cabal, I always turn to the conspiratorial theories LAST.


Their are certainly instances in history were central authority forces hard money onto the populous (usually by taking away soft-money) but we can see from the rabid BTC zealots that exist that the imposition of hard money will be meet with Cheers and Applause by large swaths of the masses.  Thus is it not JUST a problem of government, and particularly now that so much inertia is built up behind it.  Most people only know our current money system which is harder then it should be (BTC is hyper-hard by comparison).  Given the existence of gold as an easily mined, easily traded commodity it is very easy to see how it became money all over the world, no central authority is necessary to do that.  Most negative government action has been in the form of suppression of alternatives to hard money (or the softening of the money standard ) rather then to create the norm of hard money in the first place.

Interesting.  He starts by saying social security is a ponzi scheme and that dollars are not really money.

Sadly, I lost the urge to carry on past that part.  If you read it all, I salute your indefatigability.

Gary North has cast his vote...

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11828.cfm

M

You pick an arbitrary transaction between private parties to create some irrational hyperbole.

Heck if I note that Dori in a Thirld World country internet cafe gave me free internet access ($0.25 per hour normally) in exchange for my promise to share some of the ownership of Art-O-matic, then does that mean I count the gain after 3 years of the $1.2 million IPO valuation that I was offered in 2001 as a counter-example to your claim.

Have you priced the Tulip mania in comparison? Are you sure you really want to show the "investment" only matches manias and not real investments throughout history?

The gloating is what people who deserve to lose their talents do, because they aren't productive any more, because they've been made too rich to do any real work.

I guess you will delete this post too.