I don't have any business there, and I sympathies those who do.
What I don't appreciate about Gox is their attitude!
They honestly think it is ok to withhold clients' money and they are doing the best they can?
If it was a local business in any country, they would have been sued long ago.
They certainly need legal pressure to wake them up.
Yep, i can only assume they must believe our money is theirs to play with as they choose? - we put money in MtGox, MtGox get to play how they want.
Its libertarianism gone too far and actually defeats the function of money, trade & contracts entirely. No future libertarian society would function this way.
I'm a libertarian and keep my few bitcoins in an offline computer. Please don't equate libertarianism with storing your bitcoins on someone else's wallet. Once you transferred the bitcoins out of your control, they're essentially an alt-coin at that point.
Let me explain myself better... i am also very much interested in libertarianism, i probably am a libertarian although i dont like to box stuff like that.
This isnt just a question of people being stupid to store money on gox, some bought in last month & could be stuck on gox.
My point was no type of society could function if in all business contracts could be broken or we have absolutely zero trading standard. There is no point in money/trade/services if nobody can be "trusted" at all. You pay someone to save you the time to do stuff yourself.
Yes you have to do your own research before giving someone your money but if they forever move the goal posts & arent accountable then its a complete breakdown & no trade functions.
We also currently arent in a libertarian society & personally i do "care" about strangers ive never met - its probably the socialization ive received from society yes.
If you pm me, I can provide a few good books on amazon that can be purchased used for under $8. You seem intelligent but unfamiliar with a lot of established theory. If you enjoy learning for its own sake, then you'll love finance theory. If you have ADHD (i.e. you'd rather watch game of thrones than read the books which are infinitely better) then here's a youtube video which essentially replaces the 5 books so long as you find and research answers to the questions which will stem from a curious mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8I'm new to this forum, but I'm not new to all forums. I know enough to know not to school somebody or make them look bad when you have less than 10 posts and they have 600. What you're basically arguing is the "libertarianism doesn't work" argument presented by bloggers such as this one and
this one and
this one.
In essence, the counter-argument to the statement
no type of society could function if in all business contracts could be broken or we have absolutely zero trading standard. is to barter directly until enough trust is built up to trade 1 potato today for 1 radish tomorrow until more trust is built, 10 for 10, etc..
Every producer of goods and every provider of services is faced with the dilemma of being unable to get ANYTHING of value for resources that will be wasted or utilized ineffeciently. In such a society, every individual with extra resources which are essentially valueless unless traded will have nothing to lose by trading with a new individual (what good are rotten fruits/vegetables?).
Look up "2p2 marketplace" where tens of thousands of dollars are regularly traded between poker players for shifting account balances to/from different websites so as to minimize their overall net exposure to risk of this message:
"Sorry, we are experiencing only a minor glitch and are temporarily limiting withdrawals while this issue is temporarily resolved"
Every bitcoin owner who was once an online poker player and endured "April 15th 2011" know how this Mt. Gox issue will play out: Mt. Gox doesn't have enough bitcoins to cover the face value of all their deposits.
Back to my main point, keeping money or storing anything of value with someone or something else other than yourself exposes you to a new set of risks. Poker players kept barely enough online in their "poker accounts" of various online enterprises down to the point of having dozens of people in their blackberry they could borrow from in 15 minutes because they collectively knew it's smarter to expose yourself to the risk of being scammed by another poker player than by being "scammed" by a poker site or online bitcoin exchange (although poker players are more harsh and will call a spade a spade) whereas I've found here and on reddit (as a lurker) that bitoin aficionados are so much more trusting of businesses than of random individuals.
In the poker world, it actually makes more sense to loan money to a poker player (whose skills you can vouch for by watching him play or requesting his last 10,000 hand histories) than to deposit money onto stars, ftp, or ub. There was a post I read earlier saying it's easy to sue mt. gox and get a judgment and sell it to a collection agency etc.. He must have been fresh out of law school because there's a saying "you can't get blood out of a turnip" and if mtgox is insolvent, I predict that half of the bitcoin community will tolerate 20-40 days of excuses before finally admit that their once valuable bitcoinage was traded for a worthless message saying that their account balance has XX.
Back in the early 2000's when a new poker site would open up and match deposits 100% up to $50, I deposited some, played a few hours, withdrew my original $50 and would run up a large sum of money. I've probably done this 10 times and sooner or later the site would close down, starting with an inability to withdraw funds. Then a unfalsifiable explanation which wasn't true yet was halfway plausible. They'd promise a "fix-by date" and then would allow you to "request withdrawals" then blame the problem on too many requests and then they would blame the surge of cashouts (a convenient excuse--as it draws attention away from the original issue of insolvency).
Another surefire way to guarantee a site is going bankrupt is if they still allow deposits, yet limit their withdrawals. I've only created an account today because I felt the need to share my experiences which are relevant and unfolding predictably the same way with mtgox as with now-defunct poker sites. Legal action is only symbolic because "your money" isn't really your money once you no longer have control of it. A symbolic legal claim against an insolvent creditor might score a moral victory or earn you sympathy from the community, but I warn everyone to save their money if mtgox truly is underwater in terms of outstanding bitcoin balances verses actual bitcoins stored in their possession. The best they can do is to acquire some emergency, short-term loans from major bitcoin stakeholders who will then work out a deal behind-the-scenes for a percent ownership in the company if it survives the 6-month period where net withdrawals exceed the net depositors.
what a (hilarious) mess 