Topic: Why bitcoin isn't currency. - page 13. (Read 21387 times)

You'll never see 30-year mortgages denominated in honest money.  You'll just rent and save for a few years and buy a house outright.

You're parsing the statement wrong.  The implicit negation is not on the "reward," but on "deflationary."
In other words, you will become wealthy (as in "able to buy more stuff") by doing absolutely nothing.  Do nothing to get rich, that's the intended meaning.  Try doing nothing with inflationary currency, and *POOF!* -- you're broke.  See?

&To your edit:  "for being an anal retentive," yes

Anthony, i asked you to stay focused.  Which part of "deflationary currency rewards you for sitting on your ass" don't you agree with?
***a.ah.ah no, don't put a quotes tag here***
Answer that, and we can take it from here, K?

Sitting on your ass as opposed to running a business which employs people, giving them a chance to earn.  Or "enabling commerce," as you put it.
If, on the other hand, you feel that people who invest money are not "enabling commerce," we can also take it there

So yes, deflationary money does reward you for sitting on your ass (a colloquialism for "doing nothing") -- the point of my post & the point you failed to address with your endless tangents.
So avoid your buckshot/million quotes approach, and stay focused, pl0x.

Your reply is both diversionary and misleading.
Yes, deflationary currency does reward you for sitting on your ass.  If a currency is deflating at 100% a day, only a fool would invest it in a business that doesn't grow at a better rate.  So yeah, deflationary money rewards you for being "less foolish," since it's downright stupid to do anything but sit & guard your treasure.

Morality, of course, is subjective.  If you think that it's moral to get rich by doing nothing, while others struggle, then it's perfectly moral for you.  Of course, since money in itself doesn't add any value to the world but only redistributes it, your growing wealthier by adding nothing to the world means that another man grows poorer.
I dig your morals

maybe the OP is bored and wants your time to giggle mingle snuggle. But its a healthy debate though.

1) agreed but my point being for a unit to be effective we all have to use the same unit or a have a fixed conversation, if we use alternate ones.

2) There is a flaw in the reasoning that price stability is good. Price stability reflects only that supply and demand are in equilibrium.

While price stability is the goal it is achieved honestly by a free market and voluntary exchange. Manipulating the units of currency is dishonest. So to explain, given our (all of humanity) needs change and our value judgments personal, the currency unit we all use needs to be fixed and constant, to allow honest exchange in trade.

A fixed currency unit allows humans a fixed scale by which to judge value.

 

Prices most certainly can continue dropping forever with a fixed money supply.  Technological advancements always cause prices to drop if those values (prices) are measured with honest money.

BTC is a currency and it will be a currency to me and to every miner

Money is nothing like "a unit in the system of measurement for length": it measures the exchange value of whichever it prices, rather than any of its objective properties - exchange value is neither objective nor constant.

Thank you for clarifying that.  On this we agree. 
There is still much of that conversation that I've not yet been able to fathom. 
In your formulation, is unequal distribution a problem too, or no?  If so why?

Is rewarding good risk-taking immoral?  (Remember, all these "rich" risk takers could still be left with zero)
The current system rewards poor risk-taking (though bailouts and bail-ins), and currency wars.
Which is more moral?

 

Yes.

I am doing diner and getting it on with my wife tonight so I will respond to the rest of your comments in the morning. We just got a sweet box of wine.

You seem to miss the point. While you are right that price stability is a good goal for any kind of asset it is stupid to assume that bitcoin has any kine of price stability.
 Bitcoin is per definition deflationary so it makes sense to hold until a given value is reached. You do not gain anything until you exchange for another currency/asset.
Deflation is hard to realize with currencies since it boosts pseudo currencies and forging, not to mention extreme hoarding of said currency. In bitcoin that is no problem, but for nations who rely on people getting into debt and spending lots and lots of cash in order to run the economy it's a disaster, so they try to counter deflation with moneyprinting. Over hundreds of years a certain amount of inflation was deemed productive for the growth of economies and it became standard to print more money in order to regulate said inflation.
What you don't seem to understand is what bitcoin is at the moment; you could compare btc to rare earth metals or uranium, there is only a fixed amount and it is very hard to mine more, since there is pretty much a limit to how much can be mined in a timeframe of your choice. That in itself has nothing to do with honesty and greed at all.
For a good (but not perfect) example let's look at the distribution of oil: All oil producers agreed upon a limiting of supply in order to drive the price up and gain more per barrel and to protect themselves from underbidding one another. Would you call that greedy? Maybe you would, since they did it for profit. But a limiting of supply for an (nearly) unlimited asset is/will/was always the right thing to do since it prevents market collapse and subsequent loss of incentive for producers.
What would that mean for bitcoins? Let's say all the early adopters out there and all the people who bought in 2011 decided to share the wealth and only hold e few btc each. The price would plummet (if all buyers would subsequently sell with minimal gains) and bitcoins would be at a few dollars again. Miners would switch their rigs off since power costs would easily outweight the gains and new transactions could not be verified anymore. The whole system would break down and there still would no price stability.
And all of the above is not even near the complexity of modern game theory......

Maybe you are looking for "Mastercoins" or "Colored Coins" where the virtual is redeemable for a specific quantity of an asset?

We also do this with the Bitcoin Specie pieces whereby bitcoin is redeemable in precious metal.

The goal of stable money and low taxes will lend to prosperity for all, this deflationary period is not going to last forever.  (We are in beta, remember?  It can very easily go to zero, folks are also paid for their risk of capital more than for "doing nothing" as you put it.  The earliest investors took the most risk and are justly and morally compensated for that.)

That is certainly true. If the community cared about honesty you wouldn't be allowed to post here.

Lost me again, sorry.  

Inflation and deflation does pass out value to the members of the community, based on their "stake".
The US dollar doesn't maintain price stability.
What is the problem with the dollar's distribution?  Is it the method of distribution (banks and government first, the rest trickle-down so inflation is not experienced by those issuing the currency)?  Or the fact that distribution is unequal (redistribution being immoral)?  Or some other aspect of distribution?

I'd recommend a reading of Saltzman's "Gold and Liberty"
http://www.amazon.com/Gold-liberty-Economic-education-bulletin/dp/B0006PFFZO
It may clarify some things about honest money, and it is not all that long, and really excellent.

Or for lighter but longer reading, on monetary morality:



Are you advocating a proof of stake system rather than proof of work? It seems you are alternatively advocating this or its opposite, it is difficult to ascertain from the conversation.

I think Shawshank sort of has it...
This theoretical "not enough" money has never occurred.

If you think of Bitcoin as a tech stock, and bitcoins as shares, maybe it makes more sense to you?

I am sure you trolls see how immoral it is for the fed to steal the purchasing power of dollar by printing to much of it. Why cant you see that it immoral to increase the purchasing power of the dollar by not printing enough of them?

You shouldnt lose out when to much money is printed to maintain price stability and you shouldn't gain when not enough is printed either.

But this community doesnt give a fuck about honesty, just enriching yourselves. Thats fucked


 

FTFY.

honesty!

Read the whole post.

That is how the dollar maintains some price stability. When the demand for currency goes up so does the number of units. The problem is the distribution.

If the dollar was inflated or deflated by a machine and passed out randomly to the members using the currency it would be a moral system. 

The reward comes from being less foolish than those around you, not from "doing nothing".
What is more important is that the folks buying now, are investing in Bitcoin's development (it is still in beta, you know?)
Using the currency increases its utility as currency, so buy and spend, or mine and spend and what you don't spend (save) improves.
How is this not moral?

Your definition of "moral" is perplexing.  The example of length also perplexing.  What is it you are proposing?