Topic: Why I don't listen to Paul Krugman, or anyone that says the Internet is a Bubble - page 2. (Read 3616 times)

Great post. Bitcoin is pro-freedom and those ivory tower types know their lives and positions depend on control.

Few things piss me off more than first world self indulgent armchair academics spew mindless drivel about how deflation and early adopters make Bitcoin a bad deal for the poor.

I want them to go somewhere in the world that experiences actual poverty and tell those people that monetary inflation is good for them to their faces.

Go visit Greece and talk to the people living in towns where every house still has rebar sticking out the top, because the average person can't afford the property taxes on "completed" homes, so leave their houses unfinished for decades to qualify as "under construction".

Talk to some Peruvians who are effectively forbidden by "progressive" labor laws from working at a single job for more than 90 days. Those laws require lavish benefits for permanent employees, you see, and since only governments and well-connected business can afford most of the population is relegated to temp work. In order to get in an extra "fuck you" to the regular Peruvian, the banks there won't give you an account unless you're rich or have a salaried position.

Maybe when these people have some actual experiences in the real world, outside their ivory tower intellectual circle jerks, maybe when they've been a house guest in a home whose master bedroom had a dirt floor, maybe then they can say something meaningful about poverty then.

Here's a reply I stole from Reddit on why Bitcoin isn't Evil

"South African here, Yes bitcoins are a godsend, our corrupt goverment does any means possible to take money from us, bitcoins kinda negating that for the most part which has saved "me" alot of money & with it's growth, given me alot of money. anyone that says its "evil" clearly has had a sheltered life without much financial troubles."

Think outside of your 1st world problems. Bitcoin saves these 3rd world folks from corruption and gives a chance for them to grow wealth at insane rates despite most of their citizens not even having access to the stock market, let alone a bank account.

Agreed +100

Similar take on Alan Greenspan, back in 1996 stock market was "irrational exurberance" so if you listened and got out you were screwed out of 5 years of huge gains.

Even if bitcoin is a bubble, it has just started. I think the bitcoin bubble will burst in another 5 years.

Today, December 28 Paul Krugman posts an article stating how he doesn't believe in Bitcoin and is probably nothing but a Bubble:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

In another comment from Reddit, they show another article that shows his prediction of the Internet is nothing more than a bubble and will be no more popular than a fax machine:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/12/paul-krugmans-predictions.html

If too lazy to click on the links, here is what Paul predicted on the internet:

* Productivity will drop sharply this year. Nineteen ninety-seven, which was a very good year for worker productivity, has led many pundits to conclude that the great technology-led boom has begun. They are wrong. Last year will prove to have been a blip, just like 1992.

* Inflation will be back. Wages are rising at almost 5 percent annually, and the underlying growth of productivity is probably only 1.5 percent or less. Sooner or later, companies will have to start raising prices. In 1999 inflation will probably be more than 3 percent; with only moderate bad luck–say, a drop in the dollar–it could easily top 4 percent. Sell bonds!

* Within two or three years, the current mood of American triumphalism–our belief that we have pulled economically and technologically ahead of the rest of the world–will evaporate. All it will take is a few technological setbacks or a mild recession here while Europe or Japan recovers a bit.

* The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

* As the rate of technological change in computing slows, the number of jobs for IT specialists will decelerate, then actually turn down; ten years from now, the phrase information economy will sound silly.

* Sometime in the next 20 years, maybe sooner, there will be another '70s-style raw-material crunch: a disruption of oil supplies, a sharp run-up in agricultural prices, or both. And suddenly people will remember that we are still living in the material world and that natural resources matter.

Because of this, I will probably go all in on Bitcoin. I will do the opposite of what the media and pros say.

By doing this, I have netted unimaginable returns so far whether be it Stocks or Bitcoin. The media and other "professionals" told me to stay away from Bitcoin, guess what I invested a bunch in April of 2013 when it crashed at 60 and didn't sell. I'm probably gonna invest more since 2014 seems more promising then the news we had in 2013.