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Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

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Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#141

Post by spookthesunset »

Toine wrote: post #116
nameless912 wrote: post #107

Ugh. Yes, we need central banks, if for no other reason than that distributed systems are hard. Central banking helps prevent things like double-spends and creating currency out of thin air. Yes, technically cryptocurrencies "solve" the same problem, but at 1000x the energy expenditure and with no guarantee of avoiding a 51% attack by a coordinated network of rogue actors. It's almost like cryptocurrency zealots don'…

Most "cryptocurrency zealots" don't know shit about crypto or currencies.

Or math, computer science, finance, politics, government, sociology, scaling, economics or seemingly. Crypto zealots have truly drunk the kool aid and have shut off their critical thinking.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#142

Post by philippoi »

0x445442 wrote: post #139
nameless912 wrote: post #107

Ugh. Yes, we need central banks, if for no other reason than that distributed systems are hard. Central banking helps prevent things like double-spends and creating currency out of thin air. Yes, technically cryptocurrencies "solve" the same problem, but at 1000x the energy expenditure and with no guarantee of avoiding a 51% attack by a coordinated network of rogue actors. It's almost like cryptocurrency zealots don'…

> creating currency out of thin air But this is one of the main things central banks do. They have a monopoly to counterfeit money. And in conjunction with their affiliated government people are forced to use it to pay taxes.

"They have a monopoly to counterfeit money."

No. That's not what counterfeiting is. Counterfeiting is creating imitation money to be passed off as the genuine article.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#143

Post by [deleted] »

dogma1138 wrote: post #134
brian_cloutier wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'm not sure I should answer because it's starting to seem like you're trolling. Giving you the benefit of the doubt: > if you are using two units of account that’s not a fractional reserve The system I described only has one unit of account, Bitcoin. It doesn't matter whether they're on-chain or "virtual", they're both Bitcoin, and are worth the exact same amount. > If you loan less than your total then again…

>The system I described only has one unit of account, Bitcoin. It doesn't matter whether they're on-chain or "virtual", they're both Bitcoin, and are worth the exact same amount. Ofc it matters because those bitcoins cannot be used as part of the bitcoin network they aren't bitcoins at point at best they are some weirdly defined bitcoin option. As long as I won't be able to spend those bitcoins as bitcoins and as lon…

[deleted]

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#144

Post by arethuza »

a008t wrote: post #136
yasp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people that make predictions and call themselves Austrians are IMO in the business of selling something. Mises, who was perhaps the most influential Austrian economist, instead took the tack of demonstrating that if you wanted X that Y either would lead to it or would not lead to it (eg minimum price laws on supply of a good). He was against making value judgments and emphatically argued that they had no place i…

If Austrians cannot give one an idea of, for example, what the outcome of QE would be, then what is the value of this school of thought? Does that not make it merely an interesting abstract theory with no practical real-world applications?

It does mean that you can never be demonstrated to be wrong!

Edit: I changed "proved" to "demonstrated" ;-)

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#145

Post by spookthesunset »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #115
brian_cloutier wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand what I was trying to say. I'm well aware that they create money, but they're literally not printing dollars. They do not cause M0 to increase. Nobody but the Treasury can cause physical dollars to be created, but that doesn't prevent fractional reserve from occurring. So, anybody who claims Bitcoin doesn't support fraction reserve based solely on the fact that banks can't create new Bitco…

Okay. I'm Chase Bank. How do I issue 600 BTC given I have 20 BTC in my account. There is zero allowance in the protocol for this to happen.

Easy. As an exchange almost all your volume is “off chain” transactions between two traders. And since you aren’t audited or beholden to any financial regulation there is nothing stopping you from having one side of the trade be your own bot. All that bot does is sell newly created fake bitcoin and keeps the dirty USD fiat for the exchange owner. Again since the system isn’t audited, the exchange can have massively more “bitcoin” in its database than it actually has on the blockchain. The system (Er, scam) can work just fine until a bunch of folks start withdrawing bitcoin.

Since virtually all of the exchanges are unaudited, sketchy “businesses” I wouldn’t be surprised if they all run this way. It might come to pass the almost all of the exchange volume consists of trading fake bitcoin that is backed by almost no real bitcoin.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#146

Post by dnautics »

nameless912 wrote: post #107

Ugh. Yes, we need central banks, if for no other reason than that distributed systems are hard. Central banking helps prevent things like double-spends and creating currency out of thin air. Yes, technically cryptocurrencies "solve" the same problem, but at 1000x the energy expenditure and with no guarantee of avoiding a 51% attack by a coordinated network of rogue actors. It's almost like cryptocurrency zealots don'…

> Central banking helps prevent things like double-spends and creating currency out of thin air.

Actually you mean central banking enables these things. The whole point of central banking is double spending and money creation.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#147

Post by emodendroket »

a008t wrote: post #140
emodendroket wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is ecology getting better, rather than rapidly worse?

Car emissions are getting cleaner, leading to cleaner air. That would be one example. Deindustrialization of the West led to improvements in ecology as well, I imagine.

> Car emissions are getting cleaner, leading to cleaner air. That would be one example.

Is it enough? Aren't these changes being more than offset by increased emissions elsewhere?

> Deindustrialization of the West led to improvements in ecology as well, I imagine.

It seems doubtful, since production didn't stop but simply moved to other places, often with much looser regulatory regimes.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#148

Post by mendelsd »

nameless912 wrote: post #107

Ugh. Yes, we need central banks, if for no other reason than that distributed systems are hard. Central banking helps prevent things like double-spends and creating currency out of thin air. Yes, technically cryptocurrencies "solve" the same problem, but at 1000x the energy expenditure and with no guarantee of avoiding a 51% attack by a coordinated network of rogue actors. It's almost like cryptocurrency zealots don'…

>> Yes, technically cryptocurrencies "solve" the same problem

>> It's almost like cryptocurrency zealots don't know shit

This is a straw man. The article does not advocate for cryptocurrencies at all.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#149

Post by staplers »

sergiosgc wrote: post #138
sjehay wrote: post #36

I zoned out at Section II ("The Central Banking Narrative Has Collapsed") because every single paper he cites is written by him (and in fact so are 18 of the 20 publications he cites in the entire article)

I also noticed that, and it raises concerns. However, the intro, the questioning of the fundamentals when faced with evidence that contradicts the assumptions, is long overdue. When interest rates entered negative territory, something deemed formally impossible a decade earlier, a huge alarm should have sounded in Economics. Instead, we got some after-the-fact explanations that are untestable, and continue applying t…

Currency reminds me a lot of religion. It requires an absolute faith by devout believers in its value which is entirely based upon human interaction.

Re: Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

#150

Post by throwawayjava »

EGreg wrote: post #123
throwawayjava wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who loses? Mostly the holders of treasuries. In the United States, defaulting on Sovereign Debt would basically guarantee the death of social security. If you're in the USA, by far the best way you can insulate yourself against sovereign debt is by: 1) organizing your life's expenses so that you can retire (or at least continue to live) with $0.00 from social security. 2) Ensuring that you don't rely on any federal…

Why can’t these funds including the social security funds diversify into real assets ahead of a default?

...by selling them to who?

SS and other entitlement/retirement programs hold a monstrous amount of the total federal debt. I doubt the federal gov't could divest even a small fraction of those securities without destroying market for them.

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