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The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#501

Post by Fern_Blossom »

duckfang wrote: post #211
louwrentius wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't justify your own 'bad behaviour' by pointing at someone else's bad behaviour. That is whataboutism, to distract from - I believe - valid and substantiated criticism. I agree that so much is wrong with Wall Street, but that is another discussion. That is a separate issue to me.

Then you are missing my point of criticism. The elites put together the artifact that we call the Stock Market. And when the elites play there, they have pretty much a free reign to do as they wish. Sure, there are rules... But as how they're enforced is a whole other matter. And for even the rules that are enforced - if they only have a fine component, they are only meant for the lower classes. Fines for the elites…

Okay, but you're overly exaggerating "the elites" to some mythic pedestal. They're human. And here's the fun part, you would do the exact same thing they're doing if it was you sitting in their throne. I mean, if whataboutism is alright to play, the honest truth is, you're not angry at the elites. You're angry that you're not apart of their club. You don't win a 100m dash because you lack value in fast twitch muscle fibers and stamina, you don't win economics because you lack value in opportunity capitalization. The smell of these arguments is just a pile of, "because I'm not standing on the podium, we need to end all races". You, just like everyone else, wants to call the shots. 99% of political discussions amount to, "Everyone else has it wrong. If I were supreme ruler, I would make everything correct instantly." Maybe, just maybe, if you stop for a second... maybe economics, government and the infrastructure systems that run our lives are really complicated. Not only can a handful of people really not control it well, maybe a handful of people actually don't. But that line of thinking makes it harder to point fingers at the mythical, "them". Instead, you have to turn to the mirror and go, "Where did I fuck up?" No one wants that. They want to blame Satan, not themselves. Opps, I meant elites, not Satan... well...

I'm a huge fan of WSB. Especially because they amount to, "Oh, did the wrong people manipulate the market?" What I don't understand is how anyone confused this as socialism or communism at work. This was straight up capitalism at play. The hand of the market made a move. No rules changed for this to happen. People decided to actually play the game instead of cry. What do you know, the uncontested champions aren't that good at playing the game. Maybe there's room for a good ol' fashion capitalistic shake up. It just took a bunch of apes to go, "Hey, maybe we should stop watching our wife's boyfriend do the dirty and read up on how the markets work. Then we should work together to play the game as the rules are instead of whine like babies." Paraphrasing obviously.

I just don't understand this desperate need to burn a system when you don't even bother to learn how it works properly. And I'm not talking about youtube cartoons. I swear, if you ask someone, "Oh, how did you learn C?" "I watched a few 10 min youtube videos about it. I'm an expert now." You rightfully would be smacked in the face with a flounder... or salmon... or some other big fish. But for some reason, 30 min of youtube makes you an expert in economics, finance and politics. Oh, and I know that's the case because you throw around "elite" like it means anything. Falls under the "them" term like lizard men conspiracy whacks spout on about. Those of us actually trying to break into those ranks through legit business means call them "old money"... or "rich cunts". You probably can figure out which I prefer.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#502

Post by mw888 »

Sanzig wrote: post #194
washedup wrote: post #84

What a terrible article. Crypto is a new technology that will likely have many uses, to advocate banning it nationally is dangerous and would quickly put us behind the rest of the world. There are easier ways around the "energy use dilemma": carbon tax. If your energy used for mining comes from renewable resources, then there is no issue.

Unless you are running completely detached from the public grid, consuming renewable energy for crypto mining absolutely indirectly produces CO2. You are buying renewable energy that could otherwise be sold to another customer/jurisdiction where it would displace fossil fuel usage. This isn't an academic exercise, this is an issue that renewables operators are dealing with right now. Hydro-Quebec is the state-owned c…

Well maybe we should ban gold mining instead of bitcoin mining. It uses more energy and anyone who can understand the source code understands that Bitcoin does gold’s job, only 10x better.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#503

Post by imtringued »

jl2718 wrote: post #362
karpierz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your currency deflates, that means a dollar today is worth less than a dollar tomorrow. When you invest money (via loans or buying equity), you trade currency for tangible assets, like stocks or capital. In order for the investment to make sense, the growth on the asset needs to be larger than the growth of the value of the money, plus risk. So in a deflationary currency, loan interest rates must be higher to be w…

No. It’s worth $10 because you saved your (non-inflationary) money. And you spent the last 10 years making a bread robot instead of working in the financial sector. And how is ‘investing’ a productive use of capital? In deflationary regime, business is about cash flow. Inflationary regime investments are all speculation, and everybody has to play the game. This Keynesian argument comes from a nihilistic disregard for…

When you earn money in 1800 and use it in 2021 then a baker in 1800 failed to get your money and his time was wasted. He could have used that time to bake bread but you didn't buy bread. Now that it is 2021 you are asking the baker to bake twice as much bread for your sake even though you did nothing to help the baker run his business. In fact, you did the opposite. Turns out there are less bakers in the future and your money becomes worthless anyway.

>This Keynesian argument comes from a nihilistic disregard for social structures, the environment, and future generations. Look him up. “In the long run, we’ll all be dead” - Keynes

Is this supposed to be a joke? How are old people becoming rich through no work, no productive investment whatsoever supposed to help future generations? Future generations receive greater incomes than their previous generations thanks to inflation. With deflation they receive lower incomes than their previous generations.

When you own deflationary money and you do nothing with it you basically create a claim to future work in the past. By working at a simple 1800s job you have created a claim to the labor of someone working a software job even though you took no part in enabling that job to exist in the first place. Same with the bread baker robot. By holding onto the currency you never created an economic environment that enabled such an investment to be made. You just held onto the currency and once someone was foolish enough to build the robot you obtained a claim to its productivity.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#504

Post by D-Nice »

This reads like an April Fools joke, and I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt on that one as the author's company literally works in the cryptocurrency space, except they apparently refer to themselves as a cryptoledger. So it seems like a troll post... Otherwise this makes for some terrible irony.

Or the other case could be that they feel they've lost out on investment, due to the fact that openness and decentralization is leading the charge in blockchain/cryptocurrency technologies, while he's trying to come up with a privatized solution... and why accept private when there's better and more established open alternatives already leaving their marks, no pun intended.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#505

Post by atweiden »

jtolds wrote: post #16
_nckn wrote: post #5

I think the main premise of this article is the fact that crypto's carbon emission is insane, especially Bitcoin, which I agree (I don't hold Bitcoin for this exact reason). But there are many other crypto that uses Proof of Stake, way way greener than Proof of Work, such as Cardano. Even Ethereum is transitioning to Proof of Stake. This article should be re-titled "The Political Case for a Blanket Proof of Work Ban"…

I came here to say this exact same thing. There is seriously interesting and useful real work being done under the umbrella term "decentralized finance" or DeFi. It is hard to cut through the noise of get rich quick schemes, but at the core, the DeFi stuff, built on top of green cryptocurrency (proof of stake), along with quickly improving zero-knowledge proof tech, is actually useful and groundbreaking. Bitcoin and…

> I came here to say this exact same thing. There is seriously interesting and useful real work being done under the umbrella term "decentralized finance" or DeFi. It is hard to cut through the noise of get rich quick schemes, but at the core, the DeFi stuff, built on top of green cryptocurrency (proof of stake), along with quickly improving zero-knowledge proof tech, is actually useful and groundbreaking.

The truth is that no one uses cryptocurrency for anything. Ethereum is just as much a speculative store of value as Bitcoin is, if not moreso given the numerous competitors it has to contend with — Bitcoin arguably has none.

In a way, “speculative store of value” has merely been whitelabeled under the terms “digital gold” and “defi”. The people who claim increduously they’re buying ETH to do transactions are misrepresenting the situation to an extreme degree.

> Bitcoin and proof of work should totally be banned.

Where is your disclosure statement?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#506

Post by gher-shyu3i »

tome wrote: post #317
gher-shyu3i wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A) REITs exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_investment_trust Are there REITs that don't deal with interest?

I don't know what you mean.

REITs that buy properties with cash, without taking a mortgage.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#507

Post by nradov »

pydry wrote: post #423
nradov wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's not how it works in the typical case. Lenders set their interest rates based on expected future inflation rates over the term of the loan. Debts only really get eroded when interest rates are fixed and actual inflation greatly outpaces expected inflation. Like in the hyper inflation that occurred in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Serbia, etc.

Interest rates for most debts are fixed. They are determined by supply and demand, much like any other price.

And the supply is based on expectation of future inflation.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#508

Post by imtringued »

seibelj wrote: post #347
whytaka wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflation incentivizes delaying purchases. Less purchases means less revenue. Less revenue means smaller budgets for employed staff.

That's your opinion - I don't see any source. My opinion is that it doesn't cause less jobs - I think it would eventually cause more sustainable jobs as malinvestment is removed from the economy.

Just look at any random crypto forum. You can see an endless number of threads about people who made millions and stopped working and they are proud about that. Just think about Bitcoin. If you bought Bitcoin in 2013 and held onto them you would be rich today. If you spent them on pizza you would hate yourself.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#509

Post by imtringued »

seibelj wrote: post #325
notahacker wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflation by definition implies means that stuff will be worth less in future than it is now. This is bad for investors and producers spending money now in the hope of earning more money in future. On the other hand, simply holding onto cash is risk free, and that cash will have increased purchasing power in future (at the expense of the producers forced into offering lower prices to get money circulating again) An e…

On the contrary, inflation forces you to buy products and invest in things you don't necessarily need, in order to escape the intentional destruction of your wealth. In a world where we are trying to avoid mindless consumption, inflation encourages that. Deflation doesn't discourage investment and consumption. You still need to eat, have shelter, and pursue happiness. It increases the bar at which you will part with…

> On the contrary, inflation forces you to buy products and invest in things you don't necessarily need, in order to escape the intentional destruction of your wealth. In a world where we are trying to avoid mindless consumption, inflation encourages that.

Or you can just put your money onto a bank account that nets interest. The fact that interest rates are down is actually the sort of result of deflation. The reserve currency status puts immense deflationary pressure onto the USD. The government is forced to go into debt to cancel this pressure. If it did not do so employment would plummet.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#510

Post by beardedetim »

lottin wrote: post #369
samvher wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the competition is fiat; backed by fighter jets and nukes; literally. How is it that someone can't steal your money? The bank makes sure. How is it the bank can be sure? The cops protect them. How is it the cops aren't overwhelmed? The military protects them. At first glance, I find this an interesting take and it makes me rethink some things. But I don't think I find it very convincing, or at least it's too ex…

> Fighter jets and nukes primarily protect physical property and institutions, not cash. This is basically it. I don't know how bitcoin advocates expect property rights (in fact, any right) to be upheld in the absence of a coercive state. They have become so removed from reality that they don't see the most obvious things.

Do you think that it is only through a coercive State that I can have the right to food or housing? Put another way, do you believe the only way to ensure others have things is by coercion?

I totally admit that a State is needed to ensure safety. There’s always a boogie man. Not sure if that’s true for all rights though. What do you think?

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