81–90 of 110 posts
To me it seems the problem with the Babysitting coop was price fixing. The price of of an hour of babysitting was always 1. If the price of an hour of babysitting was allowed to float you would not have the shortages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Being able to subdivide and increase in value are not attributes unique to bitcoins. I didn't claim that. > Oh, and the article DOES address this exact point. No, they always assume the value of a coin remains constant when discussing subdivision.
> No, they always assume the value of a coin remains constant when discussing subdivision. If you assume the value of the coin doesn't remain constant that would cause FAR far worse problems, so there is no need to go there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Would you accept to be paid less and less every year (month, week...) Because they'd be able to buy more and more with that money, obviously.
If everyone changed their prices, and their salary all at once you did nothing at all. You just changed a number - you didn't increase the money supply at all. i.e. the total amount of purchasing power didn't change.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they centralize the danger to a single, publicly controlled entity. Come to think of it, we should centralize the backbone for the internet in the white house basement, so that we "centralize the danger to a single, publicly controlled entity."
The core address data of the Internet is in fact centralized on behalf of the U.S. government by ICANN.
To me it seems the problem with the Babysitting coop was price fixing. The price of of an hour of babysitting was always 1. If the price of an hour of babysitting was allowed to float you would not have the shortages.
Think about that in somewhat more pragmatic terms. Lets say Alice babysits for Bob for 1 coupon per hour. And hoards coupons. Over time as the supply of coupons becomes more precious she can charge larger and larger 'rates' for her services. Eventually she has all the coupons and nobody else can get any baby sitting. At which point we discover her maiden name is Bernanke! And she has set herself to be the central ban…
Can someone pro-bitcoin provide a counterpoint to the deflationary spiral criticism? I don't have enough of an understanding in economics to think of one.
> provide a counterpoint to the deflationary spiral criticism? Is that the retarded idea that no one will buy anything if prices keep falling? Look no further than computers, cell phones and all manner of electronic gadgets. Their prices keep going down, but everyone keeps buying them. If you need/want something now, you'll buy it now. Here's a summary of the article: "The State-Controlled Mainstream Media paints a g…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flaw in the argument is that BitCoin is not (currently) a unit of account (we don't price contracts or goods or services in BTC), and is (nearly) infinitely divisible. So even if 90% (or 99%) of all BTC is being hoarded, the other 10% (or 1%) can be divided up for use in transactions. That much speculations will cause wild gyrations in value and massive short term volatility, but the people using BTC to transact…
Unfortunately, deflation is not so simple a concept. If your currency quickly deflates and hoarders EXPECT it to deflate, no one will be interested in lending and the economy will suffer. Lending is not an optional feature in a modern economy. You need some level of lending to have credit balances with merchants or investment in stocks and bonds. An economy without lending can take few risks on innovation, such as YC…
In other words, when people run out of physical goods to trade, they will start trading IOUs, at which point inflation has occurred within your economy whether you intended it to or not.
I thought not, but I am no expert.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flaw in the argument is that BitCoin is not (currently) a unit of account (we don't price contracts or goods or services in BTC), and is (nearly) infinitely divisible. So even if 90% (or 99%) of all BTC is being hoarded, the other 10% (or 1%) can be divided up for use in transactions. That much speculations will cause wild gyrations in value and massive short term volatility, but the people using BTC to transact…
That is not a flaw in the argument - that is a flaw in your understanding of the argument, which makes you think this is a valid rebuttal. Money is supposed to represent value. Not to actually be value. There are new humans arriving in the world all the time. And new resources are being mined from the earth, and created intellectually all the time. If the money supply does not match these new things then the currency…
This part is not completely accurate when you consider that money changes hands over time as value is created. (Multipliers)
If the someone produces 1 widget per day (different person each day), and someone else consumes 1 widget per day (and becomes the producer the next day), 1 widget-dollar is needed forever to help move the widgets. If the pattern of production and consumption is more complicated, we need more dollars (debt) to keep track.
The sum total of money needs to be something like the sum total of all current unsettled debt, and it needs to be less than the amount of future production of the debtors, in each's share (or else they will default).
It gets more complicated from there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If everyone changed their prices, and their salary all at once you did nothing at all. You just changed a number - you didn't increase the money supply at all. i.e. the total amount of purchasing power didn't change.
Exactly- So the claim that deflation (i.e. decreasing prices) will hurt liquidity is false.
Of course deflation hurts liquidity - if you have less money, there is less floating around for people to use.