81–90 of 209 posts
I hope by the time we hit major problems with Bitcoin we will have several new digital currencies to chose from. Nobody ever said there needs to be only one, after all.
Actually, nothing stops a government from using fiscal stimulus if BitCoin is pervasively used. The US Government will, I'm sure, never accept taxes in anything other than US Dollars (that being the fundamental base of value the US Dollar is based on, and the subsequent avoidance of jail time due to not paying taxes or otherwise satisfying Uncle Sam), and they will remain free to helicopter-drop as many Dollars on th…
Please explain how looking out the window and gathering local anecdotal data disproves a macroeconomic theory that in the short run, demand stimulates economies?
This fundamental flaw is absolutely glaring to anyone who has any understanding of economic history -- and it's amazing to me how many technologists willfully disregard several centuries of accumulated experience. Because of their built-in deflationary spiral, Bitcoins can never meaningfully be used as a medium of exchange: it will always be tempting to keep your Bitcoins in your pocket and let them appreciate instea…
Problem is, when do I withdraw?
This is just a (zero-sum) game, stop taking it so seriously.
This is the classic argument you hear a lot, particuarly from Keynsian economists is: bitcoin is bad because it's deflationary like gold. In the past when we were using gold, like during the Civil War, we couldn't pay soldiers so we went to greenbacks (paper money like today). That allowed the soldiers to get paid so we could continue to fight the war. Gold obviously has a physical practical limit that can be traded…
> Everyone knows if you save starting in your early 20s compounding interest it will be worth a ton more in 10 years, 20 years, etc. How are you expecting to get a ton more after 20 years? Even with a ridiculous constant real interest rate of 5%, you'll get only 2.6x your original investment after 20 years.
This deflation argument seems to me it's an argument for the status quo, so if you are say Warren Buffet it is a vary valid concern. If on the other hand you just graduated undergrad and had a huge debt and your wage was actually set in bitcoins this would be great for you because the cost of paying off your dept would be from your bitcoin point of view spiraling to zero, as would the cost of everything else. That so…
It would be! Except for the part where that very spiral discourages employers from paying wages in Bitcoin, since they'd make more money just holding on to those Bitcoins and letting the spiral make them money than they ever could paying workers with them. So those Bitcoin-paying jobs never leave the realm of the theoretical.
This fundamental flaw is absolutely glaring to anyone who has any understanding of economic history -- and it's amazing to me how many technologists willfully disregard several centuries of accumulated experience. Because of their built-in deflationary spiral, Bitcoins can never meaningfully be used as a medium of exchange: it will always be tempting to keep your Bitcoins in your pocket and let them appreciate instea…
Like say, if the aggregate number of xcoins traded goes down, start allowing more xcoins to be mined and vice-versa?
This fundamental flaw is absolutely glaring to anyone who has any understanding of economic history -- and it's amazing to me how many technologists willfully disregard several centuries of accumulated experience. Because of their built-in deflationary spiral, Bitcoins can never meaningfully be used as a medium of exchange: it will always be tempting to keep your Bitcoins in your pocket and let them appreciate instea…
BC is better understood as a commodity market with a simpler financial instrumentation. Instead of trading contracts for goods, you are able to trade the good itself, at internet speed and scale. That's a big innovation and we've only started to realize the consequence of it.