Bitcoin vs. Ben Bernanke • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin vs. Ben Bernanke

#91

Post by em70 » Mon, May 06, 2013, 5:37 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #50

em70 wrote: post #36

I have yet to see it being pointed out that none of the encryption in use for these cryptocurrencies will necessarily remain extremely hard to break for long. A good question is: what if bitcoin or something alike does effectively gain traction and one day a math breakthrough (or a computational tech one) make the crypto weak? How much wealth will be destroyed then? Who would you turn to for help? Our system is not p…

Bitcoin will be the least of one's worries should strong crypto, in general, get broken through some computing breakthrough.

Nonetheless, it is one extra worry you do not want to have

Re: Bitcoin vs. Ben Bernanke

#92

Post by drcode » Tue, May 07, 2013, 2:30 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #69

drcode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the core bitcoin team tells miners their mining is going to be ignored if it isn't part of a specific fork because of some credible reason, the miners will follow, no matter how many of them there are.

As I understand it, the core bitcoin team (as well as all bitcoin users) can do absolutely nothing if the majority of the miners ignore their request, as long as THEY agree on a fork to work on.

Right, I'm saying the miners won't ignore the request, if there's a legit reason.

Re: Bitcoin vs. Ben Bernanke

#93

Post by drcode » Tue, May 07, 2013, 2:31 PM UTC

querulous wrote: post #68

drcode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the core bitcoin team tells miners their mining is going to be ignored if it isn't part of a specific fork because of some credible reason, the miners will follow, no matter how many of them there are.

that's not how bitcoin works. the blockchain (the ledger) can fork into competing chains. if your client and my client disagree about which is the live chain we can't transact. the core bitcoin team can only suggest which chain to consider the live chain. anyone who disagrees is free to use different chains.

Right, and I'm saying almost everyone is going to use the chain recommended by the core bitcoin team.

Re: Bitcoin vs. Ben Bernanke

#94

Post by parasubvert » Tue, May 07, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

mikhailfranco wrote: post #85

thebmax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get why people who call themselves 'mainstream' economists can't see or choose not to acknowledge the issues the Austrians bring up. It strikes me as quite odd. Not everything the Austrian school preaches is correct, but they do have some valid points that I would expect most smart people to understand. To bring up just a few big ones: Printing money and low interest rate policy of the Fed influences m…

Related to (1), there is the moral hazard of bailing out the extreme risk takers and profligate borrowers, but punishing the careful savers. It just encourages future financial gambling (Greenspan/Bernanke put) and Too Big To Fail mentality. There is also the loss of true interest rate signals for making investment decisions, and consequent mal-investment caused by 'desperately seeking yield'. Economies progress by c…

I was following you up to the last paragraph. the issue is that bonds and cash are effectively equivalent now due to low interest and inflation. So we are suck in a liquidity preference trap. Stocks are showing some signs of inflation, but bonds surely are not - everyone is holding US treasuries or cash!

Printing money without associated fiscal stimulus does not help things so long as people expect inflation to remain low. So QE3 is arguably better than nothing but probably will be as ineffective as thr previous attempts. OTOH Japan now is the only country where they are deliberately trying to promote inflation, so it will be interesting to observe if they can pull it off and drag themselves out of deflation.