Economist Paul Krugman on why he's not a fan of bitcoin:
http://www.nytimes.c...s-and-barbarism.html
-mouser
Krugman is just a complete idiot. His basic premise is that if we all just "believe" hard enough, things will magically become wonderful and rainbow farting unicorns will be given to every child.
For an excellent experiment illustrating just what a total moron he is, have a look into Bernankoin:
https://bitcointalk....x.php?topic=375010.0For a literal illustration of what kind of nitwit Krugman is, see here:
https://bitcointalk....sg4393471#msg4393471ATM I'm not trading COYE, but I'll trade you 10 of my BEK for 20 of yours. Just send me multiples of 10 BEK and keep multiples of 10 BEK for yourself and we'll call the deal done. Send to this address: BndanZXsyDjnrP8dkwgbo87jExvk96tj8z 
-RenegadeMind link=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375010.msg4393471#msg4393471 date=1389208453
And the reply:
Ill take you up on that trade! Traded you 2000 BEK for 1000 BEK, great deal! 
-artiface link=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375010.msg4394106#msg4394106 date=1389210538
And yes. He did send me 1,000 BEK.
To really get the joke though, you need to understand a bit monetary policy, a splash of economics, what Quantitative Easing is (printing money), what a "rewards system" is in crypto currency, and how Bernankoin illustrates QE through its rewards system (named "Quantitative Easing").
Krugman is a troll.
Here's another bit of trolling by Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs...itcoin-is-evil/?_r=0Bitcoin Is Evil
-KrugTroll
There's nothing else in the article worth quoting.
In the comments:
However, Mr Krugman is right about bitcon being evil, at least for socialists. Bitcoin threatens socialist economies, central banks and all government monopolies on money. It is a libertarian tool, so all socialists should hate it.
-Roger McKinney - Broken Arrow, OK
Bitcoin threatens centralisation and collectivism. It is anathema to authoritarians and rent-seekers. Bitcoin is "neutral". To understand what "neutral" means in terms of a currency, I'd strongly recommend viewing a few of the videos posted with Andreas Antonopolous. Here's a link to many videos with him speaking:
https://www.youtube....ntonopoulos&sm=3Here's a video entitled "Bitcoin Neutrality - Andreas Antonopolous"
The concept of neutrality is really, really important to understanding what Bitcoin is, and in light of what Bitcoin is, further understanding on just how corrupt our current system of fiat currency is.
But, the comment there on Krugtroll's article is quite correct. Socialists should both hate and fear Bitcoin (and by extension, all crypto currencies) because they strip the state of much of its power to dominate and control people.
Remember, Bitcoin has its roots in crypto-anarchism or cypherpunk. It is an anti-political technology. Krugman is a collectivist and hates Bitcoin because of this.
The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's. - Paul Krugman, 1998
-Mark0
Exactly. This fool is one of the crowd that helped bring you the sub-prime mortgage crisis. His credibility is negative.
The mining window is closing as it is getting increasingly difficult to do (unless you have really serious dedicated hardware). When I first started I was getting over 10,000 coins a day ... Now I'm lucky to break 100.
-Stoic Joker
While it sucks to mine less, this is actually a good thing. It shows that there are more miners (diggers) out there digging for Ðogecoins. The more miners a currency has, the more secure the network.
I touch on this topic a bit in this blog post:
http://cynic.me/2014...ists-hate-shitcoins/The mining window is closing as it is getting increasingly difficult to do (unless you have really serious dedicated hardware). When I first started I was getting over 10,000 coins a day ... Now I'm lucky to break 100.
-Stoic Joker
Bingo StoicJoker.
That's the big flaw that keeps bothering me. "Look, here's a new crypto-currency and only a hundred people know about it! Nice advantage to us! Then later when it gets popular the algo will slow down and no one can get much more!"
Reminds me of the day when I cared about Magic the Gathering and bought a pizza with two Sengir Vampires! 
(The clerk made a note of the sale and said he would pay back his register.)
-TaoPhoenix
There are a lot of considerations in looking at rewards systems. Your comment applies to some, but not all currencies.
I wrote up a joke currency here:
https://bitcointalk....x.php?topic=390735.0
It's a joke from top to bottom.
But the rewards system completely eliminates the objection that you just raised. It's based on the Fibonacci series.
Now, while this is an extreme example, there are other currencies that have done similar things to eliminate the scenarios where early adopters jump in and snatch up massive amounts of coins. Some do the exact opposite and reward early adopters.
This should be enough, given the objection/concern, to illustrate just how important rewards systems are for a currency. (The other consideration there is "pre-mining".)
