Is anyone here using Bitcoins yet?
www.bitcoin.org
www.bitcoin.org
Topic: Anyone Using Bitcoins Yet? (Read 24,467 times)
To be honest, I think that if it does attract mainstream attention/use, it will mysteriously experience problems and get shut down.
currencies are only as good as what backs them - unless they're made out of some precious metal. If I'm going to accept a currency, I'd want it to be just like the dollar or the euro where there's the promise from the issuers they will tax their people unto the twentieth generation to make good on what it represents. And who furthermore promise to unleash the full fury of their satellite directed night-vision equipped high-tech military forces on anybody who dares say otherwise. (Including their own people.) 
We just need to get back to the gold standard.
We just need to get back to the gold standard.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. The whole deficit spending program most governments function under would come to a screeching halt if they actually had to base the rubber checks they were writing to themselves on something that existed in the real world.
Which is unfortunate. Because they have a bear by the tail with that one. The current economic situation can't go on indefinitely without a crash. And if they try to reform it, it will provoke a an even more rapid crash.
Small wonder so many politicians throw the problem as far into the future as they possibly can and then hope they'll be dead before the day of reckoning arrives.
I don't agree with every(most- even)thing that has been done financially, but this I will say... getting off the gold standard was the best thing that has been done in concept, and going back to it is pretty much a no-go, even talking fiscal responsibility. Basing your economy on a limited resource limits your economic growth.
An article on why we shouldn't go to the Gold standard, and an alternative standard to replace the USD.
I find it "funny" that maximum limit of debt the US is allowed to make, has to be stretched further...which is first to be handled by their own government and has to have the backing of the IMF as well (as far as I understand).
Guess what, the bossman of the IMF has been caught with his pants down.
Starts to become too coincidental, if you ask me.
And what's wrong with limiting economic growth? Everything else in the *real world* has limits, so eventually economic growth must also be limited. We're just putting off the time line of that limitation artificially for the short-term gain of a few.
I don't agree with every(most- even)thing that has been done financially, but this I will say... getting off the gold standard was the best thing that has been done in concept, and going back to it is pretty much a no-go, even talking fiscal responsibility. Basing your economy on a limited resource limits your economic growth.
An article on why we shouldn't go to the Gold standard, and an alternative standard to replace the USD.
That is a horrible and bogus article that doesn't even understand the concept of money. It is precisely BECAUSE it is scarce that it is a good source to base the monetary system on. The reason everything fluctuates so much is because it is being debased by the controllers of the system. Gold's price fluctuations are not the effect of the value of gold, but rather the relative value of gold. In other words, the reason the price of gold changes so much is because of the amount of fiat currency people are willing to take in it's place. When there is more currency, we call it inflation, and it takes many more dollars/pounds/whatever to buy it. When there is less, or when it is based on a solid relatively fixed quantity commodity, it takes less to buy it.
Think of it this way. In 1950, just for example, it took approximately 20 oz of Gold to buy an average car. That same car cost about $400. (As a side note, in 1950 the dollar was on a gold standard pegged at $20/oz IIRC). Today, it is still about 20 oz. of Gold to buy an average car that cost - what? About $30,000? That, to me means that the price of gold has stayed the same, but the value of the dollar has dropped (not gold going up!). Something to think about...
To base the entire world's economy on one material of limited supply that has no intrinsic value is the part that is the problem, and most economists agree with that point.
It doesn't. In fact, it makes it worse. The fact that gold has no intrinsic value is not part of the problem, rather it is the reason it is a good basis for monetary policy. If you have a continuously variable supply that can be consumed by any number of sources (silver, for example) then the value is based on the supply at hand and makes everything relative and meaningless. Gold has a stable supply (it increases supply at a miniscule, stable rate and has no significant source of consumption), can only be increased by small amounts (you have to find it before you can dig it up), requires economic activity to grow, and most importantly can not be created or destroyed by those who control the monetary system. The only thing they can do is control how much exits their system (the banking system); and to a certain extent, how much enters it. If they can not control a material that is intrinsically valuable due solely to scarcity (which is the only intrinsic value of gold), then they can not arbitrarily control the entire economy at will as they do now.To base the entire world's economy on one material of limited supply that has no intrinsic value is the part that is the problem, and most economists agree with that point.
I don't see how basing the entire world's economy on one material of unlimited supply that has no intrinsic value is any better.
I understand it is important for tons of people, most of whom are beancounters, but in the long term I only see it mess stuff up given the inherent Do-Take-Dont-Give mentality it embodies.Let's base it inversely on the amount of CO2 and other crappy stuff in our air.
Let's base it inversely on the amount of CO2 and other crappy stuff in our air.
Stop focusing on the badly worded part of my post!111 
Porn porn porn!And what's wrong with limiting economic growth? Everything else in the *real world* has limits, so eventually economic growth must also be limited. We're just putting off the time line of that limitation artificially for the short-term gain of a few.
Limiting economic growth without limiting population growth? You *really* want to talk about the haves and the have nots.
And what's wrong with limiting economic growth? Everything else in the *real world* has limits, so eventually economic growth must also be limited. We're just putting off the time line of that limitation artificially for the short-term gain of a few.
Limiting economic growth without limiting population growth? You *really* want to talk about the haves and the have nots.
Population growth is largely self-limiting in developed ("1st world") countries. Unchecked population growth only ultimately leads to the saturation of Earth as a habitable space, regardless of its cause. So clearly growth without limit is untenable, and any system that relies on it as a fundamental principle is not sustainable long-term. One can make the argument that it might make sense as a short-term strategy for various reasons, but pretending it can achieve sustainable long-term viability is not only foolish but dangerous. The physical laws of the universe itself are ultimately standing in the way, but much sooner than they will rear their head the limitations of our own comparatively tiny world and resources will do so. Not acknowledging that eventual reality and *planning for it* is irresponsible in the extreme. Our current economic models have no answer or solution to that "end game".
- Oshyan
Population growth is largely self-limiting in developed ("1st world") countries. Unchecked population growth only ultimately leads to the saturation of Earth as a habitable space, regardless of its cause. So clearly growth without limit is untenable, and any system that relies on it as a fundamental principle is not sustainable long-term. One can make the argument that it might make sense as a short-term strategy for various reasons, but pretending it can achieve sustainable long-term viability is not only foolish but dangerous. The physical laws of the universe itself are ultimately standing in the way, but much sooner than they will rear their head the limitations of our own comparatively tiny world and resources will do so. Not acknowledging that eventual reality and *planning for it* is irresponsible in the extreme. Our current economic models have no answer or solution to that "end game".
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