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> expanding the money supply in proportion to the amount of economic activity ... If that's what you want, then Bitcoin is not for you. You should be satisfied
by panarky 9y ago
> expanding the money supply in proportion to the amount of economic activity ...
If that's what you want, then Bitcoin is not for you. You should be satisfied with dollars, yen and euros.
Others have different priorities where an open-source, global, fungible, non-government, fixed-supply commodity is a better fit.
Live and let live, to each his own. We're happy to coexist.
- ch4s3 9y ago> priorities where ... deflationary commodity... is a better fit Um, like what? Why would you want a deflationary currency?
- darawk 9y agoBecause its value goes up.
- ch4s3 9y agoWell sure, tulip price rise too if you can convince people to buy them. It's a pretty undesirable property for a currency though, unless you never plan to sell anything to anyone who uses a different currency. I guess what I'm getting at is that it is deflationary as a currency which is bad. As an investment vehicle or value store it seems to be unmoored from any fundamental value.
- pdkl95 9y agoWhich screws over any business that has a time lag between buying parts and selling the final product. If the value of money goes up as the product is manufactured, you have to reduce the price. If money deflates ~faster than your profit margin, profitable business is impossible. [1] after expenses and other minutia
- darawk 9y agoYou can hedge to fix that problem, if you are so inclined.
- pdkl95 9y agoHedging might fix small amounts of temporary deflation, but it isn't going to fix the fundamental problem of not being able to recoup the initial investment in materials. The only way to fix this would be to require payment before manufacturing the goods so there isn't a time lag.
- username223 9y agoA currency is a "medium of exchange," i.e. you can use it to buy and sell stuff. If your "currency" might buy 20% more stuff tomorrow (like Bitcoin, sometimes), you won't use it to buy that stuff today. Instead, you will hoard it and use something with a more stable value to buy stuff.
- colordrops 9y agoMaybe not "buying stuff" unless you truly need it would be a boon to the environment. Endless growth is for cancer, not the economy.
- username223 9y agoAgreed, but I kinda like buying food and shelter, and it's much easier to do so with dollars or euros than with barter goods or magic digital beans.
- darawk 9y agoYes, that is the standard econ. argument. I'm not completely certain that I buy it, though. Yes, people may wait to buy things. But ultimately people still want to consume stuff. If they time shift that consumption, who cares? What good is wealth un-utilized?
- username223 9y agoLet's say you own a pile of X. If the value of X only fluctuates a few percent per year, like a major currency, you will freely trade your X for stuff, because you can always get more or less the same amount of stuff in the future. But if the value of X is changing 10% or more per year (or per day), you will either exchange as little X as possible if it's going up, or dump it all if it's going down.
- darawk 9y agoThat's only true if you have the expectation that that volatility will settle in the future, though.
- pdkl95 9y agoDeflation increases the value of currency... and debts that are denominated in that currency. Highly regressive systems that would accelerate the increasing wealth gap probably sounds appealing if you're on the privileged side of the gap.
- pcarolan 9y agoI'd agree with this if it didn't dump carbon into the atmosphere at a staggering rate. Investors should buy carbon offsets with their newfound wealth so they're not externalizing that cost. [toned down]
- jimbob21 9y agoI hope you don't drive a car. If you do, you're dumping carbon into my atmosphere! You should buy an electric car and only run it on solar electricity so you're not pushing that carbon on the rest of us.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- colordrops 9y agoI don't understand why you've gotten downvoted. Your analogy is fair in my opinion. I made the same analogy to video games and porn, both which use inordinate amounts of electricity.
- pcarolan 9y agoIf we respond this way[1] to every argument, no issue will ever get resolved. I don't disagree with you regarding electric vehicles, but it doesn't address the issue that bitcoin is an environmental catastrophe in the making[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism [2] http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/11/29/bitcoin-mining-causes-increase-in-energy-consumption/ http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/11/29/bitcoin-mining-causes-incr...
- jimmies 9y agoBitcoin mining is inefficient compared to what? You have to see that mining bitcoin is getting more efficient by day, while hiring a bank clerk can only reach a certain level of efficiency. In that sense bitcoin might be a better choice vs. hiring bank clerks.
- googletazer 9y ago