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Totally agree that the goal is to smash central banking. I also think that the cryptoanarchist community must h8 central banking. How could anyone blame them wi

Totally agree that the goal is to smash central banking. I also think that the cryptoanarchist community must h8 central banking. How could anyone blame them with where our economy has gone. That being said, i think central banking is a great tool, it is just the fed is too conservative.

taoistextremist 9y ago
>How could anyone blame them with where our economy has gone. We're like the richest we've ever been as a society. Even poor Americans are pretty damn rich compared to the past. Even if you want to make an argument about wealth inequality, crypto doesn't really solve that. The Federal Reserve is actually an extremely responsible body, despite what people claim or what banks that they have no real control over do.
- dnautics 9y ago
  whether or not it's extremely responsible is irrelevant; while I don't think they intend it that way, their mission is to extract the wealth from the poor and give it to the rich in the name of 'growth' and 'stability'. You do not see folks wandering around the tenderloin getting negative real interest rate loans or their businesses bailed out. The economic value to fund the fed's operations comes out of the spending power of the rest of us.
  - chatmasta 9y ago
    > their mission is to extract the wealth from the poor and give it to the rich in the name of 'growth' and 'stability'. Citation needed. Even if you mean it as obvious hyperbole, I’d like to hear some evidence for how central banks “extract money from the poor.”
    - dnautics 9y ago
      I never said extract money, I said extract wealth. Increasing the cost of living by targetting positive inflation. If you're poor and the cost of living goes up the relative margin of survival decreases faster than for the wealthy. Let's say you spend 98% and there's 1% inflation. Your margin of survival goes down 50%, whereas someone spending 20% barely feels it. If you have more questions, my contact is in the profile. This is only scratching the surface.
- indubitable 9y ago
  While it's regularly said that 'we're the richest we've ever been', how justifiable a comment is that? At the most basic level we surely would consider wealth to be the ability to comfortably afford housing, food, healthcare, some solid entertainment, and have plenty saved away for a comfortable retirement or in cases of emergencies. Yet we live in a nation where 69% [1] of people have less than $1k saved, and 85% have less than $10k. About 1 out of 8 people are on food stamps. Education is completely unaffordable for most people without taking on very substantial levels of debt. One of the few things able to compete against education costs are healthcare costs which are growing similarly unreasonable for most people. How has the average life experience between the quintiles changed? I think this is something that cannot be so easily quantified, even more so when there's subjectivity involved in the quantification. So for instance it's easy to consider ourselves rich when we do things like look at prices 'back in the day.' A quick search for prices in the 50s gives me $21 [2] for a toaster in 1951. That'd be about $200 today. So, at a glance, it makes it seem like we must be fabulously wealthy for anybody to be able to afford for $10 or $20 what would have been a fairly meaningful purchase back then. But then we get into weird things when we start looking at relative pricing. Another datum [3] there is that you could get a 1958 Chevrolet Corvette for $3631 in 1958 dollars. But wait... that's only about 180 toasters...? In toaster relative prices that'd be like getting a nice Porsche today for $1800 - $3600! Of course the relative prices of things change over time, and this is something that inflation completely misses. I'd be curious to know exactly how, which is why I think examining a representative lifestyle in the different quintiles over time would be most informative. How much of the representative income was spent on what things? How distant were their remaining consumer desires away from their means? How much were they able to save? What would be the expected economic impact of some sort of emergency? Inflation alone is far too imprecise a measurement to answer these questions or, equivalently, to justify the grand statements it's used to make. [1] - https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/25/how-much-does-the-average-american-have-in-their-s.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/25/how-much-does-the-... [2] - http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html [3] - http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1950s.html http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1950s.html
  - taoistextremist 9y ago
jgalt212 9y ago
> goal is to smash central banking Well, if that's the goal, BTC with its high transaction costs/low throughput/high backlog is not going to do it. It would be some other CCY. The problem with this is that once BTC is no longer "special" than all crytpo currencies are just fiat money and even if you cannot create more than 21MM bitcoins, you can create unlimited crypto currencies. put another way, set membership is fixed, but the number of sets is limitless. So the biggest risk from a valuation perspective is if BTC starts to seem less "special".
- chatmasta 9y ago
  I’m of the belief that BitCoin is also effectively unlimited supply, since its minimum denomination can be changed via consensus. The supply is limited to 21mm full “coins” yes, but the precision is configurable according to consensus. Currently it’s 1mm Satoshi per BTC but that can be changed even without a hard fork.
T-A 9y ago
This is the Federal Reserve's balance sheet: http://www.econdataus.com/fedbal.html http://www.econdataus.com/fedbal.html This is the effective federal funds rate: https://www.frbatlanta.org/-/media/images/education/publications/extra-credit/2013/spring/primer-on-nontraditional-monetary-policy-tools-maturity-extension-program/02.jpg https://www.frbatlanta.org/-/media/images/education/publicat... Do those charts really look "conservative" to you?
matte_black 9y ago
> How could anyone blame them with where our economy has gone. This economy has gone nowhere but up. Those who are not going up with it are likely being held down by other systemic issues, not because the game is "rigged".
- chipgap98 9y ago
  Curious about what the difference between "systemic issues" and 'the game being "rigged"' is?
  - sli 9y ago
    One is usually an an inherent problem (e.g. with design, implementation) and the other implies a bad actor manipulating the thing in question.
    - dnautics 9y ago
      A system can be rigged even when everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. For example, the system for academic promotion at universities is a very much 'rigged' game, there are the 'real rules' and the 'rules they say are the rules', but nobody is manipulating it, it's just an emergent phenomenon from a series of well-intentioned processes. probably obtaining VC funding in the valley is the same way.
- dnautics 9y ago
  > This economy has gone nowhere but up that's a subjective call encodes what things you care about. Look nobody's going to say the median standard of living hasn't increased (although it has stagnated of late), but we don't know what it could have been. How much of the increase in standard of living is due to the economic structure, and how much is due to technological improvement? People aren't starving in the streets when we have a depression-level economic displacement. The fed loves to argue that it's because of its stewardship, but let's be honest, it's because of Norman Borlaug (and the like). Finally, you can't be sure that the 'systemic issues' that are 'holding down' those who are 'not going up' aren't the factors that causing the rest of the economy to go up. If you don't think the game is 'rigged' show me where I can get one of those negative real interest rate loan I keep hearing are getting floated to 'keep our economy stable'.

taoistextremist 9y ago

>How could anyone blame them with where our economy has gone. We're like the richest we've ever been as a society. Even poor Americans are pretty damn rich compared to the past. Even if you want to make an argument about wealth inequality, crypto doesn't really solve that. The Federal Reserve is actually an extremely responsible body, despite what people claim or what banks that they have no real control over do.

dnautics 9y ago
whether or not it's extremely responsible is irrelevant; while I don't think they intend it that way, their mission is to extract the wealth from the poor and give it to the rich in the name of 'growth' and 'stability'. You do not see folks wandering around the tenderloin getting negative real interest rate loans or their businesses bailed out. The economic value to fund the fed's operations comes out of the spending power of the rest of us.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  > their mission is to extract the wealth from the poor and give it to the rich in the name of 'growth' and 'stability'. Citation needed. Even if you mean it as obvious hyperbole, I’d like to hear some evidence for how central banks “extract money from the poor.”
  - dnautics 9y ago
    I never said extract money, I said extract wealth. Increasing the cost of living by targetting positive inflation. If you're poor and the cost of living goes up the relative margin of survival decreases faster than for the wealthy. Let's say you spend 98% and there's 1% inflation. Your margin of survival goes down 50%, whereas someone spending 20% barely feels it. If you have more questions, my contact is in the profile. This is only scratching the surface.
indubitable 9y ago
While it's regularly said that 'we're the richest we've ever been', how justifiable a comment is that? At the most basic level we surely would consider wealth to be the ability to comfortably afford housing, food, healthcare, some solid entertainment, and have plenty saved away for a comfortable retirement or in cases of emergencies. Yet we live in a nation where 69% [1] of people have less than $1k saved, and 85% have less than $10k. About 1 out of 8 people are on food stamps. Education is completely unaffordable for most people without taking on very substantial levels of debt. One of the few things able to compete against education costs are healthcare costs which are growing similarly unreasonable for most people. How has the average life experience between the quintiles changed? I think this is something that cannot be so easily quantified, even more so when there's subjectivity involved in the quantification. So for instance it's easy to consider ourselves rich when we do things like look at prices 'back in the day.' A quick search for prices in the 50s gives me $21 [2] for a toaster in 1951. That'd be about $200 today. So, at a glance, it makes it seem like we must be fabulously wealthy for anybody to be able to afford for $10 or $20 what would have been a fairly meaningful purchase back then. But then we get into weird things when we start looking at relative pricing. Another datum [3] there is that you could get a 1958 Chevrolet Corvette for $3631 in 1958 dollars. But wait... that's only about 180 toasters...? In toaster relative prices that'd be like getting a nice Porsche today for $1800 - $3600! Of course the relative prices of things change over time, and this is something that inflation completely misses. I'd be curious to know exactly how, which is why I think examining a representative lifestyle in the different quintiles over time would be most informative. How much of the representative income was spent on what things? How distant were their remaining consumer desires away from their means? How much were they able to save? What would be the expected economic impact of some sort of emergency? Inflation alone is far too imprecise a measurement to answer these questions or, equivalently, to justify the grand statements it's used to make. [1] - https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/25/how-much-does-the-average-american-have-in-their-s.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/25/how-much-does-the-... [2] - http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html [3] - http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1950s.html http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1950s.html
- taoistextremist 9y ago

jgalt212 9y ago

> goal is to smash central banking Well, if that's the goal, BTC with its high transaction costs/low throughput/high backlog is not going to do it. It would be some other CCY. The problem with this is that once BTC is no longer "special" than all crytpo currencies are just fiat money and even if you cannot create more than 21MM bitcoins, you can create unlimited crypto currencies. put another way, set membership is fixed, but the number of sets is limitless. So the biggest risk from a valuation perspective is if BTC starts to seem less "special".

chatmasta 9y ago
I’m of the belief that BitCoin is also effectively unlimited supply, since its minimum denomination can be changed via consensus. The supply is limited to 21mm full “coins” yes, but the precision is configurable according to consensus. Currently it’s 1mm Satoshi per BTC but that can be changed even without a hard fork.

T-A 9y ago

This is the Federal Reserve's balance sheet: http://www.econdataus.com/fedbal.html http://www.econdataus.com/fedbal.html This is the effective federal funds rate: https://www.frbatlanta.org/-/media/images/education/publications/extra-credit/2013/spring/primer-on-nontraditional-monetary-policy-tools-maturity-extension-program/02.jpg https://www.frbatlanta.org/-/media/images/education/publicat... Do those charts really look "conservative" to you?

matte_black 9y ago

> How could anyone blame them with where our economy has gone. This economy has gone nowhere but up. Those who are not going up with it are likely being held down by other systemic issues, not because the game is "rigged".

chipgap98 9y ago
Curious about what the difference between "systemic issues" and 'the game being "rigged"' is?
- sli 9y ago
  One is usually an an inherent problem (e.g. with design, implementation) and the other implies a bad actor manipulating the thing in question.
  - dnautics 9y ago
    A system can be rigged even when everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. For example, the system for academic promotion at universities is a very much 'rigged' game, there are the 'real rules' and the 'rules they say are the rules', but nobody is manipulating it, it's just an emergent phenomenon from a series of well-intentioned processes. probably obtaining VC funding in the valley is the same way.
dnautics 9y ago
> This economy has gone nowhere but up that's a subjective call encodes what things you care about. Look nobody's going to say the median standard of living hasn't increased (although it has stagnated of late), but we don't know what it could have been. How much of the increase in standard of living is due to the economic structure, and how much is due to technological improvement? People aren't starving in the streets when we have a depression-level economic displacement. The fed loves to argue that it's because of its stewardship, but let's be honest, it's because of Norman Borlaug (and the like). Finally, you can't be sure that the 'systemic issues' that are 'holding down' those who are 'not going up' aren't the factors that causing the rest of the economy to go up. If you don't think the game is 'rigged' show me where I can get one of those negative real interest rate loan I keep hearing are getting floated to 'keep our economy stable'.