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It wasn't "The sort of activity which led to the financial crisis" that inspired bitcoin. After the crisis happened the US government funded the massive bailout

It wasn't "The sort of activity which led to the financial crisis" that inspired bitcoin. After the crisis happened the US government funded the massive bailout by printing more money. It turned out to be a "good" decision since it prevented a catastrophic economic failure but it did cause more inflation and some people weren't happy that a government can just print more money on a whim. So that's how the bitcoin came about to make a currency where there are no central governing body that can just print more whenever it wants.

noddy1 9y ago
The banks seem to have won the propaganda war about bailouts preventing economic collapse pretty well. I guess once the government makes the bailout and the banks accept the bailout, both parties are pretty committed to ensuring the public thinks that the bailouts were required. What we really got was a tacit approval for bankers that they could make highly leveraged bets in the 7 years that the markets were going up, make shitloads of money, feel like geniuses, and then when it all inevitably explodes the government would bail them out and then QE like crazy to pick up the pieces. The QE would be given not to citizens, but to banks to inflate equity markets, and start the whole cycle again. Now we have a whole new generation of financial "geniuses" overhyping every asset class, making shitloads of money off it all, thinking they are geniuses, and when it all collapses again they think the same thing will happen. It may do, but this time I don't have to be involved in that bullshit. My money is now unprintable. They can devalue the USD shitcoin all they want, but there are still only 21 million possible bitcoins and that's all I care about.
openasocket 9y ago
The government didn't actually print any money, the central banks just acted as a "lender of last resort," which works just as well in Bitcoin as it does in cash.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- noddy1 9y ago
  They printed $4+ trillion in the aftermath and gave it to banks.
  - openasocket 9y ago
    No, they gave them credit for the money on their accounts, they didn't physically print any more money than they did normally.
    - peterjlee 9y ago
      Isn't it already a common knowledge when someone says "the Fed prints money", they're flipping digits in their computers and not actually printing paper bills? The Fed doesn't print the paper bills anyways. The Treasury does it.
      - openasocket 9y ago
        But the point is that they could still do this with bitcoin. Even if they don't have the ability to create a bunch of bitcoins out of thin air, they do have the ability to credit their accounts. As you said, "So that's how the bitcoin came about to make a currency where there are no central governing body that can just print more whenever it wants," but the bailouts absolutely could still occur, because you don't have to directly control the money supply to be able to act as a lender of last resort.
        peterjlee 9y ago
        What do you mean by "they do have the ability to credit their accounts"? So the Fed will print more dollars and buy bitcoin? The total number of Bitcoin still doesn't change and it will raise the value of Bitcoin while devaluing dollars. The bailouts can still occur but it will occur in dollars since that's the only currency the Fed can print. If the Fed prints more dollars, it will devalue the dollar and everyone who holds dollar will have less purchasing power while if you had Bitcoin (or gold or any other currency), you're purchasing power won't be affected.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> After the crisis happened the US government funded the massive bailout by printing more money. It turned out to be a "good" decision since it prevented a catastrophic economic failure but it did cause more inflation Inflation was near zero for the whole time. Also, Bitcoin was released in January 2009, before anything but the very earliest trivial reactions to the collapse, it absolutely was not inspired by the much later criticisms of the reactions that largely hadn't yet occurred when it was released, no matter how amusing your theory is that the motivation for Bitcoin was literally people pissed off that an entity existed which had power to act to prevent a catastrophic economic collapse.

noddy1 9y ago

The banks seem to have won the propaganda war about bailouts preventing economic collapse pretty well. I guess once the government makes the bailout and the banks accept the bailout, both parties are pretty committed to ensuring the public thinks that the bailouts were required. What we really got was a tacit approval for bankers that they could make highly leveraged bets in the 7 years that the markets were going up, make shitloads of money, feel like geniuses, and then when it all inevitably explodes the government would bail them out and then QE like crazy to pick up the pieces. The QE would be given not to citizens, but to banks to inflate equity markets, and start the whole cycle again. Now we have a whole new generation of financial "geniuses" overhyping every asset class, making shitloads of money off it all, thinking they are geniuses, and when it all collapses again they think the same thing will happen. It may do, but this time I don't have to be involved in that bullshit. My money is now unprintable. They can devalue the USD shitcoin all they want, but there are still only 21 million possible bitcoins and that's all I care about.

openasocket 9y ago

The government didn't actually print any money, the central banks just acted as a "lender of last resort," which works just as well in Bitcoin as it does in cash.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
noddy1 9y ago
They printed $4+ trillion in the aftermath and gave it to banks.
- openasocket 9y ago
  No, they gave them credit for the money on their accounts, they didn't physically print any more money than they did normally.
  - peterjlee 9y ago
    Isn't it already a common knowledge when someone says "the Fed prints money", they're flipping digits in their computers and not actually printing paper bills? The Fed doesn't print the paper bills anyways. The Treasury does it.
    - openasocket 9y ago
      But the point is that they could still do this with bitcoin. Even if they don't have the ability to create a bunch of bitcoins out of thin air, they do have the ability to credit their accounts. As you said, "So that's how the bitcoin came about to make a currency where there are no central governing body that can just print more whenever it wants," but the bailouts absolutely could still occur, because you don't have to directly control the money supply to be able to act as a lender of last resort.
      - peterjlee 9y ago
        What do you mean by "they do have the ability to credit their accounts"? So the Fed will print more dollars and buy bitcoin? The total number of Bitcoin still doesn't change and it will raise the value of Bitcoin while devaluing dollars. The bailouts can still occur but it will occur in dollars since that's the only currency the Fed can print. If the Fed prints more dollars, it will devalue the dollar and everyone who holds dollar will have less purchasing power while if you had Bitcoin (or gold or any other currency), you're purchasing power won't be affected.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> After the crisis happened the US government funded the massive bailout by printing more money. It turned out to be a "good" decision since it prevented a catastrophic economic failure but it did cause more inflation Inflation was near zero for the whole time. Also, Bitcoin was released in January 2009, before anything but the very earliest trivial reactions to the collapse, it absolutely was not inspired by the much later criticisms of the reactions that largely hadn't yet occurred when it was released, no matter how amusing your theory is that the motivation for Bitcoin was literally people pissed off that an entity existed which had power to act to prevent a catastrophic economic collapse.