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The US has not fought wars to prop up the dollar. Instead, the strong dollar has enabled the US has been able to pay for its wars by inflation. Had the governme

by dpatru 6y ago

The US has not fought wars to prop up the dollar. Instead, the strong dollar has enabled the US has been able to pay for its wars by inflation. Had the government been forced to directly tax its citizens to pay for the wars, the wars would not have appeared "cost-free" to the citizens and would have been opposed more. As bitcoin becomes more popular and stable, it's "appreciation" relative the fiat currencies will reveal how much value governments are secretly stealing through inflation.

tboyd47 6y ago
The state protects their printing press. Their printing press funds their wars. The winners and losers both, their children, and grandchildren all pay on the back end, and millions are slaughtered. And I'm supposed to be mad at Bitcoin for some extra computers running. No chance.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> As bitcoin becomes more popular and stable, it's "appreciation" relative the fiat currencies will reveal how much value governments are secretly stealing through inflation. Exactly what goldbugs have always claimed about gold, since fiat currencies displaced commodity representational currencies (particularly gold-denominated) currencies. The thing is, insofar as inflation can be said to “steal” from anything, it's idle holders of dollar-denominated assets. But it's pretty easy to mitigate by moving holdings other than for short-term liquidity into productive assets (which itself promotes real, not merely nominal, economic growth) rather than (or by borrowing against) dollar denominated assets. Meanwhile, it benefits those with dollar denominated liabilities. Mild, slowly changing inflation (volatility in either price or inflation rate is a problem) isn't much of a problem for anyone in practice, and there's a pretty small audience that is receptive to the scare tactic (and Bitcoin fever has already fully reached that audience.)

by dpatru 6y ago

tboyd47 6y ago

The state protects their printing press. Their printing press funds their wars. The winners and losers both, their children, and grandchildren all pay on the back end, and millions are slaughtered. And I'm supposed to be mad at Bitcoin for some extra computers running. No chance.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> As bitcoin becomes more popular and stable, it's "appreciation" relative the fiat currencies will reveal how much value governments are secretly stealing through inflation. Exactly what goldbugs have always claimed about gold, since fiat currencies displaced commodity representational currencies (particularly gold-denominated) currencies. The thing is, insofar as inflation can be said to “steal” from anything, it's idle holders of dollar-denominated assets. But it's pretty easy to mitigate by moving holdings other than for short-term liquidity into productive assets (which itself promotes real, not merely nominal, economic growth) rather than (or by borrowing against) dollar denominated assets. Meanwhile, it benefits those with dollar denominated liabilities. Mild, slowly changing inflation (volatility in either price or inflation rate is a problem) isn't much of a problem for anyone in practice, and there's a pretty small audience that is receptive to the scare tactic (and Bitcoin fever has already fully reached that audience.)