3 ms·

Don't forget that "the traditional banking system" requires large standing armies and navies. The reason random countries can't print dollars is that there are

Don't forget that "the traditional banking system" requires large standing armies and navies. The reason random countries can't print dollars is that there are 20 aircraft carriers floating around the world ready to bomb them back into the barter age. That cost has to be factored in.

acdha 5y ago
That's a very reductive view ignoring all of the other things which depend on governments. For example, most cryptocurrency users depend on having functional police and court systems, the open internet, etc. — do we add that to their costs as well?
arcticbull 5y ago
No, it really doesn't. The army defends the nation and currency is an emergent property of the nation, but the army isn't out there with guns making sure people accept dollars. If you switched to Bitcoin and killed the US dollar, the army would still be needed to protect the country, to protect America's business interests abroad, its political interests abroad and its people. That would be true even if the currency was old shoelaces. The US army long predates the fiat dollar by about 200 years and there is absolutely, indisputably, no path to reducing cost or energy expenditure on the army when switching to a different currency. Countries that use other countries currencies (in the way El Salvador uses the US Dollar) still have armies and some countries that use their own fiat dollars (Japan, Iceland) have no armies. These two are uncorrelated. Unless there's some straight line between, say, switching to Bitcoin and Xi Jinping realizing Taiwan was always its own country and grabbing some Baijiu with Tsai Ing-wen. I'm very excited to find out how Bitcoin solves the Hong Kong situation too! And I suppose it'll take care of business in the Sudan? Finally that trip to Yemen is back on the table. C'mon now...

3 ms·

Don't forget that "the traditional banking system" requires large standing armies and navies. The reason random countries can't print dollars is that there are

by stickfigure 5y ago

acdha 5y ago
That's a very reductive view ignoring all of the other things which depend on governments. For example, most cryptocurrency users depend on having functional police and court systems, the open internet, etc. — do we add that to their costs as well?
arcticbull 5y ago
No, it really doesn't. The army defends the nation and currency is an emergent property of the nation, but the army isn't out there with guns making sure people accept dollars. If you switched to Bitcoin and killed the US dollar, the army would still be needed to protect the country, to protect America's business interests abroad, its political interests abroad and its people. That would be true even if the currency was old shoelaces. The US army long predates the fiat dollar by about 200 years and there is absolutely, indisputably, no path to reducing cost or energy expenditure on the army when switching to a different currency. Countries that use other countries currencies (in the way El Salvador uses the US Dollar) still have armies and some countries that use their own fiat dollars (Japan, Iceland) have no armies. These two are uncorrelated. Unless there's some straight line between, say, switching to Bitcoin and Xi Jinping realizing Taiwan was always its own country and grabbing some Baijiu with Tsai Ing-wen. I'm very excited to find out how Bitcoin solves the Hong Kong situation too! And I suppose it'll take care of business in the Sudan? Finally that trip to Yemen is back on the table. C'mon now...