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From their About page: Governments and banks can fall, or change their monetary policies, at any time - and your currency today can literally have no value tom

From their About page: Governments and banks can fall, or change their monetary policies, at any time - and your currency today can literally have no value tomorrow (recent examples include Indian demonetization, Argentina, Venezuela, Zimbabwe) How do you know it won't happen to your country? The irony is rich in this one.

pjc50 4y ago
I have some sympathy for the victims of those political and economic collapses, and for people in similarly unstable or unfree countries who may suffer hardship through failures of their political system. However, if you're sitting comfortably in a Western country that runs free and fair elections? This is your "only you can prevent forest fires" moment. It's part of your freedom that you have the responsibility to participate in keeping the fraudulent and incompetent out of your democracy. This includes not letting yourself get seduced by populists or youtubers with weird economic theories. And also not pretending that collapse is imminent simply because oil prices have gone up. (It's also not clear that actual loss was a big problem of Indian demonetization, just the inconvenience of the exchange process)
- lupire 4y ago
  > sitting comfortably in a Western country that runs free and fair elections 4% of the world population, and most of this site's users, live in the USA, where free and fair elections, along with human rights, are being turned down this year.
  - throwaway858 4y ago
    > 4% of the world population, and most of this site's users, live in the USA Does HN publish this statistic? My guess is that >50% of users/traffic to this site is outside of the USA
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > where free and fair elections, along with human rights, are being turned down this year This is precisely the sort of hyperbole OP is describing.
    - newshorts 4y ago
      Can you describe in more detail what you view as hyperbolic? I’m assuming the reference was to Roe v. Wade, but would like to hear more.
      - shapefrog 4y ago
        I will take a crack at this... > where free and fair elections, along with human rights, are being turned down this year Pure, uncut, refined hysterical hyperbolic nonsense
        bee_rider 4y ago
        They asked for more details, not more meaningless adjectives.
        shapefrog 4y ago
        > I’m assuming the reference was to Roe v. Wade, but would like to hear more. Republicans ran in elections on "stack the supreme court with people who will enact our values". Republicans ran in elections on "our values are ban abortions". Republicans win election. Republicans winning an election, stacking the court with their people, having them do exactly what they promised to do and enacting their campaign promises is democracy in action, not the suspension of democracy. If you dont want it, everyone needs to vote for what they do want.
        mrcartmeneses 4y ago
        Hate to break it to you but Trump lost the popular vote and there are several states and many counties that will always go republican despite them losing the popular vote. Is your electoral system fair if it is this gerrymandered? Furthermore, most states and districts are “safe” for one of the two main parties. Of the remaining places, a voter can choose between either of only two parties. If neither represent them, then they have no one to vote for. This situation is not “free” in the true sense of the word. You do not have a free vote, and in most places your vote is meaningless. Worse still is the fact that one of your political parties openly attempted to overthrow the result of the election in order to stay in power, and the other party has not brought the full force of the law to bare for fear of speaking civil unrest. It is not hyperbolic to warn Americans of the extreme danger their democracy is in, nor of its inherent weakness due to the rather antiquated voting system it uses. Stacking a court goes against the separation of power that the three estates were supposed to uphold. No party that openly tries to pack a court against the will of the people should get a single vote from anyone who cares about freedom. America is sailing very close to the wind and Americans should not be complacent about the risks they face
- addicted 4y ago
  Indian demonetization has irreparably harmed the economy for decades at the very least. It absolutely halted growth and immediately led to a much lower growth level from which India has not recovered, and possibly never will, at least under the current government. And with high inflation (even pre pandemic) and a huge young population, the destruction of growth was an absolute disaster for India which absolutely needs to cash in on its youth right now before they all grow old and need to be financially supported themselves.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    How did the demonetization halt growth? Can this be untangled from other world economy effects?
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      I guess the parent is arguing that taking fraudulent, counterfeit, and unclaimed/unaccounted money out of the system left less capital for growth?
      - thematrixturtle 4y ago
        The demonetization was extraordinarily bad at doing that. Turns out when you demonetize currency, the rich and corrupt can find ways around it, while it's the poor who lose their meager savings.
        pcthrowaway 4y ago
        How did the poor lose their savings? I'm not from India, I just happened to travel there while that was happening. My understanding was that everyone could wait in line to exchange their 500/1000 rupee notes for 100 or 2000 notes. The lines were long and the banks were frequently out of money to exchange from, but I thought they could also deposit it to their bank if they had one (letting the bank deal with the demonetized notes). I know there are also a lot of unbanked in India, but presumably the period for exchanging demonetized notes was long enough to allow them to exchange any cash savings they had.. was this not the case?
- zamalek 4y ago
  > you have the responsibility to participate in keeping the fraudulent and incompetent out of your democracy. As a person who lived through the Zimbabwe crash, this right here was the problem. People voted to throw out the tyrant and he "found the votes he needed." This economy is reeling from all the money that the previous administration printed (which was precisely what started the snowball in Zimbabwe). What is lost to the crypto crowd is that sometimes "what is good for me" is not always "what is good for us." Voting yourself more money is very good way to contribute to a collapse (as Charles Munger points out[1]). This seems lost to the generally active votebase, too. [1]: https://youtu.be/GNTczyGLdhc https://youtu.be/GNTczyGLdhc
323 4y ago
Technically they are correct :) The currency they held didn't lost it's value. It was just wholly lost. But the lost currency kept it's value.
- rvnx 4y ago
  The end of the story is that crypto people who stole these billions will do well, and the millions of people who lost their savings because of cryptos (including myself) will have to work twice to make it again. Enslaved to work because of scams, such a dream world.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    An explicit part of freedom is the freedom to make mistakes and suffer horribly for it. This isn't pretty and it is fair to hold it up as an inevitable part of the crypto world - but this can happen and crypto can still live up to its promise. Losing everything is an aspect of unregulated banking. The argument that the crypto people can make (and I am still one) is that over a lifetime I feel I am certain to lose ~40% of my cash to government inflation (possibly more), people who are incompetent will get automatic handouts every so often to stay in charge & vast sums will go to fighting wars in places I don't want to fight wars. I'd rather take a system where there is a 10% chance to lose everything and people can only create money according to pre-agreed rules. No stealth taxes, I want to know who is paying and how much. If that involves concentrating the risk it is worth it. Depending on how much you lost you might still come out ahead in such a world.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - TimPC 4y ago
      You’re crazy. Printing money funds socially useful things in government. Losing money to scammers is pure destruction. The idea that we should put up with massive amounts of fraud in order to destroy social safety nets is quite laughable.
cuteboy19 4y ago
despite causing a lot of needless anguish, nobody really lost money in demonetization. something like 99.99% of money was just exchanged for new notes. thats one of the reasons why its considered such a failure
papito 4y ago
That's like saying "commercial air travel is not safe at all because a single-engine prop crashed somewhere once."

pjc50 4y ago

I have some sympathy for the victims of those political and economic collapses, and for people in similarly unstable or unfree countries who may suffer hardship through failures of their political system. However, if you're sitting comfortably in a Western country that runs free and fair elections? This is your "only you can prevent forest fires" moment. It's part of your freedom that you have the responsibility to participate in keeping the fraudulent and incompetent out of your democracy. This includes not letting yourself get seduced by populists or youtubers with weird economic theories. And also not pretending that collapse is imminent simply because oil prices have gone up. (It's also not clear that actual loss was a big problem of Indian demonetization, just the inconvenience of the exchange process)

lupire 4y ago
> sitting comfortably in a Western country that runs free and fair elections 4% of the world population, and most of this site's users, live in the USA, where free and fair elections, along with human rights, are being turned down this year.
- throwaway858 4y ago
  > 4% of the world population, and most of this site's users, live in the USA Does HN publish this statistic? My guess is that >50% of users/traffic to this site is outside of the USA
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > where free and fair elections, along with human rights, are being turned down this year This is precisely the sort of hyperbole OP is describing.
  - newshorts 4y ago
    Can you describe in more detail what you view as hyperbolic? I’m assuming the reference was to Roe v. Wade, but would like to hear more.
    - shapefrog 4y ago
      I will take a crack at this... > where free and fair elections, along with human rights, are being turned down this year Pure, uncut, refined hysterical hyperbolic nonsense
      - bee_rider 4y ago
        They asked for more details, not more meaningless adjectives.
        shapefrog 4y ago
        > I’m assuming the reference was to Roe v. Wade, but would like to hear more. Republicans ran in elections on "stack the supreme court with people who will enact our values". Republicans ran in elections on "our values are ban abortions". Republicans win election. Republicans winning an election, stacking the court with their people, having them do exactly what they promised to do and enacting their campaign promises is democracy in action, not the suspension of democracy. If you dont want it, everyone needs to vote for what they do want.
        mrcartmeneses 4y ago
        Hate to break it to you but Trump lost the popular vote and there are several states and many counties that will always go republican despite them losing the popular vote. Is your electoral system fair if it is this gerrymandered? Furthermore, most states and districts are “safe” for one of the two main parties. Of the remaining places, a voter can choose between either of only two parties. If neither represent them, then they have no one to vote for. This situation is not “free” in the true sense of the word. You do not have a free vote, and in most places your vote is meaningless. Worse still is the fact that one of your political parties openly attempted to overthrow the result of the election in order to stay in power, and the other party has not brought the full force of the law to bare for fear of speaking civil unrest. It is not hyperbolic to warn Americans of the extreme danger their democracy is in, nor of its inherent weakness due to the rather antiquated voting system it uses. Stacking a court goes against the separation of power that the three estates were supposed to uphold. No party that openly tries to pack a court against the will of the people should get a single vote from anyone who cares about freedom. America is sailing very close to the wind and Americans should not be complacent about the risks they face
addicted 4y ago
Indian demonetization has irreparably harmed the economy for decades at the very least. It absolutely halted growth and immediately led to a much lower growth level from which India has not recovered, and possibly never will, at least under the current government. And with high inflation (even pre pandemic) and a huge young population, the destruction of growth was an absolute disaster for India which absolutely needs to cash in on its youth right now before they all grow old and need to be financially supported themselves.
- pjc50 4y ago
  How did the demonetization halt growth? Can this be untangled from other world economy effects?
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    I guess the parent is arguing that taking fraudulent, counterfeit, and unclaimed/unaccounted money out of the system left less capital for growth?
    - thematrixturtle 4y ago
      The demonetization was extraordinarily bad at doing that. Turns out when you demonetize currency, the rich and corrupt can find ways around it, while it's the poor who lose their meager savings.
      - pcthrowaway 4y ago
        How did the poor lose their savings? I'm not from India, I just happened to travel there while that was happening. My understanding was that everyone could wait in line to exchange their 500/1000 rupee notes for 100 or 2000 notes. The lines were long and the banks were frequently out of money to exchange from, but I thought they could also deposit it to their bank if they had one (letting the bank deal with the demonetized notes). I know there are also a lot of unbanked in India, but presumably the period for exchanging demonetized notes was long enough to allow them to exchange any cash savings they had.. was this not the case?
zamalek 4y ago
> you have the responsibility to participate in keeping the fraudulent and incompetent out of your democracy. As a person who lived through the Zimbabwe crash, this right here was the problem. People voted to throw out the tyrant and he "found the votes he needed." This economy is reeling from all the money that the previous administration printed (which was precisely what started the snowball in Zimbabwe). What is lost to the crypto crowd is that sometimes "what is good for me" is not always "what is good for us." Voting yourself more money is very good way to contribute to a collapse (as Charles Munger points out[1]). This seems lost to the generally active votebase, too. [1]: https://youtu.be/GNTczyGLdhc https://youtu.be/GNTczyGLdhc

323 4y ago

Technically they are correct :) The currency they held didn't lost it's value. It was just wholly lost. But the lost currency kept it's value.

rvnx 4y ago
The end of the story is that crypto people who stole these billions will do well, and the millions of people who lost their savings because of cryptos (including myself) will have to work twice to make it again. Enslaved to work because of scams, such a dream world.
- roenxi 4y ago
  An explicit part of freedom is the freedom to make mistakes and suffer horribly for it. This isn't pretty and it is fair to hold it up as an inevitable part of the crypto world - but this can happen and crypto can still live up to its promise. Losing everything is an aspect of unregulated banking. The argument that the crypto people can make (and I am still one) is that over a lifetime I feel I am certain to lose ~40% of my cash to government inflation (possibly more), people who are incompetent will get automatic handouts every so often to stay in charge & vast sums will go to fighting wars in places I don't want to fight wars. I'd rather take a system where there is a 10% chance to lose everything and people can only create money according to pre-agreed rules. No stealth taxes, I want to know who is paying and how much. If that involves concentrating the risk it is worth it. Depending on how much you lost you might still come out ahead in such a world.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - TimPC 4y ago
    You’re crazy. Printing money funds socially useful things in government. Losing money to scammers is pure destruction. The idea that we should put up with massive amounts of fraud in order to destroy social safety nets is quite laughable.

cuteboy19 4y ago

despite causing a lot of needless anguish, nobody really lost money in demonetization. something like 99.99% of money was just exchanged for new notes. thats one of the reasons why its considered such a failure

papito 4y ago

That's like saying "commercial air travel is not safe at all because a single-engine prop crashed somewhere once."