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History of economics disagrees with the last -- hopeful I will assume -- statement. The world was and is full of scammers and fraudsters. Also respectfully I a

History of economics disagrees with the last -- hopeful I will assume -- statement. The world was and is full of scammers and fraudsters. Also respectfully I am not sure I get the zero interest rates arguments. There seems to be a subgroup of HN community that believes low interest rates (below some arbitrary threshold?) to be immoral. Maybe there is a Crime, scams and ponzi schemes correlation study over hundreds of years I am unaware of? Japan is keeping negative rates and they are not known for that, to give the country everyone knows counterexample. Besides that the main borrowers are countries themselves. And with US, Europe and China paths right now, amidst a global war tension, something will have to give long term to make ends meet. Usually it is currency devaluation and a fundamental systemic change.

ethanbond 3y ago
The zero interest rate comment has nothing to do with morality, it means that people were doing incredibly goofy, risky shit to get a return, which creates ripe ground for conmen and fraud.
- astrange 3y ago
  ZIRP is somewhat overrated; the first dotcom bubble didn't have zero interest rates. But housing costs weren't as bad then as now, so maybe more room to mess up.
pavlov 3y ago
Zero interest rates will most likely return one day, but crypto will be heavily regulated by then. That’s what I meant — the combo isn’t coming back where crypto is an unregulated sink for ZIRP speculation money.
- eftychis 3y ago
  Thank you for the clarification follow-up.
thrawa8387336 3y ago
Lookie the thing is as long as interest rates are down, wages might go up nominally but in actual material terms you end up poorer. Unless you already own substantial hard assets or have access to the low interest rate loans. At the end of the day what matters is how many barrels of oil/kWh your monthly income can directly or indirectly be exchanged for.
olalonde 3y ago
> There seems to be a subgroup of HN community that believes low interest rates (below some arbitrary threshold?) to be immoral. Ironically, this is a very popular belief in the Bitcoin community and often cited as the reason to adopt Bitcoin. I don't want to start a debate but essentially, the crux of the belief is that low interest rates are essentially a means of "printing money", which in turn dilutes the value of the currency and acts as a hidden tax on its holders. The idea being that Bitcoin having a fixed supply, isn't vulnerable to such debasement.

ethanbond 3y ago

The zero interest rate comment has nothing to do with morality, it means that people were doing incredibly goofy, risky shit to get a return, which creates ripe ground for conmen and fraud.

astrange 3y ago
ZIRP is somewhat overrated; the first dotcom bubble didn't have zero interest rates. But housing costs weren't as bad then as now, so maybe more room to mess up.

pavlov 3y ago

Zero interest rates will most likely return one day, but crypto will be heavily regulated by then. That’s what I meant — the combo isn’t coming back where crypto is an unregulated sink for ZIRP speculation money.

eftychis 3y ago
Thank you for the clarification follow-up.

thrawa8387336 3y ago

Lookie the thing is as long as interest rates are down, wages might go up nominally but in actual material terms you end up poorer. Unless you already own substantial hard assets or have access to the low interest rate loans. At the end of the day what matters is how many barrels of oil/kWh your monthly income can directly or indirectly be exchanged for.

olalonde 3y ago

> There seems to be a subgroup of HN community that believes low interest rates (below some arbitrary threshold?) to be immoral. Ironically, this is a very popular belief in the Bitcoin community and often cited as the reason to adopt Bitcoin. I don't want to start a debate but essentially, the crux of the belief is that low interest rates are essentially a means of "printing money", which in turn dilutes the value of the currency and acts as a hidden tax on its holders. The idea being that Bitcoin having a fixed supply, isn't vulnerable to such debasement.