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No, inflationary fiat policy steals from the frugal, savers and fixed income people and rewards the people at the top of the pyramid (financial institutions) wh

No, inflationary fiat policy steals from the frugal, savers and fixed income people and rewards the people at the top of the pyramid (financial institutions) who get cheap money from the central banks. Having alternative currencies ensures accountability and honest money. Nation States don't want this, as it restricts their expansion.

ars 13y ago
I hope you are not implying that bitcoin is better. Bitcoin creates a super-elite of early adopters who control (in percentage terms) an amount of currency unheard of in history. The curve of releasing bitcoins was done backwards - it should have released very few bitcoins at first (while there weren't a lot of people using it), and more (i.e. faster) later on as it got more popular. As is, fewer and fewer bitcoins are being released as time goes on (i.e as more people use it), and that's an utter disaster for a currency. I hope bitcoin never becomes a real currency since it would create a monetary inequality such as the world has never seen.
- rikur 13y ago
  So money created by the people for the people will create monetary inequality, where as Fiat currencies where the monopoly of money creation is given to handful of super-rich central bankers is not? Not to mention that US Dollars for example are created by a private institution called "The Federal Reserve" and lended out with interest. Or that HSBC has the blood of tens of thousands of drug war victims on their hands for enabling the business in the first place, and get's away with a <10% fine of the profits. The curve is modeled to mimick that of Golds, because that's what Bitcoin in the end is: Virtual Gold, where tangibility is replaced with knowledgeability. And because all that Bitcoin "wallets" are in the end is information, it makes things possible that we could have never imagined before. Just because you missed the first Bitcoin opportunity doesn't mean that Bitcoin would be inherently bad. Please educate yourself.
  - ars 13y ago
    You created your account 1635 days ago, and your very first post is this piece of nonsense? And you tell me to educate myself? Wow. There is little point in replying to your first paragraph since it's filled with so much misinformation I wouldn't even know where to start. But re your second paragraph: What makes Gold so wonderful that you want to copy it?
fancyketchup 13y ago
As opposed to deflationary policy, which steals from the hard-working children of the future? Please don't waste your time typing the usual nonsense about how bitcoin can be divided into infinitesimally-small parts. Nobody is (or has ever been) seriously worried about that. It would be as if saying the primary problem with hyperinflation is that you need to put too many zeros on your bank notes. Imagine if someone asked about the feasibility of fiat currencies and the response was "No, we've planned for that: There will be extra space on the end of the bank notes to print more zeros." Absurd! Yet, that's the standard argument from bitcoin proponents when it comes to deflation (only in reverse). The problem with bitcoin is that its designers believed that hyperinflation=bad necessarily implies that hyperdeflation=good. If that were the case, then bitcoin would be the perfect currency. Actually, both are fatal to an economy. Economies basically shut down when currencies start to deflate. It turns into a giant game of chicken: Nobody wants to spend his currency first because he knows it will be worth more later. First people delay luxury purchases, but before long you end up with a vicious circle and people wait until the very last second to purchase essentials like life-saving medicine. There is a way to stop this, of course: Print more money (Hey, that's kinda like how the solution to hyperinflation is to stop printing more money! Who'da thunk it?). >Nation States don't want this, as it restricts their expansion. Or we can take off our tin-foil hats and admit that Bitcoin sucks and was designed by someone with little understanding of economics or the history of money. In order to be a useful currency, the total number of bitcoins needs to track the size of the portion of the economy that uses bitcoins. Bring me a cryptocurrency that was designed by someone who is more interested in making a solid, practical currency than rigidly following his ideology, then we can talk. Nobody in power is in any way threatened by bitcoin. It will implode by itself without any help from the outside (though I'm sure it will get some helpful nudges in that direction). I'll close with this: Part of engineering a good system is making prototypes and seeing what doesn't work. Another part is looking at competing products and seeing where other engineers went wrong. Blind, religious adherence to the principle of deflation is only going to cripple the adoption of alternate currencies.
- oleganza 13y ago
  In a transaction where one asset is inflationary in relation to another, another one is deflationary, right? So if I apply your argument of deflationary spiral to currently deflationary assets (in relation to USD), we would have to withhold selling our services and goods for USD because tomorrow we would be able to get even more USD, right? So no trade should happen in a USD economy too? (Buyer of one asset is a seller of another and vice versa.) Another argument: there are time preferences. Even though tomorrow I can buy 10% more beer for my money, I want some beer today. If my money gets expensive faster, I'd spend less of it, but not necessary zero. Third argument: even if everyone is holding their money, what's the problem? The minute someone needs something, they'd have to pay for it. They would prefer to consume less if cash appreciates and consume more if cash depreciates. But there is no magical threshold after which money becomes so expensive that everyone stupidly dies of starvation. On contrary, price will stop growing as soon as everyone got what they wanted and trade stopped (no one wants to sell his bitcoin). Then, as people see more stable prices, they will resume trading cash for something to consume.

ars 13y ago

I hope you are not implying that bitcoin is better. Bitcoin creates a super-elite of early adopters who control (in percentage terms) an amount of currency unheard of in history. The curve of releasing bitcoins was done backwards - it should have released very few bitcoins at first (while there weren't a lot of people using it), and more (i.e. faster) later on as it got more popular. As is, fewer and fewer bitcoins are being released as time goes on (i.e as more people use it), and that's an utter disaster for a currency. I hope bitcoin never becomes a real currency since it would create a monetary inequality such as the world has never seen.

rikur 13y ago
So money created by the people for the people will create monetary inequality, where as Fiat currencies where the monopoly of money creation is given to handful of super-rich central bankers is not? Not to mention that US Dollars for example are created by a private institution called "The Federal Reserve" and lended out with interest. Or that HSBC has the blood of tens of thousands of drug war victims on their hands for enabling the business in the first place, and get's away with a <10% fine of the profits. The curve is modeled to mimick that of Golds, because that's what Bitcoin in the end is: Virtual Gold, where tangibility is replaced with knowledgeability. And because all that Bitcoin "wallets" are in the end is information, it makes things possible that we could have never imagined before. Just because you missed the first Bitcoin opportunity doesn't mean that Bitcoin would be inherently bad. Please educate yourself.
- ars 13y ago
  You created your account 1635 days ago, and your very first post is this piece of nonsense? And you tell me to educate myself? Wow. There is little point in replying to your first paragraph since it's filled with so much misinformation I wouldn't even know where to start. But re your second paragraph: What makes Gold so wonderful that you want to copy it?

fancyketchup 13y ago

As opposed to deflationary policy, which steals from the hard-working children of the future? Please don't waste your time typing the usual nonsense about how bitcoin can be divided into infinitesimally-small parts. Nobody is (or has ever been) seriously worried about that. It would be as if saying the primary problem with hyperinflation is that you need to put too many zeros on your bank notes. Imagine if someone asked about the feasibility of fiat currencies and the response was "No, we've planned for that: There will be extra space on the end of the bank notes to print more zeros." Absurd! Yet, that's the standard argument from bitcoin proponents when it comes to deflation (only in reverse). The problem with bitcoin is that its designers believed that hyperinflation=bad necessarily implies that hyperdeflation=good. If that were the case, then bitcoin would be the perfect currency. Actually, both are fatal to an economy. Economies basically shut down when currencies start to deflate. It turns into a giant game of chicken: Nobody wants to spend his currency first because he knows it will be worth more later. First people delay luxury purchases, but before long you end up with a vicious circle and people wait until the very last second to purchase essentials like life-saving medicine. There is a way to stop this, of course: Print more money (Hey, that's kinda like how the solution to hyperinflation is to stop printing more money! Who'da thunk it?). >Nation States don't want this, as it restricts their expansion. Or we can take off our tin-foil hats and admit that Bitcoin sucks and was designed by someone with little understanding of economics or the history of money. In order to be a useful currency, the total number of bitcoins needs to track the size of the portion of the economy that uses bitcoins. Bring me a cryptocurrency that was designed by someone who is more interested in making a solid, practical currency than rigidly following his ideology, then we can talk. Nobody in power is in any way threatened by bitcoin. It will implode by itself without any help from the outside (though I'm sure it will get some helpful nudges in that direction). I'll close with this: Part of engineering a good system is making prototypes and seeing what doesn't work. Another part is looking at competing products and seeing where other engineers went wrong. Blind, religious adherence to the principle of deflation is only going to cripple the adoption of alternate currencies.

oleganza 13y ago
In a transaction where one asset is inflationary in relation to another, another one is deflationary, right? So if I apply your argument of deflationary spiral to currently deflationary assets (in relation to USD), we would have to withhold selling our services and goods for USD because tomorrow we would be able to get even more USD, right? So no trade should happen in a USD economy too? (Buyer of one asset is a seller of another and vice versa.) Another argument: there are time preferences. Even though tomorrow I can buy 10% more beer for my money, I want some beer today. If my money gets expensive faster, I'd spend less of it, but not necessary zero. Third argument: even if everyone is holding their money, what's the problem? The minute someone needs something, they'd have to pay for it. They would prefer to consume less if cash appreciates and consume more if cash depreciates. But there is no magical threshold after which money becomes so expensive that everyone stupidly dies of starvation. On contrary, price will stop growing as soon as everyone got what they wanted and trade stopped (no one wants to sell his bitcoin). Then, as people see more stable prices, they will resume trading cash for something to consume.