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"Bitcoin, in my opinion, will help poor people and protect more wealth and health than a potentially better cancer treatment." That is almost certainly not the

"Bitcoin, in my opinion, will help poor people and protect more wealth and health than a potentially better cancer treatment." That is almost certainly not the case: 1. Poor people have to pay taxes too, and they are less able to afford the risks or fees associated with currency exchange. 2. Poor people are more likely to use or depend on the welfare system, which is not likely to start using Bitcoin.

VMG 13y ago
1. In less developed countries, unfair taxes and harassment and are one of the reasons for poverty. Bitcoin reduces the risks of outsiders interfering. 2. Irrelevant (edit: and slightly disturbing that you think the condition of poor people can only be improved by the welfare system. There is some evidence that the inverse is true.) 3. Poor people in Africa are already using M-Pesa and other electronic currencies. Bitcoin is a less costly alternative to those payment systems. 4. Many guest workers in rich countries are transferring a part of their income to their relatives in their home country, often for large fees. These fees are much smaller when using Bitcoin.
- betterunix 13y ago
  1. How does Bitcoin make taxation more difficult than paper money? How does it make taxation difficult at all? Even if somehow Bitcoin made it hard for a corrupt government to impose taxes, there are a lot of things the government could do to make Bitcoin hard to use (and they only need to ensure that a large number of people have trouble). 2. Welfare is a reality of life, and has been as far back as we have written records. If you have a better system that might actually work, I'm all ears, but until then we need to deal with the reality of this world. It is also wrong to assume that transaction fees for Bitcoin will remain low forever. As Bitcoin exchanges and other services start complying with financial regulations, the costs of that compliance will be passed on to their customers. Bitcoin is not useful without exchanges in countries that will not accept Bitcoin for tax payments, which at the moment is all countries.
  - VMG 13y ago
    1. Cash can be easily found and seized, not only by corrupt governments but by organized crime (If you think there is a difference). Bitcoin is decentralized and based on cryptography - you only need to have internet access and private keys to make transactions. 2. Free trade and industrialization have a much better track record of lifting people out of poverty than handouts. Even Bono agrees. Bitcoin helps free trade and wealth aggregation, especially in countries with unstable currencies (Argentina, Zimbabwe) 3. As explained in (1), Bitcoin is much harder to control than a centralized system. There is no need for centralized exchanges, everybody with a smartphone and internet access can trade Bitcoin. The fact that government don't accept taxes in Bitcoin does not imply that it will not help poor people, it implies that Bitcoin will not help the government if it chooses to criminalize virtual currencies.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      1. Computers can be easily found, seized, searched, backdoored, confiscated, etc. How is that any different than the situation you face with cash? 2. Free trade does not make welfare unnecessary. The point of welfare is not to lift people out of poverty, it is to ensure that people are not starving to death and that they have a place to live. If everyone had to depend on the free market to make enough money to eat, there would always be people who starve to death -- just like there will always be businesses that go bankrupt. In countries with dysfunctional or non-existence welfare systems people do starve to death when they cannot find enough money to pay for their food. 3. Governments do not need to criminalize Bitcoin to stop it from becoming popular. As long as businesses are required to pay taxes those businesses will need to get the money the government accepts tax payments in. Either those businesses will demand the money up front, or they will accept Bitcoin payments and then run to the nearest exchange when the tax collectors come. Either way Bitcoin is only going to be used as long as people have access to Bitcoin exchanges. Of course, it is possible that the government is so corrupt and so dysfunctional that it is unable to even enforce the tax code. Such governments tend to not last long.
oleganza 13y ago
Here are ways people are made less poor with Bitcoin: 1. Sending money over the border to relatives for 0 fee. There are a lot of stories on how people risk their wealth transferring big amounts of hard earned capital across the border. 2. Do not have to pay hidden costs of using traditional payment systems. Costs are for sellers and buyers: 1) transaction fees 2) fraud risk 3) undersupply of goods because of fraud risk or fees. Tons of business models are simply not possible without Bitcoin. And many are not open to anyone in the world because of regulations, fraud risk etc. 3. No cost of inflation. If you save money for buying something expensive or opening your own shop, central bank steals your wealth by printing money and giving it to privileged organisations (that are supposed to pay you back in a form of "growing economy", but we have yet to see a proof for it). For almost 5 years now, Bitcoin value was significantly growing every single year, comparing to any other asset on the market. And even when/if it stops growing, the value of Bitcoin depends on a decision of every market participant, not a small group of people in the Federal Reserve. 4. Those who wish to save wealth by avoiding some taxation, are able to do so. If some poor teenager learns HTML and makes websites for Bitcoin, he doesn't need to lose 20-50% of his income (depending on your country and how you measure the total tax). 5. If you worry about gangsters from main street or wall street stealing your money by force, you can hide it well extremely cheaply. You can remember a single password to re-create a wallet from it. Or back up your wallet on different cloud services. Or give copies to all your friends. It's much easier to protect bitcoins than gold or paper bills. We only need some easy to use software, but it's entirely possible to do, it just takes some time. The only cost for you is higher perceived uncertainty (however, our shaky financial ponzi scheme created by government only seems stable, but it can collapse anytime and goes in that direction) and a lack of tools and services. But all of that is coming. Every year it becomes easier to use Bitcoin and more people accept them. See where the puck is going.

VMG 13y ago

1. In less developed countries, unfair taxes and harassment and are one of the reasons for poverty. Bitcoin reduces the risks of outsiders interfering. 2. Irrelevant (edit: and slightly disturbing that you think the condition of poor people can only be improved by the welfare system. There is some evidence that the inverse is true.) 3. Poor people in Africa are already using M-Pesa and other electronic currencies. Bitcoin is a less costly alternative to those payment systems. 4. Many guest workers in rich countries are transferring a part of their income to their relatives in their home country, often for large fees. These fees are much smaller when using Bitcoin.

betterunix 13y ago
1. How does Bitcoin make taxation more difficult than paper money? How does it make taxation difficult at all? Even if somehow Bitcoin made it hard for a corrupt government to impose taxes, there are a lot of things the government could do to make Bitcoin hard to use (and they only need to ensure that a large number of people have trouble). 2. Welfare is a reality of life, and has been as far back as we have written records. If you have a better system that might actually work, I'm all ears, but until then we need to deal with the reality of this world. It is also wrong to assume that transaction fees for Bitcoin will remain low forever. As Bitcoin exchanges and other services start complying with financial regulations, the costs of that compliance will be passed on to their customers. Bitcoin is not useful without exchanges in countries that will not accept Bitcoin for tax payments, which at the moment is all countries.
- VMG 13y ago
  1. Cash can be easily found and seized, not only by corrupt governments but by organized crime (If you think there is a difference). Bitcoin is decentralized and based on cryptography - you only need to have internet access and private keys to make transactions. 2. Free trade and industrialization have a much better track record of lifting people out of poverty than handouts. Even Bono agrees. Bitcoin helps free trade and wealth aggregation, especially in countries with unstable currencies (Argentina, Zimbabwe) 3. As explained in (1), Bitcoin is much harder to control than a centralized system. There is no need for centralized exchanges, everybody with a smartphone and internet access can trade Bitcoin. The fact that government don't accept taxes in Bitcoin does not imply that it will not help poor people, it implies that Bitcoin will not help the government if it chooses to criminalize virtual currencies.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    1. Computers can be easily found, seized, searched, backdoored, confiscated, etc. How is that any different than the situation you face with cash? 2. Free trade does not make welfare unnecessary. The point of welfare is not to lift people out of poverty, it is to ensure that people are not starving to death and that they have a place to live. If everyone had to depend on the free market to make enough money to eat, there would always be people who starve to death -- just like there will always be businesses that go bankrupt. In countries with dysfunctional or non-existence welfare systems people do starve to death when they cannot find enough money to pay for their food. 3. Governments do not need to criminalize Bitcoin to stop it from becoming popular. As long as businesses are required to pay taxes those businesses will need to get the money the government accepts tax payments in. Either those businesses will demand the money up front, or they will accept Bitcoin payments and then run to the nearest exchange when the tax collectors come. Either way Bitcoin is only going to be used as long as people have access to Bitcoin exchanges. Of course, it is possible that the government is so corrupt and so dysfunctional that it is unable to even enforce the tax code. Such governments tend to not last long.

oleganza 13y ago

Here are ways people are made less poor with Bitcoin: 1. Sending money over the border to relatives for 0 fee. There are a lot of stories on how people risk their wealth transferring big amounts of hard earned capital across the border. 2. Do not have to pay hidden costs of using traditional payment systems. Costs are for sellers and buyers: 1) transaction fees 2) fraud risk 3) undersupply of goods because of fraud risk or fees. Tons of business models are simply not possible without Bitcoin. And many are not open to anyone in the world because of regulations, fraud risk etc. 3. No cost of inflation. If you save money for buying something expensive or opening your own shop, central bank steals your wealth by printing money and giving it to privileged organisations (that are supposed to pay you back in a form of "growing economy", but we have yet to see a proof for it). For almost 5 years now, Bitcoin value was significantly growing every single year, comparing to any other asset on the market. And even when/if it stops growing, the value of Bitcoin depends on a decision of every market participant, not a small group of people in the Federal Reserve. 4. Those who wish to save wealth by avoiding some taxation, are able to do so. If some poor teenager learns HTML and makes websites for Bitcoin, he doesn't need to lose 20-50% of his income (depending on your country and how you measure the total tax). 5. If you worry about gangsters from main street or wall street stealing your money by force, you can hide it well extremely cheaply. You can remember a single password to re-create a wallet from it. Or back up your wallet on different cloud services. Or give copies to all your friends. It's much easier to protect bitcoins than gold or paper bills. We only need some easy to use software, but it's entirely possible to do, it just takes some time. The only cost for you is higher perceived uncertainty (however, our shaky financial ponzi scheme created by government only seems stable, but it can collapse anytime and goes in that direction) and a lack of tools and services. But all of that is coming. Every year it becomes easier to use Bitcoin and more people accept them. See where the puck is going.