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"That's a bunch of needlessly cynical and completely ignorant bullshit. We don't use the army to convince people to use dollars. That's quackery. People use dol
by twobits 13y ago
"That's a bunch of needlessly cynical and completely ignorant bullshit. We don't use the army to convince people to use dollars. That's quackery. People use dollars because the value is relatively stable, most goods for sale in the U.S. and exported from the U.S. are priced in dollars, people in the U.S. pay their taxes in dollars, oil tends to be priced in dollars internationally, foreign countries hold lots of dollars as reserves, in the U.S. you can have a bank account denominated in dollars that will retain it's value up to $250,000 even if the bank blows up(!), and so on. All of these are reasons people use dollars. It isn't something that's done at the point of a gun."
a) The value isn't stable. Dollars have lost ~90+% of its value since the fed was created.
b) You pay taxes in dollars, because otherwise you'd be thrown in jail by force.
c) Oil doesn't "tend to be valued in dollars". It's an agreement between the us and the saudis, to only sell oil in dollars, in exchange for protection. Leaders of other countries trying to change that, were suddenly found to be dictators, deposed and killed.
d) Foreign countries hold dollars because otherwise they can't buy oil.
e) The bank account doesn't hold it's "value" of 250k. It holds its nominal price.
Finally, because of the oil thing, the us has been happily printing dollars, and exporting its inflation to the whole world, stealing everybody.
Sorry, but you are the ignorant.
- afterburner 13y ago"The value isn't stable" Stability here means not volatile. USD is not volatile, nor are the other major currencies of the world. USD moves tiny amounts day to day and year to year versus other currencies. You are of course referring to inflation. But inflation in the US has been a slow, gradual thing. The Fed was created 100 years ago. You might have been able to buy a lot more with $1000 in 1913, but you got paid a lot less. Since your salary, and taxes, and almost all goods, were paid for in USD, it didn't matter if all the numbers crept up together slowly. To call USD unstable, while defending something like BTC or Dogecoin, seems somewhat ignorant, or at least misleading.
- twobits 13y ago"Since your salary, and taxes, and almost all goods, were paid for in USD, it didn't matter if all the numbers crept up together slowly." The key word is "together". They don't go up together. There is a time differential, with salaries trailing behind. People get constantly negatively affected this way.
- afterburner 13y agoLet me put it this way: they go up together far, far, far more than whatever BTC or Dogecoin is doing. Talking about very normal inflation in order to make make BTC/Dogecoin look bad is just weird. BTC dropped 50% in a day. And it could go up 100% tomorrow. That's volatility. Denying this just comes off as trolling.
- twobits 13y agoI am not arguing for bitcoin or dogecoin. I am arguing against the dollar, and the notion that the dollar isn't backed (just) by force.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- minimax 13y agoa) A predictable low rate of inflation is good for a currency. b) Yes, that's my point. c) I didn't say it was "valued in dollars" I said it was priced in dollars. Point me at a liquid oil futures contract not priced in USD that outpaces Brent or WTI and I'll retract my comment. d) Wat. e) I have $250k in the bank. Bank blows up. FDIC gives me back $250k. What don't you understand?