7 ms·

Yes exactly. The exchange that just flamed out was incredibly poorly run, and deserved to go out of business. Now there is space in the market for more competen

by jamoes 13y ago

Yes exactly. The exchange that just flamed out was incredibly poorly run, and deserved to go out of business. Now there is space in the market for more competent companies to take over the market share. I'd love to see the entire financial system operate under a meritocracy such as this.

Tloewald 13y ago
> I'd love to see the entire financial system operate under a meritocracy such as this. You might think you would, but I suspect you would not.
- benaiah 13y ago
  In other words, "I disagree with you." Could you add something to the discussion? A real argument, perhaps? Nobody called for a hand-raising of who was for or against economic regulation.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    Actually, I'd say it's more snarky than "I disagree with you", it's "you haven't thought this through or you would disagree with you". If you like analogies, consider the difference between using an old, creaky, but battle-tested codebase that handles mission-critical tasks, and saying "we should just throw it all away, build a quick and dirty open source replacement, and let people fork the heck out of it". Old crufty code contains lots of horrible crap, but a lot of it is there because it's necessary. Replacing the financial system with some kind of anarchy -- meritocratic or not -- is going to have the same effect, and we can't afford for something as critical to everyone's wellbeing as the financial system turn into an unstable Darwinian mess. In any event, I was going to write an essay, but a one-liner was funnier.
loumf 13y ago
Banks used to fail all of the time with depositors losing assets. This caused a lot of problems, so we enacted some regulation. Now banks still fail (several weekly, without much notice), but depositors have mandated insurance. Are you against that?
- drcode 13y ago
  If depositors didn't have mandated insurance, they would pay more attention to the credit-worthiness of the bank they work with, and we might have avoided the 2008 debacle.
  - gknoy 13y ago
    It seems that the health of the bank is something which is actively obfuscated. Saying "buyer beware" is like telling people that they should be responsible to make sure that the cars they buy are safe enough, or to make sure that the restaurants they eat at have clean enough standards in the kitchens. That's the entire point of regulatory inspections: No one can afford to be attentive to that level of detail or be an expert in everything.
    - drcode 13y ago
      I agree people cannot be attentive to everything. HOWEVER, people can be a lot more attentive now then they could ten years ago (for example, online reviews of cars/restaurants/etc) and in ten years they will be able to be even more attentive. If we do things that foster attentiveness, everyone will be better off.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > HOWEVER, people can be a lot more attentive now then they could ten years ago (for example, online reviews of cars/restaurants/etc) Its a good thing online reviews are reliable sources of information with transparent provenance that neither the company itself nor its competitors spend substantial efforts loading with false-flag propaganda. Or, at least, that's a good thing in whatever alternate universe it is true in.
  - imgabe 13y ago
    If depositors didn't have mandated insurance, they would have magically had the time and inclination to learn about credit default swaps and see the dangers in the system that many people who do that for a living were unaware of?
hnnewguy 13y ago
>I'd love to see the entire financial system operate under a meritocracy such as this. It does. Banks fail every day. Hundreds of banks since 2008. Oh, I'll bet you're talking about the TBTF banks, that were kept afloat with some interesting finance to prevent the global system from collapsing. I laugh every time someone says they should have all failed. I don't think people realize who, exactly, loses when banks go out of business. Hint: It isn't Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein (though they would temporarily lose their jobs). It's everyone who owns shares in the bank, everyone who owns bonds of the bank, everyone who works at the bank, everyone who banks at the bank (yes, FDIC covers some, but that itself is a bailout), pension funds, pensioners, insurance users, and on and on. These aren't some rich "banksters", they're your friends and neighbors.
anigbrowl 13y ago
The implicit corollaries to this are a) that anyone who wasn't capable of recognizing the exchange as poorly run (eg anyone who isn't a programmer and can't see past the friendly corporate graphics on the landing page) deserves to lose whatever funds they were stupid enough to trust to that institution, and b) if the (alleged) 6% of all extant BTC that went missing turns up in hands of some unknown actor later, well that's nobody's business.
- Crito 13y ago
  > "anyone who wasn't capable of recognizing the exchange as poorly run (eg anyone who isn't a programmer and can't see past the friendly corporate graphics on the landing page)" I don't think that being a programmer was necessary to be wary of MtGox. MtGox was being called out in strong terms as long as 3 years ago on HN and bitcoin forums (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2676263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2676263). This sort of knowledge certainly should have found it's way to "non-programmers" at least in the past year. Trusting MtGox during the past year wasn't a matter of not being a programmer. It was a matter of being an idiot. Do idiots deserve to lose their money? No. I agree with the rest of your comment.
pdkl95 13y ago
So you're saying that Bitcoin is so volatile and risky that only a fool use it? Noted, thanks for the warning.

by jamoes 13y ago

Tloewald 13y ago

> I'd love to see the entire financial system operate under a meritocracy such as this. You might think you would, but I suspect you would not.

benaiah 13y ago
In other words, "I disagree with you." Could you add something to the discussion? A real argument, perhaps? Nobody called for a hand-raising of who was for or against economic regulation.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  Actually, I'd say it's more snarky than "I disagree with you", it's "you haven't thought this through or you would disagree with you". If you like analogies, consider the difference between using an old, creaky, but battle-tested codebase that handles mission-critical tasks, and saying "we should just throw it all away, build a quick and dirty open source replacement, and let people fork the heck out of it". Old crufty code contains lots of horrible crap, but a lot of it is there because it's necessary. Replacing the financial system with some kind of anarchy -- meritocratic or not -- is going to have the same effect, and we can't afford for something as critical to everyone's wellbeing as the financial system turn into an unstable Darwinian mess. In any event, I was going to write an essay, but a one-liner was funnier.

loumf 13y ago

Banks used to fail all of the time with depositors losing assets. This caused a lot of problems, so we enacted some regulation. Now banks still fail (several weekly, without much notice), but depositors have mandated insurance. Are you against that?

drcode 13y ago
If depositors didn't have mandated insurance, they would pay more attention to the credit-worthiness of the bank they work with, and we might have avoided the 2008 debacle.
- gknoy 13y ago
  It seems that the health of the bank is something which is actively obfuscated. Saying "buyer beware" is like telling people that they should be responsible to make sure that the cars they buy are safe enough, or to make sure that the restaurants they eat at have clean enough standards in the kitchens. That's the entire point of regulatory inspections: No one can afford to be attentive to that level of detail or be an expert in everything.
  - drcode 13y ago
    I agree people cannot be attentive to everything. HOWEVER, people can be a lot more attentive now then they could ten years ago (for example, online reviews of cars/restaurants/etc) and in ten years they will be able to be even more attentive. If we do things that foster attentiveness, everyone will be better off.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > HOWEVER, people can be a lot more attentive now then they could ten years ago (for example, online reviews of cars/restaurants/etc) Its a good thing online reviews are reliable sources of information with transparent provenance that neither the company itself nor its competitors spend substantial efforts loading with false-flag propaganda. Or, at least, that's a good thing in whatever alternate universe it is true in.
- imgabe 13y ago
  If depositors didn't have mandated insurance, they would have magically had the time and inclination to learn about credit default swaps and see the dangers in the system that many people who do that for a living were unaware of?

hnnewguy 13y ago

>I'd love to see the entire financial system operate under a meritocracy such as this. It does. Banks fail every day. Hundreds of banks since 2008. Oh, I'll bet you're talking about the TBTF banks, that were kept afloat with some interesting finance to prevent the global system from collapsing. I laugh every time someone says they should have all failed. I don't think people realize who, exactly, loses when banks go out of business. Hint: It isn't Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein (though they would temporarily lose their jobs). It's everyone who owns shares in the bank, everyone who owns bonds of the bank, everyone who works at the bank, everyone who banks at the bank (yes, FDIC covers some, but that itself is a bailout), pension funds, pensioners, insurance users, and on and on. These aren't some rich "banksters", they're your friends and neighbors.

anigbrowl 13y ago

The implicit corollaries to this are a) that anyone who wasn't capable of recognizing the exchange as poorly run (eg anyone who isn't a programmer and can't see past the friendly corporate graphics on the landing page) deserves to lose whatever funds they were stupid enough to trust to that institution, and b) if the (alleged) 6% of all extant BTC that went missing turns up in hands of some unknown actor later, well that's nobody's business.

Crito 13y ago
> "anyone who wasn't capable of recognizing the exchange as poorly run (eg anyone who isn't a programmer and can't see past the friendly corporate graphics on the landing page)" I don't think that being a programmer was necessary to be wary of MtGox. MtGox was being called out in strong terms as long as 3 years ago on HN and bitcoin forums (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2676263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2676263). This sort of knowledge certainly should have found it's way to "non-programmers" at least in the past year. Trusting MtGox during the past year wasn't a matter of not being a programmer. It was a matter of being an idiot. Do idiots deserve to lose their money? No. I agree with the rest of your comment.

pdkl95 13y ago

So you're saying that Bitcoin is so volatile and risky that only a fool use it? Noted, thanks for the warning.