3 ms·

Hardly anyone thinks Bitcoin is going to displace national currencies. In a Bitcoin success scenario, bitcoin would be an additional currency that co-exists wit

by aminok 12y ago

Hardly anyone thinks Bitcoin is going to displace national currencies. In a Bitcoin success scenario, bitcoin would be an additional currency that co-exists with inflationary currencies. As governments will always retain the power to tax, their currencies will always have value, and they will always be able to spur activity through inflationary monetary policy. " You bring up the internet but remember that it is goverment regulator who protect and enforce Net neutrality - not Comcast." That's the telecoms, which deal with the underlying infrastructure, not 'the internet'. The telecommunication industry naturally gravitates to a oligopoly, because it provides a utility. It is inherently not competitive, so it's justifiable for government to set ground rules. That is until a decentralized global meshnet can replace the current infrastructure. If the internet itself had been subject to thousands of regulatory bans, like prohibiting people from running a server without a license from a state or federal regulatory agency, it would be nothing today.

frozenport 12y ago
>>The telecommunication industry naturally gravitates to a oligopoly, because it provides a utility. Facebook tried to brand itself as a utility. Is my grocer a utility, I need food as much as I need water? I don't know what makes utilities prone to monopolies, but it probably the large investment and slow payoff - this is true of things that aren't traditionally called utilities like pharmaceutical companies, oil wells, or defense systems. These guys could use a good 'regulating. Indeed, everything gravitates towards a monopoly as it maximizes shareholder value at the expense of the large economic community, this is was recognized by antitrust regulations in the 1890s which aimed to promote capitalism. >>If the internet itself had been subject to thousands of regulatory bans Yeah but it wasn't, perhaps because they regulators didn't fail. In many ways this is a success story. Regulation is necessary, you can debate the merits of a particular method, you can say some regulation is bad or some is good but remove the goverment ability to regulate currency leaves the economy vulnerable deflation during recession which is has been attributed to the recession of the 1930s. Will high credit card transaction fee's plunge civilization into a new dark age?
- aminok 12y ago
  >Facebook tried to brand itself as a utility. However it's not. Its social network is neither a necessity to join nor impossible to compete against. Utilities are those things we traditionally call utilities, like electricity, water, telephone line and nowadays, an internet line. It's the combination of high capital costs and the limited geographical scope of users per capital project, that makes the market naturally uncompetitive. >Indeed, everything gravitates towards a monopoly as it maximizes shareholder value at the expense of the large economic community, In a free market, only utilities gravitate to a monopoly. Other sectors are open to competition, which periodically causes the market leader to be displaced. We've seen this in tech for decades. First it was IBM, then it was Microsoft, then Google, for a brief time Apple, and next who knows. >Regulation is necessary, you can debate the merits of a particular method, you can say some regulation is bad or some is good but remove the goverment ability to regulate currency leaves the economy vulnerable deflation during recession which is has been attributed to the recession of the 1930s The 1930s recessions was not primarily due to monetary policy. You can look at the crash of 1921 to see that sharp deflation does not lead to a bottomless downward spiral. The 1930s were a testbed for interventionist policy. It was these policies that kept the economy depressed and suppressed capitalist recovery. Not any dearth of controls by the government. Deflation itself can only exist when creating competing currencies is prohibited. What the Federal Reserve Act in the US, and similar regulations in other countries in that period, did, is outlaw competing bank notes. It created a banking cartel, with a fragile monetary mono-culture. So no, regulatory bans are not needed. They are harmful, and unethical. No one has a right to ban an activity that is consensual. >Will high credit card transaction fee's plunge civilization into a new dark age? Depends, will competition emerge, or will it be sabotaged by the complicated set of bans that is our regulatory system? E-gold eventually succumbed to the bans, but Bitcoin and its decentralized structure look to be more immune. MasterCard in Asia certainly hopes the government will step in with more regulations to stop Bitcoin: http://www.coindesk.com/mastercard-executive-argues-bitcoin-cant-trusted/ http://www.coindesk.com/mastercard-executive-argues-bitcoin-... He's counting on people like you buying the argument that freedom doesn't work, and the greater economy shouldn't be left free of regulatory bans like the internet was.

by aminok 12y ago

frozenport 12y ago

>>The telecommunication industry naturally gravitates to a oligopoly, because it provides a utility. Facebook tried to brand itself as a utility. Is my grocer a utility, I need food as much as I need water? I don't know what makes utilities prone to monopolies, but it probably the large investment and slow payoff - this is true of things that aren't traditionally called utilities like pharmaceutical companies, oil wells, or defense systems. These guys could use a good 'regulating. Indeed, everything gravitates towards a monopoly as it maximizes shareholder value at the expense of the large economic community, this is was recognized by antitrust regulations in the 1890s which aimed to promote capitalism. >>If the internet itself had been subject to thousands of regulatory bans Yeah but it wasn't, perhaps because they regulators didn't fail. In many ways this is a success story. Regulation is necessary, you can debate the merits of a particular method, you can say some regulation is bad or some is good but remove the goverment ability to regulate currency leaves the economy vulnerable deflation during recession which is has been attributed to the recession of the 1930s. Will high credit card transaction fee's plunge civilization into a new dark age?

aminok 12y ago
>Facebook tried to brand itself as a utility. However it's not. Its social network is neither a necessity to join nor impossible to compete against. Utilities are those things we traditionally call utilities, like electricity, water, telephone line and nowadays, an internet line. It's the combination of high capital costs and the limited geographical scope of users per capital project, that makes the market naturally uncompetitive. >Indeed, everything gravitates towards a monopoly as it maximizes shareholder value at the expense of the large economic community, In a free market, only utilities gravitate to a monopoly. Other sectors are open to competition, which periodically causes the market leader to be displaced. We've seen this in tech for decades. First it was IBM, then it was Microsoft, then Google, for a brief time Apple, and next who knows. >Regulation is necessary, you can debate the merits of a particular method, you can say some regulation is bad or some is good but remove the goverment ability to regulate currency leaves the economy vulnerable deflation during recession which is has been attributed to the recession of the 1930s The 1930s recessions was not primarily due to monetary policy. You can look at the crash of 1921 to see that sharp deflation does not lead to a bottomless downward spiral. The 1930s were a testbed for interventionist policy. It was these policies that kept the economy depressed and suppressed capitalist recovery. Not any dearth of controls by the government. Deflation itself can only exist when creating competing currencies is prohibited. What the Federal Reserve Act in the US, and similar regulations in other countries in that period, did, is outlaw competing bank notes. It created a banking cartel, with a fragile monetary mono-culture. So no, regulatory bans are not needed. They are harmful, and unethical. No one has a right to ban an activity that is consensual. >Will high credit card transaction fee's plunge civilization into a new dark age? Depends, will competition emerge, or will it be sabotaged by the complicated set of bans that is our regulatory system? E-gold eventually succumbed to the bans, but Bitcoin and its decentralized structure look to be more immune. MasterCard in Asia certainly hopes the government will step in with more regulations to stop Bitcoin: http://www.coindesk.com/mastercard-executive-argues-bitcoin-cant-trusted/ http://www.coindesk.com/mastercard-executive-argues-bitcoin-... He's counting on people like you buying the argument that freedom doesn't work, and the greater economy shouldn't be left free of regulatory bans like the internet was.