ChooseFreedom
Member
1913-1971: Your argument is true.
1971-Present: This is where the real break in the system is shown.
Nixon removing the USD from the gold standard changed everything.
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Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Crowded Mind
- Start date
1913-1971: Your argument is true.
1971-Present: This is where the real break in the system is shown.
Nixon removing the USD from the gold standard changed everything.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
You realize your graphs are primarily addressing the fact a larger % of the total money is ending up in fewer hands.... NOT your original argument that that money itself is far less valuable than "official" inflation #s suggest-- right?
Because otherwise it looks like you're again throwing out graphs you understand to support a claim you can't actually support.
Also still waiting on your actually happened examples of opportunistic "make the #s look better" swaps on the CPI basket you claimed.
Because otherwise it looks like you're again throwing out graphs you understand to support a claim you can't actually support.
Also still waiting on your actually happened examples of opportunistic "make the #s look better" swaps on the CPI basket you claimed.
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Crypto boosters are like flat-earthers or creationists or anti-vaxxers: They have zero understanding of the field they're engaged in (in the case of crypto boosters, that's economics; for flat-earthers it's geography; for anti-vaxxers it's medicine) but they're certain they understand the field better than people who've spent lifetimes studying them. Then they argue by searching for anomalies, and then their arguments are debunked, they find or invent more anomalies. And when all their arguments are shot down they resort to claiming there's a grand conspiracy. They claim the Fed, or NASA, or the FDA is hiding the truth for some nefarious, but unstated reason.
What it all comes down to is that scientists don't know everything, but pseudoscientists don't know anything. Economists are very far from perfect, and scientists will tell you flat-out that there's plenty they don't know. But crypto boosters and flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers will tell you they have all the answers. All we have to do is adopt Bitcoin and everybody will be rich and never have to work again.
No facts will convince them because facts didn't get them to where they are now.
What it all comes down to is that scientists don't know everything, but pseudoscientists don't know anything. Economists are very far from perfect, and scientists will tell you flat-out that there's plenty they don't know. But crypto boosters and flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers will tell you they have all the answers. All we have to do is adopt Bitcoin and everybody will be rich and never have to work again.
No facts will convince them because facts didn't get them to where they are now.
Maybe, but at least we don't need to rely on ad hominem to argue. If you actually want understand our point of view rather than just spew vitrol at us, then this book is a good start:
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money: Popper, Nathaniel: 9780062362506: Amazon.com: Books
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money [Popper, Nathaniel] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money
www.amazon.com
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Pointing out an entire group of people have no rational, fact based, arguments to support their position is not ad hominem though.
It's the same point when discussing the TSLAQ folks who have been telling us for 10 years the entire company is a fraud, Shanghai is a muddy field, Cybertruck will never exist, that it's "impossible" for Tesla to scale to 500k cars a year, etc....
Is it ad hominem to correct folks convinced vaccines contain 5G wireless trackers and make you sterile and give you autism too?
You can't get to those places without gross ignorance of the topic you're trying to speak on and a complete disregard for facts- and pointing that out is the only reasonable response.
Which is why nearly every time another new person comes in here, dumps their "CRYPTO IS THE WAY FIAT IS A SCAM AND BIRDS ARE NOT REAL" factually nonsensical stuff, they get called out on it- they try and double down, get called out even further on clearly not understanding anything they're saying, and eventually they vanish of embarrassment.
An entire group of people have no arguments to their position. Lol like its a binary and singular position and everyone in this group agrees. What is even that position you are referring to? And who is the group?
You say we sound like TSLAQ, imo stop projecting.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I mean, the VACCINES ARE BAD folks do have some "different" arguments in that some think it's 5G trackers, some think it's mind control, some think it's sterility, some thing it's making you autistic or trans....some have combinations of more than one of these. Those are "different" but they're all nonsensically wrong.... and it's all the same common problem between them in failing to have any understanding of the topic or science in general.
Same thing here among the CRYPTO IS MONEY AND FIAT IS BAD folks, but with ignorance of history and economics instead of biology and genetics (and wifi I guess!)
ChooseFreedom
Member
Do you realize that is the same thing?
For everyone that isn't right next to the money printer, which is 99.9% of us, there is no difference.
Whether it's new money only hitting the central banks and massive corps, or it's overall money in the system, it's the same thing to most of us. We don't get to take advantage of newly created money, therefore the money we do have ends up inflated.
You're taking the stance of the Fed/Gov in all of these arguments. Why? Do you work for them?
What exactly is your argument? You're not denying the graphs, and you can't deny that USD is losing it's value.
So are you just here to sh!t on "crypto"? Why? What are your motives? Because it's clearly not to improve the situation.
You are perfectly within your right to disagree with me, and shun crypto to the very end.
I just don't know why you're still here. You clearly love the fiat. So go be a fiat expert elsewhere.
This thread is for Bitcoin, Crypto, and Blockchain discussions. Not arguments for fiat. Haters are wasting their energy, like the way you think Bitcoin does because you haven't done the proof of work.
Your knowledge of the current broken fiat system is certainly deeper than mine. I don't deny it. Nor do I care.
I'm trying to exit that broken system, because for the first time in history, there is another option.
Debates can be made whether it's a better option or not. And I encourage everyone to do their own research and make that educated decision for themselves. Don't listen to me, don't listen to you. Don't trust, verify.
Money, as a topic, is not taught in schools, in the US at least. The average citizen has no clue how the Federal Reserve works.
I personally had no idea. It was only after going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole that I actually asked myself "What is money?"
Even with no interest in Bitcoin at all, I highly encourage everyone to at least educate themselves on sound money.
Because most of us nowadays have this feeling inside that something's wrong with the system, but can't really put our finger on it, because we never learned what a sound money actually looks like. And until now there was no other option, so why care?
Well it's time to care, time to take action.
The current broken fiat system is running this country into the ground. It must be updated. That can't happen from the top-down because no one in power at the top will ever make changes that lessen their own power. So it's up the people not at the top to make the changes. And there are so many more of us than there are of them.
Bitcoin has grown because of this very fact. The highest global Bitcoin adoption rates right now are in 3rd world countries with dictatorial regimes in power who manipulate their fiat the most. Nigeria, Turkey, Argentina, just to name a few. And as it grows, many governments have tried to stop Bitcoin, but they can't. There is no company to threaten, no CEO to bribe. Bitcoin is THE silent rebellion. It is the epitome of freedom money.
We have to take the initiative and seek out that information, because the global mainstream media will never show us that. If all you do is watch CNN, FOX "news", CNBC, etc... you will remain blind. They only show us what they want us to see. And they will never show us reasons why we don't need them. That's the real conspiracy! The systemic plan to keep us in the dark. Just give us brainless entertainment to distract us from what's really going on. Demand better!
Bitcoin is inevitable. It's here to stay. Adapt or die on the fiat vine.
ChooseFreedom
Member
And the way you keep insisting on including Bitcoin in with all other crypto tells me that you have ignorance on the topic.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Which includes push back on them and potential flaws. It's not a cheerleaders only thread.
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
No? Because it fundamentally isn't the same thing.
What a dollar can buy is fundamentally different than who has how many of them.
Thanks for reiterating your complete ignorance of economics.
About what, specifically?
Crypto isn't money for example is one thing I've mentioned. Because it isn't.
The CPI basket is not adjusted at the whims of the government anytime they want to make the #s look better, because that's also demonstrably false...instead it's adjusted at predetermined times, and based on actual consumer spending data (I even asked you to provide any example of them doing so, after I called out your eggs BS, and you've been unable to do so)
And you're not understanding them.
The fact you don't understand how inherent discussion of one versus the other is to the topic is....also not helpful to your claims of having any understanding of...anything.
If you want X to replace Y you need to give cogent fact-based arguments WHY it should replace it.
You, and the other pro-crypto folks in here, have utterly failed to do so.
Typically your arguments end up being either:
Fiat sucks, this is not fiat, therefore it MUST be better. (fundamental logical fallacy)
or
Fiat sucks, crypto is better because X.... and then whatever X is turns out to be WORSE with Crypto (fraud protection is one that comes up a lot here but hardly the only one)
or
Fiat sucks, Crypto is good at Y... and then whatever Y is (governments can't control it!) doesn't actually translate to it being a useful replacement for actual money in any way they can explain other than "government bad"
Nobody has presented a problem crypto "solves" in any useful way better than actual money already does. Including you.
Which is part of the problem.
If you admit you don't understand the system you're trying to replace that is a problem and you should care.
Because otherwise you're going to keep proposing really bad solutions.
And still don't apparently.
That is, again, not how actual money works.
Money is either valuable because it has some inherent value (which crypto does not- neither does paper money other than the value of the paper) OR because a government says it's worth something and that value is backed and enforced by the government.
So the only pepole adopting it as "money" are the ones where it'd been made clear they don't understand how to make a functioning currency.
Maybe there's a lesson there other than the one you seem to think is there.
How, very specifically, do you think it's "different from all other crypto"?
It seems like proponents of bitcoin start with "government is evil and lying to you" to justify bitcoin. Personally, I have a hard time seeing how it is different than a digital beanie baby. Maybe I'm just naive and can't understand what problem it is trying to solve. With the money I have now I can buy anything I want, transfer it instantly, and pay taxes. With bitcoin, I can't buy anything I want or pay taxes with it w/o converting to fiat first. So I'm struggling with the point of it.
Imagine a company that pays all their employees in bitcoin, say 1 bitcoin a year for simplification. Assume there are 10 employees, so the company's payroll is 10 bitcoin a year. Let's assume the company sells widgets for 0.1 bitcoin each and sells 11 bitcoins worth of widgets a year.
Let's say the price of a bitcoin goes from $30K to $100K. How does that impact the company? Do they still sell widgets for 0.1 bitcoin each, or do they need to adjust the price? What about bitcoin going from $30K to $10K? What happens to the employees who have to convert their bitcoin to fiat to pay their mortgage?
I can imagine how bitcoin would work as a currency if everything was bitcoin, but can't see how it would work if some things are bitcoin and some are fiat given the wild fluctuations in $ per bitcoin
Let's say the price of a bitcoin goes from $30K to $100K. How does that impact the company? Do they still sell widgets for 0.1 bitcoin each, or do they need to adjust the price? What about bitcoin going from $30K to $10K? What happens to the employees who have to convert their bitcoin to fiat to pay their mortgage?
I can imagine how bitcoin would work as a currency if everything was bitcoin, but can't see how it would work if some things are bitcoin and some are fiat given the wild fluctuations in $ per bitcoin
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"Digital Beanie Baby" is the best, most concise, description of Bitcoin I've heard yet!
And that is precisely why Bitcoin (and other crypto) don't work as currency, and why its only use today, aside from speculation, is by criminals, for whom the wildly fluctuating value is worth the anonymity and ease of moving across national borders.
Circa 1990 I had a friend who insisted that money is worthless, and who insisted on using only silver. (Or gold, but his labor did not extend to the value of gold.) He would only work for someone who would pay him in silver, and he would only shop where they'd accept his silver. His employer bought small silver ingots at a coin shop or jewelry store, to pay him with. The one or two small shops that accepted his silver took the small ingots back to the same coin shop or jewelry store to exchange for money. The shop sold the ingots for more than it paid to redeem them, so effectively, my friend was donating a small but significant percentage of his pay to the shop that sold and bought back the silver.
Bitcoin and other crypto is a lot like that. Except that the value of crypto, including Bitcoin, fluctuates so wildly that you might gain or lose a big chunk of value while you hold it. And my friend was not in danger of losing his silver when a digital exchange goes belly-up. (He never had more than a week's salary in silver at one time.)
Back then a certain kind of conspiracy theorist insisted that paper money was worthless and that the income tax was unconstitutional. I used to tell those folks that the solution was easy: They should just pay their illegal income tax with worthless paper money. The government would be happy and would leave them alone, and they'd only be giving it something worthless.
I suspect that any of those folks who are still alive now are probably big boosters of cryptocurrency.
ChooseFreedom
Member
Fiat and The Founding Fathers: Elgin Groseclose, head of Groseclose, Williams & Associates, financial and investment consultants of Washington, D.C., serves also as executive director of the Institute for Monetary Research, Inc. He is author of Money and Man (1934), the 4th edition of which, with revisions and additions by the author, has just been published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
"No one has come forward to challenge the Constitutionality of our money system.
The importance of such a reexamination is emphasized by a recent Yankelovich survey reporting that the issue of greatest concern among voters was inflation. Inflation is obviously a problem which has eluded the skill of our money managers, working under prevailing monetary theory, and has defied the edicts of Congress to resolve.
On August 17, 1787, the Constitutional Convention, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, discussed a draft article defining the powers of Congress under the projected new Constitution. A portion of the draft read, "Congress shall have power… to coin money, emit bills of credit, regulate the value thereof…"
Gouverneur Morris, delegate from Pennsylvania, highly regarded as a financier, an associate of Robert Morris, who had been largely responsible for the successful financing of the Revolution, rose to propose an amendment. The amendment, as James Madison recorded in his Notes on the Constitutional Convention, the principal record of the proceedings, was to strike the words "emit bills of credit." In 1787 language, bills of credit were synonymous with paper money.
"In no country of Europe," a delegate noted, "is paper money legal tender, but only gold and silver coin." He had no need to recall the flagrant paper money emissions of the first Continental Congress, which by 1781 had totaled an estimated $200 million, an enormous sum for the times, and which had fallen to a discount of 99 per cent before Robert Morris stopped their emission.
There was little debate. The offending language was removed by almost unanimous vote. It was clearly the intention of the framers of the Constitution that paper should not be allowed as legal tender in the new Union. To reinforce this conviction, the Convention enacted a provision forbidding the member states of the Union to emit paper money (bills of credit)..."
"No one has come forward to challenge the Constitutionality of our money system.
The importance of such a reexamination is emphasized by a recent Yankelovich survey reporting that the issue of greatest concern among voters was inflation. Inflation is obviously a problem which has eluded the skill of our money managers, working under prevailing monetary theory, and has defied the edicts of Congress to resolve.
On August 17, 1787, the Constitutional Convention, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, discussed a draft article defining the powers of Congress under the projected new Constitution. A portion of the draft read, "Congress shall have power… to coin money, emit bills of credit, regulate the value thereof…"
Gouverneur Morris, delegate from Pennsylvania, highly regarded as a financier, an associate of Robert Morris, who had been largely responsible for the successful financing of the Revolution, rose to propose an amendment. The amendment, as James Madison recorded in his Notes on the Constitutional Convention, the principal record of the proceedings, was to strike the words "emit bills of credit." In 1787 language, bills of credit were synonymous with paper money.
"In no country of Europe," a delegate noted, "is paper money legal tender, but only gold and silver coin." He had no need to recall the flagrant paper money emissions of the first Continental Congress, which by 1781 had totaled an estimated $200 million, an enormous sum for the times, and which had fallen to a discount of 99 per cent before Robert Morris stopped their emission.
There was little debate. The offending language was removed by almost unanimous vote. It was clearly the intention of the framers of the Constitution that paper should not be allowed as legal tender in the new Union. To reinforce this conviction, the Convention enacted a provision forbidding the member states of the Union to emit paper money (bills of credit)..."
The Constitution was written at a time when the speed of information was three miles per hour. When nearly everybody in the country lived on a farm. It was written by people who thought it was a good idea for people to own other people and have the right to summarily whip, brand, or kill the people they owned. Some of the framers of the Constitution had human beings burned with red-hot iron for the "crime" of picking cotton slower than their foremen thought they should be capable of.
So, no, I don't regard those barbaric, racist, vile pieces of human garbage as worthwhile authorities for how we should run our monetary system some two and a half centuries later.
And, FWIW, the Constitution has been amended since then.
Those people I mentioned above who think that paper money is worthless and the income tax is illegal, they get those ideas from reading the Constitution WITHOUT its amendments.
So, no, I don't regard those barbaric, racist, vile pieces of human garbage as worthwhile authorities for how we should run our monetary system some two and a half centuries later.
And, FWIW, the Constitution has been amended since then.
Those people I mentioned above who think that paper money is worthless and the income tax is illegal, they get those ideas from reading the Constitution WITHOUT its amendments.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Oh look, you reposted a story you don't understand quoting a guy who gets his basic history wrong.
Shocking.
The constitution was being written in the late 1780s.
The Wiki article notes bank notes were in use in the US as early as 1690.
And in Europe, from a central bank, as early as 1661. With bank notes from NON central banks -in europe- dating centuries earlier. The bank of england was routinely printing standardized printed notes ranging from 20 to 1000 pounds over 40 years before the US constitution was written
Gold is heavy and a PITA to transport over distances. Paper is a lot easier.
Electrons, the way most fiat is transferred today, even easier.
Even dumber it points out the constitution bars the STATES from printing their own money. But it does NOT bar the federal government from doing so.
Because the founders understood having a national currency was the way to go.
if they had MEANT to bar the federal government from ALSO printing money they would have SAID that since they already were writing a ban for the states.
Shocking.
The constitution was being written in the late 1780s.
The Wiki article notes bank notes were in use in the US as early as 1690.
And in Europe, from a central bank, as early as 1661. With bank notes from NON central banks -in europe- dating centuries earlier. The bank of england was routinely printing standardized printed notes ranging from 20 to 1000 pounds over 40 years before the US constitution was written
Gold is heavy and a PITA to transport over distances. Paper is a lot easier.
Electrons, the way most fiat is transferred today, even easier.
Even dumber it points out the constitution bars the STATES from printing their own money. But it does NOT bar the federal government from doing so.
Because the founders understood having a national currency was the way to go.
if they had MEANT to bar the federal government from ALSO printing money they would have SAID that since they already were writing a ban for the states.
This is semantics.
Imo crypto can and is being used in a way that we associate with how money is being used. Ie as a medium of exchange when two people want to exchange a goods or service for something that they can later exchange for another goods or service with a third party. Does this make it money? That's semantics and I care little for that.
Is Fiat bad? That's a pretty big question. What does bad mean, ie how can we test if something is bad or not? And which fiat are we talking about? What we can say is that most fiat usages need to be enforced, that's in the name of it. Crypto does not, people choose to do voluntarily. Does this make fiat bad and crypto good? It depends on the definition of bad/good.
Some people believe that there are properties that make one currency better than others. This video is a good start:
I think overtime fiat will converge to become closer to todays crypto wrt some properties. Otherwise fiat will lose competitiveness and with lower friction thanks to technology more people will gravitate towards crypto. I expect to see digital fiat currencies with limited supply/lower inflation. China might become one of the first to use this large scale.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I mean, by that definition, sex is also money. (and also tremendously more useful than crypto!)
Definitions kind of do matter, even if you "care little" for it.
These are great questions.
That most of the pro-crypto posters don't bother asking when they repeat the same crypto-rabbit-hole talking points in here.
What we can say is that most fiat usages need to be enforced, that's in the name of it. Crypto does not, people choose to do voluntarily. Does this make fiat bad and crypto good? It depends on the definition of bad/good.
And I agree....
Thus far however the crypto folks keep failing to explain why crypto is a better one.
As I mention they either give reasons that aren't actually true (better for fraud protection!) or reasons they COULD be true in some imaginary future crypto system that doesn't actually exist (everyone accepts ImaginaryCoin and it's super cheap to process small transactions in ImaginaryCoin and they actually fix all the things like fraud protection that makes Crypto vastly inferior to actual money)...but very little in the way of reasons it's better NOW or as any crypto exists today... other than a hand-waving GOVERNMENTS CAN NOT CONTROL IT way as if that makes up for all the myriad other shortcomings.
Currently it's massively lower friction to use actual money rather than, say, bitcoin, to do nearly anything one would consider legal and useful so not sure I see how the thing that's already way better on that measure will lose out to the one that's far worse?
Or is this a "well crypto sucks for this NOW but JUST WAIT" argument?
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