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Inside Trading and Lobbying within Government: The hypocrisy of bureaucracy
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Except that earmarks, in the vast majority of cases, aren't graft. A congresscritter pushing for the federal government to give a museum in their district a $1M grant is is performing the job for which their constituency duly elected them to do.
is quite coherent, but it also highlights why Americans will probably not appreciate non-geographic-seat proportional representation systems. More than a century after the Civil War, Americans are still not quite sure whether they are electing a national assembly, or electing a local representative toward a national assembly. And, as the dispute over earmarks demonstrates, you cannot comfortably compromise between both systems.
To be fair, I think it's quite clear now that the "dispute" over earmarks was done in bad faith as a whole (even if particular proponents were being honest in their views). The Tea Party opposition to earmarks looks to be less of a good governance issue, and more about breaking a means of control over junior members by the party leadership.
this is true, in my opinion, but if your best argument proffered to the (allegedly) Loyal Opposition is that they're negotiating in bad faith, then the whole mechanism was a terrible idea to begin with
My best argument is that earmarks aren't actually graft in the vast majority of cases - the money has already been allocated in the general sense, all earmarks do is specify direct targets, the majority of which actually do merit the money. The Tea Party's hard push on earmarks was based in bad faith, though - the people running things wanted to make sure that the party at large would be hampered in trying to rein in junior Teapers.
Except that earmarks, in the vast majority of cases, aren't graft. A congresscritter pushing for the federal government to give a museum in their district a $1M grant is is performing the job for which their constituency duly elected them to do.
is quite coherent, but it also highlights why Americans will probably not appreciate non-geographic-seat proportional representation systems. More than a century after the Civil War, Americans are still not quite sure whether they are electing a national assembly, or electing a local representative toward a national assembly. And, as the dispute over earmarks demonstrates, you cannot comfortably compromise between both systems.
To be fair, I think it's quite clear now that the "dispute" over earmarks was done in bad faith as a whole (even if particular proponents were being honest in their views). The Tea Party opposition to earmarks looks to be less of a good governance issue, and more about breaking a means of control over junior members by the party leadership.
The real issue with US Politics stems from the two party system, and their convoluted and self serving rules (super-delegates *cough*) and how they've had machines in place since inception. And have mastered honest graft over the years, if Tammany Hall, Truman's state party, Cheney, Rendell and the whole turnpike fiasco have taught us nothing.
There has also been a steady decline, by percentage, of third party candidates and, especially, serving public officials since the turn of the 18th century and the Know-Nothing's first started to become a real force, and the issue of free soil, abolition, and the embargo on the slave trade further fractured the dominant parties to be more regionally aligned . This was the impetus of a lot of state party machines, ala Eunuch Thompson's New Jersey, Tammany Hall, and the influx of voters into territories every time the Issue of slavery was at issue... It's extremely complicated, which is why I usually just link sources because trying to write cliffs notes on some things is tough, and I'm not the most articulate person when it needs brevity if you all haven't noticed.
Let us, once again, go over Hedgie's First Rule Of Politics:
The goal of politics is not to get people elected, but to get policy enacted.
While third parties have been hampered to a degree by laws, the big thing that's crippled them is that it is vastly more effective from a "getting shit done" perspective to get your policy accepted as a plank by one of the major parties. The result is that these days, the third parties tend to attract the sort of kooks who are more interested in ideology than actually accomplishing something, which goes a long way in explaining why they're on the political fringe.
For an example, see Ventura, Jesse.
(Edit: What's the problem with super-delagates, anyways? A political party is not held to the same standards as the government when it comes to membership, and there good reasons why you want to balance out what the membership is pushing for. Besides, the super-delegates know full well that they can at best put a thumb on the scale without causing the party to implode - the arguments made by Melissa McEwan and her ilk that super-delegates could give Hillary the candidacy in 2008 were a pretty good sign that they had stopped looking at reality.)
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Nobody really holds platinum (too rare) or physical wheat or oil (too perishable, too bulky) as reserves in significant quantities
However you've not explained how this would work. Digitization of the currency would either require US central control over all transactions and accounts, or a true cryptocurrency where the money units themselves are cryptographically protected.
The problem with the former scenario is that it's one thing to issue dollars as currency, or to hold them in a bank, it's quite another to have all foreign transactions in dollars go through the US government. With the latter, breaking the crypto used would have a payoff measured in the multiple trillions and would cause the USD to tank immediately. The thing about counterfeiting a cryptocurrency is that it's very hard to do, but once you do it the amounts are unlimited and it can be instantly used everywhere
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Hegemony is our ace in the hole. You really want us to give it up?
Good fucking God. How hard is it to provide your own opinions & thoughts in an OP rather than links to video clips / arguments made by other people?
It's almost as if libertarian ideas hit a point of absolute stagnation, kind of like creationism, and there just isn't anything else for them to do aside from parroting discredited pseudo-intellectuals.
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Hegemony is our ace in the hole. You really want us to give it up?
It's more about exploiting it in the best way for the future. It's why I'm asking how familiar everyone is with Bretton Woods and the Nixon Shock because a lot of my arguments play into the politics of these two areas. I definitely get the US Hegemony, I'd just like to change our focus from the traditional manufacturing labour side, to John Adams 'nation of shopkeepers' as he described the British. I love the US, but it sickens me to see how much more alike than different the two major political parties are, and the only thing that has made me not move to a different country is that there are a few states that don't suck, and have awesome culture. I am jealous of the Euro, though, and being able to freely move around the continent is so amazing, and using a single currency.
Good fucking God. How hard is it to provide your own opinions & thoughts in an OP rather than links to video clips / arguments made by other people?
It's almost as if libertarian ideas hit a point of absolute stagnation, kind of like creationism, and there just isn't anything else for them to do aside from parroting discredited pseudo-intellectuals.
Where was this discredited? I posted it to ask for just that.
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Nobody really holds platinum (too rare) or physical wheat or oil (too perishable, too bulky) as reserves in significant quantities
However you've not explained how this would work. Digitization of the currency would either require US central control over all transactions and accounts, or a true cryptocurrency where the money units themselves are cryptographically protected.
The problem with the former scenario is that it's one thing to issue dollars as currency, or to hold them in a bank, it's quite another to have all foreign transactions in dollars go through the US government. With the latter, breaking the crypto used would have a payoff measured in the multiple trillions and would cause the USD to tank immediately. The thing about counterfeiting a cryptocurrency is that it's very hard to do, but once you do it the amounts are unlimited and it can be instantly used everywhere
A crypto-currency is inherently more counterfeit proof than a greenback currency due to the fact that the total supply would always be known. If it was mineable by others than Treasury, there would be a log created in a block of each new currency, thus keeping the total amount known; if there were significant deviations, it'd become apparent MUCH quicker than with greenbacks. There's a reason why an estimated 60+% of us $100 bills are overseas, and it's not in foreign state reserves (They use Treasuries).
Also, with regards to using it abroad, see how bitcoins can be used by private citizens in Iran (albeit illegally) as a way to get around sanctions, or their countries own laws. If the government's currency was a crypto-currency, this sort of thing could be nipped in the bud rather quickly.
I find it amazing you guys are calling fellows at the Chicago School, NYU and the Hoover Institute of Stanford discredited. That just is so dumbfounding to me.
Where was this discredited? I posted it to ask for just that.
No you didn't. You posted it in the hopes that we hear the same charismatic soapbox speech that converted you and become church members ourselves.
Nowhere is there a single question or tangent or even an original postulation in your OP. The entire thing is, "Watch this video," "Read this book," "Go to this website," "Oh wow aren't these things so magical!?"
Where was this discredited? I posted it to ask for just that.
No you didn't. You posted it in the hopes that we hear the same charismatic soapbox speech that converted you and become church members ourselves.
Nowhere is there a single question or tangent or even an original postulation in your OP. The entire thing is, "Watch this video," "Read this book," "Go to this website," "Oh wow aren't these things so magical!?"
And you have to speak in it without giving any content to why it's not true or discredited because? I mean, I can c/p what I've read and cite it if that's what it takes to make the OP better, but I planned to rework it once I had some significant time, especially if we could have a civil conversation citing the minds we feel are powerful, and pragmatic to our personal views.
I personally take a great deal of time and care reading, watching and considering people's points in any thread that I participate in from page 1. I just don't understand why you feel the need to post with 0 content, but "No it isn't." and condescension.
Oh so you want a US-bitcoin essentially. Well that setup has problems. Many problems
Primarily with the requirement that everyone needs to be connected to the system and hold the entire transaction history of the world to verify. Bitcoin as-is has scalability problems; and no, you can't get around it. At best you can prune it to the entire history of the wallets you're dealing with, which eventually will become very large - or going back to some trusted source to verify, which introduces problems
Everybody would have to get the authoritative block chain from the US treasury, and only the US treasury. DDoS their servers and the entire US economy halts for hours. Impersonate, and you can make your own money
Transactions happen as part of the block chain process, which can take a fairly long time; this also subjects every transaction to being approved by the US treasury
Non-issuance by banks breaks fractional reserve banking, unless the fed gives the banks more reserves to compensate
Bitcoins are essentially non-recoverable if you're not careful, your phone got wiped? Too bad. Also makes it trivial to steal cash
Wallets would have to be issued by the US government to have any meaningful traceability, which would essentially negate any ability for foreigners to use it (bitcoin's design typically requires a new wallet per transaction, but that can be sort of fixed)
A corollary to the last; your entire transaction history would be public to anyone who does business with you
Oh so you want a US-bitcoin essentially. Well that setup has problems. Many problems
Primarily with the requirement that everyone needs to be connected to the system and hold the entire transaction history of the world to verify. Bitcoin as-is has scalability problems; and no, you can't get around it. At best you can prune it to the entire history of the wallets you're dealing with, which eventually will become very large.
Everybody would have to get the authoritative block chain from the US treasury, and only the US treasury. DDoS their servers and the entire US economy halts for hours
Transactions happen as part of the block chain process, which can take a fairly long time; this also subjects every transaction to being approved by the US treasury
Non-issuance by banks breaks fractional reserve banking, unless the fed gives the banks more reserves to compensate
Bitcoins are essentially non-recoverable if you're not careful, your phone got wiped? Too bad. Also makes it trivial to steal cash
Do you know how the automated clearinghouse system works? The US government insures, ensures and assists every bank/wire transfer done.
Your argument is, essentially, analog is better than digital because of how much data they'd have to store! Which just isn't quite what this covers. The US Only has an estimate of the total money supply, due to people destroying it, burying it, or taking it abroad, legally or illegally. The federal government's most important duty, in my eyes, is as comptroller of the currency, or even an exchequer.
However, I still feel private moneys should be legal, and free market trading of currencies will assist. By having the currency be completely tractable, again, will make taxes much simpler, and more automated and digital, and much harder to evade.
Also, your bitcoins aren't stored on your phone; they're stored in a block on the server that logs every bitcoins. Every bitcoin is connected with a log to every other, as the total supply is always known.
There's been a few good article's about them on PBS that I read this week, that has really extolled me on the virtues of cryptocurrencies, and open market capital.
And you have to speak in it without giving any content to why it's not true or discredited because? I mean, I can c/p what I've read and cite it if that's what it takes to make the OP better, but I planned to rework it once I had some significant time, especially if we could have a civil conversation citing the minds we feel are powerful, and pragmatic to our personal views.
No, a copy/paste of someone else's writing would not improve it. Stating your own opinions on the topic without appeals to authority would be better (sourcing your opinions is good and well, of course, but they should still be your own words and thoughts - not just parroted crap).
I mean, let's start with the accusation in the OP of insider trading (which is why I clicked this thread, only to find myself tumbling down the walls of Canyon Disappointment). This is something that, while it may tie into your libertarian beliefs, is a big problem (if real) regardless of political ideology.
What is the evidence you have of this type of larceny in Washington? The synopsis of the book you listed strongly implies a deliberate conspiracy. Can you explain in your own words exactly what you are claiming, and post citations that support your claim? (A link to a popular press book is not very good evidence, just FYI).
And you have to speak in it without giving any content to why it's not true or discredited because? I mean, I can c/p what I've read and cite it if that's what it takes to make the OP better, but I planned to rework it once I had some significant time, especially if we could have a civil conversation citing the minds we feel are powerful, and pragmatic to our personal views.
No, a copy/paste of someone else's writing would not improve it. Stating your own opinions on the topic without appeals to authority would be better (sourcing your opinions is good and well, of course, but they should still be your own words and thoughts - not just parroted crap).
I mean, let's start with the accusation in the OP of insider trading (which is why I clicked this thread, only to find myself tumbling down the walls of Canyon Disappointment). This is something that, while it may tie into your libertarian beliefs, is a big problem (if real) regardless of political ideology.
What is the evidence you have of this type of larceny in Washington? The synopsis of the book you listed strongly implies a deliberate conspiracy. Can you explain in your own words exactly what you are claiming, and post citations that support your claim? (A link to a popular press book is not very good evidence, just FYI).
Nancy Pelosi got preferential access to Visa's IPO when she sat on the house finances commitee, and blocked legislation that was very favorable for the company. She also was involved with the big to do between credit card/debit card fees, and retail a while back due to her and her husbands heavy credit card portfolio's.
Also, neophyte investors entering congress consistently beat the market by more than the DOW or NASDAQ, and used to be able to outright do things that would be illegal for the rest of us.
I do in fact. However, by still doing that you've just created a centralized debit-only system and don't actually need anything else.
The US has an upper count of the money issued, but you do realize that the exact same thing applies to bitcoin-equivalents, yes? People can lose wallet data, thereby "destroying" the money, or give it to foreigners (who in this case probably wouldn't want it anyway)
The "money" is stored in the block chain yes, however the credentials to access it are not. Lose those and it doesn't matter, it's gone (unless backed up somewhere). Unless you're not actually doing bitcoins
My argument is that bitcoins are a super shitty system to base a national currency on
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Hegemony is our ace in the hole. You really want us to give it up?
It's more about exploiting it in the best way for the future. It's why I'm asking how familiar everyone is with Bretton Woods and the Nixon Shock because a lot of my arguments play into the politics of these two areas. I definitely get the US Hegemony, I'd just like to change our focus from the traditional manufacturing labour side, to John Adams 'nation of shopkeepers' as he described the British. I love the US, but it sickens me to see how much more alike than different the two major political parties are, and the only thing that has made me not move to a different country is that there are a few states that don't suck, and have awesome culture. I am jealous of the Euro, though, and being able to freely move around the continent is so amazing, and using a single currency.
Do you know how the automated clearinghouse system works? The US government insures, ensures and assists every bank/wire transfer done.
That does not come anywhere even close to what Phyphor described.
What you are suggesting is that every single person have their own individual automated clearing house that all simultaneously update each other.
Which of course would be impossible so instead you'd have to massively increase wait times.
I for one do not desire to wait hours for my groceries to be bought.
That's not how it works at all. Transfers are instantaneous as there are no charge-backs, so it doesn't matter when they get transcribed to the ledger if there ever was a server issue.
With his magic heavily government controlled cryptocurrency I think it would have to, I have no idea how it would interact with foreigners holding it and transacting with it
How does it work when foreigners interact with the greenback?
A foreign bank buys them, or they are exported as part of trade, and then as far as the US government is concerned that's it. You do realize that other countries use USD as their official currency too and that a very large amount of physical cash is held overseas
Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
Hegemony is our ace in the hole. You really want us to give it up?
It's more about exploiting it in the best way for the future. It's why I'm asking how familiar everyone is with Bretton Woods and the Nixon Shock because a lot of my arguments play into the politics of these two areas. I definitely get the US Hegemony, I'd just like to change our focus from the traditional manufacturing labour side, to John Adams 'nation of shopkeepers' as he described the British. I love the US, but it sickens me to see how much more alike than different the two major political parties are, and the only thing that has made me not move to a different country is that there are a few states that don't suck, and have awesome culture. I am jealous of the Euro, though, and being able to freely move around the continent is so amazing, and using a single currency.
...are you a LaRoucheite?
I haven't read much of his stuff, but he sounds vaguely familiar. I'll have to read a bit more to see if I've read any of his stuff before... I read/listen to a fair bit of economic/international politics media.
I find it amazing you guys are calling fellows at the Chicago School, NYU and the Hoover Institute of Stanford discredited. That just is so dumbfounding to me.
2008 should have been the final nail in the Chile-made coffin of the Chicago School.
I do in fact. However, by still doing that you've just created a centralized debit-only system and don't actually need anything else.
The US has an upper count of the money issued, but you do realize that the exact same thing applies to bitcoin-equivalents, yes? People can lose wallet data, thereby "destroying" the money, or give it to foreigners (who in this case probably wouldn't want it anyway)
The "money" is stored in the block chain yes, however the credentials to access it are not. Lose those and it doesn't matter, it's gone (unless backed up somewhere). Unless you're not actually doing bitcoins
My argument is that bitcoins are a super shitty system to base a national currency on
I didn't say bitcoins exactly, I said a government backed crypto-currency purposefully. I agree there are improvements that would need to be made for it to be viable nationally, but I think crypto-currencies are inherently better than greenbacks.
Do you know how the automated clearinghouse system works? The US government insures, ensures and assists every bank/wire transfer done.
That does not come anywhere even close to what Phyphor described.
What you are suggesting is that every single person have their own individual automated clearing house that all simultaneously update each other.
Which of course would be impossible so instead you'd have to massively increase wait times.
I for one do not desire to wait hours for my groceries to be bought.
That's not how it works at all. Transfers are instantaneous as there are no charge-backs, so it doesn't matter when they get transcribed to the ledger if there ever was a server issue.
So they're instantaneous but don't need immediate verification.
Do you know how the automated clearinghouse system works? The US government insures, ensures and assists every bank/wire transfer done.
That does not come anywhere even close to what Phyphor described.
What you are suggesting is that every single person have their own individual automated clearing house that all simultaneously update each other.
Which of course would be impossible so instead you'd have to massively increase wait times.
I for one do not desire to wait hours for my groceries to be bought.
That's not how it works at all. Transfers are instantaneous as there are no charge-backs, so it doesn't matter when they get transcribed to the ledger if there ever was a server issue.
Transfers don't exist until they show up in the block chain, so the merchant would have to wait until the cash shows up in their account (in the appropriate receive wallet, what a mess that would be). Otherwise, "oops my phone/card/whatever must have not sent the request, damn" as you walk out with whatever
So yes, you will be sitting in line waiting minutes while your transaction request is sent to the treasury, included in the next block, published and the cash register downloads it. Easy!
I find it amazing you guys are calling fellows at the Chicago School, NYU and the Hoover Institute of Stanford discredited. That just is so dumbfounding to me.
2008 should have been the final nail in the Chile-made coffin of the Chicago School.
That's a pretty weak argument for a plethora of reasons, but I'm not citing Friedman, only some Hayek to say that a libertarian ideology can function with a demand-side economy with guaranteed welfare from the originator of the modern philosophy.
Again, the only Chicago school'er I really know (outside of Obama, and a few other Law folk) is Levitt from Freakonomics, which I enjoy, but I don't really use for serious policy thought.
Nancy Pelosi got preferential access to Visa's IPO when she sat on the house finances commitee, and blocked legislation that was very favorable for the company. She also was involved with the big to do between credit card/debit card fees, and retail a while back due to her and her husbands heavy credit card portfolio's.
Also, neophyte investors entering congress consistently beat the market by more than the DOW or NASDAQ, and used to be able to outright do things that would be illegal for the rest of us.
...So we've gone from, "Obama and his cronies are engaged in an insider trading conspiracy," to "Nancy Pelosi may have received some graft according to some right wing news media outlets."
Do you have investigation reports? Links to records showing us what exactly happened? Charts / graphs that are sourced? Anything other than links to fucking newsmax, urbangrounds and dailybeast?
I do in fact. However, by still doing that you've just created a centralized debit-only system and don't actually need anything else.
The US has an upper count of the money issued, but you do realize that the exact same thing applies to bitcoin-equivalents, yes? People can lose wallet data, thereby "destroying" the money, or give it to foreigners (who in this case probably wouldn't want it anyway)
The "money" is stored in the block chain yes, however the credentials to access it are not. Lose those and it doesn't matter, it's gone (unless backed up somewhere). Unless you're not actually doing bitcoins
My argument is that bitcoins are a super shitty system to base a national currency on
I didn't say bitcoins exactly, I said a government backed crypto-currency purposefully. I agree there are improvements that would need to be made for it to be viable nationally, but I think crypto-currencies are inherently better than greenbacks.
You mentioned block chains and mining. Please explain how, if at all, it would actually be different from bitcoins, as these are essentially the defining features of this style of cryptocurrency (along with distinct wallets)
Nancy Pelosi got preferential access to Visa's IPO when she sat on the house finances commitee, and blocked legislation that was very favorable for the company. She also was involved with the big to do between credit card/debit card fees, and retail a while back due to her and her husbands heavy credit card portfolio's.
Also, neophyte investors entering congress consistently beat the market by more than the DOW or NASDAQ, and used to be able to outright do things that would be illegal for the rest of us.
...So we've gone from, "Obama and his cronies are engaged in an insider trading conspiracy," to "Nancy Pelosi may have received some graft according to some right wing news media outlets."
Do you have investigation reports? Links to records showing us what exactly happened? Charts / graphs that are sourced? Anything other than links to fucking newsmax, urbangrounds and dailybeast?
When did I once say Obama and his cronies engaged in insider trading? That's in one of the books perhaps, and I'll have to find it to cite, but that's not my particular axe to grind. I'm not a Solyndra conspiracy theorist.
When did I once say Obama and his cronies engaged in insider trading? That's in one of the books perhaps, and I'll have to find it to cite, but that's not my particular axe to grind. I'm not a Solyndra conspiracy theorist.
Well you didn't offer your own opinion, you just linked to the fucking book and said, "Go read this, it's where my opinions come from," so you'll have to excuse me for not being able to read the opinions you've never posted.
The argument boils down to, as far as I can tell, "Congressmen seem to have a betting advantage on the stock market, therefore they must be engaging in insider trading," which - even if the unsourced speculation is true - ignores the many, many more mundane explanations as to why a congressman might have a betting advantage. Easy access to company management, for example; extertise in finance / law; being part of the wealthy circle-jerk that surrounds trading / finance; having a birds eye view of what is likely to happen in the marketplace; etc.
The original source for the Pelosi accusation, as far as I can trace it back, seems to be the mouth of Rush Limbaugh. I'm afraid I'm rather skeptical of that porky racist's ability to do a proper investigation.
I do in fact. However, by still doing that you've just created a centralized debit-only system and don't actually need anything else.
The US has an upper count of the money issued, but you do realize that the exact same thing applies to bitcoin-equivalents, yes? People can lose wallet data, thereby "destroying" the money, or give it to foreigners (who in this case probably wouldn't want it anyway)
The "money" is stored in the block chain yes, however the credentials to access it are not. Lose those and it doesn't matter, it's gone (unless backed up somewhere). Unless you're not actually doing bitcoins
My argument is that bitcoins are a super shitty system to base a national currency on
I didn't say bitcoins exactly, I said a government backed crypto-currency purposefully. I agree there are improvements that would need to be made for it to be viable nationally, but I think crypto-currencies are inherently better than greenbacks.
You mentioned block chains and mining. Please explain how, if at all, it would actually be different from bitcoins, as these are essentially the defining features of this style of cryptocurrency (along with distinct wallets)
The mining is only an option for gold standard nuts, and want there to be some form of being able to earn currency through hard work; that's not my particular preference, as I'd be just as fine with a Treasury backed, and controlled fiat currency, with them controlling the means of production for it. The state then just labels this new product whatever sort of capital it is, and could slowly abolish the classical paper currency, and go strictly digital, or magnetic strips. They could setup a variety of different systems and networks to support it, and several could tie into the general welfare I've spoken of.
Why this is inherently better than greenbacks is that it would have virtually zero cost of perpetual production outside of a comptroller system, and electricity once the means of transactions were established and it will be an always known quant as far as supply, with a ledger of each particular note from inception, making tax evasion, or shadow banking more difficult. It doesn't breach privacy concerns because there's several ways anonymity can be preserved by the nature of how the currency works.
Okay, but aside from a monopoly on manufacture (which I already acknowledged), you haven't actually differentiated it from bitcoins at all
It sounds like you just want a debit-only system really, you just saw some fancy articles and latched on to the cryptocurrency buzzword
You also haven't explained how it would protect privacy, and no "there's several ways anonymity can be preserved by the nature of how the currency works" doesn't count. Explain how. My argument is as follows
- to prevent shadow banking wallets/accounts must be issued by a central authority to a defined owner
- while you might have multiple wallets, they will be very limited in scope and quantity (for tax purposes). Bank withdrawals will likely go to a standard "main" wallet, and a public block chain (required by your design!) means anyone can do whatever tracing they want
- anyone who interacts with you knows at least one wallet you own, which is the necessary starting point, chances are you can then trace everything to all the other various businesses you interact with, especially if they have publicly known accounts
Levitt writes popsci books. You should take everything he writes with the seriousness you would take a newspaper's editorial page. This isn't a partisan critique, I should say the same of all of Krugman's non-scholarly writing as well. You do not read A Brief History of Time to learn physics.
I wouldn't label most of what Levitt puts out as popsci (or Krugman's stuff for that matter). Mostly because a lot of popsci is flat out fucking made up bullshit that exists because there is a fucking industry of fucking liars who don't just regard the science bit as unimportant but as not even worth bothering about.
I am rationally angry at shit like that. Levitt is more in the camp of the well meaning Cracked.com writer who states more of a case than he really has. When you take the grain of salt while reading his stuff it's interesting enough for discussion. As opposed to a lot of popsci where even a wheelbarrow of salt still doesn't make that shit less bullshit.
Okay, but aside from a monopoly on manufacture (which I already acknowledged), you haven't actually differentiated it from bitcoins at all
It sounds like you just want a debit-only system really, you just saw some fancy articles and latched on to the cryptocurrency buzzword
You also haven't explained how it would protect privacy, and no "there's several ways anonymity can be preserved by the nature of how the currency works" doesn't count. Explain how. My argument is as follows
- to prevent shadow banking wallets/accounts must be issued by a central authority to a defined owner
- while you might have multiple wallets, they will be very limited in scope and quantity (for tax purposes). Bank withdrawals will likely go to a standard "main" wallet, and a public block chain (required by your design!) means anyone can do whatever tracing they want
- anyone who interacts with you knows at least one wallet you own, which is the necessary starting point, chances are you can then trace everything to all the other various businesses you interact with, especially if they have publicly known accounts
Crypto-currencies have a number of different iterations they could take. Bitcoins currently operate like this, you have two numbers; one that's public for transaction, and another that's private, and you can choose to have your passwords be unique, identical, or use a wallet to store them all. Since you can move the bitcoins around, the transaction numbers is the public information, and changes at random, and has no tie to any particular entity, other than your password for spending it. So without being able to tie you to a particular transaction by other methods, bitcoins themselves are inherently anonymous as a payment method, even with the public log of every transaction just because of the quantity, and arbitrary nature of the identifying public information.
Now, don't read that and think I'm saying the Government backed crypto-currency should be identical to bitcoins, as I think there are a number of improvements that a State could implement depending on the political needs of the time, and with how transitioning off of paper money would work, but I think an all digital currency is the future of fiat currencies, as once the costs of implementation are saturated, the maintenance costs drop like a rock, and a lot of the infrastructure can be tied to other needed IT infrastructure.
And this is an interesting quote from the one article about what a bitcoin evangelist hopes for it to do, I don't know how if I agree, but I've been won over by the inherent benefits over a paper fiat currency as far as counterfeiting, money supply, and environmental impact.
Jonathan Mohan: When you use Bitcoin, it's our contention that Bitcoin will be like Linux for finance, where it's the back end. It facilitates things, and you're not necessarily aware of how your car works; you just put the key in the engine and you turn it. And we believe that Bitcoin will be a payment processing solution that a lot of people will find merit with in terms of reducing their costs on their end and providing a better service to you.
Paul Solman: So it'll be kind of like a credit card company that I've never heard of, but it will be doing all those sorts of payments and verifications...
Jonathan Mohan: And it can do it currently in a much more cost effective manner. So you'll be paying a lot less.
Paul Solman: Because credit cards are taking from both me and the vendor, right?
Jonathan Mohan: So right now if you look at Bitcoin, one of the things that makes it so novel in terms of saving costs is that there are no chargebacks. Now, a chargeback is when in our credit system if you spend money, you, as a credit card holder, are able to rescind the money and take the money back. Now this puts a large liability on the company because they have to worry about whether or not you're going to scam them, because once they send the product out, they're not going to get their money.
Now because of this, 60 countries in the world are not allowed to engage in global commerce. These 60 countries include places like Nigeria, where there's just so much fraud that merchants can't assume that level of liability. And if you look at Bitcoin, Bitcoin's the opposite. Bitcoin doesn't allow you to take back your money. Once you spend money with Bitcoin, it's gone. So what it transfers the liability in an interaction from the merchant to the consumer.
Paul Solman: So you do expect this to become pervasive.
Jonathan Mohan: I actually think that Bitcoin adoption will be last in the developed nations. I think that America's the last place you'll see Bitcoin, because we have such a mature financial ecosystem. But if you look at countries that are on the precipice of financial collapse, that's really where Bitcoin shines the most.
Paul Solman: And those countries would be?
Jonathan Mohan: For instance, in Iran, they have sanctions right now. That's creating massive levels of inflation. In Argentina, it's practically illegal to convert your currency into dollars. So capital flight can't even occur because there's no outlet for the money to get out to. So in these places you're going to see Bitcoin do fairly well.
Levitt writes popsci books. You should take everything he writes with the seriousness you would take a newspaper's editorial page. This isn't a partisan critique, I should say the same of all of Krugman's non-scholarly writing as well. You do not read A Brief History of Time to learn physics.
I wouldn't label most of what Levitt puts out as popsci (or Krugman's stuff for that matter). Mostly because a lot of popsci is flat out fucking made up bullshit that exists because there is a fucking industry of fucking liars who don't just regard the science bit as unimportant but as not even worth bothering about.
I am rationally angry at shit like that. Levitt is more in the camp of the well meaning Cracked.com writer who states more of a case than he really has. When you take the grain of salt while reading his stuff it's interesting enough for discussion. As opposed to a lot of popsci where even a wheelbarrow of salt still doesn't make that shit less bullshit.
My favorite Freakonomics story is the Sumo one still. That one is so fascinating.
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Of course, and all of that could be digitized for more security and a more accurate monetary supply. I've never heard of the US encouraging other countries to use anything, but their treasuries as an asset class. Most countries still sit on Gold, Wheat and Oil, as well as Platinum, along with their treasuries, and greenbacks.
My best argument is that earmarks aren't actually graft in the vast majority of cases - the money has already been allocated in the general sense, all earmarks do is specify direct targets, the majority of which actually do merit the money. The Tea Party's hard push on earmarks was based in bad faith, though - the people running things wanted to make sure that the party at large would be hampered in trying to rein in junior Teapers.
Let us, once again, go over Hedgie's First Rule Of Politics:
While third parties have been hampered to a degree by laws, the big thing that's crippled them is that it is vastly more effective from a "getting shit done" perspective to get your policy accepted as a plank by one of the major parties. The result is that these days, the third parties tend to attract the sort of kooks who are more interested in ideology than actually accomplishing something, which goes a long way in explaining why they're on the political fringe.
For an example, see Ventura, Jesse.
(Edit: What's the problem with super-delagates, anyways? A political party is not held to the same standards as the government when it comes to membership, and there good reasons why you want to balance out what the membership is pushing for. Besides, the super-delegates know full well that they can at best put a thumb on the scale without causing the party to implode - the arguments made by Melissa McEwan and her ilk that super-delegates could give Hillary the candidacy in 2008 were a pretty good sign that they had stopped looking at reality.)
Nobody really holds platinum (too rare) or physical wheat or oil (too perishable, too bulky) as reserves in significant quantities
However you've not explained how this would work. Digitization of the currency would either require US central control over all transactions and accounts, or a true cryptocurrency where the money units themselves are cryptographically protected.
The problem with the former scenario is that it's one thing to issue dollars as currency, or to hold them in a bank, it's quite another to have all foreign transactions in dollars go through the US government. With the latter, breaking the crypto used would have a payoff measured in the multiple trillions and would cause the USD to tank immediately. The thing about counterfeiting a cryptocurrency is that it's very hard to do, but once you do it the amounts are unlimited and it can be instantly used everywhere
Hegemony is our ace in the hole. You really want us to give it up?
It's almost as if libertarian ideas hit a point of absolute stagnation, kind of like creationism, and there just isn't anything else for them to do aside from parroting discredited pseudo-intellectuals.
It's more about exploiting it in the best way for the future. It's why I'm asking how familiar everyone is with Bretton Woods and the Nixon Shock because a lot of my arguments play into the politics of these two areas. I definitely get the US Hegemony, I'd just like to change our focus from the traditional manufacturing labour side, to John Adams 'nation of shopkeepers' as he described the British. I love the US, but it sickens me to see how much more alike than different the two major political parties are, and the only thing that has made me not move to a different country is that there are a few states that don't suck, and have awesome culture. I am jealous of the Euro, though, and being able to freely move around the continent is so amazing, and using a single currency.
Where was this discredited? I posted it to ask for just that.
A crypto-currency is inherently more counterfeit proof than a greenback currency due to the fact that the total supply would always be known. If it was mineable by others than Treasury, there would be a log created in a block of each new currency, thus keeping the total amount known; if there were significant deviations, it'd become apparent MUCH quicker than with greenbacks. There's a reason why an estimated 60+% of us $100 bills are overseas, and it's not in foreign state reserves (They use Treasuries).
Also, with regards to using it abroad, see how bitcoins can be used by private citizens in Iran (albeit illegally) as a way to get around sanctions, or their countries own laws. If the government's currency was a crypto-currency, this sort of thing could be nipped in the bud rather quickly.
No you didn't. You posted it in the hopes that we hear the same charismatic soapbox speech that converted you and become church members ourselves.
Nowhere is there a single question or tangent or even an original postulation in your OP. The entire thing is, "Watch this video," "Read this book," "Go to this website," "Oh wow aren't these things so magical!?"
And you have to speak in it without giving any content to why it's not true or discredited because? I mean, I can c/p what I've read and cite it if that's what it takes to make the OP better, but I planned to rework it once I had some significant time, especially if we could have a civil conversation citing the minds we feel are powerful, and pragmatic to our personal views.
I personally take a great deal of time and care reading, watching and considering people's points in any thread that I participate in from page 1. I just don't understand why you feel the need to post with 0 content, but "No it isn't." and condescension.
Primarily with the requirement that everyone needs to be connected to the system and hold the entire transaction history of the world to verify. Bitcoin as-is has scalability problems; and no, you can't get around it. At best you can prune it to the entire history of the wallets you're dealing with, which eventually will become very large - or going back to some trusted source to verify, which introduces problems
Everybody would have to get the authoritative block chain from the US treasury, and only the US treasury. DDoS their servers and the entire US economy halts for hours. Impersonate, and you can make your own money
Transactions happen as part of the block chain process, which can take a fairly long time; this also subjects every transaction to being approved by the US treasury
Non-issuance by banks breaks fractional reserve banking, unless the fed gives the banks more reserves to compensate
Bitcoins are essentially non-recoverable if you're not careful, your phone got wiped? Too bad. Also makes it trivial to steal cash
Wallets would have to be issued by the US government to have any meaningful traceability, which would essentially negate any ability for foreigners to use it (bitcoin's design typically requires a new wallet per transaction, but that can be sort of fixed)
A corollary to the last; your entire transaction history would be public to anyone who does business with you
Do you know how the automated clearinghouse system works? The US government insures, ensures and assists every bank/wire transfer done.
Your argument is, essentially, analog is better than digital because of how much data they'd have to store! Which just isn't quite what this covers. The US Only has an estimate of the total money supply, due to people destroying it, burying it, or taking it abroad, legally or illegally. The federal government's most important duty, in my eyes, is as comptroller of the currency, or even an exchequer.
However, I still feel private moneys should be legal, and free market trading of currencies will assist. By having the currency be completely tractable, again, will make taxes much simpler, and more automated and digital, and much harder to evade.
There's been a few good article's about them on PBS that I read this week, that has really extolled me on the virtues of cryptocurrencies, and open market capital.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/10/a-bitcoin-evangelist-on-the-virtues-of-cryptocurrency.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/10/the-mathematicians-defense-of-bitcoin-its-just-another-option.html
No, a copy/paste of someone else's writing would not improve it. Stating your own opinions on the topic without appeals to authority would be better (sourcing your opinions is good and well, of course, but they should still be your own words and thoughts - not just parroted crap).
I mean, let's start with the accusation in the OP of insider trading (which is why I clicked this thread, only to find myself tumbling down the walls of Canyon Disappointment). This is something that, while it may tie into your libertarian beliefs, is a big problem (if real) regardless of political ideology.
What is the evidence you have of this type of larceny in Washington? The synopsis of the book you listed strongly implies a deliberate conspiracy. Can you explain in your own words exactly what you are claiming, and post citations that support your claim? (A link to a popular press book is not very good evidence, just FYI).
What you are suggesting is that every single person have their own individual automated clearing house that all simultaneously update each other.
Which of course would be impossible so instead you'd have to massively increase wait times.
I for one do not desire to wait hours for my groceries to be bought.
Nancy Pelosi got preferential access to Visa's IPO when she sat on the house finances commitee, and blocked legislation that was very favorable for the company. She also was involved with the big to do between credit card/debit card fees, and retail a while back due to her and her husbands heavy credit card portfolio's.
Also, neophyte investors entering congress consistently beat the market by more than the DOW or NASDAQ, and used to be able to outright do things that would be illegal for the rest of us.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/14/how-visa-courted-nancy-pelosi-hoping-to-forestall-swipe-fee-changes.html
http://urbangrounds.com/2011/11/pelosi-stock-scandal/
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/pelosi-stock-insider-60minutes/2011/11/13/id/417848
The US has an upper count of the money issued, but you do realize that the exact same thing applies to bitcoin-equivalents, yes? People can lose wallet data, thereby "destroying" the money, or give it to foreigners (who in this case probably wouldn't want it anyway)
The "money" is stored in the block chain yes, however the credentials to access it are not. Lose those and it doesn't matter, it's gone (unless backed up somewhere). Unless you're not actually doing bitcoins
My argument is that bitcoins are a super shitty system to base a national currency on
...are you a LaRoucheite?
That's not how it works at all. Transfers are instantaneous as there are no charge-backs, so it doesn't matter when they get transcribed to the ledger if there ever was a server issue.
I haven't read much of his stuff, but he sounds vaguely familiar. I'll have to read a bit more to see if I've read any of his stuff before... I read/listen to a fair bit of economic/international politics media.
2008 should have been the final nail in the Chile-made coffin of the Chicago School.
I didn't say bitcoins exactly, I said a government backed crypto-currency purposefully. I agree there are improvements that would need to be made for it to be viable nationally, but I think crypto-currencies are inherently better than greenbacks.
So they're instantaneous but don't need immediate verification.
Congratulations you've invented slightly faster checks.
Transfers don't exist until they show up in the block chain, so the merchant would have to wait until the cash shows up in their account (in the appropriate receive wallet, what a mess that would be). Otherwise, "oops my phone/card/whatever must have not sent the request, damn" as you walk out with whatever
So yes, you will be sitting in line waiting minutes while your transaction request is sent to the treasury, included in the next block, published and the cash register downloads it. Easy!
That's a pretty weak argument for a plethora of reasons, but I'm not citing Friedman, only some Hayek to say that a libertarian ideology can function with a demand-side economy with guaranteed welfare from the originator of the modern philosophy.
Again, the only Chicago school'er I really know (outside of Obama, and a few other Law folk) is Levitt from Freakonomics, which I enjoy, but I don't really use for serious policy thought.
...So we've gone from, "Obama and his cronies are engaged in an insider trading conspiracy," to "Nancy Pelosi may have received some graft according to some right wing news media outlets."
Do you have investigation reports? Links to records showing us what exactly happened? Charts / graphs that are sourced? Anything other than links to fucking newsmax, urbangrounds and dailybeast?
What makes a crypto-currency inherently better than a greenback? Can you give a detailed explanation without linking to someone else's argument?
You mentioned block chains and mining. Please explain how, if at all, it would actually be different from bitcoins, as these are essentially the defining features of this style of cryptocurrency (along with distinct wallets)
I'm eager to hear why.
Wouldn't this essentially just manifest itself as a larger bid-ask spread for converters?
When did I once say Obama and his cronies engaged in insider trading? That's in one of the books perhaps, and I'll have to find it to cite, but that's not my particular axe to grind. I'm not a Solyndra conspiracy theorist.
Well you didn't offer your own opinion, you just linked to the fucking book and said, "Go read this, it's where my opinions come from," so you'll have to excuse me for not being able to read the opinions you've never posted.
The argument boils down to, as far as I can tell, "Congressmen seem to have a betting advantage on the stock market, therefore they must be engaging in insider trading," which - even if the unsourced speculation is true - ignores the many, many more mundane explanations as to why a congressman might have a betting advantage. Easy access to company management, for example; extertise in finance / law; being part of the wealthy circle-jerk that surrounds trading / finance; having a birds eye view of what is likely to happen in the marketplace; etc.
The original source for the Pelosi accusation, as far as I can trace it back, seems to be the mouth of Rush Limbaugh. I'm afraid I'm rather skeptical of that porky racist's ability to do a proper investigation.
The mining is only an option for gold standard nuts, and want there to be some form of being able to earn currency through hard work; that's not my particular preference, as I'd be just as fine with a Treasury backed, and controlled fiat currency, with them controlling the means of production for it. The state then just labels this new product whatever sort of capital it is, and could slowly abolish the classical paper currency, and go strictly digital, or magnetic strips. They could setup a variety of different systems and networks to support it, and several could tie into the general welfare I've spoken of.
Why this is inherently better than greenbacks is that it would have virtually zero cost of perpetual production outside of a comptroller system, and electricity once the means of transactions were established and it will be an always known quant as far as supply, with a ledger of each particular note from inception, making tax evasion, or shadow banking more difficult. It doesn't breach privacy concerns because there's several ways anonymity can be preserved by the nature of how the currency works.
It sounds like you just want a debit-only system really, you just saw some fancy articles and latched on to the cryptocurrency buzzword
You also haven't explained how it would protect privacy, and no "there's several ways anonymity can be preserved by the nature of how the currency works" doesn't count. Explain how. My argument is as follows
- to prevent shadow banking wallets/accounts must be issued by a central authority to a defined owner
- while you might have multiple wallets, they will be very limited in scope and quantity (for tax purposes). Bank withdrawals will likely go to a standard "main" wallet, and a public block chain (required by your design!) means anyone can do whatever tracing they want
- anyone who interacts with you knows at least one wallet you own, which is the necessary starting point, chances are you can then trace everything to all the other various businesses you interact with, especially if they have publicly known accounts
I wouldn't label most of what Levitt puts out as popsci (or Krugman's stuff for that matter). Mostly because a lot of popsci is flat out fucking made up bullshit that exists because there is a fucking industry of fucking liars who don't just regard the science bit as unimportant but as not even worth bothering about.
I am rationally angry at shit like that. Levitt is more in the camp of the well meaning Cracked.com writer who states more of a case than he really has. When you take the grain of salt while reading his stuff it's interesting enough for discussion. As opposed to a lot of popsci where even a wheelbarrow of salt still doesn't make that shit less bullshit.
Crypto-currencies have a number of different iterations they could take. Bitcoins currently operate like this, you have two numbers; one that's public for transaction, and another that's private, and you can choose to have your passwords be unique, identical, or use a wallet to store them all. Since you can move the bitcoins around, the transaction numbers is the public information, and changes at random, and has no tie to any particular entity, other than your password for spending it. So without being able to tie you to a particular transaction by other methods, bitcoins themselves are inherently anonymous as a payment method, even with the public log of every transaction just because of the quantity, and arbitrary nature of the identifying public information.
Now, don't read that and think I'm saying the Government backed crypto-currency should be identical to bitcoins, as I think there are a number of improvements that a State could implement depending on the political needs of the time, and with how transitioning off of paper money would work, but I think an all digital currency is the future of fiat currencies, as once the costs of implementation are saturated, the maintenance costs drop like a rock, and a lot of the infrastructure can be tied to other needed IT infrastructure.
And this is an interesting quote from the one article about what a bitcoin evangelist hopes for it to do, I don't know how if I agree, but I've been won over by the inherent benefits over a paper fiat currency as far as counterfeiting, money supply, and environmental impact.
My favorite Freakonomics story is the Sumo one still. That one is so fascinating.