Quote from: PeterSchiff on May 17, 2011, 01:57:16 PM

Quote from: forever-d on May 17, 2011, 01:39:30 PM

Quote from: PeterSchiff on May 16, 2011, 11:35:49 PM

If you don't have inflation, you have deflation, which means people with "money" will never have to work.

PeterSchiff, are you an adherent of the Labour Theory of Value by any chance?

How much money we make has very little to do with how much we work. Our ability to make money is almost entirely a result of the capital we have access to, and you are no exception to that. Like it or not, that is simply how a modern free economy works.

I make 100 times more money per hour than an Indian rice farmer. Is this because I work 100 times harder than him? Of course not, in fact he probably works a hell of a lot harder than me. Is it because I am more intelligent? I doubt it, human beings have roughly the same cognitive skills regardless of their culture and technological state.

It is simply because I have access to:

* Financial capital - Assets that I inherited, assets my employer allows me to use, etc.
* Social capital - I know people who can help me accessing high paying jobs.
* Information capital - My education, my superior internet access, etc.
* Political capital - if the Indian rice farmer decided to move to Europe and compete with me, the friendly government I am living under would point a gun to his head and kindly ask him to return.
* Cultural capital - I was brought up to think innovatively and independently.

...and the rice farmer doesn't.

So if you think it's wrong to make money from capital and that we should all just be making money from work alone, we would probably all end up living like Indian rice farmers. Are you prepared to do that? No? Who is the real hypocrite then?

PS. Bitcoin will give the Indian rice farmer access to capital that was so far withheld from him by the banking elites.

I also don't agree with inheritance or old money. In an ideal world we would all start equal, not benefit only because your parents or family are rich. You make your own luck... It goes against equality and worth.

Most of us have had an easier start to our life than your Indian Rice Farmer, and it's unrealistic to think that we in the western world are really interested in sharing our wealth.

But to answer your question, if this is the start of something new, then let's try and be better, not worse. If anyone thinks they deserve to be rich because they mined bit coins early on, then that person is seriously full of shit.

You're a hypocrite because you're justifying why you should be rich for contributing very little. You mined cause you're greedy, just a geek or both. Now you're saying you deserve to be rich, or that you're only into BitCoins because of the monetary revolution.

OMFG, can you hear yourselves. Hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites!!!

I'd like to hear at least some of you admit that you're a greedy mofo in it only for it's speculative value and that you don't give a shit about the rest.
Amen

What's the problem exatly, the profit motive drives bootstrapping a bitcoin economy. So some people end up rich, so what? What they're going to do with the money is buy yachts and big houses and expensive shoes and so on. Who will build the yachts? Who will maintain the big houses and hand-crafted shoes? People who work for a living, this is who. Why should people that work for a living be pissed off to have more customers. everybody want more spending power, for themselves and for others. People that run or work for businesses do at least.

I would have thought the problem with bitcoin is about capital formation, but having a problem that some people got lots of spending power for being early to the system, this doesn't make sense. Sounds like just resentment to me.

Some people also own lots of gold, or land long before any of us were born, some owned shares in Google back when everyone used Lycos or something, does this mean anyone else is against owning gold or land or shares in Google?

Your thought on this is broken.