Quote from: NewLiberty on May 28, 2013, 12:43:06 PM

Quote from: jml on May 28, 2013, 03:34:27 AM

Quote from: NewLiberty on May 28, 2013, 01:36:23 AM

Quote from: jml on May 26, 2013, 06:31:12 PM

Unfortunately this is what happens with a currency that has a limited amount of units. If btc was limitless, then there would be no need for hoarding and thus its value would plummet as there would be btc in abundance. As an example, communities in the US are starting to use time as a unit of currency which is itself limitless in supply, thus eliminating the need to hoard. See www.themoneyfix.org

Time is limitless only if you are immortal.

So what is your point?

The idea between a fiat and a community currency (if you bothered to watch the documentary it discusses about the use of River hours named after the community it is used in) is that fiat money is itself limited by the supply that is being produced and thus would encourage hoarding. Time is a currency that anyone can give to the community (obviously within the life expectancy of the person) and there is no reason to hoard this type of currency as it is limitless. Therefore, people within the community contribute to their local economy when there is a need which brings to the opposite end which are wage slaves which is what you see nowadays people working to make ends meet.

Which do you prefer? Being a slave your entire life or work only when you need to?

You are engaging in some interesting rhetoric and it is difficult to see if you are agreeing or not.

If you equate work with slavery (which I don't, the difference is coercion vs freedom to contract) and the hours of your life are the currency of the land, then everyone would be participating in a slave economy. Take a look at what policy goals you are looking to achieve with the currency in play. The same incentives for hoarding exist whether you pay someone in gold or in hours. Money in its simplest form is the means used to convince someone to do something that they would not do for free.
Bad money in circulation drives good money into hoards.

If you want to know my stance on fiat money, I am against it. I would like to live in a world where central banks have no power to control currency flows and impose tax levies on its people on the currency issued via loans and debt. This is the reason why I am trying to convince people to use bitcoins because I have faith in a crypto-currency that is controlled by the people and not the few elites. I will mention several themes which I believe it to be connected with the rise of bitcoins.

In terms of slavery, I do not equate work with slavery and I will define the aforementioned as "wage slavery" and not "work slavery" - both are different in context and I am looking at the former. The wage slavers would be required to do any job to make ends meet whilst someone who is trained and works in a profession HE LIKES, would earn enough to live comfortably. My definition of wage slavery thus is someone who can not elect his chosen job and engages in a routine, monotonous work. This is what you refer to coercion vs freedom to contract. If I wanted to work in my profession, it would be the latter, other wise, it would be the former.

In our working life, people are already participating in a hierarchy economy where CEO's earn more than 600% of salary in comparison with other peers since the 80's. This is the grossest example of hoarding I have seen- 1% vs the 99%. Look at how Carlos Slim got his wealth from the telecommunications industry and how Indian entrepreneurs are hoarding $3 billion worth in profit over night. If you examine how an average person spends his day, it would be 8 hours working, 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours playing (1/3 of a 24 hour period for each activity). In lower classes, there is a disparity in these figures where people are not able to spend more play time than work time or even sleep.

You state Gresham's law - "Bad money in circulation drives good money into hoards". Silver is an example of a face value metal that has risen in value in comparison to its face value due to its applications in industry and its limited supply. With Bitcoins, because of it's market volatility, people desire to make a profit because there is distrust with the fiat currency as it is constantly devalued and prefer to use bitcoins as a safe haven investment (like gold or silver). The people from PIIGS have been rumoured to sell euros and instead buy bitcoins because of what is happening in the "euro rescue package bubble " - compare this with the real estate bubble that caused Lehman brothers to crash in 2008.

To reverse this behaviour, the value of bitcoins would either have to be devalued, lose confidence, or have an unlimited supply of coins in circulation to make people spend.