@ kjj

> 1. It would be trivial to delete old addresses when you are done with them.

The client does not support this by design. They could change it though. I think the reason they have it that way is that once the address is gone any coin sent to it from then on is good as gone too.

> 2. Nothing prevents anyone from using a single address for everything. 

If you do that anyone can see all your bitcoin transactions in the block chain. The creators recommend using different addresses.

>Oh, and I have never seen any indication that the multiple addresses scheme has ever caused any real problems for anyone, ever. 

Just because you haven't seen a problem with it doesn't mean there isn't one.

>Your story reminds me of late night infomercials full of actors pretending to be confounded by trivial every day tasks.

Interesting comment, but not germane to the actual issues.

>Oh, and Congress/the Fed has the ability to create new money out of thin air, without limit, so whatever problems you think this might cause for bitcoin are already true in the real world.

Yes, that's true. But wasn't one of the selling points of bitcoin that it's not like them? If you have a tiny handle full of people who control a significant percentage of the total money supply, a supply which is limited, and in fact will always be shrinking due to bitcoin loss.
Picking a catastrophic monetary system such as the Fed and saying bitcoin is better than that, isn't saying much.

>4. Yup.  And this is mostly caused by people living in first world countries, where responsibility is unheard of because almost nothing ever has any lasting consequences.

Well I don't know about that being the reason but thanks for agreeing.

>5. In the real world, you have two choices, instant and horribly inconvenient (cash), or slow and convenient (everything else). 

Well a credit/prepaid credit/debit card is fast and convenient.

>With bitcoin, you can make the fast/easy/cheap tradeoff on your own terms.

I don't know how you can do that without using a third party. Which again is the antithesis of the design of bitcoin, no central authority. I think no central authority is good. Because you can see what can happens with centralization, as in the case of mybitcoin.

>6. Miners and relays are allowed to set their own local policy for including/relaying transactions.  Oh, and if you really do want micropayments, just make sure your client is connected directly to one of the several mining pools that have a policy of including all valid incoming transactions.  And if you want to help make micropayments more useful for the world, set your own node to relay everything and publish the address so others can use it.

Can you explain how to do that? When I try to send 0.00008 the client demands a transaction fee of 0.001.
I can see why they are doing it, they want to prevent over load. If millions of micropayments were being done everyday the block chain would grow enormously.

>7. Many of us have studied plenty of economies that had inflation. 

Ok, but that's not what I asked. Many have studied the mating habits of the wildebeast. What does that have to do with deflation?
I said the best is stable, neither deflating nor inflating.

> perpetual inflation, because they always end.  Always.  And usually with a horrible mess and thousands dead.

I agree with that, I never proposed inflation.

>8. Wait a second.  Wasn't your first point that bitcoin isn't anonymous? 

Yes. But I did not say it's a thief's dream because it's anonymous. The point is not that they will do it because they are anonymous, they aren't. They can get caught just like with any other criminal activity. The point is the ease at which they can do it and the difficulty in getting it back. 

> Also, everything you say here is true right now in the real world.  It is just that in the real world, the costs of being careless are not paid by the careless, but by everyone, by way of higher prices and fees at vendors, banks and credit card companies.

Yes, I agree. Unfortunately it's a major problem with bitcoin. Look at the ripoffs that have happened already and it's only in its infancy. It's unavoidable. Any cash like currency will have to live with this problem.