It amazes me that people don't realize that the crooks in any society or financial arrangement are the business owners not the individuals. Think about all the businesses that have fucked you over in your life. I can name three without giving it much thought (Best Buy, Albertsons and PayPal). Then think of all the individual people that have fucked you over as an adult. I can think of one and he was family (never loan money to family). Businesses by their very design are out to take as much money from you as they can. Bitcoin just gives them an easier way to do that by allowing them to hide behind legal obscurity. Gox is going to do what so many businesses have done in the past and hide behind bankruptcy laws. The reason mainstream financial institutions, like banks, have government protections, like the FDIC, is because their mistakes fuck over so many individuals that people cry for a solution. Libtards forget that those protections are there because people need them, want them and demand them. Pirate@40 fucked over a bunch of people and the first thing they did was run to the government to fix it. I'd like to feel sorry for your loss but that's impossible because you did it to yourself by trusting an unregulated business with your money. Regulations may not always work but at least they provide some incentive to business owners to at least contact you back and try to fix it before you tattle on them.
An extraordinarily persuasive -- and well written -- post.
This single paragraph quoted above has succeeded in persuading me to to change a once-steadfast view on regulation to one of the polar opposite.
You, sir, with your oratory skills, could have persuaded Jesus to come down from the cross.
Some regulations are absolutely necessary, such as the ones that tell air traffic how it must behave in crowded airspace, and industry how much it can pollute, but in most cases, common law handles what you are talking about. If a bank mismanages funds in a negligent way, they are guilty of encroaching on their customers and a judge or jury can decide an appropriate amount of restitution. The system we have now encourages an environment of fear, which you suggest is a good thing. I see your point there, but you ignore the costs of that environment. It discourages risk taking and innovation, and makes successful businesses a much rarer occurrence. That's not to mention that many (most?) regulations have a greater direct cost than any conceivable benefit. We all pay for the rules and regulations that government opposes, directly and indirectly.
It's important to ask 1) what is this rule trying to prevent, 2) what are the costs of that scenario, 3) how likely is it, 4) what are the costs (direct and indirect) of the rule, and 5) do the benefits (with consideration given to the likelihood of the scenario) *significantly* outweigh all of the costs?