Quote from: QuestionAuthority on September 17, 2014, 03:05:53 PM

Quote from: jbreher on September 17, 2014, 03:42:03 AM

Quote from: QuestionAuthority on September 16, 2014, 07:56:20 PM

If you substitute the word dollar for the word Bitcoin in your statement how is it different?

It is completely different. True, at one point in time, what we called the dollar was a fixed weight of silver. Back then, fractional reserve banking was not pervasive - at least not at a federally-sanctioned, pervasive level. However, after the founding of the FED, there was a program unfolded over decades that got us off of that definition of the dollar and onto its current definition. It is now not a fixed weight of silver, but rather a federal reserve note of no fixed measure. These federal reserve note 'dollars' for which we grub are already nothing more than an IOU. There is no discernible difference between the IOU in paper form, and the IOU in terms of transferable bank balance. In either case, the backstop for the paper IOU and the bank balance IOU is the FED.

In the case of Bitcoin, OTOH, there is a distinct difference between the Bitcoin itself (i.e. you and you alone have the private key that enables transferring the associated value) and a Bitcoin IOU (i.e. the bank has the private key {unless they have loaned it out}, and you merely have the bank's word that they'll give you the associated Bitcoin when you ask for it).

I really don't see how this distinction is hard to grasp.

You'll need to expound upon your point before I agree with you that 'if the pervasive central banking system is a scam, then so is Bitcoin'. I really don't see it that way at all. Indeed I see no correlation whatsoever. Sure you can point to various scams in Bitcoin-land - but these are each single failures. They are not institutional. They are not endemic to Bitcoin. In contrast, the wealth-stealing nature of each and every central banking edifice is systemic in nature, and an integral foundational concept upon which the system is predicated.

Ayayayie... where to start? It seems we have a philosophical gap that may never be bridged. But let us try.

First, I see nothing in your reply that speaks to the difference between: fiat in hand vs. fiat in the bank; and Bitcoin IOUs vs. Bitcoin in your possession (i.e. "If you substitute the word dollar for the word Bitcoin in your statement how is it different?"). Can I take this as agreement that there is indeed a difference?

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With Bitcoin you need to be able to use it for it to have value. You only have the word of any company or exchange that they will honor any agreement.

Well, yes. That is kind of the very definition of money - as a token used to represent value.

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~~Many~~ Most of the Bitcoin exchanges and business have ripped people off since day one. The "banks" surrounding Bitcoin will happen regardless of our desire and they will thieve us too.

With dismay, I will agree that Bitcoin banks will likely rise up. And indeed, they will thieve. Some through outright theft of assets. However others will simply thieve in the same manner that fiat banks thieve us through partial reserve schemes. This is also theft of a very real nature.

However, these Bitcoin banks will not thieve from me in any significant amount. Neither will they significantly thieve from any others who limit their exposure to them. Put simply, we don't need them.

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They can also be quite useful and to operate a country as complex as the U.S. they're mandatory.

Unsupported assertion is unsupported. This may be at the heart of our philosophical difference.

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Each one of the changes to the FED over decades happened because someone was trying to solve a problem because that's the job of the FED.

Most of the problems that the FED has 'tried to solve' was a direct result of the endemic structure of central banking and the fiat monetary system.

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Sure they screwed it up many times and made it worse at times but Nixon didn't just wake up one morning and decide to go off the gold standard and devalue the dollar. The status of the economy and international markets made the Gold standard unnecessary and impractical.

Unnecessary? Perhaps. Impractical? More like inconvenient to those fat cat banksters that desired a better means of stealing the entire wealth of the populace.

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People today love to preach about saving up gold for when the shit hits the fan. That's a new thing that happened in my lifetime. When I was young you couldn't buy gold because it was illegal and there was no place to buy it from. Only after we went off the gold standard were private citizens able to buy gold.

Stuff and nonsense. It was not until the actions of the FED caused the great depression that FDR stole all the citizens' gold. Up until that time, it was perfectly legal.

Bear in mind that 'going off the gold standard' was a phased event. America adopted fiat money in 1913, forced the citizens off gold in 1933, forced the citizens off hard money completely in 1964, and completely repudiated its gold debts in 1971.

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A Bitcoin FED will never exist.

Praise be to the FSM! I think you are correct here. At least I certainly hope so. However, the ingenuity of a cabal with almost unlimited resources can be awfully crafty (see e.g. the Federal Reserve Act of 1913).

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Governments have to be in control of their money.

_Their_ money!? What makes it theirs? Who should own and control the wealth? Who creates wealth? The government? That amorphous entity that pretends authority over the actual humans? Certainly not!

The government can have fiat, if they want it. After all, it is a creation of government. Bit Bitcoin belongs to the people. Actual people.

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Bitcoin doesn't fit that bill. All the FED really does anyway is ~~protect consumer credit rights~~, oversee national payments systems, manipulate money and credit conditions to attempt to provide full employment and stable prices. If anything the FED is a clean up crew that tries to keep private companies from taking down the entire country (banks, savings & loans, mortgage companies, other miscellaneous scumbags with lots of money).

Well yes - the FED does these things too. But its central mission is to steal the wealth of the populace through the hidden tax called inflation, and put it into the pockets of a cabal of international financiers.

Let us not forget that, without the evils of fiat, there would be no need to "keep private companies from taking down the entire country"

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Bitcoin banks, on the other hand, will happen. One of the very first things I saw naturally evolve on this forum was loans and lending. The lenders will end up centralized because they will have all the money to loan. They will get richer because they will charge interest. If the people or person controlling the central bank is honest then all is well. They will stay rich and we will get to buy things on credit. Let's say, Satoshi comes back from the grave. He has lots o' Bitcoin. He could easily act as the central bank and everyone would trust him and want him to do it judging from all the threads here because he's somewhere between Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ. Most likely Satoshi won't be the bank. Remember most of the Bitcoin exchanges and business have ripped people off since day one. I expect our banks to follow the trend of the rest of written history and do it to - but we need them.

For what purpose, exactly, do we need these Bitcoin banks?

And after all that wall of text, I still don't see any support for your assertion that 'if the pervasive central banking system is a scam, then so is Bitcoin'.