This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

Bitcoin: Revolutionary Game-Changer Or Trojan Horse?

George Washington's picture




 

Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream

Reddit, Virgin Galactic, and Overstock.com now accept Bitcoin.

So do dating site OKCupid and travel site CheapAir.com. Game giant Zynga is now in the testing phase.

Two big Las Vegas hotels accept Bitcoin.

Congressman Steve Stockman (R-Texas) accepts Bitcoin for 2014 campaign contributions. As does a law firm in Australia.

Reuters notes:

Already, 21,000 merchants are using Coinbase to accept Bitcoin from customers.

Indeed, there are websites listing scores of businesses which now accept bitcoin.

(And you can use Bitcoin at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Crate & Barrel, Target, Sears, CVS, Hyatt Hotels, Kohl’s, Burger King, Applebees, Victoria’s Secret, Land’s End, Facebook, Groupon, Banana Republic, the Gap, AMC and Fandango movie theaters, Whole Foods, Wine.com, Wine Enthusiast, Papa John’s, Nike, Adidas, Sephora, Sports Authority, Staples, Zales jewelry, Game Stop, FTD flowers, Zappos and hundreds of other stores if you use Bitcoin to buy gift cards at Gyft.)

But is Bitcoin going mainstream a good thing or a bad thing?

People Power … Challenging the Status Quo?

Andy Haldane – Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England – believes that peer-to-peer internet technology will lead to the break up of the big banks.

Bank of America said “We believe Bitcoin could become a major means of payment for e-commerce and may emerge as a serious competitor to traditional money-transfer providers”

Visa has attacked Bitcoin as being less trustworthy than its well-established payment system.

So it sounds like Bitcoin is shaking up the status quo …

Backed by … the Big Banks?

On the other hand, a lot of major mainstream players are backing Bitcoin and other digital payment systems.

Wells Fargo wants to get into Bitcoin in a big way.

JP Morgan Chase has filed a patent for a Bitcoin-like payment system. And Russia’s largest bank is working on a Bitcoin alternative as well.

Ben Bernanke and the Department of Justice have both cautiously blessed Bitcoin.

François R. Velde, senior economist at the Federal Reserve in Bank of Chicago, labeled it as “an elegant solution to the problem of creating a digital currency.” John Browne theorizes:

While crypto-currencies remain insulated from central bank manipulation, governments have thus far been tolerant, perhaps because their capability to track transactions is more advanced than Bitcoin believers admit.

Indeed, Bitcoin is not really that anonymous, as the NSA can track Bitcoin trades.

The NSA can apparently also hack Bitcoin. And see this. Given that the NSA may be changing the amount in people’s accounts, it would be child’s play for them to change the amount in your Bitcoin wallet.

And Yves Smith argues that Bitcoin actually plays into the hands of the central bankers:

Many [Bitcoin enthusiasts] clearly relish the idea of launching a currency outside the control of central banks (plus this beats Cryptonomicon in geekery).

 

If you believe the hype, you’ve been had. As Izabella Kaminska of the Financial Times tells us, you all are really just doing free/underpaid R&D for central banks, since you are debugging and building legitimacy for one of their fond projects, making currencies digital and getting rid of cash altogether.

 

I had wondered about the complacency of Fed and SEC officials in Senate Banking Committee hearings on Bitcoin last year.

 

***

 

As Kaminska explains (boldface mine):

Central bankers, after all, have had an explicit interest in introducing e-money from the moment the global financial crisis began…

 

Bitcoin has helped to de-stigmatise the concept of a cashless society by generating the perception that digital cash can be as private and anonymous as good old fashioned banknotes. It’s also provided a useful test-run of a digital system that can now be adopted universally by almost any pre-existing value system.

 

This is important because, in the current economic climate, the introduction of a cashless society empowers central banks greatly. A cashless society, after all, not only makes things like negative interest rates possible [background here, here, here and here], it transfers absolute control of the money supply to the central bank, mostly by turning it into a universal banker that competes directly with private banks for public deposits. All digital deposits become base money.

 

Consequently, anyone who believes Bitcoin is a threat to fiat currency misunderstands the economic context. Above all, they fail to understand that had central banks had the means to deploy e-money earlier on, the crisis could have been much more successfully dealt with.

 

Among the key factors that prevented them from doing so were very probable public hostility to any attempt to ban outright cash, the difficulty of implementing and explaining such a transition to the public, the inability to test-run the system before it was deployed.

 

Last and not least, they would have been concerned about displacing conventional banks from their traditional deposit-taking role, and in so doing inadvertently worsening the liquidity crisis and financial panic before improving it…

 

Almost of all of these prohibitive factors have, however, by now been overcome:

 

1) Digital currency now follows in the footsteps of a “disruptive” anti-establishment digital movement perceived to be highly accommodating to the black market and all those who would ordinarily have feared an outright cash ban. This makes it exponentially easier to roll out. Bitcoin has done the bulk of the educating.

 

2) What was once viewed as a potentially oppressive government conspiracy to rid the public of its privacy can be communicated as being progressive and innovative as a result.

 

3) Banks have been given more than five years to prove their economic worth and have failed to do so. If they haven’t done so by now, they probably never will, meaning there’s unlikely to be a huge economic penalty associated with undermining them on the deposit front or in transforming them slowly into fully-funded fund managers.

 

4) The open-ledger system which solves the digital double-spending problem has been robustly tested. Flaws, weaknesses and bugs have been understood, accounted for, and resolved.

The balance of the article describes how the central bank digital currency would be launched, and Kazmina finds a plan developed by Miles Kimball of the University of Michigan to be thorough and viable.

 

Oh, and why would Bitcoin, um, central bank digital currency make it viable to implement negative interest rates? Kaminska tells us:

…the greater the negative interest rate, the greater the incentive to hold alternative coins. The greater the incentive to hold alternative coins ,the greater the incentive to produce them. The greater the incentive to produce them, the greater the chances of oversupply and collapse. The more sizeable the collapse, the more desirable the managed official e-money system ultimately becomes in comparison.

 

Either way, the key point with official e-money is that the hoarding incentives which would be generated by a negative interest rate policy can in this way be directed to private asset markets (which are not state guaranteed, and thus not safe for investors) rather than to state-guaranteed banknotes, which are guaranteed and preferable to anything negative yielding or risky (in a way that undermines the stimulative effects of negative interest rate policy).

So all these tales … of how liberating and democratic Bitcoin will be are almost certain to prove to be precisely the reverse. Hang onto your real world wallet.

The head of Signature Bank – Scott Shay – raised these same issues last month on CNBC:

 


Bottom Line: Too Early To Tell

It’s not yet clear whether Bitcoin will be a force for good or a backdoor way for big banks – and central banks – to get people to accept a cashless society.

Tipjar for the Bitcoin-savvy:

13fANEP7h6huhjYw5P7hfognjtgKdD9dUC

 

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Wed, 02/05/2014 - 19:08 | 4405919 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

I went on an E. Howard Hunt, just the other day. Henry K. was pissed off, but Dick took it well. He retired in San Clemente, I hear. He knocked up a whore by the last name of Cheney...

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 19:27 | 4405992 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

LOL. That is good.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 19:56 | 4406090 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

There's only ONE way to ROCK.

All other paths lead to mental masturbation.

D'ya KEN, laddie?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtHaFEbUNr8

It's 8:05. Time to ROCK...

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 20:18 | 4406163 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

 

Och aye.

 

Ah r'ken 'at ye ur correct.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:32 | 4404200 squid427
squid427's picture

.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 20:11 | 4406145 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

Bee Tee Cee is the WAY for ME.

I was waiting for the Freedom Tower to open the new Exchange Trading Floor, but I can't seem to find Cantor and Fitzgerald on the roster there. in fact, some 'security guards' from the DHS tried to grope my genitals when I walked in to the building (and I was slightly gratified that I had been selected as attractive to these government whores-I never thought about men this way, but...).

Oh, the power. Oh, the thrust.

YOU could have been one of THEM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY

Instead, you post a DOT.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:15 | 4404188 Amagnonx
Amagnonx's picture

Love your work George - but this isnt a terribly balanced piece.  Lots of things simply not correct - I highly doubt any assertion that the NSA has cracked BTC in any way.

 

The article also tries to use the false concept about marijuana being a 'gateway' drug.  I cant see any event that would lead people to run away from BTC into a central bank dominated currency.  BTC is very secure and robust - if BTC gets broken, then the alt coin market will fill the gap until its fixed, or everyone will just migrate to the best, most secure alt coin.

Diversity for assets and savings is necessary to spread risk - for me gold, silver, BTC and real estate are sufficient to defray risks - though I might get into some alt coin if it looks more secure than BTC.

 

Sure - a cashless society is a very bad idea, but silver and gold are by far the superior forms of cash - and once they are in the hands of people then they are very hard to control - a nice mix of gold, silver and BTC is a very desirable position imo - nothing is better than gold as a store of value, but BTC is incredibly useful for transactions.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 15:43 | 4404960 WhyWait
WhyWait's picture

There's a lot to say about this amazing phenomenon.  However if you look at it from outside in terms of initial state and probable final state it's clear what Bitcoin has to be, as many have pointed out here before.  This debate about it goes on because for whatever reason many want to believe.  And this urge to believe is an essential part of how and why it works.

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 20:31 | 4406214 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

You missed the obvious 'imo' tagline, here.

IMO.

It's like 'MyRA', but for opinion-defective people.

"HERE, I offer MY (humble) OPINION (which YOU need to accept)."

"My 'individual retirement account'" is OBAMA's one. THE one. The ONE. THE one, the OPINING one. The opinion. THE opinion. THE OPINION. IN MY OPINION. MY OPINION is important. DAMN what you see here, Nothing to see, in MY opinion. Keep moving along, and IGNORE everything else. It's MY opinion. IN MY OPINION.

The saying about the commonality of opinions and ASSHOLES comes to mind. Everyone has one, and they both smell like SHIT.

E,E. Milne was pretty good (spell-check requested)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFyz73MRcg

After the age of four years, most have realized that Santa Claus IS, NOT, REAL.

"This debate about it goes on because for whatever reason many want to believe.  And this urge to believe is an essential part of how and why it works."

 Soory, I have to go answer the door now. It looks looks the Easter Bunny is bringing me some chocolate eggs. Hello! WAIT! Easter Bunny, you don't have to...(sound of AR-15 gunfire...)

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:01 | 4404118 teslaberry
teslaberry's picture

+1 yves smith sucks ass and supports tyranny.

-1 you read yves smith. 

 

I stopped reading when you quoted yves smith. anything she has said i've read elsewhere as she is a copy , amalgamate, and paster. yves smith for all her liberal bullshit and reformist bullshit is a died in the wool statist. she would wind up supporting communism , nazism, or anything else that puts many thousands of american CITIZENS  bodies underground in the name of security. not only does she lack intellectual capacity but she's a closet supporter of tyranny. she has nothing new to say about bitcoin nor anything interesting. 

 

while bitcoin may indeed be a tool with which to manipulate by some vast conspiracy, it has at least demonstrated that it can be used for legitiamte means. they want to harp on bitcoin yea? 

 

i've researched money , history, and recently the history and technology of bitcoin for enough to feel my comment worthwhile. 

 

existence in this world is a competitive war. people cooperate to build societies, but this entails building systems that can both 'generate' and 'destroy'. Money is one of the few technologies that does both at the same time through various means. 

 

every national treasury out there in history creates and manipulates a money system so that they can control it and use it to fashion the 'nation' the way they wish. a long tiem ago nations were what we now call small tribes, they grew and grew. different nations sometimes have difference currencies, sometimes the same ones, frequently the weakest nations are made to depend upon using the curriences of other nations. 

currency is essentially an exclusive brand of token at its core function. and made for the ruler to use as he pleases by taxation (you must pay him in his currency) or debasement (you will lose purchasing power in his currency you hold). 

however, there are intrinsicly valuable commodities that endure because of their universal usage appeal. reserves of steel, coal, oil , grains, precious metals too!. anything which cannot be branded. 

 

currency is going digital because POWERFUL  institutions (governments and large banks) around the world---in iran, in syria, in israel, in north korea, in america, in russia, EVERYWHERE.  want to impose their will upon people under their institutional dominance. 

the old four hundred year old technology of the ink printing press and all of it's decendants that allow for 'printing' are obsolote for their intended purpose. their purpose wasn't ot create 'notes' for trade. which is their output. their purpose was to create a monetary tool we call 'money' for whoever wanted that money [ banks governments and subsversive counterfeiters ]. 

 

so what now?  now is chaos.  cryptographys is just part of the game. people talk about the nsa as if it is the all powerful demigod. it is not. there is no all powerful demigod. history is a giant city filled with the ruined towers of babels. money is just part of this giant game of history and money , like all tools of mankind, will always follow the path of least resistance we call 'technological progress'. in this case, digital money is the future of money. sovereign and non-soveriegn money will exist  in digital form just as they have in non-digital form. 

all money starts as letters of credit. and hence all money is credit. people may think gold is 'money' just because that happens to be repeated a lot on the internet. but i say there is no such thing as money. there is an expectation of action or value. that is all there ever is. gold may be better money than fiat, but I ask you this---would you rather have 10kilograms of gold ( half a million in todays USD) held for you in some one elses' saftey deposit box  or would you have half a milllion dollars in usd in your exclusive physical possession if given the choice as to how to receive that 'money' right now, given that  you can do what you want with it immidiately upon receipt ? 

 

money is a concept , an abstaction, not a real thing. this is why it's nearly impossible to talk about it in any well defined terms. discussions of money frequently take upon the tone of philosophical discussion as many terms come into play and vague ambiguous references and definitoins get contorted. money is simply part of the human condition of expectation and is thus situational and very open ended. 

 

SO..........

for all the idiots out there like yves smith who simply take a windage or acidity test of the social climate zeitgeist of opinion and recycle and predigetst them for mass consumption---------i applaud you for finding such a simple minded audience. well done.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:26 | 4404213 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

I congratulate you for endeavoring to do your own homework because that is what is necessary to reach an independent conclusion on this matter.

On the topic of Bitcoins, there is a dearth of clear and concise "objective reading" available out there. There are a number of distinct  issues that have to be evaluated separately. Unfortunately, the tendency has been for everything to get thrown in one bucket. Emotionalism and ideological chaos then inevitably follows. 

I think the piece written by Kaminska is yet another fine example this kind of intellectual muddying of the water. 

One thing is certain, if you like the idea of disenfranchising the central banks and their TBTF spawn, but are concerned about the risk of a potential "trojan bithorse", you have to stay on your toes. 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 20:48 | 4406276 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

WB7,

Did you ever consider the possibility that Yves Smythe (or other anglo-american permutations of this spelling) simply needed to get laid? HELL, she might be a fat girl, or a flat girl, or a fugly girl; in need of coupling despite her evil and ugly thoughts. HELL, she might look like a Yellen, and smell like a Billary, and act like a Reno, but if SMYTHE, YVES tells me to buy NSA-backed BITCOIN, I will follow her to the center of the universe, 'round the maelstroms of Hades; in to the bring of PERDITION'S FLAMES; just to understand her need (for human flesh).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zDexduEqeQ

It COULD have been better.

Hell, it IS better, because these fuglies are NOT within the spere, now.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:56 | 4404710 Spanky
Spanky's picture

+1

For...

One thing is certain, if you like the idea of disenfranchising the central banks and their TBTF spawn, but are concerned about the risk of a potential "trojan bithorse", you have to stay on your toes. -- williambanzai7

Like your work. Wouldn't always want to hang it on my walls, but sometimes? You've got a wicked sense of humor. Not just rare, but precious...

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:10 | 4404521 teslaberry
teslaberry's picture
there are situations where the bad behavior chases away the good.  and there are situations where the good behavior chases out the bad.  distinguishing the two is frequently a matter of your own personal perspective. which may very well be determined by if you do or do not benefit from the winners behavior.  if bitcoin mercenaries are hired to kill the bankers who control argentina's peso -----and any policitians who try and use the argentine government to go after merchants and other people who use bitcoin------------is that good or bad? i ddon't know , but in that scenario of growth of bitcoin, it would be displacing the purchasing power of most argentinians who don't own it. and most of them are pooor. so bitcoin is helping accelerate the natural destruction of the peso.  good or bad? qui bono? are these two the same question? the existential competition of currency , what we call currency war, is part of social society scale darwinism. (some people call it ecnomics but i would hate to muddy the waters with that 'term')
Wed, 02/05/2014 - 13:59 | 4404469 SAT 800
SAT 800's picture

You have to stay on your toes nowadays, just to keep from going broke. That's why I don't have time to pay attention to bitcoin; too busy paying attention to all the rest of the bullshit.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:46 | 4404672 Zero-risk bias
Zero-risk bias's picture

Indeed SAT. My thoughts entirely. I guess there's a price for being a serf.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:31 | 4403969 Compwiz4u
Compwiz4u's picture

Very good article about the Bitcoin conspiracy.

Bitcoin is a sign of hyperinflation, a proxy for Gold & Silver & a scam where inherently worthless "money" has value.

Who invented Bitcoin? Who benefits? It has to be the banksters/gov't who want to deflect the QE hyperinflation from Gold & Silver.

Because a virtual currency like Bitcoin is created out of thin air somebody benefits unfairly. Who is that somebody?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:04 | 4404153 teslaberry
teslaberry's picture

does a gold mining company benefit unfairly when it mines gold and then sells it to the public for 'money?'. 

or hoards it for itslef?

 

does mankind benefit unfairly when no one will mine gold?

 

what the fuck is this nonsense about 'fairness'? since when is the idea of MONEY EVER FAIR????

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:20 | 4404208 Pullmyfinger
Pullmyfinger's picture

You are deeply confused. All real money is ultimately a commodity, in and of itself. True value is not an abstraction. For example, food, whose intrinsic value cannot be replaced by symbols of value. This is why food was, and in many "undeveloped" places around the world, remains, and always has been, the most elemental form of "money." Federal Reserve notes and Bitcoins however, are purely symbolic. In fact, if you trace the "value" of bitcoins to their source, you will come to realize that it is only relative to prevailing fiat currencies, and when these collapse, everyone with bitcoins will be standing around scratching their rear-ends, trying to figure out how many bitcoins equal a side of beef. Knock, knock Neo.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:32 | 4404245 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

Quick, exactly how many grams of gold for a side of beef?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:07 | 4405442 MrPalladium
MrPalladium's picture

5.5 grams for a side of beef

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:44 | 4404659 SunnyDD
SunnyDD's picture

The rate were 0.1 grams for a loaf of bread:

 

9Mar2009-GoldForBread-Zimbabwe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJp6rmUYM

 

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 15:20 | 4404856 Pullmyfinger
Pullmyfinger's picture

Perfect.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 13:12 | 4404349 Pullmyfinger
Pullmyfinger's picture

The equation is one of energy, which is the unspoken meaning of "value." A side of beef in terms of gold is precisely equal --intrinsically-- to the amount of energy it contains that it also takes to unearth a given quantity of the metal. This is all that "rare" means: it takes a great deal of energy to obtain a given quantity of a given substance. Gold, in other words, is simply a means of representing a high degree of energy expenditure: known thus as its "value" in the popular mind.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 21:14 | 4406369 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

If the cost of extracting gold were to drop to negligible amounts then gold becomes neglible in value?  Most of the gold available today was extracted using less intensive energy techniques.  Is the equation focussed just on energy costs going forward (the replacement cost)?  If nobody is willing to sell beef at the price solved by your equation, do you go hungry?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:29 | 4405547 TheGoldMyth
TheGoldMyth's picture

Pullmyfinger: It is also a biblicaly toxic process to extract, before being confiscated by the criminal accounting practices of central banks. That is why it can never be used as a currency, on the basis of the presently skewed ownership of it by the Central banks.
Only 7% of gold in existence might be candidate for sound money, the rest is stolen via the banking system fraud which renders it a stolen good and exempt from qualification as as sound money.
Before a curency or system of credit can be used, it needs to be protected and be subject to a high quality accounting system.

The accounting system is the real gold, metaphorically speaking.

If the accounting system is good, and the banking fraud prosecuted for crimes against humanity and the earth itself, then we can start using marbles again, coloured beads,or whatever with wanton abandon.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:32 | 4405569 TheGoldMyth
TheGoldMyth's picture

Pullmyfinger:Your omission of the chemicals used to refine/extract gold, and the environmental destruction that ensues, qualify you as being abscent minded or just thinking out aloud.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:14 | 4405476 WhyWait
WhyWait's picture

We can debate what value is and where it comes from - food, labor, energy - yet ultimately it has to be about something real. The relationship between the value of bread and gold may shift in the short run, but the value of gold comes from something real.

Neo-classical theory with its "marginal utility theory of value" essentially claims that a thing is worth whatever people or markets agree it's worth, which is really no theory of value at all.  Neo-liberal theory does nothing to correct that. Their proponents are, wittingly or unwittingly, just shills and apologists for the modern robber barons.

That is the central reason why economists are so useless in explaining and predicting this economic crisis.

Keep this discussion going.  It matters.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:44 | 4404048 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

So, if I and my trading partners decide to use bottle caps as currency in dealings among ourselves, which one of us is being taken advantage of?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:50 | 4404082 semperfi
semperfi's picture

The ones that don't have a bottle cap maker.

How about tree leaves instead of bottle caps? 

Then you COULD have "money" that grows on trees !

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 21:15 | 4404119 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

Hmm , we talking Currency or Money?

Let's say neither of us has a bottle cap press but have equal access to the bottle cap market...

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:30 | 4403929 Dewey Cheatum Howe
Dewey Cheatum Howe's picture

Off topic but NSA admits (sort of) they spy on Congress.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/05/nsa-spying-on-members-of-congress-...

...

Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA.) pressed Cole Tuesday on whether the NSA dragnet includes the number codes that pertain to congressional offices.

Mr. Cole, do you collect 202-225 and four digits afterwards?” Issa asked, as quoted by the National Journal.

We probably do, Mr. Congressman,” Cole replied. “But we’re not allowed to look at any of those, however, unless we have reasonable, articulable suspicion that those numbers are related to a known terrorist threat.”

...

And who watches the watchmen when they are on the honor system only?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:12 | 4403900 semperfi
semperfi's picture

Q:  how long would it take for the NSA to vaporize every bitcoin that exists ?

A:  ....

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:18 | 4404544 madtechnician
madtechnician's picture

But they don't exist ... How can you vaporise something which is virtual ?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:09 | 4403892 F em all but 6
F em all but 6's picture

I believe most everyone is missing the real danger with any form of electronic currency. Once the feds accept this system as a means of paying TAXES, its game over. The .GOV will now have absolute complete control over every aspect of your life under the umbrella of the federal taxing power. This is how I see it going down.

 

First, under Obammy care, those entitled to extraordinary protections paid for the money from the public treasury will be chipped to secure medical records. The function of that chip will be expanded to accept deposit and debt payment. You work, you are paid electronically right into....YOU. State and federal withholding in an instant. Buy on the internet? Scann your chip and pay. Same at the store. Scan and pay. Pefect tracking system. No cash transactions, no credit card to steal. No drug money to hide .Gov tracks your location worldwide in an instant. Accused of a crime? Fuck due process. Deduct fine electronically and sue for a refund by proving your innocence. Owe taxes? No money to hide. They take what they want when they want with the push of a key. .Gov needs the your exact location for a drone strike? Got it.  But first sieze all funds/ property records/ ect from the chip before it is destroyed. Or better yet drone strikes are messy and draw attention. Problem solved. Create the chip from or containing a toxic substance that can be remotely trigger to dissolve thus removing said muppet as a burden on society.What happened to him and who the hell is he? Beats the fuck out of me cant scan his chip and without it....well....all records are electronic now.  Must of had a heart attack. Have the coroners division within Homeland Security place him in a FEMA coffin.

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:00 | 4405412 MrPalladium
MrPalladium's picture

Beginning around 1650 and continuing into 1830 or so, Britain had the clearances which involved the landed gentry and nobility driving peasant farmers off of their ancestral common lands and setting them "free" to starve in the hedgerows. There was no need to resort to violence until the unfortunates were caught stealing, begging or were jailed for vagrancy. There were a few famous armed rebellions in the early days led by landed gentry who opposed the policy for its cruelty. By this means Britain expelled slightly over 10% of its population to colonial outposts in slavery to which they attached the term "indentured servant" because of their white skins, thereby diminishing the injustice of the crime against their own kind while applying the term "slavery" only to evil "colonials" who imported africans.

The modern outsourcing of jobs to Asian cheap labor is the late 20th century analog. Meaningful employment and the ability to raise a family is fast disappearing and it is disappearing by design. In the Western world today, being poor or middle class and sharing racial kinship with the elite is a distinct liability as it was back in England during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:49 | 4404077 weburke
weburke's picture

yes, betrayal is the total methodology. injecting infants with purposeful bad science is the low point to me. For all your objections, mr fmab6, you dont care what you put in your mouth do you. Blind are we? to that trojan horse?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:39 | 4404019 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

If, if what you say could or would come to happen, then they'll have no way to hide what they do with our taxes, either. Think about that one..

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 16:18 | 4405180 F em all but 6
F em all but 6's picture

Hound. WHY would they need to hide anything? Who is going to stop them? The voter? A politician? A judge? Under this system they will OWN everyone and those that dissent will be dealt with in an absolute summary manner, that No person would dare raise their voice.

And when I say "THEY" I am talking about the shadow government. Upper levels of NSA, CIA. You can and will be quietely eliminated by the stroke up a key under the shield of national security. Niether you, your friends, or your family will ever know what hit you. The authorites will  control the time and the place of your demise. They will be in a position to take control of your corpse and all the legal formalities associated with disposal. The concept of  investigation will be defined and controlled through a system that ultimately operates outside of any meaninful outside influences. Good grief, have you not been paying attention to the shit being exposed even at this early statge?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 20:17 | 4406169 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

Just saying if they can trace transactions through the blockchain, so can you.  In the case of taxes you hold a receipt that can trace those payments going forward...

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 16:09 | 4405127 New World Chaos
New World Chaos's picture

You think they would ever let the little people have a peek behind the curtain?  Come on.  The laws protect the predators from the prey.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:10 | 4403888 F em all but 6
F em all but 6's picture

 

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:58 | 4403830 WaEver
WaEver's picture

could BTC shoot to 1 mio so all those idiots can cash out, retire and stop posting their drivel on ZH

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:34 | 4403722 alien-IQ
alien-IQ's picture

This does sound exactly like what Aaron Russo claimed Nick Rockefeller told him was coming.

Coincidence?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:00 | 4403850 john39
john39's picture

there is no way that the truly evil powers that control this world would allow bitcoin to survive unless it was part of their plan.  sucks, but that is reality.   the fact that banks and big corporate retailers are allowing bitcoin should be a big clue for anyone paying attention.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:35 | 4403998 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

Cool thanks. I was looking for a reason to dismiss bitcoin without having to take the time to actually investigate how it works.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:06 | 4404493 john39
john39's picture

how do the "markets" work these days...  the way the government/laws/banks/media claim they work?  or is it fairly obvious that there are more than one set of rules out there...  one for the cattle, and another for the owners.  bitcoin does not fix that problem, no matter how much proponents want it to. 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 21:17 | 4406157 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

Can anything be done to fix the problem?  Would mass adoption of gold as means of exchange address the problem better than bitcoin?  How and why?

An unimpeachable accounting ledger coupled with a fixed supply of accounting units can't work towards a better set of rules?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:27 | 4403958 alien-IQ
alien-IQ's picture

I think that the fatal mistake being made by many bitcoin believers is that they are underestimating their opponent (banks/govt/NSA/etc).

That's always a recipe for disaster...and heartbreak.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:32 | 4403709 weburke
weburke's picture

48  million already on a form of bit coin? The food stamp program. Didnt that show its vulnerability to disruption a couple months ago? Wasnt -that- program shown its weakness in the face of the stuxnet virus? Some folks had no food stamp bitcoins, and others had unlimited. There is no plan b for the food stamp bitcoin if it has a full or partial failure. Imagine the electronic wallet goes down for a cities food stamp bitcoin people, for 2 weeks. Folks that orchestrate moon ________, have great power as media and even science and education guys fall in line. And that was way back, they only have more power now. I was at princeton u physics lecture about 4 years ago, and the latest nobel prize winning physics man was speaking, the students asked, "what are the top 5 things left to do" guess what answer 3 was. He laughed, and so did some of the professors. Damn, thats power. 

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!