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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

 

 

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Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:09 | 4404160 Toolshed
Toolshed's picture

Ummmm, weburke, are you suggesting in your post that the Apollo moon landings were faked?

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:03 | 4404480 weburke
weburke's picture

Instamatics me boy, all good americans take them on vacations, use them on birthdays, and when the kid does something special. No, I am not suggesting that, next you would have me saying the sun is not a nuke furnace burning hydro/helium at the core ! The royals, cruel as they are, love audacity. 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:00 | 4405410 Toolshed
Toolshed's picture

Can anyone translate weburke into english?

Thu, 02/06/2014 - 04:23 | 4407106 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

How obtuse do you need the construation? (One does not translate English into English but one construes it.) What level do you require?

Instead of the decend perhaps you need to ascend and understand disorganization. Then accept it.

 

How many Stars have you photographed? I was perched on a 20 Foot Ladder at the Newtonian Focus mount at Northern Arizona University Observatory's 24" Telescope one night in 15oF Weather. I was exposing an image of the Whirlpool Galaxy on a Film on Glass.

I opened the Shutter and exposed the plate for 45 minutes. I was balanced on that Ladder. It was cold. I was moving the Plate Mount to keep it centered on a Star that was focused on the Off Axis Guide.

You know that stars "twinkle" because of Atmospeheric turbulence. Well the Telescope Magnifies that affect So if you are not constantly correcting for that your image turns out blurred. So I am constantly moving the 'x' axis and 'y' axis adjustments struggling to keep that Star in the corner of the crosshairs. Did I forget to mention that it is cold? And my ungloved hands...they hurt and ached. I needed the dexterity.

 

But the Image came out beautiful.

 

Stars are much easier as THEY REQUIRE only about Two Minutes of exposure time to capture...with a Telescope.

 

Of course if those Moon Photos had stars in them then I would know that they were faked as the Bright Astronauts images would have completely fogged the film with a two minute exposure time.

 

But people whom have never taken Pictures of Stars do not know this. 

 

So yes I do understand him.

Do you?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:39 | 4405590 weburke
weburke's picture

sure, no stars. where are the stars? look at the photos. The sun, is actually electric. snowdon makes it SEEM like some guy on a streetcorner in china can just get all this media coverage because we...... are being treated to a dose of strengthening of our beliefs that we are in a free media, and if anything should be told, media will find it for us. But........... they showed their strength in 1969. even other countries didnt break ranks, including our alleged enemies of the time...Russia.  care to fight tptb ?  dont.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrb4K3-DJQE

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 21:22 | 4406406 donsluck
donsluck's picture

Toolshed, apparently weburke is a different language. There is no translation.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:29 | 4403688 CH1
CH1's picture

it would be child’s play for them to change the amount in your Bitcoin wallet.

Amazing that people without a fucking clue feel qualified to comment.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:14 | 4403635 fredquimby
fredquimby's picture

Crap.

I am not gonna bother arguing again, safe to say personally, I love what BTC and the disruptive blockchain technology is forcing the TPTB's to do (i.e panic) whatever the hell that Kaminza woman says it is, or might or might not be in her unesteemed and largely irrelevant (to me) opinion.

yawn.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:19 | 4403658 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

She is a blogger on FT's Seeking Alpha blog. We all go there for our reality checks don't we. (sarc)

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:04 | 4404484 SAT 800
SAT 800's picture

Oh, heck yeah. Wouldn't know what to do without checking in with the talented reality painters at Seeking Alpha. Buurrrp.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:18 | 4403648 fx
fx's picture

Contrary to that "kaminza woman" you bank on hope and make-believe while she is telling facts and connecting the dots pretty well.

Sure, fonestar will show up in short orderfor another bout of indoctrination.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:09 | 4403610 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

The issue is trust and rule of law.  Bitcoin is a currency that can be manipulated just as easy as any other currency, it does nothing to address the moral hazard that has ruined America.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:36 | 4404000 Jreb
Jreb's picture

LoP,

Short, sweet and to the point/crux of the problem.

There are two systems running side by side in the western world - and this - by and large - has lead to our downfall.

There is one for the uber wealthy and gangster element and one for the rest of us. The rule of law applies only to the law abiding middle class. The political/corporate upper classes are essentially immune to it and have perverted the entire finacial, political and justice system into their own personal whore to be used, abused and completely fucked over at their whim.

You on the other hand my friends will obey - or else.

William Bonzai - there is some great material in terms of the image this paints.... slaves and masters - the law abiding and the lawless. ROW YOU FUCKERS - ROWWWW!!!!!!

For the life of me I don't understand why we tolerate it. 100 guys with oars vs two guys with whips and a drum. It just doesn't add up.

Oh well.

 

 

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 16:37 | 4405309 MrPalladium
MrPalladium's picture

The Uber wealthy aren't immune, they just have the resources required to legalize their corruption and grifting by getting permission for the corruption and grifting written right into our statutes, ordinances and regulations.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:44 | 4404289 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

The vast majority cannot see that they are in chains to begin with and they won't until they start starving.  Same as it ever was...

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:49 | 4403792 semperfi
semperfi's picture

and they are easy to print, just like US dollars

on the other hand gold & silver are real hard to print

worse - they are easy to steal/destroy, easier than US dollars

how long would it take the NSA to vaporize the global bitcoin supply ?

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:25 | 4403952 TheHound73
TheHound73's picture

Estimated it would take the NSA more time than the sun has left to live to break a single wallet.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 19:50 | 4406075 supermaxedout
supermaxedout's picture

To be the master of a system you have to be in control.  Control means the participants  are bound by the fixed settings of the technicals and  the rules.  But the master can always circumvent the rules as well as the technicals. This is essential otherwise it would be a system which cant be controlled.  To give up control of the money system means to give up one of the pillars of power. Do you really think the US is going to give up power without being forced to do so ?

Bitcoin is a US government product in my opinion. This fact is going to be in the open the moment the Fed jumps officially on the Bitcoin train.  Because the Fed is jumping on the train only when they are in complete control.  And they are. And complete control means to be the sole master of the system.  Soon the US is going to be Bitcoin country. Bitcoin is becoming the sole internal currency of the US. Only the US can become a Bitcoin country in the near future. Because the US controls the internet and therefore all electronic money comparable to bitcoin. Electronic money like bitcoin means total US controlled money! No other country on earth is presently capable to do something comparable.

The Dollar may then crumble and collapse. This is then going to harm only the non US holders of the former reserve currency.  My conclusion about Bitcoin is as follows:

The Dollar is dead, long live the new E-US Dollar Bitcoin!! 

Bitcoin is soon becoming the new currency of the US. A currency reform is going to take place. The old currency is becoming completely worthless for all "non privileged" Dollar holders. The term "non privileged" accounts for all Dollar asset holders outside the US. 

Dollar currency reserves of the Central Banks all over the world do then become worthless as well as foreign (non US)  private or corporate  Dollar denominated paper assets.This is what is called in German language a "Waehrungsreform" (currency reform). 

A "Waehrungsreform"was introduced by the US in Germany a few years after WWII. DM replaced the old Reichsmark. The money was printed in the US.

What I want to say is the following: The US has the most experience when it comes to the "currency business".   In my opinion the US want to get rid of the enormous amounts of Dollar circulating worldwide. These Dollars are more and more becoming a danger for the US system. The foreign holders of these giant Dollar reserves are using these funds against the strategic US interests.       So the only solution is to kill the Dollar so that this foreign owned stores of value do become worthless. At the same time a new currency is going to be introduced in the US, thus the local Dollars can be converted by a fixed rate into the new currency.   Cash Bitcoins are introduced at the same time.  Cash is still needed to run economy. 

 

 

 

 

 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:07 | 4404499 SAT 800
SAT 800's picture

Maybe. yeah, Maybe. but the history of the world is full of un-breakable codes; and un-provable mathematical theorems; but then they get broken, and they get proven. The Enigma was un-breakable too; remember the Enigma? Why depend on a maybe? Silver is not a maybe; see, there's a difference. No maybe.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:32 | 4403700 CH1
CH1's picture

Love ya, LoP, but your mind needs to break out of its shell on this one.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 12:45 | 4404286 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

I already know one person at JPM who is making sure they are "well-positioned" in the cryptocurrencies.  Perhaps you should get out of your shell as I have already used cryptocurrencies to transfer wealth.  I never said there wasn't "utility" here, but all the TBTF banks can still buy as much as they like, you and I cannot.  Prove me wrong asshat.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:54 | 4405659 CH1
CH1's picture

Prove me wrong asshat.

You just proved yourself a pig.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:56 | 4403561 Mad Mohel
Mad Mohel's picture

More like a Trojan condom...........non-lubed.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:45 | 4403519 bcecil
bcecil's picture

Here is how you permanantly stop all government/big bank control with bitcoin.. we can also free all of the worlds debt slaves = 99% of population!

It will lead to all the regular people all over the world getting paid at the same world rate for their labor and buying food etc at also the same world rate, and not an artificial slave rate, dictated by some country leader who is skimming off the top.

What many people really don't get yet is Bitcoin/Litecoin are the worlds first, very
liquid, average persons, commodity/asset of exchange, that doesn't need any governments or
banks to exist.

..a new universal exchange must marry BTC/LTC ( which is really a form of an asset not a currency or money ) with gold/silver/commodities

It will lead to a grand new world reserve liquid trading commodity vehicle (not currency ) ... and eliminate ALL potential regulation problems with bitcoin/Litecoin being equated to one, or any fiat government currency!!!!!

The real relationship between Gold/Silver/Commodities and Bitcoins/Litecoins needs to be a marriage! This will give bitcoins/Litecoins value and gold/silver/commodities liquidity and bypass all fiat currencies in the world taking away power from the top 85 families on the planet that have the same assets as the bottom 3.5 billion people. ( and 10's of thousands of others ripping people off everywhere)

This also solves the problem of not much liquidity for the easy transfer and payment using actual pieces of gold/ silver / commodities over the internet ..... now their value is transferable to btc/ltc, which is easily exchanged anywhere for everything starting with the most important thing wages for employment.

The way to move the whole thing forward is a worldwide UMX exchange, like mtgox.com, but much bigger, only for gold and silver weights and commodities , not US dollars, CDN dollars, or any other dollars, to be exchanged/traded for btc/ltc/commodities.

You can use small shops everywhere, in small communities, in every country in the world, like a current cash shop, pawn broker, grocer or gold/jewelry dealer that fronts all of the small trading for everyone. So you give them some gold or silver commodities etc and they give you btc/ltc or you give them btc/ltc and they give you gold silver commodities based on current gold/btc exchange rates on the UMX..

All 3 things cant be touched by megalomaniacs and are outside of "world money
regulation/phantom creation"

BTC and even LTC is the same as precious metals in many ways, it has a finite amount available over time, cannot be "printed" into oblivion, must be mined and is a store of wealth and no one individual or group owns the system, it belongs to everyone.

The numbers make sense..if you look at fractional bitcoin system the numbers more then make sense... each btc can be broken down to units that equal .00000001 so There are really 2,099,999,997,690,000 (just over 2 quadrillion) maximum possible units in the total maximum bitcoin design. The value of "1 BTC" represents 100,000,000 of these. there is only around an actual 1 trillion in printed usd $ around and currently 60+ trillion in total US debt http://www.usdebtclock.org/ (not including unfunded liabilities ) So there is, or will be by the year 2140 (end of bitcoin mining), 2000 times more exchangeable bitcoin units then us$ in the world and then there are no more BTC

As more gold mined down the road it will just change the exchange value slightly ..but, unlike "make believe" money, (only .52% of the Bank of Canada's money is real, 1.75% in at the Fed and the average is .75% in all the central European banks ) .....both gold/silver and bitcoins/silver/commodities have physical limits on total in existence and are very real.

I truly believe crypto commodities will eventually benefit the average person on this
planet even more then the internet has ....

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 16:34 | 4405266 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

A Universal Currency? A One World Currency?

 

That just reads a little too...er...well...a lot and way too much...like the New World Order Agenda to me.

 

No thank you.

 

THERE ARE NO POLITICAL SOLUTIONS and a Universal Currency is just the next step on the path to World Tyranny.

Thu, 02/06/2014 - 06:11 | 4407162 bcecil
bcecil's picture

You would be right in the old days when politicians had control over everything. They don't have control over any aspect of BTC, the everyman does.. So you are very right though in one respect......

it is certainly time for a new world order, only one that comes from the majority of the worlds population and not the selected few..

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:47 | 4405619 InTheLandOfTheBlind
InTheLandOfTheBlind's picture

i knew there is something we could agree upon... 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:45 | 4404043 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture

How do you marry btc to gold without a central holder?

How do you know nobody controls btc when one authority has the power to shut off the internet and/or electric?

How do you tip a stripper with a btc?

Pfft.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 16:10 | 4405004 bcecil
bcecil's picture

>How do you marry btc to gold without a central holder?

multiple independant exchanges all over the world

>How do you know nobody controls btc when one authority has the power to shut off the internet and/or electric?

btc is under no ones control and, that makes it belong to everyone, wherein, lies its true power. The internet was built in 1969 to prevent blackout of communications even in the event of a major nuclear war.. if everything did go down... you lose entire current banking system anyway and there are 2 companies looking at putting bitcoin exchanges on satilites so you could still be in btc business with black out on earth. There are also paper and physical bitcoins available.

>How do you tip a stripper with a btc?

No problem at all .. Mbtc is new currency breakdown  which is 1/1000 of a bitcoin is being used on 1000's of sites ( even Redit) to tip everyone via phone or whatever device you have with you right now

 

Pfft.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:04 | 4404483 TPTB_r_TBTF
TPTB_r_TBTF's picture

right except,

you can give the stripper a flash drive

They come in different colors, shapes and sizes.

Just be sure to stick it somewhere where she can find it again.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:17 | 4403643 fredquimby
fredquimby's picture

Dude. Stop hitting

return. 

Please.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:31 | 4403712 CH1
CH1's picture

Dude understands, he should be excited by it.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 17:45 | 4405617 frenzic
Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:46 | 4403514 daemon
daemon's picture

" ... 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, ... "

At last, a monetary system, in the design of which we are fool participants !

Viva la libertad !

Meeeeh !

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:45 | 4403508 agent default
agent default's picture

More like internet fad.  There are very few reasons to trust the Bitcoin protocol and most people are interested it because their friend so into it.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:34 | 4403457 blindman
blindman's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk_ilymWo4s
The Doors - Back Door Man (2006 Remastered)

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:23 | 4403410 hooligan2009
hooligan2009's picture

damn...what happened to the spread in strip club dollars...damn bitcoin.. money laundered perfectly from drugs to mainstream and i am now just 10 cents in the stripper dollar..i will have to get some new beer goggles so i can buy the next hula hoop fad right... i need to find some other slot machine... i wonder why the casinos aren't marketing their 5,000 dollar chips...they must be worth more than 5,000 dollars if they come up with some whizzy marketing campaign

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:19 | 4403398 paint it red ca...
paint it red call it hell's picture

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

Screw the NSA tracking the trades. You bitcoin zombies had better worry about the IRS. Listen to what Cathrine Austin Fitts has to say on the subject of bitcoin profits late in this interview.

http://usawatchdog.com/movement-is-life-catherine-austin-fitts/

KEEP PAPER RECORDS

I hope the IRS drags all your sanctimonious, hook line and sinker swallowing asses in for an audit.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:55 | 4404101 Amagnonx
Amagnonx's picture

Taxation is enslavement - you are crowing at the thought of others being enslaved because you dont have the courage to escape yourself.  If the IRS comes for an audit - shoot them in the face - better to die on your feet than live on your knee's.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:39 | 4403745 swmnguy
swmnguy's picture

I couldn't find the part where Ms. Austin-Fitts talks Bitcoin, but I can't imagine the IRS will just let people not pay capital gains on Bitcoin.  That's a no-brainer for them.  It's all on the interwebs so collecting that data is nearly free for them.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 21:05 | 4406332 donsluck
donsluck's picture

If they treat it like gold, it would be taxed as income.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:47 | 4403789 paint it red ca...
paint it red call it hell's picture

Starting about 20:00

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 09:53 | 4403477 madtechnician
madtechnician's picture

"I hope the IRS drags all your sanctimonious, hook line and sinker swallowing asses in for an audit."

Don't get me wrong - I think tax evasion is a morally wrong form of theft - however to say what you have said I think that is one seriously nasty , fucked up shitty attitude you have there fella. Good Luck to you as well you horrible , miserable cunt .

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:45 | 4403776 rubiconsolutions
rubiconsolutions's picture

"@madtechnician - Don't get me wrong - I think tax evasion is a morally wrong form of theft"

Hey pal, taxation itself is theft. It doesn't matter how you couch it, when a gang of thieves steals from one person in order to enrich another that is theft. And that is exactly what government does. It takes part of your property, namely the fruits of your labor and then gives it others. It does it under the threat of force. Somewhere in every process of taxation a pistol is involved.


Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:56 | 4403824 madtechnician
madtechnician's picture

I agree it can be used as a form of theft , however where I live most of our tax money goes into the free healthcare system and pensions system , as well as the police , ambulance , nursing , fire service etc. So when people evade their taxes over here it is the poor who suffer the most ,

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:59 | 4404113 Amagnonx
Amagnonx's picture

Rubbish - its the ultra-rich that would suffer most if taxes stopped being paid.  They gain the most from every tax dollar, as its funnelled into their corporations that make bombs, produce poisonous food, bankrupt you with fraud - you are paying for your own enslavement.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 15:30 | 4404895 Things that go bump
Things that go bump's picture

And once you've paid the danegeld you'll never be rid of the Dane.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:50 | 4404085 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture

Why are they poor and dependent on system money to take care of them?

Why do the poor suffer when you don't pay your taxes?  Doesn't your .gov just print or borrow to cover? 

What if I fundamentally disagree with forcing people to pay to take care of other people?  Why is it okay for you to point a gun at me and take my earnings to give to others?  Would you personally like to try this scenario with me?  I guarantee you will not like the experience. 

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:35 | 4403719 paint it red ca...
paint it red call it hell's picture

What, confidence failing in the total privacy myth? You shouldn't start worrying about your technical genius landing you on a rising tide of secret wealth, no worries!

I myself will keep worrying about the slavery my grandkids are being sold into on the slippery slope of bitcoin participation and global expansion of the program. But you are sitting on a profit, that makes it all ok.

It is trojan horse, it represents potentially a means to ultimate control of the population, total discretion over who retains a means of exchange for goods in real time.

Have a good day my friend.

Wed, 02/05/2014 - 10:51 | 4403808 madtechnician
madtechnician's picture

Another way to look at it is as an inevitability. How long did you think the Internet would be around before it would spawn a completely new financial system ? This was an inevitibility of the Internet. 100 years from now the creation of the internet and crypographic currencies will be seen as a single event. The Internet , like a hammer is simply a tool , an instrument , you can use a hammer to help build a roof or to smash a window. The tool itself is inert , like the Internet , like cryptographic currencies , like a hammer or a screwdriver it is down to the users of these instrumements to decide what they use them for. For you to stand on your moral high ground and say you want nothing to do with cryptographic currencies whilst at the same time preaching your views over the Internet is hypocrytical to say the very least. If you have something positive to offer the bitcoin system then you should get involved and input your positivity instead of shouting from the sidelines and inputting negativity. Right now you have a golden opportunity to help create a positive future for the bitcoin system.

Have a nice day as well.

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