OT: Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble
jackslash
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I don't understand bitcoin, and I'm not stupid enough to invest in something I don't understand. Dougster and some other TUSCLers have provided helpful information about bitcoin, and I hope they make money. But here is what the economist Paul Krugman thinks:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/opini…
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/opini…
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"It really does look like 'President Donald Trump' and markets are plunging. If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is 'never'," Krugman wrote at the time.
Bitcoin mining. No one truly knows what all those Bitcoin mining programs are REALLY doing. I just can't help being suspicious of a massive distributed parallel multiprocessor supercomputer funded by human greed (the desire for "free" Bitcoins) and under the control of some unknown entity.
Buy! Buy! Buy!
I was mining this month, and I made $100 in bitcoin and my electric bill only went up $300!!!!! I think it’s pretty hard to mine and make money unless you’re somewhere where you aren’t paying for your electric.
Bitcoin is really a Ponzi scheme, and is just one more example of why Mike Judge's observations in "Idiocracy" are not only prophetic but happening much sooner than he penned it in a future dystopia.
PhD software developers have been working on upgrading the Bitcoin software to allow for a transaction rate that exceeds VISA.
So, it is no wonder that Bitcoin hit a ceiling. In the same way that computers from the 80s are worth peanuts compared to modern computers—because they’re slow and not powerful enough—the current bitcoin implementation can not be valued more highly due to its technological limitation. But guess what... there are hundreds, if not thousands, of developers working on this technology for a reason.
Why don’t you all use Gold? The prices of other commodities are much more stable when priced in gold. Is it not stability that makes the US dollar more appealing? Why not go all the way and get the most stable form of money, gold? Why not pay for your coffee in gold?
Oh, that’s right, because we came up with a better technology....
Anyway, bitcoin is finally becoming usable for spending again and that is a good thing. Once lightening networks become more evolved, even micro transactions should be nearly instant and very cheap.
To be clear, libertarians believe that cryptocurrencies should exist and that they should compete with fiat currencies, but not necessarily that Bitcoin should go to $20,000 in value. Similarly, libertarians believe that drugs should be legal, but not necessarily that everyone should be getting high all the time.
Here's a funny little video about Bitcoin that was produced by ReasonTV, a libertarian outlet:
https://youtu.be/UG7zLhEWanc
In other news Facebook stock dropped on news that viewer hours dropped by 50 million hours. Then they said that cutting views of the viral cat video wasn't going to result in any loss of revenue and the stock is up 2%.
Coming up, juice creates a stink viral video at McDonalds. Toilet overflowing. People running away from turds. Just a matter of time before captured on video. Facebook viewing hours jumps 200 million hours. Just a matter of time.
When you begin to wrap up your self worth with how your money is doing, usually your self esteem goes out the window. It can be confusing to navigate the landscape of finance, but that doesn’t absolve your from taking responsibility for it.
Since nothing is free, you should expect a trade-off between liquidity and expected rate of return. Liquidity is really just the ability to convert an asset to cash. So a checking account is more liquid than a savings account, which is more liquid than a money market account, which is more liquid than stocks, etc. It's easy to sell a stock, and in that regard they are indeed quite liquid, but there are transaction costs and significant price fluctuations over time. The most liquid asset is cash itself, in your pocket. But cash yields no income and is likely to lose value over time due to inflation. So to make a long story short, you should be willing to sacrifice at least *some* liquidity in an effort to earn some return, unless you know for a fact that you'll need the money immediately or almost immediately. Even if it's just by putting the money into one of those high yield online savings accounts I mentioned in the other thread.