<story><title>Bitcoin and positive vs. normative economics</title><url>http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smtddr</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;So basically it brings an ability to the middle-class that normally only the top 1% have. We know wealthy people use tax loopholes(and a few of them, laundering) and... why do the states need to monitor financial transactions? Don&amp;#x27;t tell me because terrorism. I&amp;#x27;m sick of that being the reason for everything when we have this kind of nonsense[1] happening.&lt;p&gt;I translate this to: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Bitcoin is designed to free non-rich people from the restrictions, fees &amp;amp; surveillance placed upon them by the wealthy elite&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if crypo-currency will succeed long-term, but seeing how hardcore scared&amp;#x2F;doubtful some people are about it makes me think a nerve has been hit. I just hope that if btc fails, it fails naturally&amp;#x2F;organically&amp;#x2F;mathematically on its own... not because someone arbitrarily makes it illegal.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6954341&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=6954341&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chipsy</author><text>What I think is important about cryptographic assets isn&amp;#x27;t exactly in the economic properties they have now, but in the potential for reforming governance.&lt;p&gt;That is, if people are successfully using a crypto asset for their business, AND they are able to use a power and network infrastructure for this that is difficult enough(not perfect) that government authorities aren&amp;#x27;t successfully applying their &amp;quot;monopoly on force,&amp;quot; then government is now pushed into competition with the crypto-anarchic principles and must find a way to become a &amp;quot;better product,&amp;quot; enough so that people will prefer government money over crypto.&lt;p&gt;How will government come up with a product that is better - in a positive way - than a crypto asset? Government has the authority to issue new centralized currencies. This means that if it truly embraced computing - which it never has to date, having never faced a challenge of that nature - it could program a form of currency that is &amp;quot;smart&amp;quot; and bakes in the policy decisions and taxation currently executed by bureaucracy. It would be made attractive to citizens by building in basic income, as well as the service provisions. The result would be more powerful and more efficient than anything we currently know as government. Cash would still exist as a backup, but the government could discourage its use except in emergency situations.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bitcoin and positive vs. normative economics</title><url>http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smtddr</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;So basically it brings an ability to the middle-class that normally only the top 1% have. We know wealthy people use tax loopholes(and a few of them, laundering) and... why do the states need to monitor financial transactions? Don&amp;#x27;t tell me because terrorism. I&amp;#x27;m sick of that being the reason for everything when we have this kind of nonsense[1] happening.&lt;p&gt;I translate this to: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Bitcoin is designed to free non-rich people from the restrictions, fees &amp;amp; surveillance placed upon them by the wealthy elite&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if crypo-currency will succeed long-term, but seeing how hardcore scared&amp;#x2F;doubtful some people are about it makes me think a nerve has been hit. I just hope that if btc fails, it fails naturally&amp;#x2F;organically&amp;#x2F;mathematically on its own... not because someone arbitrarily makes it illegal.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6954341&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=6954341&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>username223</author><text>&amp;quot;why do the states need to monitor financial transactions?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I hate the &amp;quot;terrorism&amp;quot; BS as much as you, but money laundering and large-scale scamming ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6972139&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=6972139&lt;/a&gt; ) are actual threats.</text></comment>