[anoncowherd]

>> Personally, I believe currencies are better when they're regulated by governments.

Stop believing that. The exact opposite is true. If we could all use a currency that no one could manipulate at the press of a button somewhere behind the scenes, we would. But as long as governments control money, we're shit out of luck there - they're printing and borrowing money as they please, debasing their currencies and causing all kinds of grief to the little folks, ie. us.

You're right to be skeptical about Bitcoin though. It's basically a "speculative investment vehicle", as someone mentioned. Until that changes, you should be cautious about buying them. The gold rush is probably over.

( Or not. But no one knows. )

[pron]

I think that kind of manipulation is good, but you know what? Let's agree to disagree on that one. In any case, this is still a theoretical question at this point.

[anoncowherd]

You may think so, but it's not.

Imagine a scenario like this.

  - There's 10 units of wealth in the world
  - There's 10 units of currency in the world

At this point, 1 unit of currency corresponds to 1 unit of wealth. But what if someone presses a button and conjures up 10 units of the same currency into his own bank account?

  - Still 10 units of wealth in the world
  - Now there's 20 units of currency in the world

.. So now, after someone printed money for himself, 1 unit of currency only corresponds to 0.5 units of the wealth available in the world. So everyone who holds that currency just lost half of their purchasing power, which is kind of bad. But the guy who printed money doesn't give a fuck - his share of the total purchasing power went up from zero to five, after all, while everyone else's dropped.

Of course, this is grossly simplified, and possibly partially wrong/inaccurate etc, but you get the idea, right? We really do lose purchasing power when more currency goes into circulation.

Besides, we haven't even touched the effects of zero interest rates, borrowing massive amounts of money that will never be repaid, economic stagnation, an ever larger portion of the national tax revenues going towards paying interest on the ever more massive debts, and so on.. It's all bad, and it's all something that: 1) we do not want to happen, and 2) would not happen in a free market (with a market-chosen currency etc).

But don't take just my word for it: http://mises.org

[pron]

That's not how the economy works (international trade is different from local trade, you're not taking employment into account etc.), but for now let's just say that some think a regulated currency is better and some don't. This has little to do with buying Bitcoin now.

[anoncowherd]

>> That's not how the economy works (international trade is different from local trade, you're not taking employment into account etc.), but for now let's just say that some think a regulated currency is better and some don't

Feel free to tell me why what I described there does not correspond to reality in any meaningful way. If you can't, then maybe you should reconsider your position on "regulated" currencies.

Also, you should investigate http://mises.org - they'll tell you all you need to know about economics. You'll find out that governments are always only a net loss on any economy.

[pron]

I don't know if the reference to mises.org is sarcastic, but pointing to that site to learn about economics is like referring to Glenn Beck's site to learn about President Obama. Obviously, most economists have some ideology, but I think you should try to learn from people are are at least not so fanatic.

[anoncowherd]

>> pointing to that site to learn about economics is like referring to Glenn Beck's site to learn about President Obama

So where do you learn about Obama? -The mainstream media? How's that "change you can believe in" going? -Oh well, I guess stripping away your civil liberties counts as "change", right?

>> Obviously, most economists have some ideology, but I think you should try to learn from people are are at least not so fanatic.

Nah, I'm fine learning from people who are actually talking about how economics works here in the real world. You just keep on keeping on.