[trippy_biscuits]

It's interesting to watch ordinary people attempt to dabble in currency. How many criminal organizations, governments, and financial institutions (redundant?) the world over have people who wake up everyday just to manipulate the value of currency? For example, a common criticism of China is that they purposely manipulate their currency to devalue the US dollar. In which ways could such organizations impact a new currency like bitcoin? Simple theft doesn't work very well unless immediately converted to cash, just like tangible goods being fenced, often below true value. Was it really just theft?

[tdg]

Not to be nitpicking but a common criticism of China is that they manipulate their currency to _increase_ the value of dollar not devalue it.

[eru]

Yes, the Chinese are hard at work to give Americans ever more manufactured goods for ever fewer green pieces of paper.

(Or to be more accurately, entries in a data base.)

[hcal]

I'm just an armchair economist, but I have read real economist argue that a strong US dollar limits the US's ability to repatriate it's manufacturing base. Also, I don't think China so much increases the dollar as it limits the growth of the Yuan in measure with technological and capital improvements that allow it to keep its export market strong and keep manufacturing business in China.

[eru]

Yes, that's essentially what I said. And I question whether getting stuff for cheaper (or free) is a bad thing for those downtrodden Americans.

[sp332]

It's so the value of the American debt held by China stays high, that way it's valuable and also hard to pay back.

[eru]

Hard to pay back? The Americans can print all they money they ever need, and the debt is denominated in that currency.

(Additionally, isn't the amount of government debt held by the Chinese only something like 10% of the total government debt?)