Rand Paul Suggests Backing Bitcoin With Stocks 404
SonicSpike writes:
"In a recent interview, Senator Rand Paul said there's one thing he would change about Bitcoin: it should be backed by something with intrinsic value, like stocks. He said, 'I was looking more at it until that recent thing [sic]. And actually my theory, if I were setting it up, I'd make it exchangeable for stock. And then it'd have real value. And I'd have it pegged, and I'd have a basket of 10 big retailers I think it would work, but I think, because I'm sort of a believer in currency having value, if you're going to create a currency, have it backed up by — you know, Hayek used to talk about a basket of commodities? You could have a basket of stocks, and have some exchangeability, because it's hard for people like me who are a bit tangible. But you could have an average of stocks, I'm wondering if that's the next permutation.'"
History (Score:5, Funny)
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it
Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't own bitcoin nor have I ever used bitcoin for anything.
but this Rand guy seriously misunderstands the whole fucking concept. stock? ? just sell your bitcoin and buy some stock with that money. if the stocks value was tied to bitcoin, you might just as well just own bitcoin instead of the stock. if the stock presented some other value(in dollars or bananas) that would be a direct tie in to something else.
backing it up with gold or other valuables or anything that would need some company to adhere to some arbitrary value for the bits would destroy the whole concept(or at the very least transform it to some airline miles system bs) and you might just as well dig egold out of the grave...
so what the guy would like would be a centrally deployed currency, you know, like bus card money. beats me why he thinks that would be better or more novel - of course then there would be a company to shut down to shut down the use.
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Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
A. He's a senator.
B. He's younger than bill gates or steve jobs by almost a decade, and only a decade older than Sergey Brin and Larry page.
I think we can safely say every stupid thing comes from his brain rather than his generational cohort.
Re:History (Score:5, Informative)
Re:History (Score:5, Funny)
Must be, if he did not see this coming.
Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
He's a failed something anyway, if he thinks that stocks have "intrinsic value".
Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a failed something anyway, if he thinks that stocks have "intrinsic value".
Stocks are the only thing with intrinsic value: ownership of the means of production. Everything else is convention, but the ability to make something that someone else wants or needs is intrinsic value.
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Stocks are the only thing with intrinsic value: ownership of the means of production.
Not really true. Stocks give you a share of ownership of a company, not a means of production. Some companies do produce things, and some companies have a means of production, but these aren't quite the same thing.
Let's look at a typical American company that makes some kind of electronic device, for instance. What does it produce? Designs, maybe software, and that's about it. I worked at a place like this a few years
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I don't see it. For your clothing example: yes, people will be buying clothes from someone, but if you fall out of fashion, it won't be you, so whatever soft assets you have won't be of much value. You won't have anything you can fall back on, or sell to get some value back out of the company. The fickleness of consumers will wipe you out quickly. The company you outsource actual production to: they'll be just fine. They'll just switch to making clothes for your competitor that everyone thinks is new an
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He's a failed something anyway, if he thinks that stocks have "intrinsic value".
Stocks are the only thing with intrinsic value: ownership of the means of production. Everything else is convention, but the ability to make something that someone else wants or needs is intrinsic value.
Not enough modpoints in the world... To think that people are rattling their keyboards on this thread insisting that stocks of all things don't have value (after all, they are merely a share of a very large, typically profitable and asset-maintaining organization) and instead BTC in its current form is perfectly fine, because it surely has value (the value of the greater fool, without any presupposition of dividends or asset liquidation or anything). Simply amazing.
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Today that 100 shares gets you no say in how the company is run, no portion of any profits,
What, American companies stopped paying dividends!? If they shifted to buying back shares for tax reasons, directly from you, or indirectly, that still allows you to share the profits. And why would you not get paid if the company is liquidated or bought out?
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How will that intrinsic value hold without the machinery of the society backing your claims of ownership? It doesn't? Then it's not intrinsic.
No, it's extrinsic value - specifically, value derived from that someone's needs and wants. Nothing has intrinsic value in economics. Which is one of the reasons why
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I fully concede that ownership of the means of production is not, itself, the means of production. A kitchen does not spontaneously generate pies. It still has value.
OTOH, ownership in common stock very much is control over that company, but of course only in rough proportion to the amount you own! I've seen the stockholders challenge the boards position on the basic company strategy and win, changing the composition of the board and replacing the CEO, several times in my career, just at companies I've w
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I build a pie factory and sell you 1/8th of it, did you produce anything? Other than a paycheck for whatever lawyers and realtors were involved, no. My point stands, stock ownership has nothing to do with actually producing anything. Stockholders are nothing more than the biggest, fattest group of gambling addicts in our society today, producing nothing of value to anyone but revenues for the casinos (aka stock exchanges).
Really? Stock ownership has nothing to do with production? Let me ask you a series of questions:
Why does the stock exist in the first place? Did the actual owners/producers just decide that they wanted to be kind and give away a share of their potential future profits? No, the reason is that the owners decided they wanted to give up a portion of their ownership equity in exchange for money that they could use to help grow the company. So the person who bought the stock gave them money to grow the company. S
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Im just downvoting everyone who criticized Rand Paul on the "intrinsic value" thing, because he didnt say that. That was inserted by the submitter / editors, presumably to attract this sort of criticism from people who didnt read the article.
Thanks for contributing, tho!
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You're an AC stupid, you don't get mod points.
Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, it's more like Rand Paul channeling Peter Griffin.
"Lois, I just spent all our savings on lotto tickets!"
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Seriously, it's more like Rand Paul channeling Peter Griffin.
"Lois, I just spent all our savings on lotto tickets!"
So BTC is your equivalent of a stable store of value (aka savings) and stocks are lotto tickets? thefuck? It would go like this: "Lois, I just put all our lotto tickets into the savings account!" The tickets are already bought, the only question is what they are worth when the numbers are drawn, and if you think its possible to pick 10 publicly traded large retailers that will all rise/fall with even a TENTH the amplitude that BTC does, good fucking luck. His idea has plenty of holes in it, but so far n
Re:History (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're confusing him with his father Ron Paul. They're both wacko libertarians. But the son is rather less intelligent than the father.
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U.S. currency is backed by full faith and credit of the united states.
Bit coin is backed by full faith and credit of people who participate in bit coin.
Bit coin is just one of (last time I looked) almost 60 crypto currencies.
BTW, he doesn't call himself a libertarian.
From the wiki...
---
There has been some disagreement over whether or not Paul is a libertarian. He has stated that he is "not quite" a libertarian, including in an op-ed article published by USA Today in 2010.[2] He has received criticism from p
Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone can be "principled." Whether those principles make sense or are sane in any way is the tricky part.
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The dollar is good as long as the U.S. is good. If the U.S. economy collapses or goes into hyperinflation- the dollar is going to become worthless.
I understand the difference between treasury bonds and dollars and I understand you can no longer exchange dollars for gold.
The dollar is backed by the us government, government businesses, and us citizens (and to a lesser extent the rest of the world who holds assets valued in dollars). It not as simple as saying "it's a fiat currency backed by nothing".
The US
Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:5, Funny)
...the concept of the "mutual fund".
I can almost smell his clutch burning as he mentally shifts back and forth between "currency must be free of government intervention" and "currency must be backed by gold or silver"...
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:4, Insightful)
... and "colored coins"? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:5, Informative)
To whomever modded the AC troll: you're fucking ignorant.
Colored coins are a method to track the origin of bitcoins, so that a certain set of coins can be set aside and conserved, allowing a party to acknowledge them in various ways. Such coins can be used to represent arbitrary digital tokens, such as stocks, bonds, smart property and so on
Source [stackexchange.com].
Really, if you don't know about the subject, what about you refrain from moderating?
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Libertarians do not believe markets should be totally unregulated. What they do believe is that government regulation should have one goal, which is to increase transparency.
Come on, don't make shit up. That's not the definition of libertarianism, and neither is it the goal of many libertarians.
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure there is. Granted, there's about a zillion forms of Libertarianism, just like everything else. But I'm talking about the currently popular version of it (the form I support), Noe-Classical Libertarianism that bases its economic policy on laissez-faire capitalism. The idea being that individual liberty is more important than most things. Government restrictions of business restrict the liberties of the owners of those businesses. That's why regulation is frowned upon. But whats frequently forgotten is that Libertarian ideals have a fundamental mistrust of both government AND business. Corporations tend to construct deals that mislead individuals and there-by restrict their liberties. Hence the desire for laws that increase transparency. Libertarians support laws that let individuals make informed decisions. They do not support laws that make it illegal for an individual to make a mistake and sign a terrible contract. They just want to ensure that the persons fully aware of what they are signing when they do so.
Remember, one of the largest groups at those "Occupy" rallies were Libertarians. I know it's hard to fit Libertarians into your black and white democrat/republican world view, but the fact is most libertarians are more socially liberal than most democrats... an more fiscally conservative than most republicans. I've been a libertarian since the early 90s and I have to say it's been an honor being hated by both political parties all this time.
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For example, killing and redistributing the wealth of the ten richest Americans would yield roughly $1000 per American. This would be a dramatic decrease in freedom for ten individuals (perhaps an understatement), but a modest increase in freedom for hundreds of milli
quantum libertarian (Score:4, Interesting)
yeah, at Occupy Portland it was a group of 4-5 poly-sci majors dressed in business clothes walking around with "Ron Paul 2012" signs
see, "what is a libertarian?"
then it's chaos...
there are popular definitions, dictionary definitions, academic definitions...then the interest groups who use wedge issues that link certain policies to "libertarian" in popular media...arg!!
chaos! a full-on linguistic apocalypse
so then, it becomes a nothing word...sort of like a quantum particle in a state of quantum flux...Schodinger's Libertarian if you will
it's not until the "libertarian" is forced to **define policies they support** that we open up the system and see if the Cat is really a democrat or republican or just ignorant of how the government works in general
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Libertarians do not believe markets should be totally unregulated. What they do believe is that government regulation should have one goal, which is to increase transparency.
Come on, don't make shit up. That's not the definition of libertarianism, and neither is it the goal of many libertarians.
Actually the GP is correct. Most libertarians believe that government should provide basic services (police, fire, military, etc) and provide regulations that create a level playing field. They believe in minimalist government, not no government. Transparency would be a major component of a level playing field.
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Define basic services. I've had libertarians on here say that fire services should be provided by the private sector and anyone who can't afford to pay should spend what little free time they have after working 80 hours a week just to feed their kids as a volunteer fireman. A lot of people would argue that things like education and healthcare are also basic services since they contribute to the well-being of the nation.
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... I've had libertarians on here say that fire services should be provided by the private sector and anyone who can't afford to pay should spend what little free time they have after working 80 hours a week just to feed their kids as a volunteer fireman.
So your view on libertarians is based on slashdot posts?
Libertarians actually running for office say things like this about fire services:
"I advocate consolidation of local fire departments in the county, into a single well coordinated organization to address the growing need for larger response teams and more specialized training. This can be done most efficiently in a county run Fire Department modeled after the combined Fire Authority created for Brighton City, Genoa Township and Brighton Township."
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Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:5, Insightful)
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To risk getting into an iterative conversation. Almost everyone believes in that; there's just disagreement on the definition of injustice. Just look at Snowden where views on justice range from wanting him hung to wanting him to return home a hero with the highest honours in the land.
A fire department would not fit many people's view of injustice. Why is it an injustice for the poor to be unable to
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I don't think he thinks we should legally require that any currency be backed by Gold and Silver, he just thinks its a good idea.
Gold has no more intrinsic value than Bitcoin. The physical demand for gold as a conductor, plating material, and for jewelry is a tiny fraction of the amount we pull out of the ground. Its value is entirely backed by its rareness, which is exactly the same as Bitcoin.
The next bit is a little harder to grasp, but I promise you it is worth your time to seriously reflect on: The value of gold is subject to extreme fluctuations (look at the past 30 years). That means if you peg your currency to it, your currency will fluctuate in value. Fluctuations in the value of a currecy make it less reliable as a temporary store of wealth. That, in turn, increases the friction on trade in that currency. Pegging the dollar to gold would make the US less productive internally because of reduced consumer confidence, and encourage the world to shift away from using the dollar as the dominant currency for international trade.
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Breaking News: Rand Paul Invents... (Score:4, Informative)
Another person that doesn't understand Libertarian ideals.
To be fair, that's because the definition of Libertarianism changes depending on who you ask. As the old joke about economists goes, ask 10 Libertarians what Libertarianism is and you'll get 20 answers.
The one I've heard most often is basically the radical capitalism version from David Friedman, in his book The Machinery of Freedom. If you somehow have superior credentials to Mr. Friedman, well I'd ask what the hell you are doing arguing on Slashdot among many other things.
Anyway, that version is all about a tiny government and replacing more services formerly provided by the government with competition, typically competing corporations. Through the magic of competition, according to him, all that other stuff just sorts out, since if you aren't happy with service X provided by contractor/corporation Y, then seek another bid/payment for services more to your liking. Fire protection, hospitals, national defense, schools, groceries, legal system, etc. all with no regulation or oversight, entirely existing on their reputations in the free market, competing with one another for your business with enlightened self-interest as the check.
Of course, this is totally unworkable in the real world and he admits as much in the closing chapters. Things like how impossible it would be to build national infrastructure without the eminent domain powers of government (e.g. somebody's property is getting "stolen" against their will), how lawsuit happy such a society would be (to people who counter that whatever contract you sign is binding... right, that's why ALL contracts in the business world are NEVER disputed, right?).
All your other variations seem like Libertarians realizing the pure form is BS and theoretical only.
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Yep, they are worth at least the value of the company's assets minus liabilities. Market pressures can make the stock price lower than that value... might be a good opportunity to buy.
Stocks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stocks have no more intrinsic value than our paper currency.
Re:Stocks? (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing has "intrinsic value". Stuff is worth stuff to people depending on what they are prepared to pay for it.
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Nothing has "intrinsic value".
Other than fresh water, oxygen, shelter, and sustenance, anyway.
Re:Stocks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stocks? (Score:4, Informative)
Precise value can be subjective, but things which are useful just because they're there have intrinsic value, even if it isn't very much. So says my dictionary.
Violence. (Score:5, Interesting)
Violence (and any means increasing the potential violence an actor has at his disposal) has intrinsic value.
In fact, in any system with potentially malicious actors, a currency must be backed by some degree of violence. Otherwise, the malicious actor can just take the currency by force (if he considers it valuable).
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Stocks have no more intrinsic value than our paper currency.
Incorrect. If I buy a share in PepsiCo, I then receive a tiny fraction of the profit of EVERY single Pepsi sold on earth. That's work. That's economic production. The share has "intrinsic value" because it gives me access to their profits. This is also why, at it's core, the stock market is not a casino (although government regulation and crony capitalism make stock purchases much more like a "bet").
I think the whole crypto currency thing will evolve into more of a stock market type of thing, with comp
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Only if the company chooses to pay a dividend, which is by no means certain.
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Apple "famously" didn't pay dividends under Steve Jobs, but they most certainly do now under Cook.
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This is what makes what he was saying seem actually 'crazy'... He doesn't seem to understand how the stock market works at its most absolute basic level (much less dark pool arbitrage.)
Scary, because when you listen to him he tends to seem much smarter than the average congressman (certainly a backhanded compliment if ever there was one...)
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Maybe if you only let him run his mouth for a minute or two. Give him 5 minutes, and he'll say something crazy every time. The nut didn't fall far from the tree.
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"Intrinsic": I do not think it means what he thinks it means.
Owning a stock means you own part of a company (Score:2)
A stock means that you own part of a company. The company itself may own land, computers, factories, etc. (It could even own guns and gold! yeehaw!) Those have intrinsic value, so the stock does also.
This is why stocks are recommended for people concerned about inflation. A fall in the value of paper money typically does not affect stocks as much as most other instruments.
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This is critically important, and, frankly, given the books that Ron Paul (and invariably, Rand Paul) have read and worked on, I'm not sure why he'd say something like this.
Nobody in modern libertarian/an-cap thought thinks there is intrinsic value to any currency or any commodity
So, I'm not sure what he's doing here. He's quoting Hayek.. but the later writers made it pretty clear that intrinsic value was a non-concept... maybe saying "intrinsic value" was a mental gaffe on the part of Rand Paul...and he m
But Rand, stocks don't have real value! (Score:3, Insightful)
At least ones that don't pay dividends.
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone explain how this isn't silly? He wants it backed by intrinsic value, which I think may be missing the point of Bitcoin, and his example of the perfect thing with intrinsic value is "stocks"?
I'm sure this guy has some fans who can explain why this makes sense, but it just seems like more evidence that he's completely out of touch and doesn't know what he's talking about.
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The only difference being that the US Gov will only accept taxes in US dollars, which means that along with being worth what people think they are worth, they are also worth your tax liability.
Bitcoin is only worth what people trading it think it is worth.
It makes sense to me (Score:2)
Stocks do have intrinsic value because owning a stock is equivalent to owning a company, and all the company owns (factories, farmland, guns, whatever). Bitcoin, on the other hand, has no intrinsic value.
Partly because of this, stocks are also much less volatile than bitcoin and are better at being a store o
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
In a kind of theoretical sense that's true, but in practice the ownership theory of stock value only is really workable for large stockholders, who could actually force decisions to be made, such as selling off assets. If you own 100 shares of Google, you do have a claim on Google's assets if it's ever liquidated, but you have no ability to force the liquidation. Your theoretical claim may therefore be indefinitely deferred (even for a century or more), which greatly reduces its present value as a tangible commodity with intrinsic value.
For the foreseeable future, the only real value of Google shares that you can actually realize is the market value, i.e. what someone else is willing to pay for the stock. Apart from selling the stock on the stock market, for whatever someone is willing to pay you, there is really no practical way to turn 100 Google shares into anything else of value. So I view them as having mainly market value, with a weak, distant connection to something of intrinsic value.
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Currently any competition in currency is illegal.
Alternative currencies are legal [forbes.com], as long as they are paper money and not coins (and don't resemble US dollars).
Bad idea, backed by something is bitcoin death... (Score:2)
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What the hell? (Score:2)
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Yes.
Next question?
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that this is a classic "inside the corporate bubble" reaction to bitcoin. One of the supposed ideas of bitcoin is to not link money to governments. Since corporations are super-important to mindless bots like Rand Paul, the solution is, of course, to link them to corporations. If there is anything worse than linking the monetary system to governments, if you would be linking them the corporations that even worse about selfishness and tilting the playing field towards themselves at all costs.
Re:Problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
As the bigger problem here, Paul's solution to this "problem" would effectively allow third parties to create equity in a company out of thin air. Something tells me Walmart/IBM/whomever wouldn't take kindly to every Bitcoin miner on the planet diluting their stock value.
This would only work if it functioned essentially like corporate scrip, where Walmart alone could create Bitcoins, and they could then give customers their change in BTC. Even then, they probably wouldn't want to do so, because again, it directly dilutes their stock - Or put another way, it makes "giving change" roughly equivalent to paying a microdividend (albeit in the form of a liability whose value they have some influence over, equity in themselves).
Backwards (Score:2)
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You've described price stability, not value.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Bitcoin technology (Score:2)
Looks like as far as Rand is concerned, the technology of Bitcoin has been accepted... double spend problems etc... now he is worried about 'intrinsic value'.
While tying it to stocks is only one idea, tying it to something 'may' reduce volatility in pricing... but what?
I like Bitcoin as it is. But a second new coin tied to 'something' could be an interesting spin-off... The new IPO coins are usually tied to Bitcoins themselves...
I always wanted to do a 'Just-Dice' investment coin. Your coin purchase becomes
Sure... (Score:2)
Maybe something proven like mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO) then we can all don our black tennis shoes and board the mother ship.
Quite possibly exactly wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Bitcoin is a joke at this point and trying to fix it with anything risks the anything, but even if it wasn't, Rand Paul may be completely, diametrically wrong with this idea. I found this article to be well worth a read, almost ten years ago:
http://mises.org/daily/1595
Good fun read, but it takes on the nearest equivalent economic situation involving a currency under siege.
Uhhhhm, yeah . . . (Score:2)
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And what makes him think... (Score:2)
... that stocks have any intrinsic value?
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This maybe good news ! (Score:2)
The more people like Rand Paul show they do not understand BTC the more likely BTC will be a success. :)
Not stocks (Score:2)
I'd back it up with the rack, or the guillotine.
Cluelessness on full display. (Score:2, Interesting)
The best way to describe bitcoin in the stocks world is like the thirdparty stock registrars. Most people do not take possession of stock certificates or even bond certificates when they buy those instruments. Typically a thirdparty company maintains a register where it takes "possession" of the stocks on your behalf, a
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No, you missed his point.
His argument is that a programmer can't make up something of value out of nothing, only Obama can print money. So he suggests using bitcoin as a proxy for some other asset, e.g. stock. But you need to purchase the stock first and offer to trade the asset-backed proxy afterward; then the transactions you describe make sense.
And those who say stock doesn't have intrinsic value are stuck in the dot com bubble. Many companies tried to claim huge book value by claiming "good will" as an
Stocks have no value.... (Score:2)
I cant trade them in for pieces of the company, they are as worthless as the paper they are printed on. Want proof? See what happened to all the money people had in stocks during the last crash. Hell I have framed on my wall a Certificate for Pan American Airlines Stock that is 100% worthless.
You want your currency to actually have worth, you back it with Gold.
No the gold standard is not a good idea (Score:3)
I cant trade them in for pieces of the company...
That's because stock shares ARE pieces of the company. It is literally a share in ownership and a claim to a portion of the assets controlled by that company including future free cash flows.
Hell I have framed on my wall a Certificate for Pan American Airlines Stock that is 100% worthless.
But you seem to completely misunderstand why it is worthless. The stock certificate holds no value just like the paper in a dollar bill has no significant value. It's the assets it gives you claim to that have value. Companies most certainly have value while they exist and are generating cash flows. Think of owning
Rand Paul - Next Great Idea? (Score:2)
Dear Rand Paul,
Maybe we should back gold with a basket of stocks too?
Thanks.
Rand Paul invents new currency (Score:2)
Rand Paul invents new currency called the SPIDERCOIN. It will be pegged to the S&P 500's value..... and wait am minute this already exists. (See stock symbol SPY.) Why would I buy crypto currency that is just a stock pool sounds like an awfully complicated way to set up an ETF.
No such thing as intrinsic value (Score:2)
According to the Austrian school of economics, there is no such thing as intrinsic value. This starting from Carl Menger, on his book "The origins of Money" https://mises.org/books/origin... [mises.org]
Naming Hayec (another Austrian economist) and intrinsic value in the same breath is an oxymoron, and actually if you look at Rand Paul's quote, he does not mention intrinsic value either.
Value is subjective, it exists _only_ in the mind o
It's a solution for an imaginary problem (Score:2)
Bearer Bonds (Score:2)
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Like 'real' money is backed up by anything.
British bank notes have a recursive backup. It says on them "“I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ” then the amount, e.g. "..five pounds".
(Though this is pointless today it did mean something when the currency was backed by gold)
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Well, it's not recursive, it's just multi layered. British bank notes are not money. They are IOUs. The promise on them is a promise to give the owner of the note some coins. The coins themselves used to be backed by gold, the notes did not. Recursion would imply that the BoE could pay the IOU written on the bank note using other bank notes, which they can't.
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Recursion would imply that the BoE could pay the IOU written on the bank note using other bank notes, which they can't.
Actually I think they could ... notes are legal tender which means they are legally acceptable for settling debts
Re:'Real' money uhu (Score:5, Insightful)
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BitCoin's intrinsic value is a massive groundswell of anti-authoritarianism.
I hope not. Each generation typically chooses their own different expression of anti-authoritarianism. You make bitcoin sound like the current youthful generation's fad, something they will grow out of and the next will not take up.