

Large German lobby organization supports ban on Bitcoins - gst
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=11061.0

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dmethvin
> The real economy must not become a monopoly game.

So says the banker with the monacle.

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jgoewert
You probably knew this, but that statement is a bad mistranslation: "Die reale
Wirtschaft darf nicht zum Monopoly-Spiel werden." = "The real economy must not
become a Monopoly game." (note the capital M in Monopoly).

He isn't saying that bitcoin shouldn't monopolize the economy, he is saying
that funny colored bills shouldn't be the economy. What the difference a
capitalization makes...

However, can anyone point me at what a "real" economy is in the first place?
Rare near-useless metal hauled from the depths of the ear = real economy? Rare
near-useless bits hauled from the depths of the internet = no real economy?

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jambo
I understood this in the original parent's comment from "monopoly game", and I
suspect the original parent understood it & meant it that way. Rarely would
those words be used together not meaning the board game. (NB nouns in German
are all capitalized).

In economics, in English, "real economy" refers to the creation of products
and performance services as distinct from financial markets, but it's hard for
me to tell if that's what is meant here.

[edit: fixed my post to refer to the OP ]

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dualogy
Yes, the German "Realwirtschaft" is typically understood in the same way:
production and services separate from financial "products" and services.

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a3_nm
This is surprising. Aren't they aware that this is probably the best publicity
that Bitcoin could hope for?

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coldarchon
Not in Germany. The finance office has made billions recently because nearby
tax havens like Luxembourg and Switzerland were betrayed by bank employees. If
this lobby organization says bitcoin might be abused for tax evasion, money
laundering and illegal transactions, you can be sure many people in Germany
will avoid it. Besides, I think the whole project is pretty naive ..

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drdaeman
> proven means of payment

Yeah, for example, a shared secret (credit card details; shared with everyone
you pay to, or just a random guy behind your shoulder who had a good memory)
is way better than Bitcoin's crypto.

And PayPal works only in some countries and is proven to sometimes ban upright
accounts.

Are there any alternatives to Bitcoin, which are non-discriminating (in a same
way paper cash is) and fairly secure to exchange online? I believe "real
economists" had failed to provide any solution in this field.

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larelli
The so called "lobby organization" says on their website "we are the web" - a
statement which usually pretty much disqualifies one from speaking for anyone
but themselves.

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bitless
is it possible to stay "above board" with bitcoins? i.e., pay capital gains
tax when you cash out, or in someway pay taxes on your bitcoin income?

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gst
I think the complicated decision here is how to classify Bitcoins:

If you treat Bitcoins as currency you would need to state the value of your
Bitcoin income on your tax statement. However, when doing so you would need to
convert the Bitcoin value to your government's local currency, so that taxes
can be calculated. The problem here is that the Bitcoin market is still
relatively small and that you have no guarantee that you can sell a given
amount of Bitcoins at a given price. E.g., you may have earned 100.000 BTC in
a given year. However, when you try to sell all of them on the Bitcoin
exchange markets at the same time, it may be possible that you crash the
market. So you would need to pay taxes in your governments currency for
something that you cannot sell at the estimated price.

On the other side, you could only declare income resulting from selling
Bitcoins for a "real" currency. However, I'm not sure if your government will
allow this, as this would allow for "creative" tax statements. E.g., as a
freelancer you could charge your clients in Bitcoins, but then only convert
Bitcoins to a "real" currency if you need to buy something that cannot be
bought for Bitcoins. So if you would have charged your client in USD, you
would have had to pay a large amount of taxes in a given year. However, by
using Bitcoins, you can delay the payment of those taxes.

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coconutrandom
If it gets to the point you can do a significant number of transactions in
bitcoin, it should hopefully be to a stable exchange rate.

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bhousel
What commodity-based currency has a "stable" exchange rate?

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coconutrandom
Where a thousand units won't move the market?

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Daniel_Newby
This is an attempt at misdirection. If bitcoins take over the monetary system,
they will naturally be stored in banks. No family man would walk around with
his family's rainy day fund in his iPhone. For reasons of practical logistics,
organized crime will use private banks that can be captured and destroyed.

What actually scares the bankers is loss of the ability to control the
discount rate, which is a very legitimate concern. Human psychology being what
it is, all economic systems end up running on credit and suffering from
periodic crises of confidence. A fiat currency can simply print its way out of
a deflationary terror, but a hard currency like bitcoin is well and truly
screwed.

Seriously, how would you possibly bail out a company like AIG if it had
written derivative contracts on bitcoins?

