
Don't Be Silly, The Entitlement State Won't Allow Bitcoin - rubikscube
http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/06/04/dont-be-silly-the-entitlement-state-wont-allow-bitcoin/
======
Sealy
Oh yes they will. And no, they won't like it at all.

The more they try to stop bitcoin, the more it will succeed. Why? Because of
the network effect it is built upon. The more people hear about it, the
stronger it gets.

If the US tries to block bitcoin. Opponents such as Russia and China will do
the opposite. Why? Because the US will shoot itself in the foot. They will
automatically lock themselves out of a rapidly growing economy currently worth
$1.5BN.

US Government, take note of a simple fact: Tax evasion existed before bitcoin,
and it will continue to exist regardless of if you accept bitcoin.

To the people. The more the government takes note of bitcoin, the more you
should. They are worried because at last, they cannot control YOUR hard earned
money or dilute it. Let me remind you about how much the fed has devalued the
US dollar since the financial crisis... trillions.

~~~
dagw
_they cannot control YOUR hard earned money or dilute it_

If that's your worry, how are bitcoins different or better than investing
gold, oil, Euros, Swiss Francs or any of the other myriad of options available
to you that cannot be diluted by the US fed?

~~~
rubikscube
Try using those as currency, i.e. in the USA.

~~~
dagw
Get a Visa card tied to your Euro or Swiss Franc bank account and then just
use it like any other Visa card.

------
leohutson
The author Henry Binswanger's personal statement:

>I defend laissez-faire capitalism, using Ayn Rand's Objectivism.

Why not keep an open mind? This sort of personal statement seems more apt for
a religious proselytiser than a Philosopher.

Anyway, the article is not worth reading, just a political polemic without any
worthwhile thought about the actual issue he raises, what effect will a
cryptocurrency have on tax enforcement?

~~~
lake99
Right, because anyone who agrees with anything in Objectivism must be a
polemicist.

Your question is like reading an article by someone advocating the end of
slavery, and you ask, "but who is going to do my work for me then?"

Perhaps you won't realize how apt my comparison is until you read at least
this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_slavery>

I hope you realize that as long as a government has a monopoly on money, they
don't need to tax you at all.

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gonvaled
"No leftist, or even middle-of-the-road, government will accept that."

It is funny that the author equates left-leaning with freedom limiter. In
reality, a left-leaning government limits economic freedoms, and a right-
leaning government limits social freedoms. A virtual currency is not only a
threat to economic control but, since economics underpin the rest of social
interactions, it is a direct threat on social policy monopoly. So it is also a
threat to right-leaning governments.

So it is not the entitlement state which will fight bitcoin but, quite simply,
"The State". It doesn't follow the state will succeed.

"When men are free to choose, they choose gold."

Ha! Those men who are free to choose, pay as little a wage as possible to some
other poor bastard who will sell his time in order to perform all tasks
related to arcane metal verification, so that he can be halfway certain that
their gold is really gold, that it is properly stored, and that it is properly
handled during transfers (to pay for things, otherwise what is the point?).
They will also pay journalists to write articles about how great gold is.

For _any_ men to choose freely, technology must come helping, to lower the
costs of handling the value storage. Bitcoin is here for that. Maybe rich men
will continue to hoard gold, but the cost of doing so will be much higher than
those of handling bitcoins. So, one would assume, at some point rich men will
do their math and switch to bitcoin. Of course, not before all risks
associated with bitcoin have been cleared - rich men are very conservative
with regards of where to put their savings, prefering high fees (which they
make up for with their multiple businesses, or government association) to
uncertainty. Later, when they move to bitcoin, they will sing the "I-knew-
this-bitcoing-thing-would-fly-and-was-there-since-the-beginning" song.

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rtpg
Somebody made the point before, but bitcoin is great for the gov't. Because it
allows it to have a complete record of your spending with enough warrants.
Because at one point in the chain someone will have to turn the bitcoin into
USD. The "anonymity" argument is useless because you'll get linked at the "get
dollars" phase.

Obviously the idea is that if everyone uses bitcoins then nobody will use
dollars, but in that case the gov't just decides to declare bitcoins currency,
and tax things as usual.

In a universe where everyone is using bitcoin, the global economy will be
pretty fucked though, considering that everybody would be in a de facto
liquidity trap (since inflation would no longer exist). But so long as
property tax exists, that issue might not come up.

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quchen
> Consider the attraction of bitcoin and the like. People are [...] are
> willing to try a virtual currency backed by nothing, so long as they believe
> that its supply will remain relatively stable

Well, Bitcoin may not be backed by anything, but neither is gold.

~~~
robertskmiles
Well, gold does have actual value for its industrial and aesthetic
applications.

~~~
quchen
Gold's value, like anything else, is (only) that people are interested in
trading it.

The reason for that can be manifold, as you mentioned there may be other uses
for the material. But then, Bitcoin also has some of these properties: you may
not be able to wear it around your finger, but you can display your digital
wealth online quite easily, which may not be so far-fetched in an age that
seems to move everything online.

What I meant to say was "as soon as you declare Bitcoin having no intrinsic
value, you'll introduce premises that will make it hard to attribute anything
else such a value without a no-end argument".

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commentzorro
WTF is this crap. Is the author really implying the government decisions have
anything to do with Democrats? I guess the US would be on the "Bitcoin
Standard" if the 'pubes had won the election?!

