Electricity per transaction is an extremely poor way to communicate anything useful. It says nothing about the actual harm of Bitcoin and only leaves readers (and bloggers) drawing their own conclusions.
why is it a poor way to communicate anything useful?
if sending someone a dollar through venmo costs $0.0000001 worth of electricity and sending someone a dollar through the bitcoin network costs $1 doesn't that communicate everything you need to know?
Probably because twice the amount of transactions do require as much energy as half of the amount of transactions or as much energy as no transactions at all, i.e. Bitcoin's energy usage depends on the difficulty of mining a block which is not affected by the number of transactions in a block.
> i.e. Bitcoin's energy usage depends on the difficulty of mining a block which is not affected by the number of transactions in a block.
Only if the transactions do not have any fee. If they have a transaction fee, this indirectly increases the difficulty of mining future blocks (since the miners get more Bitcoin per block, they can use more energy per block before their expected net return is negative, and they are incentivized to do so through competition with other miners; the Bitcoin difficulty adjustment then notices the increase in hash rate and increases the difficulty).
In your example, you are giving concrete numbers. Concrete numbers are extremely useful. If you make a comparison without concrete numbers, it can often be misleading. It goes without saying that concrete numbers can be misleading on their own. It can be quite difficult to nail down rules for honest communication.
There are a lot of terrible things that we use or were using. I don't want to sound mean, but Windows 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 were not that great. Not to mention Windows Millennium Edition.
Think of all that electricity wasted because people could not get their work done, they had to stay longer in the office wasting water, electricity, getting frustrated, etc.
And that's all because Bill's mom was working in IBM management.
But, how to estimate the waste of traditional currency? US dollar is based on Capitalism and the weapons. Should we count the price to maintain these two factors? Capitalism is almost built on the balance of wasting resource and incoming. Should we count the waste in market? Developed countries keep QE to spread the debt into global market. Should we count the side effect of QE? As citizen of developed countries, we take the benefits of traditional money and we control it. It is good for us as government or corporation, but may not be good for individual.
Most home buyers waive inspection contingencies. The market is one big fomo frenzy for the past decade when fed artificially suppressed interest rates below inflation. I bet home buyers would happily ignore reading any pamphlet explaining their risks related to natural disasters.
Outside of the Bay Area, and maybe a few other especially hot real estate markets, I’m sure that isn’t true.
I’m in the process of buying a home in Washington and my agent says she’s never had a client waive the inspection contingency unless they’re buying a cheap fixer-upper to flip.
I’ve participated (as a bystander, thank goodness) in some recent home offers in Washington where all contingencies (including inspection and financing) were expected to be waived if you wanted to win the bid. These were neither cheap nor fixer-uppers, but they were in central Seattle.
Edit: Also, the expectation was auto-escalating offers, eBay style. The owner set a date to take offers and picked the best one.
Buying in a developed city in the U.S. has historically been a different set of concerns than buying rural. One could generally assume that the environment is managed by the city and state, so that floods would not reach your home and wildfires would be stopped at the city limits; insurance was for accidents and freak events (hailstorms, quakes, electrical fires). Due to both developmental sprawl and the decay of state and federal infrastructure, one can no longer assume a home is in such a controlled environment so, buyers (and insurers!) have some lessons to learn.
A good example of the kind of change I’m talking about is development in 100-year flood plains in Houston[0]. 30 years ago, a naive home buyer would not have had to worry about it, because flood plains were off limits. What changed? Greedy developers? Ignorant planners? More population? Perhaps all of it. But now you have to be educated to make the right call.
30 years ago, building in flood plains had been an established routine for decades in Texas, and all over the United States.
Using Houston as an example, 50 to 100 years ago it was the norm to bring in fill dirt from other regions, flatten and grade a piece of land, and construct a gridded residential neighborhood with total disregard for natural drainage. Flooding was dealt with by artificially channelizing bayous and streams, which is why Houston's urban waterways look so unnatural. Many of these older neighborhoods along the gulf coast were unsustainable and are not being rebuilt after hurricanes.
Starting around 30 years ago, local, state and federal policymakers started to get a clue. Neighborhoods were more commonly build to accomodate the drainage patterns -- this is why developments from the 1990's, 2000's tend to have large retention ponds, (example: https://www.google.com/maps/@29.5517845,-95.4295706,3a,75y,2... )
This was definitely the case a few years ago in Seattle. The understanding was that homes would be on the market for a week and any inspections prior to waived-contingency bids would happen during that week. Everyone knew the offers were all as-is.
Aside from the stress of weekly rushes to view, inspect, bid, and bid-up, the process primarily compressed the entire process into a short period of time. The biggest inefficiency was that essentially all buyers were forced to become journeyman experts at the compressed-time process.
It is a frustrating experience. My market is starting to develop into this, in large part because of Seattle buyers flooding inland. That said, it is better than some of the alternatives. There are other highly-competitive markets where houses just never come on the market - instead they get sold in pocket listings and the only way to buy a house is to canvas a neighborhood or be in tight with an agent who is farming neighborhoods. It's ideal if houses actually come to market, the market can decide the value, and it's supply / demand that is making it possible for houses to be sold on such a short time-table. It's a better dynamic all around though than having houses sit, potentially vacant, for months and months and/or increasing the challenges where buyers want to move and may even have a house under offer but can't get their current house sold. Liquidity in the housing market is ultimately a good thing for buyers and sellers.
Agreed. Liquidity is good. The pocket listings may not be optimizing price for the seller, though they may minimize hassle.
It seems like it is healthiest for homes to be on the market for about two weeks. Part of the trouble with short-duration listings is that it is a high-stakes version of the optimal-stopping problem. I think a little more holistic visibility into the market's offerings might yield better matches between buyers and homes.
Choosing an abode for the next few decades amidst weekly auto-escalation bidding wars just doesn't seem healthy for the future dwellers.
There is no way I'd buy anything rural without extensive inspection of well and septic, foundation, property, etc.
In the last 15 years I've purchased in both Toronto and in rural Ontario with the full set of conditions; financing, inspection, etc. As a buyer I simply won't do it otherwise. We have a 6 acre hobby farm near Hamilton.
But I also just don't bother to go look at properties with language in the text like "Accepting offers on...". We won't play the multiple offers game. In Toronto maybe this is the only way to get a home, but we were able to avoid it there back in 2005 by just hunting in areas that weren't "cool."
My experience is there's always almost other places that come up, where the seller has more scruples.
We might sell our hobby farm soon. I would fully expect any potential buyer to demand inspection.
Real estate agent here, can confirm inspection contingencies are very much so a market and individual house decision. I'd also say it depends a lot on the buyer. For example - first time buyer, I'd always encourage them to do an inspection as they are going to learn a lot about being a homeowner from the experience. Someone who has a number of investment properties and knows houses inside and out? They might be able to get all the info they need with just a walk-through.
As I understand it, in competitive urban markets it has become common for sellers to do a pre-inspection and then sell / provide that info for interested parties. This potentially makes for a faster sale and may create a more competitive situation if more potential buyers see less risk in the condition of the house and are willing to make an offer. But, at least in my state, anything a seller learns about the condition of their home must be disclosed so this could also backfire.
Any time you can remove a contingency in a competitive situation it will be a potential advantage, but caveat emptor all day long - sellers seldom have a complete understanding of their home and property so it is to the buyer's best interest to do everything they can to inform themselves before completing the purchase.
We lost a bid on at least one house in Washington, DC, back about 2004 because we had an inspection contingency and another party didn't. Maybe we'd have lost it on an escalation clause the way things were back then.
Economists define the natural interest rate as "the interest rate that supports the economy at full employment/maximum output while keeping inflation constant"[wikipedia]
For the last decade we've seen very little time at full employment and absolutely no accelerating inflation by any standard measure. So by any textbook definition of a natural interest rate we've been keeping interest rates too high.
You're an idiot if you haven't realized the relationship between QE and US treasury interest rates across the curve. You're an even bigger idiot if you don't understand the relationship between UST interest rates and every other interest rate.
I think the issue is a little more interesting than the popular diatribe.
Agreed interest rates are at an all time low. At the same time, the supply of loans is at an all time high, thanks to new (old) mechanisms like loan securitization being thoroughly commoditized.
Discuss - why shouldn't the price of loans (interest rates) be subject to the laws of supply and demand just like everything else?
A $1,000 1 yr bond is a promise to a $1,000 in 1 year. If you'd pay $500 for it than the interest rate is 100%. If you bid it up to $750 than interest rates drop to 33%.
If the Fed comes along and buys loans from the Banking system it increases the supply of loans... (banks are restricted by Basel Capital regulation in the supply of loans they can provide, otherwise too much liability money creation.)
If they buy loans from anybody else - since the Fed creates money to do so (by virtue of also being a bank), they again potentially increase the supply of loans, if the lenders then relend the money.
And the total quantity of debt goes up, its price goes down, and everybody wonders why.
Most inspections are "pay us <stupid_number> to point out the obvious and we don't include <list of anything that requires more than just walking around the house eyeballing things to determine> and our liability limited to <price of inspection>". It's no surprise people wave them.
The home inspector I use gives me a booklet that is often hundreds of pages long and includes photos and detailed descriptions of every problem found as well as recommended remedies and ongoing maintenance requirements.
I've never needed to call anyone else so I just assumed they were all like this.
Maybe that's your experience if you go with your Realtor's "suggested" inspector. Again, most home buyers probably just go this route since no one really cares about quality any more.
I researched my own inspector and chose a very technical retired engineer. He identified significant issues with the home that resulted in the price being reduced by 15%. You're an idiot if you waive inspections.
Home inspections are a well known "easy money and no risk" side gig for general contractors in my area. They're all crap but I guess if you need someone to point out what's gonna need work in the next 2-20yr it's better than nothing.
I don't need a home inspector. Short of catastrophic fire or flood there's nothing about a home I wouldn't just fix myself. The problem is the people who need someone to inspect the home for them don't know how to find a good inspector.
In the hot markets (e.g. bay area), homes already have an inspection done and all potential buyers are able to look at the inspection report. In that case waiving inspection contingencies is not as wild/crazy as it sounds.
Twitter allows all sorts of garbage claims about Trump from mainstream media sources which simply cite "anonymous sources". Most recently the NYTimes claimed to have Trumps tax returns - without evidence verifying the authenticity. Over the last few years, Russiagate relied almost entirely on "anonymous sources" - and we all know how that turned out.
The conclusion of the investigation was that it wasn't reasonable to indict a sitting President not that nothing illegal happened. In fact, the wording danced right up to the fact that something illegal did happen but the President can't be charged while in office.
Rent is not the same thing as house prices. Additionally, it's imputed rent - not actual rent. The fed released their own study just the other week showing that if house prices were included in the cpi as they were in the past, cpi would be drastically higher.
Right - but this neglects the fact that the US has printed an enormous amount of dollars to finance an incredible amount of spending. So sure - the purchasing power is on par with other countries, but those other countries haven't had the luxury of printing trillions to finance themselves.
As someone who's lived through significant inflation in his lifetime, American's are ill prepared. In my experience, the government will do everything possible to hide the fact that inflation is even happening. "Official measures" of inflation won't begin to capture the problem until the damage is already done. People buying debt at these absurdly low interest rates have, quite frankly, lost their minds.
There's not many options to protect yourself either. Stocks? Maybe, but a lot of companies will go bankrupt. Gold? Maybe - but if you're investing in paper gold it likely won't be there when you need it...if you're attempting to hold physical it can be easily stolen.
Preparing for this the second time in my life, I'm opting for Bitcoin and real estate (with nice fixed-rate mortgage debt to purchase). Fingers crossed...
Real estate and gold always work out, as long as you don't need to cash out without any hindsight.
Bitcoin makes no sense,it wasn't a good store of value when things were stable and it won't be when things are unstable. It's a bet, and every cent put into it should be a cent you're willing to lose.
Default safe stocks are probably the safest thing to put your money into, spread it all over the top index instead of one or two bets. If the entire top index fails, then you have bigger problem anyway because the economy of your country has disappeared
If you had bought a hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin back in April of 2011 (parity with the US dollar) and sold it at it's most recent all time low on December 16th 2018 you would have $320,000. If you sold it today you would have $971,900. Volatile? yes. Good long term store of value? All available data indicates yes.
> People buying debt at these absurdly low interest rates have, quite frankly, lost their minds.
how does this jive with
> I'm opting for...and real estate (with nice fixed-rate mortgage debt to purchase)
Honestly, I don't have a finical background. But isn't a mortgage just buying debt that is slowly paid off. I don't think real estate is a terrible strategy, but it does not always raise in value. 2008 was a reminder of that for a lot of people.
Another way to think of it (sadly) is that companies that are over-levered can do well, since their income stream is in real value, but their debts are in dollars. If you want to cynically think America is kleptocracy for the elite, and the elite are heavily invested into over-levered companies managed by PE firms, then you might even expect this to happen for their sake.
I strongly considered purchasing gold. I don't trust the paper-gold markets. I just don't know how to store it safely in my apartment. Bitcoin for sure has its faults...but for whatever reason I feel safe with it.
> Stocks? Maybe, but a lot of companies will go bankrupt.
Exchange traded funds aren't that vulnerable to individual drop outs.
> ...if you're attempting to hold physical it can be easily stolen
If your only argument against physical gold is an inadvertent change of ownership then I have good news: They offer insured safe deposits now for a couple of bucks :)
Yea, maybe an insured safe deposit box is the way to go. I'm not pretending to know the way to survive what's headed our way. There's a lot I like about bitcoin, but I don't know that it's the right choice. Just my personal decision.
Safe deposit box: an asset of the bank in case of liquidation, the contents is not yours when you'd most need it.
Insured: Also a counterparty risk: solvability of the insurance company.
At least here where I live (Germany) deposit content is not an asset of the bank (“Sondervermögen”). It cannot be used for liquidation if things go south for the bank. I assume this is true for most parts of the globe.
Why are you confident that your bitcoin will be there when you need it? Have you followed all 793 (and counting) steps in the latest 'how to secure your bitcoin' guide? Epoxied all your USB ports? Buried your private key backup USB stick in your garden under the birdbath? etc etc etc...
It's not that hard to secure Bitcoin these days with a hardware wallet like Ledger. If you use a passphrase, you don't even really have to worry about your recovery phrase being stolen (although it would be a good idea to move your coins).
Luckily I was young and didn't have much to lose. We didn't experience hyperinflation, maybe something like 40-50% change in prices. I was hourly at the time but it took a while before I felt like my purchasing power was back to being on-par with what it was prior. When people started to feel prices were rising, everyone ran out to buy electronics -- tvs, stereos, anything. The hope was they'd be able to re-sell them at a good price. I've learned that inflation is uneven - it doesn't uniformly increase prices everywhere. In the US I just watch the charts of M1.
The point is to have a large amount of fixed-rate debt that'll evaporate due to inflation. If there's another asset class I can borrow money at a fixed-rate of 3.25% I'd love to hear it.
Ah, the time old argument of “two wrongs make a right!”
China is systemically stealing IP from European companies, research from European universities, and forcing labor into a race to the bottom. Europeans would be wise to stand with Trump on this.
There is nothing wise about "standing with Trump" on any issue. His impact on allies is a kin of a moped doing figure 8s on a pigsty.
And no country stands with Trump on anything. At most they stand with the current US administration, which happens to be presided by Trump. Trump the citizen is repellent and has no redeeming qualities.
And by the way, Europe has its best interests in mind, and the current US administration already made it quite clear that the US under the Trump administration is a highly unreliable ally, and even a potential liability that's compromised by Europe's current biggest threat.
That's your high bar on Trump's reliability with regard to EU's vital interests.
I don't need to explain the sheer idiocy of complaining about the EU's... skeptical attitude towards the Trump administration in general, and Trump specifically.
I think you’re confused - NATO isn’t an alliance if the US is the only one putting in any effort. Trumps specific complaint is (from your own article):
> complained about the defence spending of European allies who committed less than the agreed 2% to defence, particularly Germany
The US wants the alliance, it’s the Europeans who feel they don’t need it (since they aren’t fulfilling their obligations).
