Reddit mentions of A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II

I am saying that bitcoin is a very successful system, and that it's working according to some rules. Now, everybody who bought bitcoin so far, bought it accepting those rules. What you are saying is that the majority should have the right to impose rule changes on everybody else. Changes SHOULD be difficult. If you want to try something new and exciting, there are a lot of altcoins, and you can easily find something that better fits your needs.


The rule changes you have in mind are beneficial. However, the easier it is to make beneficial changes, the easier it is to introduce malicious changes by special interests. Low consensus points set bad precedents. Someone offline some time ago decided that full consensus is too difficult so let's make it representative democracy, and 50% should be enough so as many awesome ideas as possible get implemented. If you're into bitcoin, chances are that you're using it because you don't like the end result of that process.

Almost nobody NOW believes into removing the 21m cap. But than, 1) I do recommend you read book by Murray Rothbard about how they abolished the gold standard. It makes a fascinating read https://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Banking-United-States/dp/0945466331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482860462&sr=8-1&keywords=history+of+money+in+the+united+states . 2) People who believe that the money must be blessed by a central bank and a government haven’t joined us yet. In the future that is going to change

>Get me a book and I'm more interested.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Banking-United-States/dp/0945466331

You can find a PDF of it for free online.

Okay, maybe acceptance is a requirement, I'll give you that. But there are in fact places that in-game currency is accepted. I've seen players sell forum hosting, voice chat hosting, etc., to other players for in-game currency. I've been on MUDs where players are encouraged to create new content for the server and paid with ingame currency. So clearly these markets where in-game currencies are accepted do exist. Likewise the blackmarket existance of gold farmers itself proves there is a functioning currency exchange to "real" money.

So opium is not money because it is a commodity? Nonsense, commodities have been used as money for hundreds of years.

> In the sparsely settled American colonies, money, as it always does, arose in the market as a useful and scarce commodity and began to serve as a general medium of exchange. Thus, beaver fur and wampum were used as money in the north for exchanges with the Indians, and fish and corn also served as money. Rice was used as money in South Carolina, and the most widespread use of commodity money was tobacco, which served as money in Virginia. The pound-of-tobacco was the currency unit in Virginia, with warehouse receipts in tobacco circulating as money backed 100 percent by the tobacco in the warehouse. - Rothbard, Murray, A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II

No, you really are confused dude. Where are you getting this idea that everyone's wealth is going up at once? Please source this. Explain to me, please, the economic theory here where everyone's relative wealth can all go up together.

Rothbard:

>To gauge the economic effects of inflation, let us see what happens when a group of counterfeiters set about their work. Suppose the economy has a supply of 10,000 gold ounces, and counterfeiters, so cunning that they cannot be detected, pump in 2000 “ounces” more. What will be the consequences? First, there will be a clear gain to the counterfeiters. They take the newly-created money and use it to buy goods and services. In the words of the famous New Yorker cartoon, showing a group of counterfeiters in sober contemplation of their handiwork: “Retail spending is about to get a needed shot in the arm.” Precisely. Local spending, indeed, does get a shot in the arm. The new money works its way, step by step, throughout the economic system. As the new money spreads, it bids prices up–as we have seen, new money can only dilute the effectiveness of each dollar. But this dilution takes time and is therefore uneven; in the meantime, some people gain and other people lose. In short, the counterfeiters and their local retailers have found their incomes increased before any rise in the prices of the things they buy. But, on the other hand, people in remote areas of the economy, who have not yet received the new money, find their buying prices rising before their incomes. Retailers at the other end of the country, for example, will suffer losses. The first receivers of the new money gain most, and at the expense of the latest receivers.

My problem is not that rich people exist, my problem is that too few have the opportunity and the wrong people are rich for the wrong reasons and are FAR richer than they would have been in an actual free market.

I am also concerned because the US is losing its middle class, it is shrinking before our eyes. Statist apologists claim that it is because we are too free. People like you claim that it's not happening.

http://rt.com/usa/news/america-class-study-middle-521/

Between the two of you, it seems I can't win. YES, wealth disparity is increasing. YES, the middle class is shrinking. NO, it's not because of "Reaganomics" and NO the nineteenth century was not impoverished. Go read "The History of Banking in the United States" by Rothbard, learn how the wealth of a nation was stolen throughout US history. It's only gotten worse with the creation of the Federal Reserve. The Fed and Corporate personhood are the engines of wealth creation now and we have NOTHING resembling anywhere CLOSE to a free market. You must have skipped the parts where Rothbard spoke about no multi-regional monopolies ever having been formed without government aid. Do you also happen to believe Standard Oil was a natural consequence of the market? I suspect you do.

You also need to source where you are getting your numbers from. ALSO, the 1890s do NOT represent pre-corporate personhood US, if you believe that you as ignorant as I am beginning to suspect.

Go read a book and leave me alone.

I like him better for all three. He was a great man. You are also misinformed on the third one, because he did not cause the panic of 1837. If you want to learn more on the real reason for this depression and many others, I would begin with Murray Rothbard's History of Money and Banking in the US.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Banking-United-States/dp/0945466331

(Free PDF)
http://mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf