Great post! I want to point out that one of the root issues here is the stock and futures market. This construct has dominated the economy of capitalist nations for over a century, and it's been a disaster. The only situation in which stocks are helpful to the overall economy is when a company sells them to raise capital (and promptly invests it with tangible benefit to production). I think if we counted up all sales of stocks and futures this would be a miniscule amount of total transactions. They're just a tool of speculation now. How many stocks could be paid back within 100 years by actual investor dividends? Again, I'd bet that few stocks could clear that criteria. So the majority of investors make their fortune by speculation, which leads to propaganda, market manipulation, flawed statistics, insider trading, and worst of all, the push for never ending growth. That last one is why the government is always spending and burying jars of money and importing immigrants. I genuinely don't think that free market capitalism can prosper as long as this speculatory fiction holds up.
Anyone with basic common sense can see that resources should be allocated to those who can manage them responsibly.
"when someone works to create things of value, and then transfers that value to someone else, who has done nothing productive to earn it… If the transfer is voluntary, we call it charity. If it’s involuntary, we call it slavery.” This also sounds a lot like socialism.
In the soft-socialist state of Australia, it’s astonishing to see the government’s departure from the core principles of free-market capitalism. It seems they've discarded, with reckless abandon, any notion of limited government or decentralized decision-making. For instance, the Prime Minister recently ‘discovered’ funds in the upcoming Federal Budget to provide a $150 rebate on everyone’s power bill—the same power bill that has tripled in cost since the government began redistributing taxpayer money to the renewable energy sector, with the intention of deindustrialising to appease the climate gods. The rebate, however, is financed through even more debt. And the controlled opposition don’t offer any alternative. It’s all so absurd and counterproductive.
It makes me wonder what’s driving this shift—are they trying to justify and normalize their own lifestyles (living off the pig’s back), or is it simply a blatant attempt to buy votes and hold on to power - a reflection of power’s tendency to corrupt?
Totalitarians believe they're smarter and better than the rest of us. They believe they're more righteous and better qualified to make decisions about how to allocate wealth than anyone else. Beyond that, they're greedy and corrupt and love the opportunity to live large off the hard work of others.
In other words, they believe they're the only ones smart enough and benevolent enough to manage resources responsibly. That's their justification for forcibly redistributing resources. Just like the justification of a slave owner that the slaves are better off under his benevolent care than they would be on their own.
How is the buried bottles of bank notes example different then Bitcoin? Aside from Treasury burying the bottles vs a nongovernmental entity. Honest question. That’s what popped into my head when I read that part.
I'm not sure if I fully understand the question, but I think you're asking about Bitcoin mining?
Bitcoin mining is an unfortunate choice of words. What Bitcoin "miners" actually do is provide security for the Bitcoin network. They make sure that only legitimate transactions get included in the ledger. The incentive for that is the transaction fees paid by Bitcoin users, plus the block subsidy, which is the new Bitcoins that are added to the supply. The block subsidy is a temporary feature that gets cut in half every four years, and will completely disappear eventually. Almost 95% of the total Bitcoin supply has already been issued, so the block subsidy is no longer a significant impact on the total supply. The inflation rate is currently 0.8%, and will continue to fall from there.
The purpose of the block subsidy was to provide a way to bootstrap a completely new monetary network. In the first few years, anyone could mine Bitcoin on their home computer, and get access to Bitcoin that way. At that point, the Bitcoin wasn't very valuable, so it wasn't a huge financial incentive, but just a way for people with interest in the technology to get their hands on some Bitcoin.
I don't know if that answers your question. I don't fully see the similarity between the two scenarios, but that's my understanding of the Bitcoin block reward and its purpose.
My thought was just like the bank note bottles being buried in the ground by some entity, aren’t Bitcoins “buried” in the computer coding functions? So both would have to be mined or dug up so to speak. My question may not make sense because I am not knowledgeable enough about Bitcoin and my understanding of how Bitcoin is “mined” may be causing the confusion.
That's why I don't like the that it's called Bitcoin "mining", it just doesn't accurately reflect what's really going on. Without getting into all the technical details, the Bitcoin isn't just there for the taking. It's pre-programmed to be paid out at a fixed amount every ten minutes, regardless how hard Bitcoin "miners" work to get it. It's a pre-programmed subsidy to reward the miners for securing the network, which is programmed to decrease over time as the value of transactions increases. Eventually the transaction fees will be valuable enough to pay for network security without any additional subsidy needed.
The block subsidy and difficulty adjustment are some of the most ingenious features of Bitcoin, but it's difficult to explain the significance concisely.
That's exactly what it is. You mine out the bitcoin, slightly reducing a bitcoin's individual value, and profiting the surplus. The differences are 1: No one ever claimed that bitcoin mining increases the wealth of a nation. 2: No one is forced (presently) to conduct their business and taxes in bitcoin. And 3: Bitcoin is difficult to mine and there is an eventual limit to its total supply.
Phoenix gave a good answer. I would add that mining is useful to the network as it helps align incentives. Miners who are heavily invested in the requisite hardware have no incentive to cheat and try to add a bad block that would be rejected by the nodes, meaning their electricity and hardware up time would have been wasted. It's more profitable to be honest when you mine a block and only add legitimate transactions. Also, the total hash rate being large serves the secure the network against a 50% + 1 attack.
Government spending can help economic productivity-but not in the way these idiots think. Government spending helps economic productivity by spending money on things like roads that help everyone who uses them become more productive. Of course, in practice, the provision of such public goods is often so corrupt and inefficient as to make the actual benefit questionable, but that's exactly what DOGE is trying to fix. But if you think DOGE is having some negative impact on the economy, focusing on the potential benefits of some research project, highway construction, etc, is the way to do it. Not on the fact that some GS-15 won't buy a new house in Northern Virginia.
Great post! I want to point out that one of the root issues here is the stock and futures market. This construct has dominated the economy of capitalist nations for over a century, and it's been a disaster. The only situation in which stocks are helpful to the overall economy is when a company sells them to raise capital (and promptly invests it with tangible benefit to production). I think if we counted up all sales of stocks and futures this would be a miniscule amount of total transactions. They're just a tool of speculation now. How many stocks could be paid back within 100 years by actual investor dividends? Again, I'd bet that few stocks could clear that criteria. So the majority of investors make their fortune by speculation, which leads to propaganda, market manipulation, flawed statistics, insider trading, and worst of all, the push for never ending growth. That last one is why the government is always spending and burying jars of money and importing immigrants. I genuinely don't think that free market capitalism can prosper as long as this speculatory fiction holds up.
Love your work.
Anyone with basic common sense can see that resources should be allocated to those who can manage them responsibly.
"when someone works to create things of value, and then transfers that value to someone else, who has done nothing productive to earn it… If the transfer is voluntary, we call it charity. If it’s involuntary, we call it slavery.” This also sounds a lot like socialism.
In the soft-socialist state of Australia, it’s astonishing to see the government’s departure from the core principles of free-market capitalism. It seems they've discarded, with reckless abandon, any notion of limited government or decentralized decision-making. For instance, the Prime Minister recently ‘discovered’ funds in the upcoming Federal Budget to provide a $150 rebate on everyone’s power bill—the same power bill that has tripled in cost since the government began redistributing taxpayer money to the renewable energy sector, with the intention of deindustrialising to appease the climate gods. The rebate, however, is financed through even more debt. And the controlled opposition don’t offer any alternative. It’s all so absurd and counterproductive.
It makes me wonder what’s driving this shift—are they trying to justify and normalize their own lifestyles (living off the pig’s back), or is it simply a blatant attempt to buy votes and hold on to power - a reflection of power’s tendency to corrupt?
Totalitarians believe they're smarter and better than the rest of us. They believe they're more righteous and better qualified to make decisions about how to allocate wealth than anyone else. Beyond that, they're greedy and corrupt and love the opportunity to live large off the hard work of others.
In other words, they believe they're the only ones smart enough and benevolent enough to manage resources responsibly. That's their justification for forcibly redistributing resources. Just like the justification of a slave owner that the slaves are better off under his benevolent care than they would be on their own.
You are seriously fucking naive about how fascism works, Nazi.
Thanks for your insightful contribution, it's always good to hear the leftist perspective on an issue.
Please tell me this is satire.
That was a very good article, thanks. I wish we had a DOGE in my country (not only for government waste but also for corporate waste too).
How is the buried bottles of bank notes example different then Bitcoin? Aside from Treasury burying the bottles vs a nongovernmental entity. Honest question. That’s what popped into my head when I read that part.
I'm not sure if I fully understand the question, but I think you're asking about Bitcoin mining?
Bitcoin mining is an unfortunate choice of words. What Bitcoin "miners" actually do is provide security for the Bitcoin network. They make sure that only legitimate transactions get included in the ledger. The incentive for that is the transaction fees paid by Bitcoin users, plus the block subsidy, which is the new Bitcoins that are added to the supply. The block subsidy is a temporary feature that gets cut in half every four years, and will completely disappear eventually. Almost 95% of the total Bitcoin supply has already been issued, so the block subsidy is no longer a significant impact on the total supply. The inflation rate is currently 0.8%, and will continue to fall from there.
The purpose of the block subsidy was to provide a way to bootstrap a completely new monetary network. In the first few years, anyone could mine Bitcoin on their home computer, and get access to Bitcoin that way. At that point, the Bitcoin wasn't very valuable, so it wasn't a huge financial incentive, but just a way for people with interest in the technology to get their hands on some Bitcoin.
I don't know if that answers your question. I don't fully see the similarity between the two scenarios, but that's my understanding of the Bitcoin block reward and its purpose.
My thought was just like the bank note bottles being buried in the ground by some entity, aren’t Bitcoins “buried” in the computer coding functions? So both would have to be mined or dug up so to speak. My question may not make sense because I am not knowledgeable enough about Bitcoin and my understanding of how Bitcoin is “mined” may be causing the confusion.
That's why I don't like the that it's called Bitcoin "mining", it just doesn't accurately reflect what's really going on. Without getting into all the technical details, the Bitcoin isn't just there for the taking. It's pre-programmed to be paid out at a fixed amount every ten minutes, regardless how hard Bitcoin "miners" work to get it. It's a pre-programmed subsidy to reward the miners for securing the network, which is programmed to decrease over time as the value of transactions increases. Eventually the transaction fees will be valuable enough to pay for network security without any additional subsidy needed.
The block subsidy and difficulty adjustment are some of the most ingenious features of Bitcoin, but it's difficult to explain the significance concisely.
That's exactly what it is. You mine out the bitcoin, slightly reducing a bitcoin's individual value, and profiting the surplus. The differences are 1: No one ever claimed that bitcoin mining increases the wealth of a nation. 2: No one is forced (presently) to conduct their business and taxes in bitcoin. And 3: Bitcoin is difficult to mine and there is an eventual limit to its total supply.
Phoenix gave a good answer. I would add that mining is useful to the network as it helps align incentives. Miners who are heavily invested in the requisite hardware have no incentive to cheat and try to add a bad block that would be rejected by the nodes, meaning their electricity and hardware up time would have been wasted. It's more profitable to be honest when you mine a block and only add legitimate transactions. Also, the total hash rate being large serves the secure the network against a 50% + 1 attack.
But what are the criteria of waste? Seems like important things like USDA and weather monitoring are being cut indiscriminately
Government spending can help economic productivity-but not in the way these idiots think. Government spending helps economic productivity by spending money on things like roads that help everyone who uses them become more productive. Of course, in practice, the provision of such public goods is often so corrupt and inefficient as to make the actual benefit questionable, but that's exactly what DOGE is trying to fix. But if you think DOGE is having some negative impact on the economy, focusing on the potential benefits of some research project, highway construction, etc, is the way to do it. Not on the fact that some GS-15 won't buy a new house in Northern Virginia.