22% of US Dollars Printed in 2020.
https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/23-6-of-all-us-dollars-were-created-in-the-last-yearMy question is, what does this actually mean and what growth in dollars should we see over an ever expanding economy? We need to have infinite growth in capitalism otherwise the system breaks down (despite this being outside the bounds of reality, since the world is not an infinite resource nor is it an infinite trash can). If we had the same amount of dollars that we had in 1999 would there be enough for the economy to shuffle money around? (or for wealthy people hoard it "of shore"?)
The US GDP was 10 trillion in 1999, 15 trillion in 2010 and 22 trillion today. In addition to the "quantitative easing" meant to promote growth via gov investment (Keynes), without printing money how does the economy expand? I don't see what the point is here unless we are trying fetishize limited quantities of things as the only things with value. I didn't make all the way through Piketty's Capital, what does he say about this? What does Krugman say?
Other than this sounding scary, what does it actually mean in terms of capitalism, gov investment into industry, and what are the benefits/cons of a limited resource = money. Maybe with BTC we can trade infinitely small amounts but with shit like gold it isn't going to be possible to trade with fractions of a flake of gold. (And what is gold's real value besides the fact that it doesn't corrode?)
While a cash transaction is more able to be completely anonymous, that's fine if it's $5 but what happens if it's 1 million? Carrying it around, pretty much anyone could just steal it. Hiding it under your bed - house could burn, you get robbed, etc... . Putting it in a bank account, big brother is going to notice. Or what if some other person witnesses the transaction?
Bitcoin is designed to allow its users to send and receive payments with an "acceptable" level of privacy as well as any other form of money. Long term, if we're talking large transactions, I'd think it offers some perks over dealing in cash - pros/cons. But, of course, I'm sure there's ways shady ways within the financial institutions that be to mask such things - probably even gone digital there these days. And if privacy is your concern, you'd probably avoid the digital asset exchanges.
A transaction with BTC, for instance, should take at most 10 mins these days. Which is actually pretty quick if you think about how long it would take for someone in Japan to transfer X amount of money to someone in Mexico. Depends on the situation to a certain extent.
I think people instantly think of Bitcoin when they hear cryptocurrency and a misconception is that they're all meant to be attempting to take over fiat currencies. Ethereum, for instance, is not a cryptocurrency — it's a platform for creating decentralized products. Ether is the cryptocurrency that powers the Ethereum platform and blockchain.
And blockchain in general can solve tons of problems - just depends which specific issue you're focusing on: self sovereign identity, data monetization, data portability, etc...
I think the whitepapers for most of them are all pretty interesting. Curious to see how most of them pan out.
But, to be clear, for investing purposes just do your research in invest in whatever you deem fit. I think crypto is still a bit volatile for most people to stomach/understand what they're investing in. Much more simple and less risky for the majority to invest in large/mid/small cap etf's or whatever sector you feel you're the most informed about.
In terms personal ownership, theft is interesting, but its not like BTC is completely safe from theft. We seem to simply shift from physical theft to digital theft. It's not like people are good at protecting passwords. Also, we move from me physically losing my wallet to digitally losing my wallet (fucking XRP). I can't remember my bank password to save my life, but thankfully, the bank can reset that shit for me.
Also, if someone robs my bank or gets my log in for my bank, I'm getting my money back (my credit card number is stolen every couple of years and I'm yet to pay a penny for the shit that was purchased)... if someone robs my BTC wallet, I'm fucked.
In terms of payment, if I give someone money via credit I can dispute the charge, if I give money via BTC, I'm fucked (same for cash). 10 minutes is better than the hours I spent worrying about if money was being lost with my BTC transfer, but last time I used to my credit card it took a matter of seconds to transfer 30 dollars and when I needed to transfer thousands to pay some stupid bill the other day it only took about a minute via interac. And, sending money from bank to my trading account (to lose it all) it only takes a second or two (same with sending the money back to my bank).
And, in terms of cost on the environment, BTC "mining" isn't exactly helping us out much. A huge waste of energy.
I really don't see what problem BTC solves other than getting money in and out of countries where the rules are super gnarly (China for example), where the banking systems are super corrupt, and allowing a bit more privacy (I'm not stoked that I have to tell the US Gov how much money I have in Canada each year).
yes, that is not a good sign, but it more or less is the problem of all currencies since there is no gold to back up a real value in a federal bank somewhere (as it used to). but the case in the US is one of the more extreme ones, as far as my stupid ass can say so. countries with "real" value to back their currency like norway (fossile fuels) are doing great.
I'm not sure this is true nor does the notion that your USD is worth less that it was x years ago add up in all cases (inflation is a pretty imperfect measure of value as some commodities get more expensive and some get less expensive).
Part of Canada's currency value is related to the price of oil... we were stronger than the USD for a few brief moments in the past, we suck pretty hard right now.
Same goes for the Ruble which is garbage at this point. Last time I was in Moscow the USD was worth 32 rubles... my dollar gets me 75 rubles today.
And, in terms of the dollar being weaker in terms of commodities, I'd ask what commodities? Oil? Your dollar buys more oil today than it did 10 years ago. Housing? Yea the dollar buys a lot less house than it did 10 years ago. In terms of airline tickets? In terms of bananas? In terms of clothing?
This finite resource argument doesn't make sense to me in terms of anything other than idea of if I hoard something it should grow in value. Marx describes this person as a miser and he notes that this person is pretty terrible at capitalism. In capitalism, we are supposed to turn our Money into a Commodity and then back into more Money... not just sit on it.
Why would I ever part with my money, if I could earn more wealth from doing nothing? That doesn't sound like an ideal way to run a society. 
Topic: Investing? (Read 17231 times)