re: 40% of Bitcoin Exchanges Fail; only 30% of those refund your Bitcoins...

Alright, let me do a broad response to what you've said. Disclaimer: I support what Jullian Assange did when he released those files. I support the Bill of Rights. I also live in the real world, and know that many things that make sense in theory do not work in practice.

Your notion that we are going away from centralized forms of power is, basically, misinformed. Governments are becoming more and more centralized, you won't see it in the news but just for an example look at Europe. Every single news poll and political rhetoric will show how the population wants to scrap the euro, yet not a single law enacted over the past 5 years has been anti-euro, anti-EU in substance (theory vs application = rhetoric vs. substance). Interconnectedness of economics obliges the interconnectedness of policy. Humans are now more dependent than ever on technology, which makes us more dependent on the providers of that technology, which has made the providers of that technology more dependent on the infrastructure of that technology. The providers are the corporate entities which are "mini" centralized entities of power and the providers of the infrastructure are some form of government agency or government subsidized entity. Illustratively, you can imagine the growing pyramid of smaller pyramides. Cryto currencies may or may not become relevant in global economics, but your insinuation that this will somehow erode the powers of the centralized entities is not correct at all. Fiscal authorities will eventually take some sort of power over it, which my intuition assumes from the private sector making exchanges then relying on the public sector for enforcement. Then the public sector in return for this enforcement will want to have some say in the structure and guidelines of these exchanges. Regardless of the details, the end result is a shifting of monetary power from the central banks to the government, and if you don't believe that will happen than you don't truly don't understand how the world works. I've met many politicians and many people that work in and closely to central banks, and I can without a doubt say I would trust the central bankers 100 times out of 99 over the politicians.

But here is the real irony, governments only have control when we give them control. If nobody wanted protection, we wouldn't need state policing. If nobody wanted to charge their phones we wouldn't need state run utilities. I hope you can extrapolate past that. You may respond with we can have the private sector to run that, in which case the natural progression of a truly free market is to work towards monopolizaiton then dictate pricing as that is the most profitable direction. The response is that the public would want some sort of entity that protected consumers. Centralized figures only exist because of humans desire for them. The CS Lewis quote may be true, but to call it "tyranny" is kind of stupid as the reason for any "authoritative" figure is due to people's desire for it. Even if you tore down all figures of authority, over time we would end up back in the exact same spot because it is the drive of people that creates this. That is the natural progression of society, you can be angry all you want, won't change anything. The seemingly popular notion that there is some sort of Wizard of Oz behind a curtain creating things only because he wants to is just absurd, people create authority. People are the reason that governments, central banks, police, etc. exist. Never underestimate two things, a person's drive for power and a person's want for security. Often times humans will bundle these together. I wish I could say a person's drive for happiness is up there too but in my experiences, people will tend to choose the first two over happiness. These drives oblige an entity that in theory provides security from a person having power over another person, while in practice giving the entity power over that person. No matter what, something will have power.

But you know what the end result of all of this is? frick it. Seriously, frick it. You aren't going to stop the natural progression of society, we aren't saving the world on a message board. Just do what makes you happy, I love finance, physics, and history. I was a theoretical particle physics major before I switched to finance due to the actual opportunities in TPP (especially coming from Arkansas). But I had a 1 in 1,000,000 shot in finance so I took and ended up better than my wildest dreams. The more time you spend hating centralized authority, viewing the central bank as an evil scourge, etc. is more time you're not spending doing what you enjoy and taking advantage of the opportunities present to you right now, unless being mad is what you enjoy then by all means keep doing what you're doing. Don't you also think all your worries and arguments against these banks and entities haven't been gone over a millions times at this point by people much smarter than us? The end result is we're all dead soon from a very short life, so take advantage of the opportunities and liberties present in your life and stop worrying what opportunities and liberties you would have in some parallel universe because the truth is they probably would not be better. Reading the poli board would have you feel like the US is absolutely fricked, right? The US is in the best shape of any country in the world economically, in terms of personal liberties, and in terms of living condition and opportunities on an aggregate basis.

So in conclusion, I'm going to go keep studying for the CFA, go over swaption volatility on Bloomberg, drink, then spend time with my girlfriend. Because I enjoy every one of those (including the CFA, yea I'm weird). I hope you spend the rest of your night doing what makes you happy as well.

quote:

---

Do you just google "Libertarian" every morning and regurgitate whatever shows up in the results?

---

You'd be hard pressed to find David Friedman's name in a search of "Libertarian".

Friedman offers the most comprehensive critique of Rothbard's version of Anarcho-Capitalism. Read the Machinery of Freedom.

quote:

---

You'd be hard pressed to find David Friedman's name in a search of "Libertarian".

---

quote:

---

David Director Friedman (born February 12, 1945) is an economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist. He is known for his writings in market anarchist theory, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom (1973, revised 1989). He has authored several other books and articles, including Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (1986), Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (2000), Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (1996), and Future Imperfect (2008)

---

quote:

---

You'd be hard pressed to find David Friedman's name in a search of "Libertarian".

---

Do you mean except for the very first link that comes up when I Googled him?

quote:

---

David Director Friedman (born February 12, 1945) is an economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist.

---

The very FIRST sentence in the VERY FIRST LINK!

quote:

---

I didn't say David Friedman isn't a Libertarian, did I?


I said it would be hard to find him in a search of "libertarian".

---

quote:

---

The people facing scarcity will resort to means other than markets to solve the problems of scarcity.

---

This is bullshite.

It's more like

When access to markets is limited, people will resort to dealing with scarcity in more violent and aggressive ways.

People don't naturally beat and steal from each other for resources, they do it when there are not ways to mutually benefit.

quote:

---

Google "libertarian" and see how many pages you have to go through to reach David Friedman.

---

No

quote:

---

People don't naturally beat and steal from each other for resources, they do it when there are not ways to mutually benefit.

---

Uhhh...... yes they absolutely do. This may be the biggest ivory tower, Pollyanna statement I've ever read in my life.

quote:

---

Josh, stop embarrassing yourself and just admit you were wrong earlier. Be a man for once.

---

You love to take statements literally why not here?

When I said "You'd be hard pressed to find David Friedman in a search of "libertarianism"." How did you possibly take that as me saying that David Friedman isn't a Libertarian?

David shits on his father when it comes to libertarianism and he provides a much more utilitarian appeal to non-Anarchists.

quote:

---

Uhhh...... yes they absolutely do.

---

Uhhh...... no they absolutely don't.

You know how many times I've been mugged or stolen from? Once. That's a pretty damn good percentage as far as I'm concerned.