Charles,
> Now I would agree that there is a problem with the market in
> governments in that coercive governments have a monopoly but that is
> not fundamentally a problem with their currencies.
Well, it's not a problem for those
who can print it, that's for sure!
Well not the short & medium term anyway.
It is a problem for the remainder of us
because it creates a power structure that
is designed to concentrate the ownership
of real assets into the hands of a small
club of oligarchical despots via their
self-serving monetary policy.
As the saying goes: power corrupts,
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We all remember the no-strings bank bailout, right?
Well, that happened precisely because of fundamental
structural problems in our money creation system.
There's no way around that.
> Neither you nor I are *required* to use USD at all.
> The fact that the US Government requires transactions
> with it to be in USD is no more or less coercive
> than you requiring any transactions with you being
> in BitCoins. If you don't want to use USD, don't
> transact with the US Government (i.e. move out of
> the US and stop doing business with it.)
> If I don't want to use BitCoins, I won't do
> business with you.
If you're suggesting that I *could* abandon
my elderly relatives who can't travel in order
to not "do business" with the US Government,
and that my failure to do so represents an
a non-coerced choice to use USD, then I
invite you to visit the nearest rape crisis
center and explain to someone who had a
knife pointed at her that she actually
had consensual sex. I mean, she could have
taken the gash across her throat, ey?
Well then, why not go for it?
Hmm?
Thought so.
The position you're staking out here is only defensible
by adopting positions in a theoretical argument that you'd
never implement in the real world. I think that's kind
of silly.
Well anyway, good luck on that field trip! :)
Cheers,
-Jon
