Five minutes in... I'm surprised at how that seems to be such a difficult concept for people to understand about all currencies. "It aquires value by people using it". QED

Bitcoin in retrospect...

It may "crash" again but the overall cycle and trajectory is up because there is ultimately real value in escaping (to some extent) what central bankers have been doing with their own largely virtual/digital currencies by means of another virtual/digital store of value. 

People like to say that it's a tulip bubble but what if dollars and the central banker's ponzi is more like a tulip bubble? 

To some extent, I don't care if the value of Bitcoin fluctuates because for me it's:  "Target, banksters."  Although I do care in the sense that wild fluctuations may result in Bitcoin failing to be integrated in economies more than it already has been.  But some pretty wild fluctuations haven't stopped it yet.   

Anyway, kind of ironic that a lot of people keep saying that Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme just like the oligarchs' and banksters' virtual currencies that they've already been incorporated in using, which just goes to show that a lot of people are utterly clueless.

Shrug.

Bitcoin may be in a bubble now* but if anything is like the proverbial tulip bubble, it's the stock market.

*I actually doubt that, given how fast it's being integrated into economies anywhere from China to Afghanistan.  So if it crashes again, my interpretation would be that it's undervalued.

Interesting comment on Bitcoin

....the exponential growth that is seen in BTC is observed in both bubbles and to network technology adoption.

You think it is the former. I think that it is much more likely that we are looking at the adopti on of a fundamentally new network technology. We are already seeing it develop an ecosystem and secondary uses (e.g., proof of existence of documents at a given time by inserting info into the public blockchain). Moreover, the ordinary transaction trades are increasing exponentially along with the speculation, and this is despite the massive deflation it is experiencing, which ordinarily depresses transactions in a currency.

BTC may be supplanted by another better currency, or may succumb to one of the many upcoming hurdles it faces. But it is also providing real value as a global, essentially frictionless and fee-free way to transfer funds around the world (and potentially eating the bank's lunch on the funds transfer biz.).  

Business Insider

Racism and Tribalism

People like to feel special.. even European converts to Judaism that probably aren't even Semitic in the sense of being some sort of an ancient racial group.  Convert and then you could accuse everyone of antisemitism due to the fact that reactionary thug heads like the Golden Dawn legitimize the whole idea of the Jewish religion being racial or having something to do with "race."  Racism breeds racism, given that it's a matter of perceptions that have little to do with physical reality.  (But you can't sit around saying that it has little to do with reality if some racist thug heads from the Golden Dawn are headed your way or some Talmudic tribe members are trying to fleece those that they perceive as cattle or goyim.  Because they're going to make their perceptions of superiority a reality if you let them, even if it is idiotic to feel some racial or tribal identity with a group containing a lot of idiots.  Maybe that's why they're always pointing to other groups or perceptions of them.  Otherwise they'd have to deal with the fact that they don't even agree with each other and their groups contain idiots.)        

[quote]Err... haven't you noticed that (almost) all white people are antisemitic, anti-eastern, anti-Muslim and anti-black (in increasing order of application).

Racism is so deeply ingrained.[/quote]

It is pretty silly.  If your whole worldview or deepest ideologies about how you fit into the world are based on something that can disappear when people have sex with each other then there's a problem.

Ironically race doesn't even really exist the way most people think it does.  In general, there are only perceptions of race that turn into reality in the form of tribes.  But in a world where perceptions can become reality based on tribalism, it's important to take perceptions of race into account sometimes. 

If you can have anything from "blonde bimbos"* to ideologies about blue eyed Aryans based on little things in life like having blonde hair, then it's important to take into account how stupid most people are based on "racial" perceptions and so forth.  (Apparently I'm supposedly pompous for often writing that other people are being stupid.  But... whatever... and in this case, how is a lot of this stuff supposedly not stupid?  There's no other way of putting it.)

*Not to mention the best selling types of hair coloring sold to women since ancient times, etc.

Saving some research...

I'm thinking about a post on Richard Kohen, I mean Richard "interracial marriage must make people want to gag" Cohen.

That the police would even deign to co-operate with such poisonous and prejudiced characters and their fantasies of racial purity is indicative of the malaise gripping certain sectors of Israeli society, both at street and state level.
Whatever the more blinkered supporters of Israel's sectarianism say, day after day more evidence piles up attesting to the shocking reality behind Israel's mask of being a tolerant, equitable and democratic "country of all its citizens". The likes of the modesty patrols and the anti-miscegenation squads belong in the furthest recesses of history, yet apparently the Israeli authorities are not only happy to tolerate their presence, but to actively support their work as well.  Link

There's probably a link here.    

Many Israelis experience as unpleasant the marriage registration process, during which stringent Orthodox rabbis often require that they produce extensive documentation proving their union is not proscribed under Jewish law. Such unions include a marriage between a Jew and non-Jew, and between a kohen (or member of the priestly caste) and a divorcee.   Knesset passes "revolutionary" marriage law

"Revolutionary." 

Right.

Random comment... might still need some work.

I think this might be the main problem: “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.” From who? And why, if the “united states” can issue its own currency?

Maybe Congress should just do what the international bankers are doing and create it out of nothing every time people agree that they need to create more debt/money. Then the debate over how much should be spent in the public “interest” without interest or how limited the government should be could take place. (I.e. the “socialists” and the “capitalists” could finally have their little debates in an authentic way without being guided along by the Masonic hidden hand of people like Marx or “capitalists” being incorporated and guided along by 33rd Liberty Street.)

But as things stand the differences between socialists and capitalists are less and less (both agree with letting banksters trickle trillions out of the country, etc.) even as “the base” of each party becomes more and more discontent with their lack of an ability to have representation in their government, given that it’s actually banksterism that rules the day. This goes back to before Ronnie Raygun decided to market the creation of exponential amounts of debt/money in the name of national defense. Although he was a good entertainer in chief, seems to me. And now Obama has to find a way of marketing the creation of even more debt/money than all the other presidents. Surprise.

Shrug. As long as the freedom to connect is maintained on the internet (RIP Aaron Swartz) it’s likely that it’s going to undermine current power structures anyway. If not through Bitcoin, then through another crypto currency… it’s already begun. Or if not through Youtube beginning to undermine the utterly corrupt banking/corporate media of the virtual Pyramid Scheme Inc. and the idiotic “journalists” incorporated in it, then through another form of social media. It’s all already beginning. Interesting to note that there’s a fair amount of synergy between trends that are being produced by new forms of information technology and the philosophy of the Founders, especially Jefferson.