I worked for my money, I paid huge amounts of taxes on them. Why is it ok for somebody to come and tell me what I can and can't do with them, and then telling me it's in my best interest to not be allowed to invest them.
Are you okay with laws about how money is earned? Why? If yes, why are you not okay with laws about how money is spent?
There are a vast number of regulations imposed on how you spend your money is spent in any government. Do you categorically disagree with them or are you okay with some of them?
EDIT: Every time a thread pops up like this, Hacker News seems to decide it's time to reinvent socioeconomic policy from first principles. Often libertarian principles. I'm trying to inject basic questions in here because much of the comment-response activity in the thread seems to be reactionary debating without substantive proof or rebuttal.
Outrage is fine! Your opinions are (probably) fine! But please try not to use personal opinions as axioms. Deconstruct your reasoning just a bit folks.
So I would be okay with laws about how money is earned, if there's a third person being impacted (pollution, for example), and i am okay with laws about how money is spent if there's a third person being impacted (idk, hiring a assassin)
Of course when one of the two consenting parties does something outside of the contract (false advertising, fraud, etc.), it should also be unlawful.
Everything else someone does to limit my choices/actions I do disagree.
But i will try to answer the best i can.
When i go to the bank, i may be participating in bank run, and i may the reason the bank collapses, and then the economy. My action of going to the bank does not usually causes that. But if you attempt to ban me from going to the bank because i may cause a bank collapse, it will certainly cause more harm then good.
And that's how we should look at the problem. The reason i have a principle that people should not interfere with my freedom to do as i chose (as long as i don't harm others), is because i believe that it will provide the best outcome possible, not the other way around.
That does not mean that there's no law that prevents two people of making a voluntary transaction that can give a better outcome than everything open. But it's just impossible to really know. The same reason your questions are hard to answer, if i disregard the principle, it will be hard to make such laws. So someone has to decide what becomes law, and what does not, and when that happens, those law will be imperfect, and you will have people who will benefit from some laws, and some who will be harmed. People harmed will not care so much for this imperfect and unfair system, and might as well ignore such (or other laws). People will also have incentives to make such laws, as they can benefit from it.
And you will never get a general agreement that such law will really do more harm than good, because people will have different views of that, rightly so. The law that prevents me from investing, may protect me from a bad decision, but will also prevent me from a good one. But as i am able to decide to get out of my house every day, and risk losing my life on a car accident, i should be able to decide what to do with what is mine. Even if some protection does look nice on paper, i do not believe i need to be protect from myself in a way that will limit my choices. If someone wants their choices be limited, just make it optional, and I will be able to decide if the protection is good or not. I doubt most people will really care about what people in the government think it is the right choice.
> how does that respond to my point?
You just asked an individual to justify why its not okey for govt/people to interfere between two consenting adults.
But then I think the debate would turn into battle of axioms which is pointless.
The question should be, can/how would people with contradictory political axioms co-exist ? I think its not possible, people can only vote with feet and hope for best. Political debate is not an intellectual debate like scientific/programming debate but war with real losses and HN now is a battlefield.
What's missing is recognition of the historical precedent of regulating what people can/cannot do with their money in the USA and China's proposed plans to follow suit.
Before the JOBS Act, for 70+ years the American Securities and Exchange Commission was very specific about what non-accredited investors could do with their money. [0]
While China does not have an "accredited investor" status, its version of the SEC put forth a proposal in 2014 that would create accredited investor regulations almost exactly in line with the American SEC's regulations. [1]
Intent may be worth looking at here.
China sites terrorist financing and money laundering as problems with ICO's. I don't know the veracity of that concern, but I do know that citing terrorism, child pornography, prostitution/human trafficking, etc. are nearly impossible to argue against and thus can be used as a means to pass regulations/legislation that is rife for abuse (see the USA Patriot Act).
On the other hand, China banned exchanges allowing people to buy bitcoin in Yuan back in 2013, but today support for buying bitcoin has returned (from the article).
It seems both China and America (via the SEC) are trying to figure out what to do with ICOs. Regulation seems inevitable, but each country has thus far taken a different tact.
Does any of this make regulating/banning ICOs right or wrong? I don't know, but that seems like a different debate.
[0] https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&SID=8edfd12967...
[1] https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2015/10/75384-crowdfunding-... (See "Challenges: Policy and Regulatory Challenges) section)
You can maliciously use your paper money right there in your leather wallet to do all sort of criminal activity, should we ban regular money too?
Secondly, if there is a crash, the best thing to do is nothing. Let the people who invested poorly get wiped out-- it's better for the economy. (There are examples of this too- crashes that happened before the federal reserve which were much worse than the 1929 crash, but which are forgotten to history because they didn't create Great Depressions because there was no Federal Reserve to "bail out the system")
The bailouts of 2008 were the worst thing that came out of that. Government shouldn't be bailing out these businesses, especially after those businesses made billions getting below cost money from that same government.
IT's not really economics you're talking about here but the corruption in the system.
Bailouts are part of the game-- thats how they scam us. Bailouts don't protect us (that's the con.)
For an excellent history of money and the last 100 years of bailouts and how this exact same thing has been done dozens of times already-- check out G Edward Griffens "The Creature from Jekyll Island" -- it's a history book about money, but it's anything but dry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1837
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1857
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1873
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1884 (bonus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1882-85)
> Let the people who invested poorly get wiped out-- it's better for the economy. (There are examples of this too - crashes that happened before the federal reserve which were much worse than the 1929 crash, but which are forgotten to history because they didn't create Great Depressions
Of course there were panics and corrections before the federal system - as rothbardrand mentioned, they didn't create events as bad as the depression.
The "bonus" you mentioned lasts 3 years, where as the great depression: "started in 1929 and lasted until 1941" (src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression). Note: "The Depression of 1882-85 was not inaugurated by financial disaster or mass panic, but was rather an economic downturn that came about through a protracted and gradual process".
Compare that to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929 and tell me where the line between "market corrections" / "downturns" and "financial disaster" / "mass panic".
But showing evidence is needless: the federal reserve _necessarily_ aggravates the business cycle by promoting mal-investment. This was Murray Rothbard's mentor Ludwig von Mises' great work "Human Action" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Action), specifically Chapter XX section 8, "The Monetary or Circulation Credit Theory of the Trade Cycle" - (full text is online here: https://mises.org/library/human-action-0/html/pp/818). One of the key tenants of Austrian economics and in particular the work of von Mises is that it is deductive from pure logic, rather than from experimental or statistical observations. Austrian economics is more akin to biology than psychology.
The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879 (1897 (!) in Britain)---6 years.
The 1882-1885 depression included a year when "an estimated 5% of all American factories and mines completely shuttered during the 12 months running from July 1, 1884, to July 1, 1885".
The panic of 1893 included a depression that extended to 1897, a couple of years with 12-14% unemployment, with peaks somewhere around 17-19% and 25% in Pennsylvania, 35% in New York, and 43% in Michigan, and included the panic of 1896.
Keep in mind two things: these occurred in the 19th century, when the United States was largely, perhaps almost completely an agrarian country, and that when banks fail (a common occurrence in many of these), you don't get your money back out.
The Great Depression is called that because it was the biggest, but it was hardly a completely new and unique thing.
[Now, as to Austrian economics, if "it is deductive from pure logic, rather than from experimental or statistical observations", I would think it had more in common with mathematics than either biology or psychology. Or perhaps alchemy.]
The OP and I are saying that the federal reserve _exaggerated_ the depression. Your pointing to much smaller prior events is a non-starter.
And yes, biology is not free of observation, my point was that it is more closely associated with deduction rather than statistical inference - but yes, mathematics would be even closer an analog - if I had said that a mathematician would have argued that some economists use statistical inference - goes on ad nauseum.
Still not sure what you're trying to say, but yes, there was a business cycle before a necessarily large increase in mal-investment and there were necessarily larger cycles after said investment.
[1] https://stratechery.com/2017/tulips-myths-and-cryptocurrenci... [2] https://medium.com/@adam_selene/tulips-and-other-myths-c7f69...
I agree, though I think at the root it's created by people investing irrationally and the wisdom of crowds that comes with it. Part of that can be mitigated by good regulation.
> Secondly, if there is a crash, the best thing to do is nothing. Let the people who invested poorly get wiped out-- it's better for the economy.
This is quite a harsh and risky thing to say. It is the fair solution, however sentiment and trust plays a big role in economics. If big(ger) banks had failed back then it would have been much worse for everyone.
> Bailouts are part of the game-- thats how they scam us. Bailouts don't protect us (that's the con.)
I think the scam actually happens through the years prior to the bailout, when institutions close their eyes to the bubbling up of the economy. Once the crash moment is reached there is not much left to do.
Thanks for the book reference, I have a very long flight tomorrow and I was actually looking for some books!
While all but the most radical libertarians will concede that some level of regulation is required, nearly every collectivist I talk to implies that permitting any level of individual human agency would turn the world into a Mad Max hellscape.
^ I assume this is how supporters of such laws think about the issue.
Would you dispute that even (otherwise) smart people can and do get taken in by dodgy financial schemes?
Regulations are there for good reasons...
If people really don't want the responsibility of freedom we can bring back indentured servitude, where people sign away their rights.
I suppose we should drop all laws about fraud really, why should we ban people from freely transacting with "microsoft" support services who just want to help them with their computer?
>> an securities sale that doesn't ask them for their ID, and thus doesn't meet securities regulations
Perhaps it's just not a good idea to have such a thing? Or perhaps the seller side of the equation, where you can't run an ICO without being registered and regulated, is needed.
I know, this circumscribes some of the allure of the whole area - that it's free of regulation, that it democratises finance etc etc. But like other avenues in life, perhaps we are being shown why the regulations exists in meatspace in the first place.
BTW I'm not trying to argue that all regulations and government actions are correct and useful, I'm very sympathetic to the idea that we are over-governed and over-regulated, in lots of ways. But perhaps not here.
>>Perhaps it's just not a good idea to have such a thing? Or perhaps the seller side of the equation, where you can't run an ICO without being registered and regulated, is needed.
I don't believe we should be limiting other people's right to privacy and to exchange digital tokens (not guns or tanks) under any circumstance.
I think accepting the right of society to impose these limitations on individuals is accepting servility for everyone, and I find that enormously dangerous and harmful.
And no, we don't relate on that, and we disagree that the effect is limited to the individual (see "the Great Depression, causes of") or that the individual should have to bear all risk of their actions at all times. Fundamentally I suspect we disagree on what sort of society we want to live in.
We also disagree on the economic causes of events like the Great Depression.
Also I did mention we could bring back an option to voluntarily cede one's own freedom, for those that don't want to bear the responsibility of living with the consequences of their own bad decisions, so I don't think our disagreement is exactly how you've characterised it. It's more like we disagree on whether we should prevent people from having the option to live freely.
Is BSD more free because it places no restrictions, or is the GPL more free because it guarantees freedom to those further on in the chain?
I'm not going to attempt an answer because it's the stuff of decades of internet flamewars. Similarly I don't think that libertarian freedoms are necessarily the only definitions, particularly as they seem to enshrine ownership of land and property as absolute, which come at a cost to the freedoms of others to make use of land or possessions. (I'm not looking for a debate on why that may or may not be right or wrong, simply to establish that what makes someone or something the most free is not 100% clear cut)
So no, we can't really agree on a definition of free or freely.
I don't feel this discussion can proceed constructively anymore.
free·dom
ˈfrēdəm/
noun
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
"we do have some freedom of choice"This whole discussion would be much easier with an example.
I have spent quite a lot of time debating cryptocurrencies with people and explaining why they could be useful. But with ICOs I find myself on the other side of the fence. I have yet to find a white paper that isn't either useless or impossible.
> and thus doesn't meet securities regulations
In this context "doesn't meet regulations" more often than not means "we lie about what we will use the money for". I'm not sure that's a good idea.
It is impossible to be serious in a space dominated by liars as they will outcompete you every time.
>I'm not sure that's a good idea.
But if someone thinks it's a good idea, we should forcibly deny them the right to invest their own money in it? I simply don't understand the justification for such a strong-arming intrusion.
>It is impossible to be serious in a space dominated by liars as they will outcompete you every time.
Reputation is a very real and powerful thing in the marketplace. In the long run scammers and other unscrupulous types cannot compete against honest providers who deliver. And by the way, I'm fine with going after confirmed scammers. I'm not okay with centralizing/banning an industry to preemptively prevent scams.
>>It is impossible to be serious in a space dominated by liars as they will outcompete you every time.
And making the point that the space will be dominated by the competent and honest in the long run if left to its own devices.
My comment was explaining why I believe that would be the long-term outcome.
Thanks for the link though, that was an interesting read. I was aware that "Caveat Emptor" was a bit of a libertarian tenet, and that people like to rely on things like reputation to enforce good trading practice, but that is an interesting explanation of why a libertarian may be against any and all government interference in even blatant fraud.
For instance, a law against DUIs make sense, it's so you don't kill people. A law requiring seat belt wearing - not so much.
I'm all for shutting down assholes tricking people, but at what point does it begin/end?
Short incomplete list off the top of my head of organisations tricking people out of money with scams:
* Most (if not all?) nootropics
* Prosperity gospel
* Nutritional cereal
* Other low fat/diet food stuffs
* Fashion
* Art
* Diamond industry
* etc etc
This isn't hardship, just put your money somewhere else.
ICOs gave a level playing field and produced a resulting boom.
Most people don't even know what a cryptocurrency is.
You know what they say about forgetting history...
The middle classes (or lower class) aren't really allowed to invest in business because it's really risky (see: Great Depression). When 1 rich person loses $1 billion, that's sad. When 100000 grandpas lose $10000, that's a national tragedy.
On the contrary, North Korea seems like a collectivist's paradise. Total state control with omnipresent regulation. I wonder what the punishment for trading cryptocurrencies looks like there.
Not all of us are like that... What's happening here is people are butthurt cause ICOs are more successful and friendly to funders, so they took a very bad deal with the traditional investment route so everything negative against ICOs they are happy.
The HN community just like Reddit is just a bunch of children.