I spend a lot of time thinking about economics, and spend a lot of time surrounded by people who also spend a lot of time thinking about economics, being an economist. The labour theory of value, along with every other objective theory of value, was abandoned by economists more than 100 years ago, because it failed to explain how and why economic agents assign value to economic goods, which is what economists are interested in.
A population decline doesn't lead to a race to the bottom. Less people means the economic output is likely to shrink in absolute terms, but it doesn't have to shrink in per capita terms. On the other hand, less pressure on natural resources, less pollution and less people overall makes arguably a nicer environment to live in.
Good living conditions are like a magnet for economic migrants, and the wholesale arrival of migrants will start a race to the bottom which will destroy any quality of life.
What is your risk appetite? How does gold affect the risk profile of your portfolio, specifically in terms of volatility and value-at-risk, and also more generally?
A hedge is a financial instrument that is negatively correlated with an exposure. A hedge position is not supposed to have a positive return, it's supposed to offset another position, so that the combined return of both positions is zero, or close to zero. You're using financial jargon in an attempt to sound clever, but you only sound like somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about.
I don't have any trouble at all wrapping my head around the idea of a chatbot. I just don't have any use for it. And this may also be true for a large part of the general public.
Notice that she rarely cites any sources. This is because most of the stuff she writes is counter to standard economic theory. Some parts are heterodox economics, other parts are entirely made up.
I think revealing the wrongdoings of the US government was honourable, but fleeing to Russia was a bigger dishonour. You don't have to agree, it's a matter of opinion, really.
To be honest, he has kind of defected. Yes, he didn't mean to go to Russia initially, but he's chosen to remain there, knowing that the Russians can throw him in the jail whenever they want. By remaining there he's turned himself into Kremlin puppet, to all effects and purposes.
But what on earth is a digital commodity? I think the whole concept of digital commodity is nonsensical.
A commodity is a product. Products are either consumed or used as raw materials. A digital commodity is not a product. It can't be consumed or used, because it's entirely imaginary.
I think a better term is "abstract unit of account".
For the financial system dealing with cryptocurrencies isn't worth the risk. The banks would have to perform all sorts of AML/CFT checks on every penny that has come into contact with an exchange, and they just don't have the resources to do that.
Yeah, I understand... these type of loans exist in finance, they serve a very specific purpose.
The point is that, unlike consumer loans, such loans require that the borrower has savings before they can take the loan. For example, most people who take a mortgage do so because they don't want to save money for 30 years before they can buy a house. They want to buy a house now, and save later. A mortgage loan allows them to do precisely that.
These other loans don't, and so they're less useful. They aren't completely useless. It's just that in most circumstances they aren't useful.
Are you sure? Did it fall from the sky? No, it didn't. You saved up $27,000 and then you bought the bitcoin. So first you had to have $27,000, otherwise none of the subsequent steps would have been possible.
You started with more than $13,500. You started with $27,000. Then you used those $27,000 as collateral to borrow $13,500. Once you pay back the $13,500, you get your $27,000 back. So, you never have more than $27,000 at your disposal, which is what you started with.
Okay, these loans that are backed with real world assets are just traditional finance right? We were discussing loans that are granted automatically to anyone without requiring an approval, remember:
> How I can take out a collateralized loan, anywhere in the world, without having to ask for approval?
I don't think this is correct. Let's say you have one bitcoin. Your funds available for spending are $27,000 (we're assuming bitcoin has perfect liquidity, for the sake of the argument). If you borrow $13,500 against your bitcoin, your funds available for spending are now $13,500. So, less than what you started with. This isn't a loan. A loan increases your funds available for spending, not decreases them.
Yes, but it's not quite the same, because both the collateral and the asset being borrowed belong in the same asset class. It's as if you're renting a car but you have to put up the same car that you're renting (only in a different colour) as collateral. It seems a little pointless. Usually, people want to rent a car because they don't have a car. Likewise, they want to borrow money, because they don't have money.
If the amount that you borrow is the same amount that you lend, both amounts cancel out. Your net investment position is zero. As I see it, you can't do anything you the borrowed funds because you haven't borrowed any funds. You have the same funds that you had before taking the "loan".
I think you're living in techno-fantasy land. "Deleting" people on a database achieves nothing. Look at how authoritarian governments actually work in the real world. An authoritarian government would simply arrest the leader of the opposition on made up charges, and then they would throw them in the jail. They don't have to go after everybody who disagrees with the government. They just go after a few of them, and this is more than enough to discourage the rest.