are stablecoins really, though?

I'm not going to trust something for payments just because it's not Visa, we really need Postal Banking with a direct payment option

@RandomDamage Postal Banking is not going to happen. And we don't need ANOTHER form of money the government fully controls.

Stable coins are stable, tend to be backed by things like US treasuries (do you trust our government's bonds or not?), and they're actually regulated:

> S. 1582 would define payment stablecoin as a digital asset issued for payment or settlement and redeemable at a predetermined fixed amount (e.g., $1). Issuers would be required to hold at least one dollar of permitted reserves for every one dollar of stablecoins issued. The bill would limit permitted reserves to coins and currency, deposits held at insured banks and credit unions, short-dated Treasury bills, repurchase agreements ("repos") and reverse repos backed by Treasury bills, government money market funds, central bank reserves, and any other similar government-issued asset approved by regulators. Issuers would be restricted to using reserve assets for certain activities, including to redeem stablecoins and serve as collateral in repos and reverse repos. The bill would require federal and state regulators to issue tailored capital, liquidity, and risk management rules for federal and state stablecoin issuers, but it exempts stablecoin issuers from the regulatory capital standards applied to traditional banks.

congress.gov/crs-product/IN125…

no, we really *do* need money the government controls.

Because whoever controls the money becomes the defacto government

Whether it's the actual elected government, Visa/MC, or the currency exchanges

Besides, I have to pay my taxes in dollars, why the fuck would I want to trade in anything else?

private industry is far less accountable, and the whole Visa/MC thing proves that they can't be trusted any further

I'll support the need for government and I won't be shamed for it

which is an exploit we might be able to fix.

Private industry does this *by first principles*

So, I find this point less than compelling

It does mean that we need to fix thhe government, though, which isn't going to happen by adding more private interests to help siphon our money out of it

@RandomDamage the government has spent the last 100 years destroying our money and receives no consequences for doing so. But we'll just try harder to fix it next election?

How about we design a system where there ARE consequences for this behavior?

That's an excellent question, but the British proved that adding private interests to government functions is *not* the way to do it

Checks and balances was *supposed* to help, but it relied on the courts and legislature protecting their own power instead of lining up behind the executive

the gold standard was very stable. Unfortunately it couldn't grow fast enough to support the economic growth of the 20th Century, which also took out the silver standard.

But private fiat currency is *not* the answer, unless the question is "how do we give those who are already rich a more effective way to siphon money into their pockets?"

@RandomDamage Growth had nothing to do with it. Gold would just increase its purchasing power linearly with the growth of the economy. The money in your pocket would appreciate. This was a good thing.

Silver was always doomed. The Hunt brothers billionaires went bankrupt in the 80s playing a game trying to corner the market on silver but we can mine silver faster than they can buy it

Fist demands spending or risky investment, NOT saving. This is a huge problem. And then we killed pensions and replaced them with 401ks so now the entire stock market is a leech that sucks up a percentage of every American's labor through index funds and distributes it to corporations who do get away with cooking their books and destroying our economy and the workers are promised nothing in return except the dream that maybe something will be there when they get old enough to retire.

But now they want to crank retirement age to like 75 because the scheme is failing

Everything you're supporting is protecting this broken predatory system because you think government can solve it someday

@RandomDamage My great grandparents thought the government would fix it some day

Same for every generation after.

They're never going to fix it, they'll only deflect and delay until you die.

on the other hand, adding private interests is just giving up.

Sure, we might not be able to fix the government, but without the government putting up at least token resistence we'll *never* get out from under The Empire of Chase Bank

no, not if the dollar is backed by something stable. It doesn't matter if Chase Bank can issue stablecoins if those coins purchasing power is backed by something scarce like gold or Bitcoin. This will act as a natural governor and limit their capabilities to act beyond their means.

With Bitcoin or something equivalent, the power to print money is fully removed from the government. It's over. No more government picking winners, no more endless materialist society, no more endless e-waste every year, no more endless wars, no more ICE getting a larger budget than most countries militaries, no more coverage beyond FDIC insurance limits (fucking SilverLake!!!!!), no more bailouts for failed banks or Freddie & Fannie, no more buying stakes in private companies like Intel, no more massive handouts to Israel...

Back to building products that last and companies focused on long term growth.

All of those changes are easily within reach if the government cannot print money and cannot control all the money.

And they'll be FORCED to tax the rich. It's the only way out.

but you *do* understand that any entity able to enforce a particular currency standard is The Government, and that especially under the current circumstances you'd best look for traps before getting too enthusiastic about any proposed solution

And for me, any deal involving cryptocurrency is going to have me burying gold somewhere secure

our record for shortest time between asking a question and leaving the chat room currently sits at 28 seconds.

I keep intending to create a wall of shame for this but never seem to find the time for it..