Re:Freicoin: bitcoin-like currency from the Occupy movement
by mindslight on Monday June 25, 2012 @03:01PM
(#4158093)
The designed incentives are set up to trade in freicoin, and immediately cash out into something else. Clearly there's got to be an opposing force that turns "immediately" into a variable length of time (maybe transaction fee versus liquidity projection). The changing of this time period based on economic conditions is going to make your monetary flow unpredictable. In fact, it seems that in "down" times when people are looking to spend less, they'll want less freicoins, causing the value to drop with positive feedback.
Presently, banks can loan out ten times the money they've obtained, so any asset-based system is going to be a step back for easy credit (which imho is a good thing). Availability of credit and low interest rates have more to do with the risk of default (assuming a sound money supply). As such, if you want to improve the availability of credit, you should work on improved tracking of people/collateral (which imho is a bad thing).
Fundamentally I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Improving people's ability to live paycheck to paycheck is only further perpetuating the system where most people are at the mercy of the economy.
Re:Freicoin: bitcoin-like currency from the Occupy movement
by WiseWeasel on Monday June 25, 2012 @03:25PM
(#4158221)
The steps the wealthy take to mitigate inflation are what drive a large portion of our economy. Investing in stocks, bonds, angel and venture funds, etc. puts their money to use for the economy, allowing an entrepreneur to get funding for her start-up, so companies have more money to pay employees, so local and national governments can invest in infrastructure and services, and so a rich guy loses his shirt on some stupid or unlucky bets and joins the lower classes. Inflation, to a point, is a very strong incentive against hoarding cash, and provides much of the social mobility in our economy.
What I'm more concerned about here is making sure that under all circumstances credit is available to those who need it, interest rates are low, and money continues to flow through the economy at a predictable and at least minimum rate.
This is not an attack on the upper class, nor am I trying to redistribute wealth. In fact I'm explicitly trying to avoid that--some of the other #occupy currencies that have been floated in the past amount to little more than progressive asset taxes, the very idea of which I am categorically against. Rather, I want to create a fixed and unchangeable monetary policy which would keep the economy moving in good times and bad.