Cidersomerset
14th April 2013, 21:15
A couple of finance stories....
David Stockman: This Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme, It's Just Debt on Top of More Debt
Sunday, 14 April 2013 11:13
Posted by David Icke
uF9UJh8bU70
======================================================
http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.35.2/desktop/3.5/img/blq-blocks_grey_alpha.png Online..................
The Bitcoin bubble
Bitcoin display on phone More from RoryHP’s boss
Yesterday afternoon I looked at my mobile phone and found that I had $121 (£79) in it.
A couple of hours later though, I only had $79 (£51). But by this morning my phone
told me I had $93 (£60) to spend.Actually, what I had was 0.53 in Bitcoin, the virtual
currency whose wild gyrations over the last 24 hours have raised questions about its
long-term viability. I got my Bitcoin a couple of weeks ago, because I was making a
radio piece about the currency. My mission then was to work out how easy it was to get
and then spend Bitcoins - and I eventually ended up with a rather expensive pizza,
ordered via an American site and delivered by a London chain.
The whole cumbersome process of getting and spending the currency invented in 2009
by a mysterious Japanese (or possibly American) man called Satashi Nakamoto
convinced me of one thing - that Bitcoin was not yet much use except as a means of
speculation. The only reason to get hold of Bitcoins right now is because you think they
might be worth a lot more in a few hours or days. Now if you bought into the market
back in January when you could get one Bitcoin for $15 (£10) you'd have been pretty
smug yesterday when the price hit a new high of $260 (£170).
But if you were one of those who found out about Bitcoin from the mass of recent media
and bought at yesterday's peak, then you've learned a valuable lesson - like tulips in
the 17th Century and London houses in 1988, prices can go down as well as up.
There have been all sorts of explanations of what caused yesterday's crash - from a
problem at the main exchange to a strange incident in which someone called
Bitcoinbillionaire apparently started giving away large sums on the social news site
Reddit. A likelier reason is our old friends Greed and Fear combining to inflate and then
depress prices as all those new arrivals crowded into the market.All this talk of a Bitcoin
bubble has annoyed the true believers - an interesting mixture of libertarians and
cryptographic specialists charmed by the idea of a currency that embodies many of the
open and virtually ungoverned principles of the internet itself.
They maintain that the key feature of Bitcoin is that the supply can never exceed a
certain number - 21 million - and that it has recovered from previous crashes when its
demise was predicted.What is true is that we are seeing a fascinating experiment in
what a currency of the future might look like. But unless and until Bitcoin can be used to
buy a sandwich, or be accepted by your friends when you pay them back for a
restaurant meal, then it is likely to remain just a playground for geeks and gamblers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22110345
David Stockman: This Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme, It's Just Debt on Top of More Debt
Sunday, 14 April 2013 11:13
Posted by David Icke
uF9UJh8bU70
======================================================
http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.35.2/desktop/3.5/img/blq-blocks_grey_alpha.png Online..................
The Bitcoin bubble
Bitcoin display on phone More from RoryHP’s boss
Yesterday afternoon I looked at my mobile phone and found that I had $121 (£79) in it.
A couple of hours later though, I only had $79 (£51). But by this morning my phone
told me I had $93 (£60) to spend.Actually, what I had was 0.53 in Bitcoin, the virtual
currency whose wild gyrations over the last 24 hours have raised questions about its
long-term viability. I got my Bitcoin a couple of weeks ago, because I was making a
radio piece about the currency. My mission then was to work out how easy it was to get
and then spend Bitcoins - and I eventually ended up with a rather expensive pizza,
ordered via an American site and delivered by a London chain.
The whole cumbersome process of getting and spending the currency invented in 2009
by a mysterious Japanese (or possibly American) man called Satashi Nakamoto
convinced me of one thing - that Bitcoin was not yet much use except as a means of
speculation. The only reason to get hold of Bitcoins right now is because you think they
might be worth a lot more in a few hours or days. Now if you bought into the market
back in January when you could get one Bitcoin for $15 (£10) you'd have been pretty
smug yesterday when the price hit a new high of $260 (£170).
But if you were one of those who found out about Bitcoin from the mass of recent media
and bought at yesterday's peak, then you've learned a valuable lesson - like tulips in
the 17th Century and London houses in 1988, prices can go down as well as up.
There have been all sorts of explanations of what caused yesterday's crash - from a
problem at the main exchange to a strange incident in which someone called
Bitcoinbillionaire apparently started giving away large sums on the social news site
Reddit. A likelier reason is our old friends Greed and Fear combining to inflate and then
depress prices as all those new arrivals crowded into the market.All this talk of a Bitcoin
bubble has annoyed the true believers - an interesting mixture of libertarians and
cryptographic specialists charmed by the idea of a currency that embodies many of the
open and virtually ungoverned principles of the internet itself.
They maintain that the key feature of Bitcoin is that the supply can never exceed a
certain number - 21 million - and that it has recovered from previous crashes when its
demise was predicted.What is true is that we are seeing a fascinating experiment in
what a currency of the future might look like. But unless and until Bitcoin can be used to
buy a sandwich, or be accepted by your friends when you pay them back for a
restaurant meal, then it is likely to remain just a playground for geeks and gamblers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22110345