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Lew Rockwell: "There is a Ron Paul Surprise Coming..."

Submitted by LapHog on Thu, 01/10/2013 - 15:34

Daily Paul Liberty Forum

Lew Rockwell, writing about Glenn Beck's faux-libertarian network, says: "Now the neocon warmonger and police statist is pretending to be a libertarian, but Ron Paulians aren't fooled. Nor will anyone else be. Oh, and Glenn, there is an RP surprise coming for you that will make you chew your Diet Coke cans." [my bold]

Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/130410.html

Anyone in the know on this?

If I had to guess, it sounds like RP might launch his own libertarian media outlet of some sort... ?

Ron Paul alluded to a talk

Submitted by chitownjj on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 23:08. Permalink

Ron Paul alluded to a talk show of sorts he would host, not on cable networks. Id guess it would be on Israel Andersen's platform. Most likely Doug Wead will be involved as well.

.

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 21:26. Permalink

That would be great....

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 16:09. Permalink

....if RP was heading some new media enterprise that would steal Beck's thunder.

Call me nuts

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 11:37. Permalink

but I hope it's Ron 100% endorsing Bitcoin as ~the~ tool to achieve liberty in our lifetime! :D

Lew already accepts donations in bitcoins!

https://www.lewrockwell.com/donate/

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/129917.html

Two words...

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 16:18. Permalink

Regression Theorem. ; )

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Regression_theorem

And?

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 17:40. Permalink

Bitcoin does not violate it.

It sure does.

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 17:48. Permalink

Bitcoin is purely synthetic, it was never tied to any consumer good, nor was it derived from any other currency that was tied to a consumer good.

You are misinformed

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 18:23. Permalink

I think it's best you read http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Regression_theorem yourself cause it seems like you don't understand what it means.

Nope

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 21:36. Permalink

Why are people willing to accept money as payment for goods today: i.e. why does it have purchasing power? Because those people expect it will have purchasing power tomorrow, and this expectation is grounded in their knowledge that money had purchasing power yesterday. So why did it have purchasing power yesterday...and so we begin the regress. But it's not an infinite regress, it concludes when the answer to the question "why does money have purchasing power today" is "because this 'money' is a consumer good, something valued in its own right."

But, as I said, bitcoin is not a consumer good, nor does it have any connection (present or historical) to any consumer good.

Ok seems like you get the regression theorem

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 21:55. Permalink

but you are misapplying it to Bitcoin.

I don't know if you know this but back in early 2010 when 1 bitcoin was theoretically valued a fraction of a fraction of a cent (this was just an approximation of how much it cost to produce it, no actual trades happened that would set this price) something strange happened. Some guy decided to put up a forum ad asking to exchange 10.000 BTC for 2 pizzas. And then something "stupid" happened, someone said yes and they carried out this transaction.

But what exactly did happened there? There was this guy with two perfectly good pizzas and he decided to exchange them for 10000 bitcoins?! Now why would he do that if not because he personally saw "something valuable in their own right" in them? And I argue that's exactly what he saw back then. To him bitcoins were a digital token, digital jewellery like gold earrings.

And then something even more stupid happened, there were more and more people who showed up wanted to "wear" this digital "jewellery". Now why is that, why would all these people show up and want to own these tokens worth practically nothing?? Was it just because it was a novelty? Was it because they were speculating they might get filthy rich one day if Bitcoin happened to catch on. Remember there was no trading back then and the currency was used by so few in effect it was dead so any expectation of a higher exchange rate were a lot less likely than merely a long shot.

But it doesn't matter why more and more people showed up wanting to hold them and exchange something of value for them. The important fact is they did and this is what drew the initial demand. Bitcoins, to them, for what ever reason were valuable in their own right.

And voila, regression theorem satisfied.

If you want to watch how this developed look at it's historical shart that starts at the exchange rate of just $0.04951 per bitcoin :): http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

Some more reading material if you are really interested:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/History
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3179/why-did-bitc...
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/wi7i2/the_first_bit...

I would argue...

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 22:34. Permalink

...that what little success bitcoin has enjoyed has been driven primarily by libertarians and others who might support bitcoin for ideological reasons: as opposed to people who either (a) valued bitcoins as consumer goods (digital jewelry) or (b) expected bitcoins to have the same or more purchasing power in the future.

And this is why it's stalled IMO; you've run out of people willing to act contrary to their own good economic sense for the sake of a political cause.

But suppose you're right in saying that the primary driver of bitcoin was its value as a "digital jewelry" (consumer good). Does this mean it is a viable currency? No. Human feces shaped like the Baby Jesus might have aesthetic value to a handful of people, doesn't mean it's going to become a widely accepted medium of exchange: and not only because it lacks the ideal monetary properties, but primarily because for a consumer good to become a widely accepted medium of exchange it needs to have widespread appeal as a consumer good, right? I rather doubt there are enough people out there who would value bitcoin as a consumer good to make it a viable currency, and there is a very limited number of people who would accept bitcoin purely for ideological reasons, so I don't see bitcoin ever becoming anything more than a curiosity.

N.B. Compare bitcoin as "digital jewelry" to Federal Reserve Notes as toilet paper. I'd argue the latter has more widespread appeal...as would any fiat paper currency. Does this mean that any fiat paper currency, one issue by me for example, could be viable? Or is this stretching the definition of consumer good beyond all usefulness?

Well now you've fallen of the deep end

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 22:39. Permalink

and you were doing so good too!

First of all Bitcoin hasn't stalled. If you paid attention to it you'd know that.

Second of all I guess you haven't heard of Silk Road yet, Bitcoin, if you didn't know is a censorship resistant payment system with a limited digital currency allowing users to anonymously send wealth to anyone, anywhere, anytime meaning it's ideal for black/grey/system D markets and it's hard for me to comprehend how you don't see it's huge potential value in this function.

You just watch this baby change the world. Beyond all else Bitcoin is an idea, an idea who's time has come.

You weren't doing so well...

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 22:59. Permalink

...so I'm glad we can end this little chat here. Buy more bitcoins, invest all your savings in them. Please.

P.S. Just to summarize my point above which you ignored (in case you feel like answering at some point in the future): agreeing with the regression theorem is a necessary but not sufficient condition for something to become money. I doubt that bitcoin accords with the regression theorem (I find the digital jewelry argument laughable - though not totally impossible), but even if it does, that's not sufficient for it become money. That is, even if it does have value as a consumer good to some people, it's not enough people for it become money.

Great response

Submitted by Ron Johnson on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 22:08. Permalink

I was going to write that the term 'consumer good' is a bit stretchy, since all value is subjective. What I enjoy owning, therefore value, is not objective, therefore bitcoin can have value to some and not others. Over time, if enough people, for their own reasons, agree on a value, it can serve quite well as a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin could go the way of beads, sea shells, and wampum. They all failed for several reasons, not the least of which was the ease of creating new 'money' at will, thereby dilluting the value of the established wampum. If I understand bitcoin correctly, that cannot happen, so at least one of the main reasons non-precious metal currencies have failed does not apply to bitcoin.

"if enough people, for their own reasons, agree on a value"

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 23:12. Permalink

That's right. If enough people valued bitcoin as a consumer good, then it could become a general medium of exchange. But that's a big "if," less likely to my mind than enough people valuing paper notes as a consumer good to make NowOrNever-Bucks a general medium of exchange. Virtually everyone on the planet could find some (albeit extremely negligible) value in my paper notes: toilet paper, lining bird cages, fuel for fires, etc. I would think the market for "digital jewelry" is substantially smaller.

But you completely miss the point

Submitted by haze on Mon, 01/14/2013 - 06:16. Permalink

The "digital jewellery" aspect was valid only in the beginning. Now it has morphed into something else, something more akin to money. Because that initial demand was present in a "local" internet community it has spread in use and now become demanded for a whole other reason, like being able to send wealth to anyone, anywhere, anytime without fear of censorship or obligation to identify oneself, like being a good store of value because of it's fixed and limited supply, like being a good method for exchange because of it's frangibility, divisibility, being recognizable, being non counterfietable, highly portable, ect

I'm not saying that initial demand is what is behind it's current price no more than I would ever argue that the current price of gold is a consequences of it's demand as jewellery. Just like with gold, bitcoins right now are largely demanded for their monetary role, i.e. being the most marketable good in a certain local (albeit internet) market.

The fact that you think toilet paper could be more valuable than bitcoins given what toilet paper can do us good vs what bitcoins can do us good just shows me that you are completely ignorant of this technology. It's like saying email or http is worth less than toilet paper.

Preciesly

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 22:16. Permalink

and yes there are a few issue I can envision could possibly cause people to abandon Bitcoin, particularly the invention of a far superior Bitcoin 2.0 but that's fine, I'd actually welcome that because it would mean I'd get to use something even better that could even further improve my life!

Hahaha

Submitted by kevink on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 12:11. Permalink

I would be beyond stunned if Dr. Paul ever endorsed Bitcoin as ~the~ tool to achieve liberty in our lifetime. From what I understand of Bitcoin, it's fiat. It has no intrinsic value and the supply can be manipulated (from a smart enough computer programmer).

I agree with Peter Schiff and Mike Maloney

Submitted by No.7 on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 17:45. Permalink

"If you don't hold it, you don't own it"

Bitcoin is intriguing, but it's not a metal coin. You can't hold it, so do you really own bitcoins?

—

"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error." - Andrew Jackson

If you can't protect a given thing

Submitted by Thane Eichenauer on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 20:47. Permalink

If you can't protect a given thing then you hardly own it. Some people think they own their own email but they only own it to the extent that a poacher can't get at it. These days there are far too many able email poachers out there.

—

http://twitter.com/ilovegrover

Exactly +1

Submitted by No.7 on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 20:51. Permalink

How do you protect your bitcoins when the power goes out? I'm intrigued by the idea of bitcoin but I'm still skeptical.

—

"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error." - Andrew Jackson

Simple

Submitted by haze on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 21:13. Permalink

When the power goes out I have my smartphone and if that wont work I have my gold.

But thinking the power will go out is over paranoid, and even if it would happen for a longer period of time, we'd have bigger things to worry about than bitcoins or gold.

Beck is just an entertainer, trying to cash-in posing as a...

Submitted by RaulPon on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 11:12. Permalink

"libertarian". Nothing more...

I disagree

Submitted by libertydanr on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 19:37. Permalink

Beck is a disinformation shill who is really part of the problem,as his Zionist warmongering rants renforce everytime he starts his anti Iran boho Israel carpola. This sack bag is as Libertarian as McCain and Romney and has the same agenda.

InLibertyDan

All things considered..shill, disinfo agent, POS scumbag, what..

Submitted by RaulPon on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 20:11. Permalink

have you...he is a poseur "libertarian" cashing in for the F'ing hell of it.

The NeoCons took over the Tea Party movement. Why not the

Submitted by jetguy on Mon, 01/14/2013 - 00:42. Permalink

Libertarian movement as well?

I considered myself to BE a Tea Party person at first - lower taxes - smaller, less intrusive government all around. And then I saw the NeoCons promoting even more massive military getting involved.

The Tea Party was meant to stand AGAINST NeConism - so the NeoCons merely annexed it. And confused the people

Who didn't think they would try the same thing with the NEXT movement against NeoConism?

Give Due Credit

Submitted by Awakened Patriot on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 10:36. Permalink

I don't like what Glenn Beck has done, ESPECIALLY to Deborah Medina. However, give credit where credit is due. He has done a TON to raise awareness of Agenda 21 with his book. It is no longer in the realm of conspiracy theories in the Tea Party eye.

That's always the problem with evaluating such weasels...

Submitted by NowOrNever on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 16:08. Permalink

...they infiltrate anti-establishment political movements and try to take them over and lead them in the wrong direction. This is obviously a bad thing. But, on the other hand, for their nefarious schemes to be successful, they do have to tell some truth, and tell enough truth to become popular as a leader. So, yea, Beck has done some good, but only so that he could more effectively do bad.