Re: Bitcoin is strongly deflationary@ spider from mars
"In short, Bitcoin economics is awful on every level. It's almost as if it has been designed to undermine the ability of governments to control the supply of money "
Well, governments have done such a good job of managing money supply haven't they? Wouldn't pay to let somebody else have a go, who knows what sort of mess they could make, eh?
Here's a thought for you: In the past decade global governments have (in practical terms) printed ten trillion more dollars than there has been incremental economic activity. But that money hasn't leaked out to the plebs, nor has it been lent to real productive businesses. Instead it has been held on the electronic registers of the big banks, where investment bankers have wondered whether it would be cheaper to hold it as cash earning no interest, or to speculate on emerging market debt, over-leveraged buyouts, or "invest" in secondary markets (shares), London property, commodities or the like. When the bets go bad, and sooner or later every winning streak comes to an end, then the bankers know they will be bailed out by exactly the people who haven't benefited from all this fake money sloshing around.
The reality is that central banks controlling the money supply has been EXACTLY the means by which the 1% enrich their pals, and make sure that you and I are the ultimate back stop for their theft. Most ordinary people have seen their living standards drop, prices rise, yet their pay doesn't go up. That's because for central banks and politicians there are two types of inflation: Asset price inflation that makes housing more expensive, and inflates the nominal value of existing excess wealth, that's GOOD inflation for the 1%ers. But the sort of inflation that erodes the value of your and my debts, and results in a pay "rise" each year, that's the BAD sort of inflation.
As for Japan and deflation, wait for Abenomics to play out. Japan has in three short years doubled the monetary base. The Bank of Japan was, in recent auctions, the only buyer of Japanese government bonds, meaning that the rest of the world is unwilling to lend money for ten years at 0.6% to the government of the third largest economy. This will not end nicely.