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View Full Version : Paul Krugman piece on bitcoin in the new york times: "The Antisocial Network"



vacuum
14th April 2013, 11:44 PM
Here he criticizes and puts down bitcoin.


The practical misconception here — and it’s a big one — is the notion that we live in an era of wildly irresponsible money printing, with runaway inflation just around the corner. It’s true that the Federal Reserve and other central banks have greatly expanded their balance sheets — but they’ve done that explicitly as a temporary measure in response to economic crisis. I know, government officials are not to be trusted and all that, but the truth is that Ben Bernanke’s promises that his actions wouldn’t be inflationary have been vindicated year after year, while goldbugs’ dire warnings of inflation keep not coming true.

The philosophical misconception, however, seems to me to be even bigger. Goldbugs and bitbugs alike seem to long for a pristine monetary standard, untouched by human frailty. But that’s an impossible dream. Money is, as Paul Samuelson once declared, a “social contrivance,” not something that stands outside society. Even when people relied on gold and silver coins, what made those coins useful wasn’t the precious metals they contained, it was the expectation that other people would accept them as payment.


https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/krugman-the-antisocial-network.html?_r=0

Shami-Amourae
14th April 2013, 11:54 PM
Don't worry, we have plenty in the Gold community who agree with him.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111107003558/runescape/images/1/1f/Emoticon-Facepalm.gif

madfranks
15th April 2013, 08:00 AM
That's the first I've heard the term, "bitbugs". I like it.

Shami-Amourae
16th April 2013, 11:07 PM
http://www.dailypaul.com/280333/paul-krugman-in-1998-internet-will-have-no-greater-econ-impact-than-faxmachines-by-2005
In 1988, Paul Krugman stepped up to the plate and told us:


The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

As the rate of technological change in computing slows, the number of jobs for IT specialists will decelerate, then actually turn down; ten years from now, the phrase information economy will sound silly.

Neuro
17th April 2013, 06:21 AM
It was actually as late as 1998 Mr Krugman predicted that Internet was essentially without value... It says more about the value of his analysis I think...

mamboni
17th April 2013, 06:22 AM
I thought this forum had a strict prohibition against gratuitous use of profanities, like fuck, shit, and Krugman?