Oddbean

I've literally never seen anyone use the word "cute" when NOT referring to a child or an animal, if they are NOT trying to be condescending. So that's off-putting right off the bat, but everything else in your comments suggests that you simply don't know what the word fiat means. Fiat means 'by arbitrary decree'. That means that fiat currency is currency because someone says it is. Generally no problem so far, if everyone agrees to use that currency to represent value. But in the USD and the fiat I'm aware of, that decree declares 'this is the money available for you to use, it necessarily WILL be worth less tomorrow. If all goes as WELL as it possibly can, you will have 8% less value next year. If WE need more value, we can just produce MORE of this currency, making your saved currency worth MUCH less, so WE can extract that value from you without doing anything but 'printing' more of this currency". COULD there be better fiat? Absolutely. Create a fiat that can't be inflated, that can't be devalued by creating more. If government created a fiat currency that COULD NOT be 'printed' at will they would make it useful as a medium of exchange without making it damaging to the wealth and value that those who work for it posses But they don't. Because then THEY would have to do something for the money THEY want too. And that's the basics of the system we have: They offer a currency that WE have to work or trade for, but they can just create at will for themselves. That is inherently unjust for those who have to work for it. All that said, if 'government not stealing value from you every day for work you already did' is now "utopian thinking" then yes, I think you'll find MANY 'utopists' holding bitcoin.

Yes, you are right about fiat and the principles at work. That is exactly its function, to have an ability to be devalued at a certain rate per day/month/year and that is ok. It's designed to do that. I don't understand how that's an offensive revelation for many. I mean, I get it, it can be offensive if fiat is treated as a store of value and the only monetary tool available to you, but there are many other tools available to people, bitcoin being the best in history, available to every human in the world. Again, use fiat as a medium of exchange, use Bitcoin as a store of value. These two systems coexist perfectly fine.

No it's not designed to LOSE value, it doesn't just go away. It is designed make YOU to lose value and MOVE that value to those who control it. It has been that way for at least a hundred years. Would it be 'offensive' if I had slaves? How about if I only made them work for 10% of the year? I'm only extracting 10% of their value from them, and doing nothing to gain it except 'possessing' them... But stealing their value and life energy is INHERENTLY EVIL, and thus offensive. Fiat makes slaves of everyone, and has done so for a century. There is FINALLY something that they can NOT control, which on a long enough time frame easily overcomes that, but it is still just and right to take offense at, and decry their evil system.

You're looking at it from a perspective of a victim. Fiat is designed to lose purchasing power while assets serve the purpose of preserving the wealthy. I honestly don't understand why it's so difficult to understand. Target inflation of 2% is a target of devaluation, nobody is hiding it. Instead, you choose to present it as some sort of conspiracy and a class war aka the Marxists worldview. You are free to use assets to protect yourself, you are not only limited to fiat.

If you're going to ignore the entire point of what I'm saying it's clear you don't want to understand the problem and I have wasted my time patiently explaining it to you. It's REALLY simple: Those who control the (fiat) money are CONSTANTLY and INCENSANTLY stealing from EVERYONE else. And that is wrong. #Done