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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (44616)	11/11/2017 11:08:39 AM
From: RetiredNow	Respond to of 361112

Volatility is not the same as instability. All systems fluctuate. It is the application of artificial counterbalances that oftentimes can create unintended consequences and fragility, especially in fundamentally chaotic systems with infinite variables. I can go on about that because it is key to understanding why the Fed, 13 bankers, will never be able to successfully centrally manage any economy. However, to answer you on cryptocurrencies, I think they are the beginning of something potentially ground breaking. There are two things I love about it: 1) scarcity by design and 2) audit trail by design. If the world embraces cryptocurrencies and starts to use blockchain to increase transparency and disintermediate away from the parasitic banker centric models, then this will be a huge boon to people all over the world. There are big challenges though. How to you get a cryptocurrency that can minimize fraud and theft and secure your property rights without the oversight of a government entity? The anonymity of cryptocurrencies is a strength in that it protects it from governments that seek to impose financial controls on its citizens, but it is a flaw in that it allows for very bad people to do very bad things. Anyway, I believe that cryptocurrencies will replace fiat currencies in the very near future, but I believe ultimately government will co-opt the technology and corrupt it, so that they can continue to print money and control the citizenry to extract taxes and drive inflation (another form of taxation). In the short run, I think many of these currencies are in a massive bubble. I also believe ICOs are very dangerous to your financial health. I am not personally invested in cryptocurrencies nor ICOs and have no plans to do so, until it is better regulated. I don't think the potential upside is worth the risk at this point. I think the big gains have already been made and it's due for a pullback, just like every other bubblicious asset out there. But keep in mind that I am old and getting more conservative with my money as I age. I didn't invest in Google for the first 5 years after its IPO, because of much the same logic. But cryptocurrencies and ICOs carry far more risk than Google did back then. So caution is warranted.