OK, this was really fucking stupid.
I used to respect Tim Harford at the FT a lot; he made economics sensible and fun back in the day. In recent years he's devolved into meaningless guttural sounds
Bitcoin is an even stranger case. It was designed to facilitate digital transactions without the need to rely on institutions such as banks, and to preserve the anonymity of users. But Bitcoin is cumbersome, expensive to use, generally relies on large intermediaries and is pseudonymous rather than anonymous, meaning that not even criminals are particularly happy with the cryptocurrency’s usefulness. It has failed to achieve any of its purported objectives, yet it has succeeded wonderfully at being an asset the price of which tends to go up.
This is unbelievably stupid, worthy of some Roger Ver ramblings. For fuck's sake! Blocks are sub-1sats/vbyte, it's been EASIER THAN EVER to transact or learn... but still, the ~2017 objections are alive and well.
Fuck.
Right.
Off.
Some pockets of finance now make no distinction between illusion and reality; everyone in those pockets is looking for social approval, and finding it; and what matters above all is not substance but glittering appearance
AND THEN YOU HIT ME WITH TULIPS?!
If anybody says tulips again, I will personally come to your house and CUT YOUR DICK OFF WITH A MEMPOOL FILTER. Jezus fucks
#785459
"What we can say about financial markets today is that, whether or not they are in a bubble, they keep flirting with the surreal.""What we can say about financial markets today is that, whether or not they are in a bubble, they keep flirting with the surreal."
No, sir, you are. Please retire
@denlillaapan this really is your niche of traversing the ft onto SN
If I'm bold enough to tackle a future article I'll be sure to tag you as influence and make noteworthy references to previous posts 📫
amazing! Yeah, I try my best
do it!
Either that guy didn’t do his homework, or someone’s paying him to talk that kind of nonsense.
Tulips? Hahaha, that bubble lasted like six months!
And they weren’t even the months when tulips were trading
growing/out of the ground*
(it was winter, bulbs in the ground)
My recollection from your piece is that it was mostly a bunch of drunk idiots scribbling outlandish offers on napkins for pretend tulips.
yes that's right!
(Because during the winter months, the onions are in the ground -- nobody could physically trade them until unearthed in the spring)
Yeah! It’s insane how ridiculous these people make themselves look.
Archive link: https://archive.fo/SJeU0
Ask him what the mempool is please. Has he heard about lightning? Its been 7 years.
I think Tim's dick might be immune to mempool filters...
He is paying a college kid from India to write articles on his behalf. He has figured it out.
Classic Wall St psyop
how sad. i tried to read The Undercover Economist but suprise suprise i didn't finish it, didn't even get past the first chapter. but in that first chapter are some really interesting, practical examples of scarcity and its effects that I marinated on for literally years. usually in the context of pricing, but ultimately it was those same lessons applied that helped me get bitcoin once and for all.