It is quite amazing that just a mention of a word or phrase can effect our economy in profound ways. If Microsoft mentions Windows 9, people will begin to react. Sales of Windows 8 would take a quick a sudden drop and come to a slow pace. If Apple mentions the new iPhone 6 or discusses a security flaw in iOS7, iPhone 5 sales would drop tremendously. This is called FUD. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, and it plays a large role in our economy.
What the FUD?
Another thing that can and undoubtedly does cause market fluctuation and FUD is “Government Over-Regulation.” We are currently seeing the results of these actions and proposed regulation and some may see this resulting in the recent price drop of Bitcoin. Bitcoin was supposed to be global, anonymous, and free from any central authority. It was supposed to be money for the people, by the people and for the right reasons but what we are starting to see is frightened people, frightened businesses and a halt on innovation and punishment of those trying to do good things because of the some who want to do bad things. Being a new technology, Bitcoin needs a lot of innovation before it goes mainstream. New ideas, new concepts, better methods and radical change is still needed. The unfortunate result of early, inaccurate and unneeded regulation is a less than ready and less than useful operation. As has been seen throughout all of human history, good will eventually trump evil. The better design will win out over time. What is fairly new to the world is the over regulation by the Government who is supposed to be acting on behalf of the people, but today is busy protecting itself and the plans and cycles it has developed for its own self sustaining purpose.
Let innovators innovate and let developers develop.
Regulators today are stepping in during the innovating days and immediately halting or confusing the direction, creating nothing but chaos and FUD. It is a case of pre-judgement and one that was not needed in the history of human beings. If back in the early days of the human species I was creating my round wheel, and you created a square wheel, those things would be tested and ironed out in the market. People would buy my round wheel and love the easy rolling functions and people who purchased your square wheel would go clunking along and see my wheel and quickly the market would correct. Now imagine that the Government had stepped in early in my inventing process and said that they would not allow round items and gave no other good reasoning besides this. That is what we see happening with Bitcoin. The Government is stepping in far too early, claiming to know what’s best before any of us do.
Look what happened to us while the Government was in charge of what we did or didn’t do. We kept living our lives, they kept making rules and now we turn around to see what has happened and it is so bad, we likely have no way to reverse that trend. The United States National Debt stands at 17 trillion dollars. This is what has happened while we let regulators regulate, and the rest of us followed behind. Does anyone have a problem with regulation as it has been used in the past 50 years when our debt has risen from 311 billion to 17 trillion dollars? Did this regulation eliminate the problem of homelessness or starvation? Did it do anything to empower people like Bitcoin can? First, allow me to show you 17 trillion dollars so you can grasp how bad things have become and how irresponsible our “leaders” have been.
How much is a trillion?
Packet of 100 – $100 bills = $10,000
1st we stack (100) $100 Bills, and we will call this a packet. It is the size of a hundred dollar bill and stands about 1/2″ high. Imagine 100 hundred dollar bills in your hand. Not much but it is $10,000. So we are at $10,000
10 Packets of $10,000 laid down = $100,000
Next we spread 10 of these packets on the ground in a 5 x 5 square. We can call this a layer and in it we get and we get a total of $100,000
10 x $100,000 = $1,000,000
Next we take this layer and stack it ten high. Now our 10 layers of $100,000 are combined to make a block and we have $1,000,000 (One Million Dollars)
7 x 16 = 112 packets per layer
112 x $10,000 = $1,120,000 per layer
Now we will move on to pallets. We take our block from above, and spread it out to line the bottom of the pallet. We’ll start with one layer on the pallet which is 7 packets wide by 16 packets deep, with each packet being $10,000. With 7 x 16 equaling 112. We have 112 packets of $10,000 per layer or $1,120,000.
90 x $1,120,000 = $100,800,000
Now we take these layers and increase them to 90 layers and you have a stack about a pallet high. This pallet is worth $100,800,000. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll round this down and consider a pallet to be exactly $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars). Anyone want this extra $800,000 I have here? So, our pallet stands at a whopping $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars)
10 x $100,000,000 = $1,000,000,000
Now we want to get to a billion dollars. We can quickly see how much money a billion is as we take our 100 million dollar pallet and add 9 more. 10 pallets of $100 million and we stand at 1 billion dollars or $1,000,000,000
50 double stacked or 100 pallets. = $10 Billion
Now don’t lose me here. We take the pallets of 100 million each and we double stack them. Now we just grab another 49 of these double stacked pallets and we have 100 pallets of $100 million dollars and these pallets that now run over 150 feet away from us, stand 7 feet tall and these 100 pallets equal 10 billion dollars or $10,000,000,000
100 pallets x 100 pallets = $1 Trillion
Now, I hope you can still see the little guy in the lower left hand corner because at this point we are truly very little. In our row, we had 50 double stacked pallets or 100 pallets. All we need to do now, is bring in 100 rows of these 100 pallets. This would spread to about 96,768 square feet, at 224ft x 432ft x 7 ft and covers 2.2 acres. Remember now, we were nice and double stacked these pallets… so single stacked we are at over 4 acres. $10 billion dollars multiplied by 100 and we get that astronomical number of $1,000,000,000,000. One Trillion Dollars
WOW! The US Debt is really, really HUGE!
But wait, we forgot something… The United States Debt is 17 trillion dollars. Not one trillion. So, you can now take these 100 rows of 100 pallets and multiply that by 17 if you wanted to see the real size of a number far easier to say… 17 trillion, then to even comprehend. What was the point of this you ask? The point is, that we are trusting the Government Regulators and Law Makers to make decisions on the future of our money and financial security and these are the same people or coming from the same line that turned our 3 pallet debt in 1964 into our current 17,000 pallet debt. That’s insane. Anyone who believes that the Government knows best needs to be able to explain to me how anyone with a sense in anything could allow this to happen. If your family lost $2,000 in 2012 and then $2500 in 2013 and still $3,000 in 2014… any sane, rational and thinking individual would realize that it was time to re-work its current operation and “way of life.” The person in that family in charge of the money was operating dangerously and by no means should be allowed to tell others what to do to stay financially safe.
Since it’s inception, Bitcoin has been used to purchase billions of dollars worth of digital and physical products, some legal and some illegal. The American dollar has been used to do the same on a much larger scale. It is up to the individual to stay safe and to use whatever currency they want to use in a responsible and legal way. In this country and across the world, there are consequences for breaking the law and getting caught should be targeted at the individual, group or company in question. What our Government is trying to do is to play Umpire and to make the game deciding ‘safe’ or ‘out’ call on a very close play at home plate. The problem is that the game is in the bottom of the first inning and there is a runner on first. Relax Mr. Home Plate Umpire. Let us make some errors and possibly a diving catch, and who knows, maybe a homerun or a great relief appearance. You can make your call at home when we get there. Till then, sit back and let the innovators innovate, your regulations are exhausting.
JERAN C.
“TRYING TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, BIT BY BIT”
Donate BITCOIN: 19B7JQeUGL1YyHvs6QZ5k1coBgwVBCUKo6
Trillion Dollar Images Courtesy of http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/calculations.html
Title image courtesy of http://bitcoinexaminer.org