Subnostr

You are completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting me.

I'm not endorsing fiat money or fractional-reserve banking.

I'm endorsing free banking on a free market with real, hard money (Bitcoin). In free banking, individuals can choose to save or choose to take loans (which are other people's _actual_ savings - real claims on real resources) + interest for the service of acquiring resources sooner rather than later.

You disagree about the **ethics** of interest. That's all. It's completely disingenuous for you and nostr:npub1fjqqy4a93z5zsjwsfxqhc2764kvykfdyttvldkkkdera8dr78vhsmmleku to start to insinuate that I'm a proponent of fiat banking.

Also, you are basing your lending argument on comparing Bitcoin to fiat. That's then not an argument about "lending" itself (in a hard-money context), nor the ethics of interest, it's just pointing to the fact we all already accept: hard money is better than fake money.

Yes, great, agreed. That's not what we were debating... You've veered this into a weird territory and those not paying careful attention are getting the wrong idea.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

free banking, fiat banking, same stupid game

it's not the ethics of interest... islamic halal loans and jewish kosher loans are contracts

terms are set in stone, until the escape clause is triggered

any variable interest rate destroys that and incentivises one party to base their offers on contracts that put them in control of that rate, and then they can never lose

that is the problem, and if you don't understand how fundamental that is to the fallacy of fractional reserve banking there's not much more for me to say except think about it a bit more

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Discussion

vinney...axkl 1y ago

Fine. What about a fixed interest rate? Do you have a problem with that?

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

if it's in the contract, and it can't be changed without bilateral agreement, the interest is fine, it's baked into the deal, it's essential to the economics

you defer future gains to give someone a chance to produce better gains than you estimate you can make

that's a halal contract, and that's not what any kind of fiat money finance is about

vinney...axkl 1y ago

But that (fixed interest rate loans) is all I've been talking about.

Yet you and nostr:npub1m4ny6hjqzepn4rxknuq94c2gpqzr29ufkkw7ttcxyak7v43n6vvsajc2jl have been shifting the goalposts and straw manning like crazy to make me out to be a fiat lunatic.

If you agree there is nothing wrong with freely-agreed upon fixed rate loans, then we agree and we can finally shut up. The issue started when nostr:npub1m4ny6hjqzepn4rxknuq94c2gpqzr29ufkkw7ttcxyak7v43n6vvsajc2jl seemed to allude that "any interest rate == usury"

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

fixed interest rates are fine, did i say they were not?

just the reneging is not ok, and that's the essence of what usury means, it's a form of theft

Laeserin 1y ago

Nobody said that we consider them usury. We're neither Jewish nor Muslim.

I picked the building of a major road with a bridge, to illustrate the sort of project that would be difficult to finance by private interest-bearing loans. In the near past, they were financed by the state and the money was simply pressed out of the populace through taxation or through cheap loans to the private builders that were supported by inflation.

That said, full-recourse loans (as opposed to something backed by collateral) are a form of indentured servitude, if they cannot easily discharge the debt. Mortgages (except the ones that allow you to walk away and leave the key) and US student loans are typical non-dischargeable, full-recourse loans.

Laeserin 1y ago

I did not say that. I wrote an entire wiki article describing what usury is and said that I am generally against charging interest. That is because fixing the interest and then fiddling with the monetary supply, so that inflation/deflation effects the returns, is how they get out of the clause through a back door.

They can't do that as easily with Bitcoin. So, tell me how that makes sense in a rapidly deflating currency on a mid-term or long-term contract?

Obviously, it is possible for a week. Maybe a month, for a small loan.

But... 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?

No. It is economic nonsense.

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

I think aside from her moral beliefs, Laeserin's mathematical point is you can't denominate loan interest in Bitcoin because it's so deflationary and you can't really expect profit on loans under the early years of a Bitcoin standard for the same reason. Equity investment might be profitable but lending becomes a charitable act while there's such a deflationary currency available. Anyone borrowing 10 BTC will have a hard time returning 10 BTC while each Satoshi is gaining value faster than the rest of the economy's assets.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

this is something that modern people barely even understand

until you have worked for a few asshole employers, then you learn a nice and important fact about contracts

unilateral binding in contracts is a violation of contract law

that is, if the asset being handled is not bilaterally handled, it is slavery

this is why at any point in an employment contract you can just walk out and sign off and trigger the escape clause

what fiat and free banking fractional reserve contracts do is make it so that one party does not have the right to cancel the contract when the other party changes the terms

that is a violation of contract law, it is not honoring your word and it is essentially deceit