I'm not sure how you think they differ. They are exactly what I am talking about. They had a real investment at the heart of them. The problem in 2008 was that the investments were bad. People were given mortgages that exceeded their ability to pay them back. But that is still a real investment with the intrinsic value of the real estate properties that were foreclosed on.
The mortgages were known to be essentially valueless, packaged up and resold anyway..
that's not what I'd consider having a 'real investment' at the heart of them. And the value of the real estate didn't cover the losses on the loans, prompting bailouts.
The mortgages didn't have positive value, but they had the actual homes as collateral which provided intrinsic value. A mortgage goes under and you have a house to short sell and recoup your losses. A cryptocurrency goes bust and you have nothing. It is the difference between losing 20% of your investment and losing 100% of your investment.
They literally threw the country into a recession? Also, the average person isn't writing mortgages.
A better example might be the average investor in a company.
The average investor loses everything if a company goes under. Some creditors might get paid, and if they're lucky some 'preferred stock' holders might get something. But the average person (common stock) loses everything they put in..
I'm not really seeing much of a difference ? There is risk in everything...If you can't afford to lose, then don't bet?
>I'm not really seeing much of a difference ? There is risk in everything...If you can't afford to lose, then don't bet?
The difference is that intrinsic value provides a floor for potential losses and therefore reduces risk. If you can't understand why a worst case scenario of losing 20% of your investment is better than a worst case scenario of losing 100% of your investment, then I don't think you and I are going to have any constructive discussions about investing.
We need to fix the existing system, yes, and it requires real work - real relationship building, real trust networks of competent critical thinkers - a meritocracy, hierarchy of competent to form and be strengthened; regulatory capture is a multi-industry, multi-institutional issue.
Certain issues inherently to Bitcoin's issues are unavoidable pitfall and not fixable. The issues with government are fixable, and arguably the US government, democracy and capitalism has been highly successful for getting innovation to where it is today. Next step is making sure people/businesses are paying their fair share into the system and then redistributing a UBI to the largest segment or largest cog in the machinery - consumers, so then the machine has the fuel to run.
BTW - I agree Bitcoin has issues (speed/cost being the 2 biggest). It was literally the first generation coin. Other coins are trying to solve those problems. Personally I like Cardano/ADA for that reason - its trying to fix some of the issues with first gen. coins.
Also, if you think you can get people/businesses to pay their fair share...I think your dreaming. I really hope you can, but I don't see it happening in the next 20 years.
I agree about consumers. Its annoying so much energy is spent talking about the 'minimum wage', when we really need people with a 'middle class wage' to drive the economy. Seems like we're more interested in keeping people at the bottom then actually increasing the numbers of people with disposable income to drive the economy.
'That sounded great until the 'wealthy small business owners' part..'
That would be wealthy small business owners who aren't paying their taxes, I presume. And you're making an assumption "so the mega rich get off again..."
Hmm...2008 housing crash and the recession that followed beg to differ.