Jason's Notes About Stuff

"Should I buy Bitcoin?" This is a question I've heard a lot the past few weeks, so I'd like to quickly answer it in a public forum. My official answer is: "You should spend no more on Bitcoin than you'd be comfortable putting into a Vegas slot machine." As far as I'm concerned: Bitcoin is  not an investment . Bitcoin is a speculative, risky commodity gamble . If you do choose to put some chips down, remember that Bitcoin (BTC) can be subdivided up to 8 decimals places. Although fees make it difficult to trade very small amounts, you can easily trade down to 0.001 BTC, which at publishing time is worth about $15 US Dollars (USD). So at least you're not required to put a large amount of money at risk to play the game. Coinbase, one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges (where you can trade "real money" for Bitcoins) recently sent out an email: "Please invest responsibly." This might as well read: "Pleas

Everything I'm going to write here seems painfully obvious to me, but apparently is not well known. I've read many recent articles and comments that seem to herald "free market capitalism" as the answer to every problem in society. They all seem to miss one critical factor though. Capitalism only works if there is competition. This seems like a very simple, bland, undeniable statement, and yet as I write it, I hear the collective sound of thousands of people picking up their torches and pitchforks and heading in my general direction. So -- Who disagrees with this statement? Please put up your hands. Now, how many of you that raised your hands understand economics? And I don't mean the philosophy or political nature of economics. I've read  Atlas Shrugged cover-to-cover and I'm not talking about the type of "political economic philosophy" introduced there. I'm talking about straight up basic  Microeconomics and the theor