penny500

There's no reply button for me underneath your threads initially until some time passes. I guess that's how HN works for some. I'll respond to your latest comment here.

> If you say things like "we have a lot of people, so wind power won't work for us,"

Don't you just hate it when people put words into your mouth? Yeah, point me specifically to where I said or implied that.

This is completely economically illiterate. China is a developing country. As a result, it uses less electricity than its developed counterparts. As China grows, it will be using much more electricity. Just look at their energy consumption trend since the late 70s. That applies to India, Russia, Indonesia, and any other developing country in growth mode.

Oh, and guess what. China passed the USA in energy consumption in 2010.

Do you have a more objective source?

Calm down. No one put words into his mouth. You, however, did put words into my mouth, which I find quite astonishing.

Those windmills currently cover 1 million people. The world has 7 billion people and growing quickly. You really think windmills are feasible for Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, Russia, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, Turkey, Colombia, Ukraine, or South Korea? (I can list several more if you want.)

Get real.

Denmark's population is smaller than New York City by a couple million. The US would need a massive, massive number of windmills.

What would incentivize people to actually go into research if that were the case? Our best would all be bankers, lawyers, and mobile app developers.

Are you serious? Just because you're not Keynesian, it doesn't mean you do not believe in a central bank. Milton Friedman believed in a central bank.

"mainstream media" != "mainstream economists"

I'd prefer the opinions of PhD economists with a special emphasis on currency transactions over yours or anyone else's, actually.

Mainstream economists aren't central planners. I don't mean just economists from both administrations. I meant mainstream economists from every school on the US News and beyond.

Can you elaborate on your thesis so I know what you're specifically referring to?

That's not how quantitative easing works. Quantitative easing doesn't fire up the printing presses. Bernanke can add $2 trillion into the system within 15 minutes, and no paper money is printed or manpower expensed aside from a few clicks on a computer mouse. Once you secure your financial system network, adding currency adds virtually no costs relative to the amount of currency you put into that system. You've already secured the network.

It's akin to Facebook's security system. It works the same regardless if it's 100 million users or 1 billion users.

"It is being used as a currency"

Do you have a source for this? As far as I know, and I know this is a theory but I suspect a good theory, people used bitcoin as a currency when it was relatively stable and before it skyrocketed in value, and became extremely volatile. I highly doubt they're using it as a currency now because the value of a bitcoin changes dramatically within a day. Say it stabilizes at this price (~$95), you won't be able to transact with everyday goods because the price of 1 bitcoin is close to $100. Who would buy a hamburger for 1 bitcoin right now?

Once you secure the system however, the costs of increasing currency into that system is trivial.

Krugman isn't being a political partisan hack here. Every mainstream economist from the Republican and Democratic administrations agree that a currency backed similarly to gold (as opposed to a central bank) is not a good idea.