third_rate_economist

Question was about the importance of Bitcoin in the future, he answered that regulators are scrutinizing Bitcoin. This seems to imply that he doesn't expect them to last very long, or he is skeptical that they will survive. So, not important.

How would you plan to maintain the quality and value of education if we switched to a government funded system? If you look at the increase in government loans and grants to students, you'll see decreasing quality (lower postgraduate literacy) and labor market saturation. On the fairness side of things, someone that made it through most of their life without college is now expected to essentially subsidize the wages of young people. There are so many other reasons why this is a bad idea.

I don't disagree with you. To your point about counterfeitability, would you say that Bitcoin is more secure? To a certain extent, lack of bureaucratic oversight is a good thing, but Bitcoin has a bad habit of being stolen from the exchanges or directly from wallets. One must ask what the potential disadvantages of non-physical currency are.

Doesn't government like the paternalism part of the current welfare system? When we give people money targeted at specific uses, they don't have the option to spend "irresponsibly." If they take the UBI and spend it on drugs and Apple products, there's no safety net. When they don't have housing or food, government will be called upon to rescue them.

I'm all for personal responsibility. Friedman's NIT was brilliant, but the government can't let people make their own decisions.

It doesn't have value though. I'm not saying it couldn't become a thing, but it seems very hard to predict.