Episode-1295- Jeffrey Tucker of Liberty.me
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Jeffrey Tucker is CEO of Liberty.me and publisher of Laissez Faire Books. Tucker is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Foundation for Economic Education, an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and an Acton University faculty member. He is past editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and past editor for the institute’s website, Mises.org.
Jeffery joins me today to discuss, bitcoin, digital cities, the bright future of liberty, freedom as a do it yourself project. Few people I have met are as articulate as Mr. Tucker when it comes to explaining why government should never be trusted with money, the way I heard him put it during one speech was,
“The government should not be trusted with money,…….ever,……., under any circumstances,………at all,………ever,……..as in never.”
I laughed at that but I also agree more and more every day with the premise. It is funny that two people as different as Jeffery and I have actually walked such a similar ideological path, from conservative, to libertarian to the edge of anarchist simply do to observation of government malice.
We have also both walked a path from financial reformist, to gold standard supporter to abolishing all government currency in favor of private market exchange and embracing the hope represented by digital currencies.
Join us today for a enjoyable discussion on freedom, economics and changing society though individual and voluntary group action.
WARNING – If you support big government solutions of any kind, your head may explode during this episode!
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- Liberty.me – Jeffery’s New Initiative
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YAY! I have been hitting refresh every 5 minutes for the past 3 hours 🙂
Boy did we have a headache today! I did this yesterday and thought it was all fine. Something happened that never has before. When I went to edit Jeffrey was fine, my entire side of the interview was GONE! Seriously like it never happened. SOOOOOO what you hear today is actually Jeff saying everything word for word and I had to rerecord my entire side to save it. Not sure how I did it but I think I got it about 95% the same as yesterday’s live recording.
Good grief, what a pain in the ass! Thanks a bazillon for saving it for us.
thanks for your dedication jack. I appreciate it more than you know
The reason that government cannot run or fix anything is because Congress is the opposite of Progress! 🙂
Oh wow. I would have never known. I wondered why it sounded like Jeffery cut out a bit. Great save.
As for bitcoin, alright, I’ll try it. I still think that they need to implement the merkle tree so that the blockchain can be truncated before it can be fully functional… The block chain is what, 4 gigs? its going to keep increasing and that old data can probably be cut out, but the devs havent pulled the trigger…
Here’s a fairly good explanation of what needs to happen. http://codinginmysleep.com/ultraprune-in-plain-english/
Great show today, Jack. What a great education on the full scale assault on government control that is ongoing under everyone’s noses (and most have no idea). It was great. I will be signing up for Bitcoin on principle alone at this point. Homeschooling – check. Homesteading – Check. Bitcoin – Check. Love this show!
I listened to the show, but I’m kinda stupid. What exactly is liberty.me?
Who are these big government lovers around here? I scan these comment sections semi-regularly (could have missed something), I listen to %90 of the shows (free, thank you), and I just can’t ever remember anyone supporting ‘big’ government in this community?
Is there another forum I am missing to this show?
Why the hell would anyone listen to this show, at all, if they thought big government was going to save or help them? How would they even find the show?
Or maybe, this is a sentiment from a man who envisions near to or zero-government as cool; thus blaspheming anything that recognizes a plausible use for a governing ‘authority;’ Yes, some can see that the current and historical authority structure is based in psychopathy, and still appreciate that ‘authority’ is where all knowledge and advancement has come from.
Lets cheer our elders (for what most are worth today), yet, curse authority… Is that what they call an oxy ‘moron?’
Bit-coin: Maybe I have missed this as well; but does anyone consider that ‘they’ want to maneuver us towards a cashless society? I support the idea, but NOBODY really knows whos behind this. And anti-bitcoin media could very well be instigation propaganda…?
Nice on the re-record! Swing on that spiral!
This was a “comment” with a few questions. I will not be debating here.
Ask Ron Shook and a few others.
While not technically proven, there is compelling evidence Nick Szabo is the creator of bitcoin.
This got me pretty excited about bitcoin.
If I were leaving the country, how could I get my bitcoin exchanged into the new local currency without gov’t oversight? Would I got to a currency exchange of sorts? Could the local govt of my local shut those down?
Exchanges are the weak point. You could simply spend away your bitcoins. Or, exchange in person. For people rich in bitcoins, those options can be problematic though.
That is along the lines of what I was thinking. Governments could make Bitcoin very difficult to use by outlawing their conversion into local currency. At least, that’s how it seems at first glance.
Jack, your thoughts?
Great show Jack! The whole idea of bitcoin is really starting to crystallize. I might be ready to commit to 5% on this one.
Jack your really misleading people with this latest bitcoin celebration your having, read the article on washingtons blog, Bitcoin:revolutionary game changer- or trojan horse. Bit coin is great for many reasons but has many flaws as well. First in my mind is digital currency plays right into the governments hand as they still can track and trace or hack anything on the internet. Next what happens if communications are off line and everybody has a great deal of money in bitcoin. Please address these issues and others raised in the article above.
First if you can trace bitcoin that means nothing in comparing it to all other electronic commerce as it can be traced. Bitcoin is not just really great because you can be anonymous. Look quit buying into the hype and bullshit on both sides. No one that understands bitcoin thinks all transactions are untraceable. NO ONE, period, got it NO ONE.
Now the other side, you can make a bitcoin transaction for all purposes totally untraceable and there are several ways to do so, none are as simple as just sending it somewhere via a third party like coin base but it absolutely can be done.
I used to install multiplexers for MCI, they break up calls into many channels and reassemble them on the other side. There is a protocall called zero coin, it is sort of kinda like multiplexers on steroids. They break bitcoins into thousands of tiny fragments, each taking their own path in the block chain and slowly being reassembled at the other side. Good luck with that, could it be done, sure but unless a specific person is targeted for other reasons it isn’t likely.
But again this is at the edge of what bitcoin can do, it is not what it is meant to do. What it is designed to do is make your money 100% portable, enable commerce of value for value without the banking system and give you more options to move and store you wealth in. You haven’t heard me one time tell anyone to put most of their money in bitcoin, nor will you. I simply see it as another option and one with some real advantages. Every transaction in bitcoin is one OUT SIDE OF THE POWER ELITE STRUCTURE.
Oh and this crap, “what happens if communications are off line and everybody has a great deal of money in bitcoin”, well what happens if all communications are offline and you have a great deal of money in the bank, in the stock market, in paypal, in a merchant account, in an ETF, in a mutual fund, in a brokerage account?
Oh and how does bitcoin compare to those during a crisis. Well if the economic system is totally F’d all of those items will be subject to capital control, if there is any working internet at all, bitcoin isn’t. Get it?
Of course there is risk during a communications outage that any form of electronic wealth could be inaccessible. Your fing car will not work if we have a shut down of gas supply, are you going to get rid of it and buy a bike. May be Ron Snook can sell you an electric one with some solar charging so you will be good to go when peak oil hits otherwise you are f’d right? Hell come to think of it, do you have a job, you better quit it right away and find a way to live with no money at all, because if the internet goes away forever, I promise you that your job is totally f’d, no matter what you do.
This angle is myopic. I have always advocated, some money in the bank, some money in PMs, some in cold hard cash, some in investment and some even in alternatives like bonds or ETFs. Now I simply add to that list, bitcoin as an option.
Now the trojan horse angle, the government did all this and can shut it down or know everyone that did everything in a micro second, “it’s a trap”. This is also idiocy. First the government isn’t competent enough to do this, not just not competent enough to get the info, they are also certainly not competent enough to create bitcoin. I am not talking about the code, I am talking about he concept, government can’t conceive of this, it is like asking a monkey to conceive of a flux capacitor.
Next even if they could have, they would have sprung the trap a long time ago and they sure is hell would not have set it up to be cloned into litecoin, duckcoin, thiscoin, thatcoin, etc. They would not have created a way to do paper wallets and they would not be trying to figure out what to do about it right now, all confused and simply unable to believe this thing even works.
I am not misleading anyone, it pisses me off that you claim this. Please tell me one thing I have said or written about bitcoin that isn’t true, one. Either that or apologize for a baseless accusation. Saying I am misleading people is saying I am lying to people, I take it seriously. I also take it as a pretty big insult! So tell me one thing I have said or written about bitcoin that is untrue, or apologize or BE GONE!
They’re either researching the ass off, or has begone-d!
Okay, maybe I’m confused. I went to liberty.me and signed up for updates, and got redirected to an ematicsolutions.com website? Did liberty.me get hacked, or is this what I’m supposed to see? There doesn’t appear to be any ‘site’ to go to for information or anything. Am I just being dense, or am I missing something?
Okay, I just discovered the value of listening to the ENTIRE episode! I posted my question just a few minutes before finishing the episode, and I realized at the end that it’s in beta and will be up in the next 30 days or so. /facepalm
I really like Jeff tucker. He seems really interesting. I have seen him on the Capitol Account show on RT. And some Mises vids on YouTube.
Incredible interview. It was as though the two of you were sitting in a cafe just having a stimulating conversation over coffee. I’m a huge fan of Jeffrey Tucker and highly recommend his talks and articles on mises.org for anyone not familiar with him. His article on intellectual property is one of my favorites. Great job Jack!
@Greay Mas, read my comment to @karim about the first comment, I think you will be shocked at what had to be done with this interview.
Wow!
I would have never know if you didn’t point it out.
Thank you for a great job.
The US goverment sponsored email service never really existed
However such a thing has long been proposed as a way to save the dying USPS.
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/post_office.html
Ironically the reasoning behind it is that it would more private and secure than free email service…you know because the government would never spy on your email like Google does(thats is a sarcastic statement btw).
There is even more sinster the Inspector General of the USPS has proposed using at state sponsored email service as a cloud server saying quote..”a kinda of federal safe deposit box for sensitive personal information”
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/5-ways-save-post-office
Australia and Israel already have implemented state sponsored email services which they claim to use for offical government communiques (woohoo! government propaganda spam in your inbox!).
You seem incredulous in the interveiw that anyone would be dumb enough to sign up for such a thing…but as noted in the popsci article above hundreds of thousands of Finns have gleefuly paid their goverment to open up their regular mail and convert it to PDFs.
Also if the US government did do this it would probably be mandated in some way…such as requiring all tax documents and such to be only available threw this system.
You know to save the government money…imagine the savings if the government could go paperless!(more sarcasm).
After hearing mention of a USPS run email client I did some research as well and came up with two instances of a USPS email.
First in the 80’s there was E-COM.
Then in 2000 there was PosteCS.
Both were financial disasters, but they most definitely existed.
http://www.fedtechmagazine.com/article/2013/09/postal-services-30-year-relationship-email
Sorry for the editing errors in the above post. I am still getting used to this tablet thingy and its finicky touch screen and tiny (for my big fingers) keyboard.
This interview was so fun to listen to! Impressed with the editing, as well. Jeffrey’s enthusiasm and manner of speaking reminds me very strongly of Paul Wheaton.
To those with bitcoins: Remember that since you are now responsible for protecting your own money, back up your wallet! If you lose that there’s no way to get it back.
Is it just me, or does Jeffrey talk like Alan Watts?
I thought he sounded like Paul Wheaton.
I can see that. Yeah.
Interesting discussion. I like the Costa Rica idea most.
Jack this guy said something that always concerned me about bit coin, “…they have been talking about taking the government seized bitcoins out of the blck chain…” Or something to that effect.
So if programmers are capable of manipulating the currency in anyway then can’t this tool then be once again abused by a powerful minority? I get how it is supposed to work but if this one done rightly or wrongly there then is door open, a power out there, akin to a president using a precedent to increase their power.
I do not understand why Jeffery was laughing about it when it would actually contradict his entire platform. This is a reason I do not trust groups of people. Just a bit of power and they start rationalizing abusing that power. Would it be great to hurt the FED? Yes. But the communists also had nice sounding ideals that they quickly betrayed when they gained power.
I would love to know what you think about this all Jack especially concerning the bitcoin stuff.
Btw seeing how Russia is dealing with bitcoin shows you the threat this currency provides to monolithic power structures. Their currency is much more fragile than our own and the wealth is much more concentrated and controlled.
Hey jack bad choice of words on my part was at work when i wrote the comment was in a hurry. Listen i dont think you were misleading people on purpose or anything i think you have alot of integrity. Its just this when someone like you who has a lot of loyal listeners gets super exicited about something like bitcoin they tend to buy into it completely without fully thinking it through. Thats what i meant by ‘misleading’. I see it with alex jones listeners all the time he sais nascent iodine is the greatest and they immediately think they need it and buy it. I just felt in that particular interview you didnt qualify the possible cons of bitcoin enough even though you have on other shows. Just saying people really trust you cause your a straight shooter and they might go overboard cause of all your enthusiasm. I was one of these people at one time thats why im very causious and considerate of these issues. Meant no disrespect and misleading was a poor choice of words i apologize.
So nothing I said was untrue and you are saying I am buying into it without thinking? Or are you saying that while nothing I said is untrue my listeners are in danger of buying into it fully without thinking?
Either way, how about you worry more about tido and less about me or people that listen to me. I never told anyone to do anything risky with bitcoin, I have advised caution but I have also explained the value it offers.
Franky you seem to be talking out of your rear end!
Jeffrey Tucker!!?
Wow!
When are you having Tom Woods?
I was on Tom’s show he has an open invitation for me to return the favor but doesn’t seem interested. http://www.schiffradio.com/pg/jsp/verticals/archive.jsp?dispid=310&pid=62867
That’s too bad. I’ll have to nag him on Facebook.
The term the interviewee is looking for around the 1:05 mark is “renaissance man” 🙂
I know Jack would have said something if he weren’t on vacation. For those interested in Liberty.me it launched a few days ago… and featured a number of articles including one from Josiah.