Tomas Forgac's site

Austrian school of economics | Liberty | Bitcoin
Profile picture
  • Tomas Forgac
Tomas Forgac speaking at Inside Bitcoins Singapore

Inside Bitcoins Singapore: Financial regulations and Bitcoin Feb 5, 2015

Below is the video of the concluding part of my speech from Inside Bitcoins Singapore. My case against regulations was based on failures of all institutions involved in drafting and executing previous regulations in achieving goals they were aimed at, particularly: Central banks with their low interest rate policies have created a massive business cycle with bubbles, crises or periods of stagflation. As a result, real capital was wasted in malinvestments instead of increasing productivity and standard of living.This luckily is not possible in Bitcoin because there is no central bank regulating monetary base and money supply Capital and reserve...

By Tomas Forgac Vote10 3
Switzerland:The government has stopped doing something and people have become 25% wealthier overnight. Let that sink in.

Swiss Franc Might Hurt Exports, But Not the Economy Jan 20, 2015

Mainstream media and Swiss exporters have made countless arguments about how strong Franc hurts exports and consequently whole economy. Switzerland is "export-driven" economy they say, strong currency makes production expensive and when exports go down, people lose job in respective sectors. Unemployment goes up and economy suffers. What these arguments are missing is the other side of the trade balance sheet - imports. When the value of Swiss' incomes and savings were artificially lowered by monetary interventions, foreign goods and services became more expensive. With stronger Franc, they can buy more from abroad, which makes them wealthier overall. They can...

By Tomas Forgac Vote13 1

Evil vs. Good: Trial of Ross Ulbricht Jan 11, 2015

The trial with the alleged Silk Road operator starts this Tuesday. It will be a battle between good and evil. The evil side wants young people to die from drug overdose or have their lives destroyed by addiction and crime. It wants to force them to use the strongest possible substances to get high as quickly and as intensely as possible. It wants to make huge profits on the suffering of those in the lower levels of the society. It wants to add more fuel to cartel wars which leave thousands of dead abroad while it sits comfortably in front...

By Tomas Forgac Vote14 3
Napster, Uber, Bitcoin logos

Let’s Bleed the State Dry Dec 31, 2014

Years ago, they shut down Napster and nearly bankrupted its co-founder. They did it based on rules which were completely arbitrary and on pretense of "intellectual property" protection (while at the same time used asset forfeiture to steal real property from those not close enough to be protected, let alone privileged). Their celebrations didn't last for too long, new generation of P2P file-sharing networks, much more resilient both technically and legally sprung almost immediately. Recording industry suffered, one of five largest record labels went belly-up, but those whom they pretended to protect most - artists - are actually making much...

By Tomas Forgac Vote23 2
Peter Thiel: Zero to One cover

Peter Thiel: Zero to One, Libertarianism to Crony-Capitalism Nov 20, 2014

Mr. Thiel's latest book is mainly compilation of his Stanford lectures, so it feels a bit eclectic, but for such short page-turner, it doesn't really matter and most of the book reads like a bible to someone like me, to libertarian running his first (well, second, but about that below) start-up. You can almost read Mises in Mr. Thiel's initial definition of term monopoly, which is important for later implications he draws from it. Mises explained how problematic is the very definition of monopoly in policies aimed at preventing or dismantling one because virtually anything can be considered to be...

By Tomas Forgac Vote11 1
Leo Express train

Free market competition makes everything better Sep 23, 2014

I took a train from Prague to Prerov in Moravia this Sunday. I remember making this trip countless times since thirteen years ago to visit some friends including one of my best friends whom I was visiting this time around. It's not the most pleasant place to go to, but the ride used to be the worst experience. It was slow and often delayed, cars were old and toilets dirty. You better always remembered to bring along something to drink as service was rare and expensive and there were no vending machines, only restaurant car with small selection of overpriced...

By Tomas Forgac Vote14 0
George Soros on Black Wednesday

What has George Soros taught us about Bitcoin Aug 18, 2014

One of the most repeated arguments against Bitcoin is, that it is not backed by any country, government or central bank. It's been used many times in interviews with myself and recently by a British security expert Prof. Alan Woodward in BBC's report about British merchants accepting Bitcoin. You can read the whole piece where I got to answer a few questions about Bitcoin and Coin Of Sale and watch related video on BBC's website. Mr. Woodward as many before him argued, that Bitcoin is unsafe because it is not backed by any institution. Unlike British pound, on behalf of...

By Tomas Forgac Vote7 0

MonkeyParking and tragedy of commons Jul 15, 2014

I hadn't known about Parking Monkey app until I heard about it on another excellent Russ Roberts' Econtalk episode with Mike Munger (seriously, listen to it, it will make you laugh and be more optimistic about the future). For others who are not familiar, it is an app which allows users to auction off parking space they occupy at the moment. It has caused an uproar in San Francisco (and perhaps other places) because apparently drivers who would be otherwise elsewhere occupy public parking space with the only intend to make money on vacating it, which has allegedly worsened the...

By Tomas Forgac Vote4 0

Austrian worm speaking: reaction to Noah Smith Jul 15, 2014

I'm one of the unfortunate individuals infected with what Noah Smith in his recent Bloomberg column identifies as a brain worm similar to the one from Star Trek Wrath of Khan movie. It causes me to follow the "demented cause" of Austrian economics. Since my worm is obviously very deeply rooted in what little is left of my poor gray matter, I'm not one of those "couple" who were enlightened by Mr. Smith's text, but rather my worm has instructed me to react against the reason and logic presented by Mr. Smith. The following text is thus a result of this worm's instructions and I can't take any...

By Tomas Forgac Vote6 1
EU tackles down on Apple and Google

EU and unexpected costs May 5, 2014

European Commission wants to tackle down on in-app purchases of add-ons for free tablet and mobile games. Commissioner Neven Mimica said, that "consumers, and in particular children, need better protection against unexpected costs". He's absolutely right. At this point, some crazy-ass heartless libertarian anarchist could go ranting about infantilization effects of taking responsibility from individuals, moral hazard of compulsory outsourcing of due diligence or how goodwill of companies on free market is the best protection against misusing trust of their consumers. He could also insidiously show multiple examples of how both Apple and Google repeatedly reimbursed parents for the most...

By Tomas Forgac Vote3 0

Login