The Bush-Obama bailout of the banks included both the failed and the solvent.  They were all called to Washington and ordered to accept the money and were prohibited under penalty of law from discussing it.  We like to believe that John Allison and BB&T were solvent and forced to accept the money. The fact remains that if you have excess earnings, you need to think about your future. You cannot just put all of the money in a CD.  However, alternatives being as they may, you do, indeed, need to consider the standard certificate of deposit before you build your nest egg with Bitcoin.  Recently, online among our libertarian and Objectivist comrades, I read about a hard-working entrepreneur who put all of his saving in General Motors stock.  The comrade's editorial was that the victim "should have known" the risks.  However, I saw a broader narrative.

A thousand years ago, when mastodons roamed the streets, I sat on a curb in front of a bank, buying a sovereign from R. W. "Bill" Bradford, then of Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan. Bill admired H. L. Mencken and after making his money in the 70s, he sold the store and started Liberty magazine. Bill was a genius; and I mean that. I have also met Durk Pearson. Durk wrote the manual for the space shuttle science lab by himself.  Bill Bradford was about at that level for all the differrence it made to me with my optimistic one std dev of IQ.  Bill knew me and befriended me.  He told me to diversify.  When I came in again to buy more silver bars and rounds, he sold me a Sovereign.

So, last month, the net was abuzz about a story about a distributed computer that hacked 51% of Bitcoin. Read about GHash.io on PC Week here.

Put your money in the bank. Put your money the stock market. Put your money in gold. Put your money in the mattress. If you have any left over, put it in Bitcoin.