Re: [tlug] [OT] Mt.Gox Debacle. Please Comment.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Brian LaVallee writes:

 > Being in Japan, I am surprised that Mt.Gox hasn't learned the
 > apology dance.

 > Step up,

Not part of the Japanese version.  (The Japanese version is not a
-suru verb, it's a -sarasareru verb.)

 > take responsibility for your errors,

Not part of the Japanese version.  "Take responsibility" has no
translation in Japanese, although "commit seppuku to expiate shame"
is the quintessentially Japanese parallel.

 > disclose exactly what happened,

Not part of the Japanese version.  Providing information of any kind
infringes on bureaucratic prerogative.  (My contract with Monkeyshow
provides that I must conform to their regulations, but the regulations
are not part of the contract, nor was I provided with any information
about what they were at the time of signing except that they are
"reasonable and non-discriminatory".  And of course they're different
now. :-)

 > share how you will prevent it,

In the Japanese version, needs to be slightly amended to "share a
theoretical description of how it might have been prevented in this
case, and promise to consider implementing some such solution if
bureaucratically feasible and fully funded by somebody else's budget."

 > and apologize.

Now, *that* is part of the Japanese version without qualification.
"Talk is cheap."

As far as bitcoin goes, there's a reason why everybody has learned to
use banks.  As Paul Maud'dib put it, "I prefer to see the hand that
holds the knife."  I *know* that MUFJ wants to suck my blood, and I
know how they plan to do it.  That's why I use them!  I even know why
I can't do anything about it.  And use them anyway. ;-)

Joe Stiglitz[1] describes it as the "efficiency wage hypothesis": if
you pay people significantly more than they're actually worth, they
tend to be pretty careful to do an honest day's work (as measured by
actual cost of effort, not by what they're paid, of course!)

Footnotes: 
[1]  Nobel Prizewinner in Economics, former head of the World Bank,
and one of the few professional economists who can respond to the
canonical question, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" with a
non-chalant "But I *am* rich."  And he was rich before he got the
Prize, by the way.