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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
201–210 of 821 posts
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#202Wait until they find out they can't block Bitcoin.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#203> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…
Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target.
"Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target."
Germany has, and has had, an immense interest in keeping their currency artificially devalued and they have achieved this by entering into a fixed exchange currency union with countries like Italy and Portugal and Spain.
The PIIGS currency is, relatively, overvalued in comparison to the German currency because they have the same value.
So a first glance at German policy which is in place to protect their fragile banking system which is overexposed to PIIGS debtors looks to be currency strengthening - and perhaps it would be if they had their own currency. However the broad impact of German policy (their policy to be in a monetary union with PIIGS) is tremendously weakening of their currency, relative to the other members of the Euro group.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#204I dislike Facebook but I kind of feel sorry for them now because any ambitious thing that they'll attempt will probably be blocked by governments now. Facebook and Zuckerberg deserves it though.
> I kind of feel sorry for them now
> Facebook and Zuckerberg deserves it though
Feels like those two feelings are at odds with each other. Either you feel like they deserve it, and not feeling sorry for them, or vice-versa.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#205> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…
What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. Not in France or Germany. Just because US privataises it's military doesn't mean that this is universally accepted as a good idea.
There are companies like Asgaard GSG providing basically that service (on a smaller scale and without public backing though).
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
I primarily responded because I disagree with your opinion: > The views of people on Hackernews don't seem very representative of those of the general population, maybe because hating on Facebook is an excellent excuse for people to feel superior to the general population. I agree with the part that HN isn't representative of the general population. But I don't think the reason for disagreeing is because we on HN wan…
>But I don't think the reason for disagreeing is because we on HN want to feel superior to everyone else (maybe some people do, but I don't think most people here actually think that way..). Maybe people don't explicitly think that, but people who demand a Facebook ban must at least implicitly believe they're somehow superior to the billions of Facebook users, otherwise how could they justify the notion that they way…
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Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
US banks created Zelle, with free instant transfers via your banking app. It’s a shame more people don’t use it. Otherwise people just use credit cards for paying for stuff.
Zelle (possibly just "as implemented by the banks I've interacted with") has very small limits - a couple thousand dollars.
Are people really going to make big transactions using Facebook money?
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#208Dumbest move ever by Facebook to preanounce and give governments time to complain. They should have moved fast and dealt with the consequences later. They had a reasonable chance of being the dominant cryptocurrency, and instead they get to spend a year apologizing and backtracking before they ever deploy.
I'm surprised people disagree with this statement since blitzscaling seemed pivotal to Uber's growth. However, FB is already in hot water. Maybe the pre-announcement was to prevent further damage to the brand.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point my opinion of Facebook is so low that I'd rather trust the incompetent monetary policy of governments than the competent but positively evil policy of Facebook. I'm aware that I'm very biased here but the tragedy that is Facebook upsets me all the more for what it could've been. Instead of being a boon to society, they've become the worst form of surveillance capitalism. I wouldn't trust facebook with h…
I don't like facebook either, I don't use it but I do like this idea. Libra is an innovation. A cryptocurrency backed by currencies (and credit markets) is very exciting.
It is an interesting idea, but we cannot look at it in vacuum. Does the value of an idea transcend the context in which it is born and where it is executed? Perhaps, but Facebook has shown time and time again that it cannot be trusted to do the right thing, it will systematically choose profit. Sometimes those two align, but this is not a foundation to build the future of our society on.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#210> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…
You are exactly right. Private currencies will be seen as the enemy, because they are a threat for exactly these reasons. Mall-level security is one thing, systemic monetary power quite another. A Europe which relies on private currency is a continent without controlled inflation, meaning you can just sit on your holdings and do nothing with your money (meaning actually doing nothing, not investing, not giving it to a bank for them to invest. nothing) and yet stay rich. the decrease in investment would mean it gets harder to fund any kind of business. Economic problems would be very hard to fix without the ability to pump money into the system. Also with competing currencies there is potential for chaos. One currency with a lot of savings might just fall over the next day. governments would be asked to convert tax money to prop them up. the euro is good enough for now. maybe it can in the future be modernized with blockchain like technology to get the benefits of currency technology without incurring systemic risk. i dont think there is much choice for europe but to ban these things eventually. especially since facebook is a foreigh company.