France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra • Hacker News Board

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#211

Post by r00fus » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #179

buildzr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as against their soverignty? Do they treat gold similarly?

« Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies? » No, and that's the great point everyone is missing. Paraphrasing their logic: "it is inherent to the sovereignty of nations that no private entity can claim monetary power". In other words, they don't want private entities to control monetary power, but they tolerate this power being in the hands of "public"…

??? How do you conflate their stance against Libra with support for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has no Facebook-sized entity the French and German governments can control/admonish.

Neither did any entity related to Bitcoin go out and stake any ground like Facebook did.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#212

Post by en-us » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

olivierduval wrote: post #109

sergefaguet wrote: post #63

nations also used to be convinced it is inherent to their sovereignty to tell us who to worship and who to marry. this is no longer the case. not sure there is a principled reason why the power to govern the exchange of goods and services (which is what money facilitates) should be up to them.

> nations also used to be convinced it is inherent to their sovereignty to tell us who to worship and who to marry. this is no longer the case. Except in some theocraties where you're 2nd class citizen when you don't worship the official God (Israel, some Muslims countries...) And in the US, the President oauth is on the Bible and "under God" if I remember clearly. So, in a way, it is still the case: how would a Jew…

> And in the US, the President oauth is on the Bible and "under God" if I remember clearly. So, in a way, it is still the case: how would a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist be able to do that?

Federal public officials in the US can swear on anything they want to, the Bible is not a requirement.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#213

Post by sorokod » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

germanier wrote: post #205

sorokod wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Note that Asgaard is not operating on behalf of the German government. The service it provides is completely different to politically expedient way of projecting military power by the state.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#214

Post by buboard » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

shanecoin wrote: post #187

What other times in history have private corporations taken on government entities and succeeded? Have any of these attempts been on this scale and against an entity of this power (i.e. proposing a new monetary policy against the US Federal Reserve)?

Private entities attempting this would always have been shut down with violence. The prevailing violence established itself as "the state".

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#215

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #33

MaupitiBlue wrote: post #8

Dumbest 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.

Even if FB were willing to take the risk, they partnered with institutions that understand the world a bit better than that. Would-be volcano-dwelling evil geniuses in the tech world will learn patience eventually. (Arguably, some are - that's why Palantir is such a frightening entity that I'd like to see reigned at least as much as FB.)

[deleted]

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#216

Post by buboard » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #4

Can someone familiar with Libra speculate how a ban can be implemented? What comes to my mind is forbidding Facebook selling and processing it for EU users but beyond that, I am not sure how a "black market" could be prevented.

Libra is a centralized, cryptocurrency. Facebook will abide by the law and not allow transactions from france & germany with the network.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#217

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

a3n wrote: post #165

Isn't this restraint of trade by two businesses, France and Germany, against a third business, Facebook?

[deleted]

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#218

Post by AstralStorm » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #185

aazaa wrote: post #27

> “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…

There’s a big difference between a local currency in a small region, or even a distributed crypto like bitcoin, and someone like Facebook. When Facebook starts pushing in a direction towards being an independent state-like power, you have to remember they have a “population” of 2.1 billion (daily active isers) Facebook if it were a country would literally be bigger than China. Their political power is fast approachin…

Facebook has a population of 0. People do not actually live on a land owned by them.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#219

Post by shanecoin » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #214

shanecoin wrote: post #187

What other times in history have private corporations taken on government entities and succeeded? Have any of these attempts been on this scale and against an entity of this power (i.e. proposing a new monetary policy against the US Federal Reserve)?

Private entities attempting this would always have been shut down with violence. The prevailing violence established itself as "the state".

What time period? In the US? In communist countries? I would imagine what you said has been the case in many time periods in many different countries, but I am sure there are other scenarios. Do you have anything specific in mind?

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#220

Post by narrator » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #27

> “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…

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”

From a legal perspective, there are three things that create monetary power.

1. The money created by the monetary power can be used to settle tax liabilities. Currently no currency except Federal Reserve Notes can be used to settle U.S tax liabilities.

2. The money created by the monetary power is not subject to capital gains tax when it is transferred. Currently, everything that pretends to be money is actually considered property and thus subject to capital gains tax on every single transaction. The tax is measured in its value in money.

3. The monetary power has the power to destroy money's value. In United States v. Kahre, a guy in Nevada was paying people in gold coins that were issued by the U.S government and circulated in daily commerce in the 1900s as legal tender. He used the face value of the coins stamped on them to report and pay his income taxes. The IRS said to him that those coins aren't money any more, even though they were at some point. A 15 year criminal conviction resulted.

By virtue of the taxing authority of governments, only the government has a right to monetary power. In fact, without tax authorities, the monetary power wouldn't exist.