That Zuck...is he really trying to turn the crypto community from wanting to abolish banks towards appointing Facebook as the biggest too big to fail bank in history?
People seem to be swallowing it, though.
France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
381–390 of 821 posts
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Love this quote: > As Sarah Jamie Lewis, the director of the Canadian nonprofit Open Privacy, put it: “Can’t wait for a cryptocurrency with the ethics of Uber, the censorship resistance of Paypal, and the centralization of Visa, all tied together under the proven privacy of Facebook.”
Surely she meant decentralisation, though? Visa is anything but decentralised.
Most likely, or it's a transcription error.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
The primary purview of the state is geography (borders) and taxation (monetary policy). Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy.
> Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy. Who said anything about a primary medium of exchange? Should dollars be disallowed as well? How about bitcoin? Starbucks gift cards?
Let's be honest, if Libra takes hold as Facebook wants it to, given the power Facebook already has over communications, ads and social networks, it very well could affect the capability of states to exert their own monetary policy. Not a single one of the examples you made had such a real possibility of being as big as Libra could be.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
> not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision I think Monsieur Macron has put this onto the agenda when Libra was announced. I'm not disagreeing with the decision and have similar concerns as you, but I'm still uncertain whether the state should even have the ability to block these and other things in general. Most of all, I miss a British voice here (as, sadly, not very much longer an EU…
The primary purview of the state is geography (borders) and taxation (monetary policy). Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy.
Taxation isn’t monetary policy. You can tax without even having your own currency.
Monetary policy is entirely about currency control for inflation, etc.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a history perspective : the hyperinflation leading up to the 3rd Reich.
Which is one reason why capital controls are so destructive. Allowing denizens to keep their savings in whatever form they so choose is a human right. Libra will afford people the option to invest in and use a token that is backed 1 for 1 to a basket of global currencies and government bonds at a low cost.
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#386I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…
> Hey do you mind if we just skip the paperwork part and just control currency, while actually being a social media tech giant This is a gross mischaracterization of what Libra is. Libra is a token that's backed 1 to 1 on some basket of currencies and mostly government bonds. The Libra foundation makes money by taking a portion of the investment return to fund themselves, much like a brokerage takes a bit of the retu…
> Libra is a token that's backed 1 to 1 on some basket of currencies and mostly government bonds
And that architecture is decided by the Libra foundation, therefore they control currency.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy. Who said anything about a primary medium of exchange? Should dollars be disallowed as well? How about bitcoin? Starbucks gift cards?
Let's be honest, if Libra takes hold as Facebook wants it to, given the power Facebook already has over communications, ads and social networks, it very well could affect the capability of states to exert their own monetary policy. Not a single one of the examples you made had such a real possibility of being as big as Libra could be.
It won’t. Germany already doesn’t have control of the monetary policy for the currency it uses (the Euro). Monetary policy != taxation.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#388I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…
Ironically, Germany generally also controls the Euro for the so called PIIGS countries. For all intents and purposes the euro is just as much as an externally-controlled entity as the Libra.
Like any incumbent, they don't like competition.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#389I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…
The strange part to me is just that there are already hundreds of crypto currencies available in Germany. When the government says that yes, these hundreds of currencies are fine, but Facebook can’t create one, then it just seems like the policy is anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook.
It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky.
The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly, the premise of most western democracies) is to prevent the over-concentration of power.
Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before.
Germany's response of essentially "yeah no, we're not letting Facebook make money here," seems prudent to me.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes - you have to be a member of the Chiemgauer e.V. association in order to use or accept the vouchers, which is why it's called "vereinsintern", i.e. "internal to the association". It's not a general-purpose currency.
Have to? What happens if a random business accepts them for payment, and uses them for purchases at other accepting businesses?
IANAL, but the association giving out the vouchers would probably sue for fraud, since the merchant acts like a member of the association even though they are not.