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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

reuters.com

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

#461

Post by skinnymuch »

burlesona wrote: post #389
lacker wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is Facebook more powerful than Google/Alphabet?

> I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before.

Amazon and Google being of somewhat similar or greater power at least tempers down that statement. And unlike Facebook they have really good reputations outside specific parts of circles like the tech circle.

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

#462

Post by jayd16 »

bko wrote: post #451
jayd16 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like a full reserve though as its not 100% cash. It says right there that its partially invested in risky assets. Whether they're low risk is just an opinion. But even assuming it was a full reserve, I don't think its fundamentally different enough to be allowed to skirt the existing laws.

Fair point, its not cash. But generally in banking, cash and cash-like products are equivalent. I think they'll make public the actual investment breakdown. It's different enough from banks because its matched one for one with some asset. It's essentially a passthrough investment. The reason banks are so highly regulated is that they participate in fractional reserve banking where they take in deposits and invest in…

>Should Starbucks be regulated as a bank because they let you prepay for a cup of coffee?

Well this might just be where we simply disagree but I would say yes. Those Starbucks cards are often used as a way to launder money from country to country. You can't transfer balances from one individual to another as far as I'm aware so it's not nearly as problematic, though.

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

#463

Post by mcthrowaway123z »

Problem solved, use USDC. Not invented here but what did you really have to add anyway? A non-sovereign unit-of-account was just a bad idea for consumer adoption anyway. We still have issues with financial literacy here, why not seek simplicity? I'll tell you why not, because it doesn't satisfy someone's career advancement metrics forced on them by a misguided peer-review/stack-ranking system. What other justification was there to use Libra in lieu of anything else?

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

#464

Post by blub »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #444
kypro wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has developed a fairly anti-US-big-tech attitude recently. As a Brit I kind of understand it. We probably don't benefit from importing all of our 21st century products and services from the US, especially when these companies don't pay any taxes in our countries. Europe as a market has higher taxes, more regulation, and has more cultural barriers giving us a huge disadvantage when trying to compete in the glob…

> We probably don't benefit from importing all of our 21st century products and services from the US This amounts to "our country is bad at [thing], so let's restrict trade for [thing] to protect our industries." Of course it sounds great until other countries counter by restricting the thing you are good at, and then everyone loses.

That's precisely the right decision if those industries have national significance.

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

#465

Post by littlestymaar »

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…

> Inflation, […] has come to be viewed as inherent to the sovereignty of nations

This comment, talking about Germany, the one of the country that has had such a fear of inflation for almost a century, is highly ironic.

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

#466

Post by djohnston »

quotemstr wrote: post #184
dannyr wrote: post #90

I 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.

This situation is a consequence of squandering the company's goodwill. All the big social media companies spent years arrogantly declaring that they --- not the people, not governments, but people in quirky SFBA meeting rooms --- get to decide what you people see, what they don't see, what's true, what's false, what's offensive, what's anodyne, what's legitimate activism and what's dastardly propaganda. As it turns o…

What would the alternative of content control be? I'd rather swap euros for libra than allow the Germans to decide what's in my news feed

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

#467

Post by glogla »

yitchelle wrote: post #434
sorokod wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it is the majority of the population, it is beyond a personal decision. It boggles my mind, but "majority" of the German population has a preference to Currywurst ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst ) - is this also "beyond a personal decision" ? If you have a reference to German government pursuing an anti credit cards policy - please provide it here.

Curry wurst is definitely a cultural thing. Most kids growing up in Germany eats curry wurst, and continues to eat them in adulthood. This paper (0) is a good write-up on how the card systems works in Germany. (0) - https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/bitstream/handle/fub188/22957/... edit:updated the link

The link doesn't work?

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

#468

Post by clarkmoody »

dontbenebby wrote: post #102
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…

>What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. Private security firms are also not ideal.

The alternative is that all matters of security become political.

We've seen plenty of examples where politically controlled security forces have done terrible things to significant portions of the citizenry they are presumably there to "protect & serve."

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

#469

Post by ismail »

dantheman wrote: post #457
TuringNYC wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unrealistically limiting to think modern wars are fought only with armies. Most wars are quiet and fought with capital, thought, rhetoric, and policy. Armies only come into the picture if all else fails.

Can you point me to a 'modern war' without armies? I'm interested in what you actually think a war is?

Not op but will take a stab. The comment was in response to:

“This is hyperbole at best. Facebook does not have an army”

Op was pointing out that power != war with guns

“Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now”

The comment was how power could be achieved via other methods of warfare-including the ability to shape conversations.

Another word for this would be competition. He has a point.

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

#470

Post by ThomPete »

eastendguy wrote: post #330
ThomPete wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is notoriously anti credit cards so no surprise when it comes to them. Its a stupid move of course but my guess is that they are worried it will be successful and threaten the EURO.

Why is Germany (the state) "anti credit card"? It is accepted everywhere. You might mean that some Germans don't like CC and prefer cash for privacy reasons. But that is a personal decision.

No sure why people are downvoting me for this.

But let me just say that, when I was at Square this was common knowledge and why that wasn't the first market we looked at.

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