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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

#561

Post by smsm42 »

K0SM0S wrote: post #238
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…

Let's get real for a minute: France and Germany do not want Facebook, of all businesses, to monitor most private monetary transactions. Yesterday a social network, then a press/media entity, now a "central" bank with no traditional jurisdiction but its own private virtuality? It's preposterous, particularly considering the track record of this company. The statement you quoted is just typical gov/political PR, common…

> how does the USA treat the US Dollar, would they be willing to just let it wane or die, be "invaded" by a foreign and private currency

This can only happen one of two ways:

a. US government declares that currency legal tender. They won't do it ever.

b. all of US citizens voluntarily agree to accept this currency instead of dollars, only using dollars when they must (e.g. when paying taxes) but otherwise avoiding it like plague. This has been a common occurrence in places with unstable national currency - e.g. exUSSR countries in 90s-2000s, and many others. At that point, the US dollar would be effectively dead anyway as currency, and the only way to recover it would be stabilize it back and make it preferable means of trade.

The only way for other currency to push out US dollar is for US citizens and the whole world to become convinced this currency is better for them - safer, more stable, more convenient, more trustworthy - than the US dollar. If anybody can ever do that, it's not Facebook. So there's nothing to worry about.

> wildly uneducated about macroeconomics and political theory

What exactly in macroeconomics or political theory suggests that any private coin - of which literally thousands already exist - pose any threat whatsoever to the existence of national currencies?

They, of course, pose tax-avoidance, money-laundering, etc. risk - and if particular state's central bank goes completely bonkers and ruins their own currency with their monetary policies - as it happened in Zimbabwe, Venezuela and many countries before that - then the national currency can vane and die. But that happened many times before Facebook even existed and will undoubtedly happen again. Libra has zero to do with it, and nothing you just described comes even close to explaining bizarre and non-sensical action of European government. It's mostly looking as "this new thing is confusing to me so I ban it just in case". Funny thing it's not even new, it's just pure ignorance.

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

#562

Post by black_puppydog »

theturtletalks wrote: post #543
dpau wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last week I wanted to purchase a used item but discovered that, without warning or notification, Marketplace was deactivated from my Facebook account. My Facebook account is quite active, with posts, discussion in multiple groups, and hundreds of friends. I still have no clue as to what rule I triggered and no recourse to reactivate it. Now imagine that's my digital Libra bank account? No thanks.

That's a good point, but other companies do this without recourse. Paypal is the classic example. They will literally ban you overnight and hold your funds for months. Oh and forget knowing the reason, because revealing why you got banned would reveal too much about their filter algorithm. The key is to diversify where you buy and how you buy it so you're not dependent on any one company.

Which is exactly why you can't risk to have anything even remotely approaching a monopoly in any part of the systems involved in making transactions. Which is why I (also as a German) am very happy that we have a competitive (read: better in literally every way) alternative to credit cards, plus a strong cash culture.

Oh and for completeness' sake: if paypal (and libra for that matter) are not regulated according to all the rules that other financial services have to obey, something needs to change. But then I don't know enough about the specifics of that to say if that is a hypothetical or not.

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

#563

Post by aeyes »

yitchelle wrote: post #343
eastendguy wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When it is the majority of the population, it is beyond a personal decision. This is just my personal observation. Among the western European countries, German has the smallest level of adoption of credit cards. The French, the Dutch, the Swedes etc love their cashless nature of credit cards, the Germans not so much. Furthermore most of the credit cards offered by the German banks are actually debit cards.

A debit card is just as cashless, what is your reason for using a credit card?

Hotels or car rentals which want to block a certain amount on my card as guarantee are one. Other than that I never needed a credit card.

In case of an emergency most bank accounts in Germany can go into the negatives, I guess making minimum payments on a credit card is cheaper but that style of life isn't at all common in Germany.

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

#564

Post by daniel_iversen »

smsm42 wrote: post #550
WhoBeI wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hoping this would happen. It will probably become a EU thing now. The idea of a privately controlled currency needs to die quickly. Never been a fan of crypto currency in general but Bitcoin, and the like, are accepted because they are not centralized. Your Bitcoin won't change in value or disappear because your country and another get in a fight.

There are lots of privately controlled currencies. Miles, points, certificates, game gold, etc. - they are all private currencies. Most of them aren't legal tender, but neither are cryptocurrencies. The only difference between facebook-coin and miles is that Facebook promises to encourage dealing in their coin and airline would frown on that. Not much difference otherwise. You have some tokens that you can exchange f…

> There are lots of privately controlled currencies. Miles, points, certificates, game gold, etc.

Yes but these other currencies don’t have the possibility to be the most used and powerful currency for everything you do, and who knows what shape, direction and impact Libra will take/have over time once that Pandora’s box is opened!

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

#565

Post by aeyes »

freeflight wrote: post #362
blattimwind wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wager that about 90 % of "credit card transactions" in Germany are actually Girocard transactions. Virtually every bank card is a Girocard.

Depending on your bank, it's quite the opposite, particularly when you want to draw cash from an ATM. With a Girocard, you have to go to a specific brand of bank or hope they are in your "cash group" or else you will pay a hefty fee. But some banks offer to withdraw from any ATM using their VISA CC with no fees at all. For years I've been using this to get cash without much of a hassle and pay for stuff I'd otherwise…

Most of these "credit cards" in Germany aren't really credit cards though. They take the money from your account immediately instead of sending you a monthly statement and letting you decide how much you want to pay towards your credit.

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

#566

Post by djohnston »

kazen44 wrote: post #530
djohnston wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

but this is exactly what is happening to people not from the US. People in SF board rooms deciding what is in our news feeds, and now the same company is arrogantly declaring it wants to play with currency too.

Fb deciding what's on fb is not as harmful as a govt deciding what's on fb, IMO

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

#568

Post by vidoc »

I find how Facebook continues to actually push for Libra astounding.

I was at Best Buy the other day, and as I was browsing through the home automation shelves, my eyes were quickly attracted by an ugly logo, blue over white with an atrocious font -> "Facebook Portal".

While I did remember hearing about Facebook plans to just, build this home camera+microphone connected thing, never would I imagine a remote universe where this product would actually hit the shelves. In fact, I naively always thought there are these teams called product and marketing that among other things are supposed to analyse the market and predict consumer reactions. I might be entirely wrong of course but I never ever imagined a world where such a product could be sold to a customer while being branded Facebook at the same time.

I have exactly the same feelings about Libra. A currency controlled by a corporation is a "no thanks" to begin with, but in the case of Libra we are talking about the last corporation anyone with a sane mind would ever consider (a bit of exageration here but let's say, one of the worst). I seriously have a hard time understanding how those evidences are not determined internally before communicating such plans publicly. It is either trolling, or there is a serious problem of isolation and there might be a yes men plague in this company.

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

#569

Post by coolfragrances »

jeena wrote: post #363
lostlogin wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll stick to using my money as money thanks. It works fine.

Not in Sweden anymore, most of the lunch places in Gothenburg where I live don't allow payment by cache anymore. If you have money but not digital, you will go hungry nowadays.

This is the first time I've heard of something like this. I grew up in Greece during the mass deflation of the currency and people wouldn't accept anything but cash. Interesting to learn that it works both ways.

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

#570

Post by kazen44 »

djohnston wrote: post #566
kazen44 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but this is exactly what is happening to people not from the US. People in SF board rooms deciding what is in our news feeds, and now the same company is arrogantly declaring it wants to play with currency too.

Fb deciding what's on fb is not as harmful as a govt deciding what's on fb, IMO

this highly depends on what kind of ethics and culture your goverment has compared to what facebook has.
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