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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

#591

Post by taffer »

Tylereves wrote: post #586

The beginning of the article reads... "In a joint statement, the two governments affirmed that “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”. Is this irony in the US that a private entity, the Federal Reserve, is in just such a position of monetary power. It's all smoke and vaping, chickens and eggs, hemp and da kine.

Although the Federal Reserve formally is privately owned, it is a government entity. It was established through a law and is controlled by the Board of Governors, appointed by the US President and approved by the US Senate.

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

#592

Post by qaq »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #225

I'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…

Like Gazprom ?

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

#594

Post by NicoJuicy »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #268
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #225

I'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…

> 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…

To be honest, although i think it's sad that Britain left.

They were never fully in on the EU as France and Germany are ( i'm Belgian).

So i'm not sure if a agree as much with your opinion as you want :)

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

#595

Post by shakna »

alacombe wrote: post #536
shakna wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case? Not quite, in the case of Libra. Only a handful of companies control the nodes. Which makes it relatively easy to enforce a ban.

That's completely false. Today, you don't need to interact with the NYSE to buy stock listed in the NYSE. There is plenty on intermediaries providing the service for a fee.

If the half dozen nodes are required to block payments originating from a nation, then it would require illegal middlemen to accomplish that, and they can continually be shut down.

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

#596

Post by zaphirplane »

nugget wrote: post #575
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.

Isn't the answer better consumer protections, though? Rather than a ban on new technology that threatens the status quo. If Facebook wants to be a bank, they should be subject to the banking regulators and there could be (should be) strong consumer protections preventing the type of corporate behavior you describe.

I feel there is a conflation here. Facebook is free to apply for a banking license in countries they want to operate as a bank in. Facebook shouldn’t be able to circumvent banking over site and regulations by coming in as a technology company with fancy words. The conflation here is Facebook isn’t being blocked form becoming a licensed bank in Germany - correct me if I’m wrong

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

#597

Post by lucb1e »

wslh wrote: post #118

I think the trend of demonopolizing currencies is unstoppable, just take time. I argue that this can be part of a new cold war dimension between countries and when some countries block financial initiatives others fund an opportunity. I wrote a little bit more about this vision in [1]. [1] https://blog.coinfabrik.com/libra-association-a-menace-and-a...

Perhaps a cryptocurrency is unstoppable, but Libra is the same as Visa. Banning Libra is like banning a company like Visa, it's not anything like banning Bitcoin which would be very hard indeed.

> Libra will not rely on cryptocurrency mining. Only members of the Libra Association will be able to process transactions via the permissioned blockchain.

(From Wikipedia)

It's just a payment processor. I don't know why it's called cryptocurrency. If the bar for that is "it uses cryptography" then Paypal is a cryptocurrency because they use HTTPS.

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

#598

Post by lucb1e »

journalctl wrote: post #289

Private tech companies should not be issuing currency. I can’t believe we have to have this conversation.

I can't believe it either, but for a different reason. If Facebook had announced that they're going to launch their own version of Paypal, nobody would have wanted to use it for privacy concerns. But because cryptocurrency is trendy and supposed to have a positive effect on privacy and not supposed to be controlled by a single party, all of those concerns fall away. Except that (Wikipedia):

> Libra will not rely on cryptocurrency mining.[20] Only members of the Libra Association will be able to process transactions via the permissioned blockchain.

It's not a cryptocurrency at all. It's a cryptocurrency to the same extent that, because your credit card cryptographically signs the transaction at the POS terminal, euros can be said to be a cryptocurrency.

Somehow they get away with calling it cryptocurrency when it's really just another Visa or Paypal. Nobody should want to use this and that should be obvious, but 'crypto magic' is involved and so we need to have the conversation.

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

#599

Post by meschi »

azernik wrote: post #571
twistiti wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be a solution for you to buy foreign currencies with lower inflation amount (e.g. EUR)?

"capital controls" generally includes foreign exchange controls, i.e. restrictions on conversion to foreign currency and local use of foreign currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_controls

And why should this be different for a private currency controlled by facebook?

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

#600

Post by dmix »

jayd16 wrote: post #394
Qasaur wrote: post #260

I think this action is a symptom of a much larger, and much more serious disease, namely the fall in trust for traditional fiat currencies like the euro and the dollar. Decades of irresponsible monetary policy and runaway inflation (CPI does not capture the whole picture, look at asset prices the past decade) since the abolishment of the gold standard has lead the general public to indirectly feel disenfranchised wit…

I think you're right about the general unrest but frustratingly we see snake oil bubble to the top. A new gold standard with rent seekers won't save us from stagnant wage growth.

I've never heard anyone say anything nice about Libra. Most likely Libra with be DOA, regardless of this move.

I don't even know why so many people are wasting their time on this stuff. Does the German/French gov not have other more pressing issues?

No need to fantasize about the risks of private mega-corp currencies taking on the monetarists even before it has made any realistic challenge to it.

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