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Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

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Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#111

Post by x38iq84n »

orbifold wrote: post #89
elcomet wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is basically any libertarians pipe dream. Are you sure about this? I thought libertarians were against all institutions such as the state with power over people. UBI is a socialist policy. It seems in total contradiction with libertarian principles to me. How is that possible?

Well I am not a libertarian myself but as far as I understood people pushing for UBI are also pushing for a drastically smaller administration which is currently administering social benefits. This would be achieved by basically eliminating most other form of benefits, similar to how they propose to hand out vouchers for services like education instead of operating schools.

You have misunderstood libertarianism, just because it wants to see small to none state does not mean it would support UBI or other forms of socialism.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#112

Post by alkonaut »

qwsxyh wrote: post #54
albertsondev wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, the Nordic countries are seeming fabulous right now.

I think most people still consider the Nordics mainland.

Yes we can indeed walk from the nordics to what we like to call "the continent". Which is odd when you think about it, because you'd think the continent would consist of what you can walk to.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#113

Post by C1sc0cat »

orbifold wrote: post #15
Barrin92 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't be so sure that Uncle Sam isn't going to crack down even harder than the EU. Financial control is a big part of US power abroad and I can't imagine that the US government is going to tolerate a private entity taking that control away, and that's probably for the better. This entire Facebook currency thing sounds like something out of Shadowrun.

I think it is likely that this is backed by a substantial set of US political interests. People that want to experiment with UBI might want to see a Facebook sanctioned UBI. This is basically any libertarians pipe dream. On the other hand I think you are right. I expect any US based opposition to move swiftly. Regulations should probably be the least of their concern given how the US has treated entire Nation States…

"I owe my soul to the Facebook / Amazon store"

I wonder if some of the big companies would like to bring back the company store system - with the rise of populist politicians and the rolling back of existing protections I am a little worried about this.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#114

Post by ahje »

qwsxyh wrote: post #54
albertsondev wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, the Nordic countries are seeming fabulous right now.

I think most people still consider the Nordics mainland.

Most people use the term "Continental Europe" and not "Mainland Europe" for that very reason.

Technically, most of the Nordics is a peninsula and a large number of adjacent islands of various sizes, so it depends on your definition of course.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#115

Post by C1sc0cat »

neckeri wrote: post #43
orbifold wrote: post #11

There is basically no way that a self respecting first world country will allow this to happen. The national federal reserves in Europe are still responsible for international settlements, that gives a tremendous amount of power and oversight, they won’t allow a third party to take that away from them. Facebook may be able to buy off US regulators, but they won’t be able to convince the EU.

Thats assuming the EU isnt easy to buy off - looking at a couple of regulations in the pesticide industry its easy to see they're very accommodative. Lobbying is big business in Brussels.

The Farming Lobby is huge you mean

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#116

Post by C1sc0cat »

john_minsk wrote: post #96
chris_wot wrote: post #66

I cannot understand why you would want to use Facebook's "currency". I'd just use what we currently have.

Biggest bank in Russia (Sberbank) introduced a simple feature: if you know a phone number of a person, you can enter it on their website and if the owner of the phone number has any account with Sberbank you can send him money. The convenience of such feature was so big that it caused people move from other banks to Sberbank just to use it. Eventually leading to government regulation making this feature bank-agnostic…

Broken bank regulations and lack of competition explains a lot of that as well as existing as the USSR for a large part of the 20th century.

And maybe the Russian government doesn't want ordinary citizens to move money outside the country

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#117

Post by C1sc0cat »

skribbj wrote: post #106
john_minsk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biggest bank in Russia (Sberbank) introduced a simple feature: if you know a phone number of a person, you can enter it on their website and if the owner of the phone number has any account with Sberbank you can send him money. The convenience of such feature was so big that it caused people move from other banks to Sberbank just to use it. Eventually leading to government regulation making this feature bank-agnostic…

Same thing in Scandinavia, but it's a cooperation between banks. Know someones phone number? Open the app "Swish" and send him money.

Why what is the use case here that bank transfers, cheques and cash don't already solve

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#118

Post by seren »

koonsolo wrote: post #92
huis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes ofcourse they will. When a county doesn't receive tax it will be a very big problem. So countries need to be in control of the flow of money. It is also a very big problem is an outsider can change the value of your own currency. So you don't want US companies taking over your money flow.

It's my money, so also my flow of control, not that of the country I live in. I know this is open ups the whole discussion about cryptocurrenies all over again, but maybe some people don't want government to have the monopoly on storing and transferring 'money'.

>It's my money, so also my flow of control, not that of the country I live in.

It is a bit less binary that that. Money is only a bunch of papers or bits moving around.

The fact that everyone "believe" in a money is that if you don't play nice with the bunch of paper or bits, like not paying your debt, "someone" will make you pay, seize your asset, throw you in prison, or sell you as a slave to your creditor depending on the jurisdiction.

It does not mean that the state should be the only one to have the power to issue or create money, but without rule of law there is no money so to speak. So I believe that "power" and "money" are more closely related that we want to usually acknowledge it.

What is interesting is that with its global reach, Facebook has probably already more power than a small state.

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