France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #240

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…

Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that. I'd also like to mention that certain entities operating outside of the state are precisely the sort of thing that can prevent the sort of tyranny that Germany enacted during the 20th century.…

> monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny

This is in direct contradiction to your previous paragraph, unless such a system is inherently decentralized, and not controlled by a single entity (such as FB).

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

#292

Post by arethuza » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #287

bko wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> portion of the investment return I'm not super on top of a lot of the details here, but I thought Libra was like a currency. What investment return?

Isn't it highly likely that any crypto currency will be seen as a vehicle for speculation?

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

#293

Post by Qasaur » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #282

Qasaur wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Keeping it from going up and giving disproportionate gains to money holders past is part of the job. There's nothing ironic about it, this is the job of central banks, and there's nothing shady about it. There is something incredibly shady about it, because inflationary monetary policy is inherently a regressionary redistribution of purchasing power and wealth due to Cantillon effects whereby those relatively closer…

> There is no need to print money in a growing economy... There is, for a number of reasons, but not least of which is fairness. If I get a dollar, then the size of the economy doubles, my purchasing power as a fraction of the total amount of economic activity doubles. This creates wealth inequality over time, too. Likely to the benefit of the same people. I hear you re: Cantillion effect, though I'm sure that could…

>There is, for a number of reasons, but not least of which is fairness. If I get a dollar, then the size of the economy doubles, my purchasing power as a fraction of the total amount of economic activity doubles. This creates wealth inequality over time.

You assume that as an economy doubles prices won't decrease. The natural tendency of a free market is a decrease in prices due to competition, technological innovation, and other factors. If anything, holding the same dollar will lead you to purchase more goods at a higher quality than before as the market develops and expands - a higher purchasing power.

Wealth inequality is exactly what is caused when you print money to match the growth of the economy due to the aforementioned Cantillon effects.

>Most importantly, philosophically, nobody owes you a risk-free return over time on your idle, un-invested capital.

There is nobody that is giving you that return. The so-called "return" is the tendency of a free market to lead to cheaper prices and higher quality goods and services. If anything, I can't see a justification to allow the public's money to decrease in value over time.

>You mean the industrial revolution? I'd say there were externalities that affected that. Counter-point, the great depression.

Yes, there were externalities that affected it, but the core point remains the same. Competition and rapid technological innovation lead to a decrease in prices over time. The Great Depression was not a consequence of a natural deflationary regime rather it was the consequence of extremely lose monetary policy during the 1920s ("The Roaring Twenties") and it would have resolved itself quite quickly but as letting people be unemployed is usually politically unpopular Roosevelt enacted price controls that extended the market correction process that would have otherwise taken a much shorter time than it did.

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

#294

Post by blackbrokkoli » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

Hermel wrote: post #270

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…

That’s a very typical German mindset. You implicitly assume that nothing good can come out of Libra so it should be banned from the beginning. The pragmatic approach is to wait and see what happens. Most likely, it won’t be as successful as you assume it will be. Also, there are plenty of other forms of private money out there that you don’t seem to have a problem with (e.g. credit cards), as well as foreign currenci…

Sorry, no. This is just reckless. I'm trying hard to assume good faith here.

"Wait and see" is a good approach to see whether your new electric city bus line is working or whether people prefer your website logo in red.

You can never, ever take back what became basic necessities on a nation level while being even remotely democratic. Once people have it, they won't give it back.

And you seriously think Facebook is to be given any such power, even after Cambridge Analytica? We're talking about currency, and billions of people. Lifes are very much at stake.

But sure, let's wait until Facebook uses Big financial data to get some populist party manipulated into power and a mere few thousand people die from the consequences, than be all enraged on reddit for a week and unable to change anything? I'll keep my typical German mindset, thanks

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

#295

Post by arethuza » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

stkdump wrote: post #290

2ion wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 some foobar in the last century, which I'm sure everyone is aware of. Maybe if they'd turn their minds towards what ruling parties have had a monopoly on government for decades as to not allow one club to get co…

> Germany is deconstructing itself by [...] ignoring millenium problems in governance, such as unchecked mass migration. What are you talking about? Germany is 25% immigrants, the US is close to 100% immigrants.

14.8% seems to be the real figure for Germany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany

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

#296

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #203

pjc50 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target.

"Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target." Germany has, and has had, an immense interest in keeping their currency artificially devalued and they have achieved this by entering into a fixed exchange currency union with countries like Italy and Portugal and Spain. The PIIGS currency is, relatively, overvalued…

Of course, if the crypto advocates win, then Portugal, Spain, Germany, and everyone else will be in a "currency union"...

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

#297

Post by arcticbull » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

Qasaur wrote: post #293

arcticbull wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no need to print money in a growing economy... There is, for a number of reasons, but not least of which is fairness. If I get a dollar, then the size of the economy doubles, my purchasing power as a fraction of the total amount of economic activity doubles. This creates wealth inequality over time, too. Likely to the benefit of the same people. I hear you re: Cantillion effect, though I'm sure that could…

>There is, for a number of reasons, but not least of which is fairness. If I get a dollar, then the size of the economy doubles, my purchasing power as a fraction of the total amount of economic activity doubles. This creates wealth inequality over time. You assume that as an economy doubles prices won't decrease. The natural tendency of a free market is a decrease in prices due to competition, technological innovati…

> If anything, holding the same dollar will lead you to purchase more goods at a higher quality than before as the market develops and expands - a higher purchasing power.

AKA, a risk-free return on your uninvested, idle, capital that nobody owes you. The poor tend not to have much savings, by definition, which means that all this win goes to the already wealthy. Your argument is simply that your dollars should be worth more later because you got your dollar first. That's not a good reason, IMO.

> If anything, I can't see a justification to allow the public's money to decrease in value over time.

Let's say you decide it should be worth the same amount forever. Fine, that still requires printing new money. All you're arguing now is the magnitude.

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

#298

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

Qasaur wrote: post #243

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…

Ironic that the German government wants to avoid irresponsible monetary policy through a private entity when it is literally printing money to stimulate growth through the ECB.

How about we not relitigate all of monetary policy in a thread about Facebook? This isn't productive; it's a gigantic, pointless digression.

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

#299

Post by ralusek » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #291

ralusek wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that. I'd also like to mention that certain entities operating outside of the state are precisely the sort of thing that can prevent the sort of tyranny that Germany enacted during the 20th century.…

> monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny This is in direct contradiction to your previous paragraph, unless such a system is inherently decentralized, and not controlled by a single entity (such as FB).

Facebook would already make the situation into 2 competing entities, as the state will always be the other.

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

#300

Post by capableweb » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #255

capableweb wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think this is less about liberalism (it doesn't argue for government to be run like a business) and more about US-inspired thinking where businesses are better than governments.

Not arguing with the statement, but note to you: he said "libertarianism", not "liberalism". The two are obviously very different.

Thank you, I did misread that part.