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

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

#711

Post by denton-scratch » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #453

buboard wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, Germany generally also controls the Euro for the so called PIIGS countries. For all intents and purposes the euro is just as much as an externally-controlled entity as the Libra.

"Imposes"... Yeah.... Right... Was it Germany that forced Greece to cook their books to be accepted into Euro?

Well, "forced" is probably a bit strong. German manufacturers need markets; Germany "encouraged" the other members of the EU to allow countries like Croatia and Greece to accede, even though they didn't meet the entry requirements.

There are good reasons why the UK declined to join the Euro.

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

#712

Post by surfsvammel » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

auslander wrote: post #617

black_puppydog wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> you can't risk to have anything even remotely approaching a monopoly in any part of the systems involved in making transactions. AFAIK US is a monopoly for international money transfer. You just cannot bypass a US intermediary bank and US Dollar conversion.

There is not truth to this. How is there an American monopoly on money transfers?

Most countries have central banks that settle and controls its own currency. Bigger banks have accounts at the central banks and can settle cross border without a problem. The US has nothing to with it unless you are buying/selling USD (which, by the way, you can do outside of the US banking system, if you like) or you are buying selling some obscure currency which needs to be exchanged via the USD (or any other liquid currency for that matter).

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

#713

Post by np_tedious » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

mosselman wrote: post #667

np_tedious wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this behavior is not an example of learning. In fact, as Libra could potentially limits government power and encourages sound money money, one could argue this is the opposite of the dangers you mentioned. This false equivalence borders on Godwin's law. Combine that with the 9/11 rhetoric in the US hearings and it's really quite telling how they get SO scared. Idk how far it's going to go, and it might not be Lib…

Well it seems like the German government is worried about Facebook controlling money, not cryptocurrency per se. And I completely agree with that. Facebook creating money and everyone switching to libra sounds very dystopian to me.

As nobody would be compelled to use it, and those "everyone switching" network effects only occur if it has merit, I'm a bit more concerned about the banning being "dystopian".

And, of course, the Ministry of Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz

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

#714

Post by vagab0nd » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

This is probably one of the reasons why Satoshi Nakamoto didn't use their real name - If there's a single entity for governments to target, they will.

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

#715

Post by fulafel » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #453

buboard wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, Germany generally also controls the Euro for the so called PIIGS countries. For all intents and purposes the euro is just as much as an externally-controlled entity as the Libra.

"Imposes"... Yeah.... Right... Was it Germany that forced Greece to cook their books to be accepted into Euro?

The EU, incl. Germany, did kind of encourage it.

Same happened for other countries accessions. And of coures France and Germany bent the EU budget rules all the time too. Then when things started going poorly in Greece, the gang kicking the fallen guy promptly forgot about this.

(To be clear, many of the rules reflected a irrationally strict anti-debt anti-inflation puritanism to begin with, and the problem was more in the rules than their lack of enforcement)

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

#716

Post by surfsvammel » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

auslander wrote: post #694

htfu wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're likely thinking of the dollar being "unavoidable" as a unit of settlement due to its status as main world reserve currency, but even that's metaphorical and in any case a state & institutional level thing. Just think about it - how would that even work?

Dollar or not is not that important. Forcing US intermediary is.

There is no forced US intermediaries. What are you referring to?

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

#717

Post by seebs » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #685

unionpivo wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone living in EU hate it as much as you do. As someone living in smaller country, we now have our voice heard more than before, and other benefits of EU far outweigh the downsides. > They are institutionally cynical about their own citizens, who they see deep down as basically being stupid sheep Yeah Trump and Johnson are so much better \s. Every country has politicians like that.

Actually they are much better! Trump ran on an explicitly populist platform ("I listen to you, the elites don't") and Johnson is currently staring down the threat of a jail sentence because he's trying to actually leave the EU, as voters requested. They are much more guided by what's popular with voters than EU leaders are. And yes I know lots of people living in the EU think it's great. Lots of people living in the…

So Trump ran on basically the same platform as Hitler ("I listen to you! I will fix things and make us great! Other people are bad and a threat to us!") and you think this is better?

Part of what we usually want from our politicians is to filter what people want a little bit and remove some of the evil and stupid. I know, then we don't get exactly what we want. But if you ask exactly what people want, about 90% of it ends up being "people not like me to suffer more", and if you run everything based on that, all you get is everyone suffering more.

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

#718

Post by wslh » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

_xnmw wrote: post #657

lucb1e wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> “banning Bitcoin would be very hard indeed” It’s hard to take crypto enthusiasts seriously because of delusions like this. Banning bitcoin would be trivial: no legitimate business would accept it, making it useless except to fringe outlaws.

You can compare Bitcoin with torrents, even after streaming services like Netflix or Spotify were successful, torrent is thriving.

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

#719

Post by ahakki » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

phlo wrote: post #680

ahakki wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would never fly in Switzerland. You need to accept Swiss Franc Banknotes of any denomination as settlement for any monetary debt (this includes a purchase of a 1.- stick of gum paid for with a CHF 1000 Bill. there will be some arguing required for that one in practice, but the law is clear).

Wrong. The relevant law (art. 3 WZG[0]) requires persons to accept all banknotes (and up to 100 coins per transaction) as payment, but this only applies after a contract has been formed. It's perfectly legal for any store to indicate to customers that it will not accept large-denomination notes or cards[1]. If the customer is not willing or capable to pay using the accepted means of payment, no contract is formed, an…

You say that, Espresso is a good source for this kind of thing and I'm not saying your wrong. But the letter of the law does state that everyone has to accept Swiss banknotes with no restrictions.

My personal legal asessment: If you were to form a contravt for purchase of goods and stipulated ahead of time that payment will be made in small bills (or electronic payments only), receiving payment with 1000.- bills would give the right to demand compensation related to handling large bills (security, verification etc.) due to the contractual breach, but it would not allow you to deny the money and demand payment as contracted.

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

#720

Post by Can_Not » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #607

gzer0 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

You could argue democracy is in danger for small countries. Large multinationals have more power than those governments. It does not matter how their electorate votes.

There is already examples of large multinationals (including Amazon) bullying and overriding democratic municipalities in the US.