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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 s

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 some foobar in the last century, which I'm sure everyone is aware of. So if Facebook, 10x of Germany's population comes around the corner with a proposal akin to "Hey do you mind if we just skip the paperwork part and just control currency, while actually being a social media tech giant" there going to be up against every trick in the book. This is not hypocrite behavior because Germany allowed some fun regional currency project no one is aware of some time ago. This is much more protecting the idea of the German society. And personally, as a German, I'm really glad about it. You remember the hundreds of cases of worked with a scummy developer on an app once, now I'm blocked out of my email and all my files stories? Now imagine that, but with money and with a company who never even bothered to pretend it isn't evil - this is gonna be a no, thank you!

ralusek 7y ago
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. Sometimes, and often, the entity capable of "regulating" is the tyranny. Imagine if Germany had had the capability to prevent payments to Jews, or track which households were spending more on food than they should and were likely harboring enemies of the state. I'm not saying Facebook needs to be the entity that does it, but monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny. I actually think this highlights one of the fundamental differences between Western liberalism and German schools of thought. Germany tends to fall back on the central authority, whereas liberalism thinks that the central authority is the single most corruptible attack vector.
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  > 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).
  - ralusek 7y ago
    Facebook would already make the situation into 2 competing entities, as the state will always be the other.
- lol768 7y ago
  > 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'm not sure a union with a democratically elected parliament is comparable to a social media corporation which answers to its shareholders?
  - denton-scratch 7y ago
    Why can other people not make that comparison? You seem to be doing just that - A has a democratically elected parliament B answers to its shareholders
    - lol768 7y ago
      I'm pointing out it's just not relevant to the conversation. They're too different to meaningfully (in good faith) bring up as a discussion point. The original comparison read very much as whataboutism to me.
Qasaur 7y ago
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.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Monetary and fiscal policy is not the same as us balancing a checkbook at the end of the month. Money is created over time for many reasons, on a micro scale for stimulus, and on a macro scale because the economy grows over time and money represents a slice of economic activity. 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.
  - Qasaur 7y ago
    >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 to the printing press (governments, banks, and asset holders in roughly that order) gain a higher purchasing power than those at the very end of the chain which has traditionally been wage-earners and average workers. There is no need to print money in a growing economy, it's purely ideology from the Keynesian economic establishment where they've somehow convinced the general public that it is crucial to have a steady inflation in an economy because otherwise people won't spend money or invest (which is a priori false, as time preference is a thing in both humans and firms). For thousands of years gold has been used as a monetary backing (which is deflationary by definition), and some of the highest recorded levels of economic growth in history has generally been slightly deflationary (the United States during the 1800s is a prime example).
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      > 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 be solved with a targeted tax. Most importantly, philosophically, nobody owes you a risk-free return over time on your idle, un-invested capital. I can think of no justification for why your dollar should be worth more in the future than it is today. At best, I could see an argument for the same amount, though I think a little bit less to encourage investment is a totally reasonable place to draw the line. > ...some of the highest recorded levels of economic growth in history has generally been slightly deflationary (the United States during the 1800s is a prime example). You mean the industrial revolution? I'd say there were externalities that affected that. Counter-point, the great depression.
helpPeople 7y ago
My government is so corrupt I'm happy to have multiple capitalist companies looking to provide alternatives. It seems very "all eggs in one basket" to trust the government.
KhoomeiK 7y ago
> 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. Ironic that aforementioned foobar in the last century was a governmental entity that existed entirely within the limits of regulation. Not to mention the completely reckless monetary policy of the Weimar Republic with respect to the Papiermark that arguably caused the rise of Nazi Germany.
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  Yes, I don't think we are disagreeing here. Perhaps I should have said intention of regulation instead of regulation. The past events showed that the regulation was rotten, not watertight and prone to abuse. Thus there was a restructuring from the ground up, not only in the law but also in culture, and so Facebook's behavior is triggering all the red flags.
- mosselman 7y ago
  So people or governments are not allowed to make mistakes and learn from them? If, apparently, something likewise happened in the past and caused lots of problems, the German government should just let it happen now just so that it isn't 'ironic'? Not to mention the fact that the German government around the second world war was completely different from the current German government in terms of the actual people making it up. Is it 'ironic' when governments try to improve equal rights for men and women just because there is oppression of either of the two in their past? What nonsense.
  - np_tedious 7y ago
    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 Libra at all, but there is so so clearly big role for crypto currencies to play.
bko 7y ago
> 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 return when they invest your cash account. Thats it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dmoy 7y ago
  > 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?
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Isn't it highly likely that any crypto currency will be seen as a vehicle for speculation?
    - wbl 7y ago
      Libra is a money market fund with a unique way of tracking ownership. That's it.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    The foundation and validators have various ways of making a return The users do not.
    - dmoy 7y ago
      Sure but how is that an investment return? Usually when you hear "take a portion of the investment returns" you're thinking expense ratios, some small fraction of the returns that the user is getting. If the user gets no additional returns, then it's just a fee, no?
tannhaeuser 7y ago
> 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 member), and see this as a preview for where things are going with France getting more weight as the UK is leaving.
- arethuza 7y ago
  "not very much longer an EU member" I don't think there is much chance of Brexit this year, and a pretty good chance that it will never happen. Mind you - always a chance that we'll simply get thrown out for being incompetent at running a country...
  - eloff 7y ago
    The chance of the latter seems to be rising, EU leaders seem to be running out of patience with making Brexit extensions.
  - scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
    Yeah it is very peculiar how the British elites was able to establish the Mandate for Palestine to give Jewish people their own state but haven't been able to establish something giving British people their own state even after it was explicitly requested.
    - withoutboats 7y ago
      Mods: This user's posting history makes clear they are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Why have you not banned them? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028
      - 7y ago
Hermel 7y ago
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 currencies. Why do you think using Russian rubles for payments should be perfectly legal but using Libra for payments is completely evil? It does not make much sense to me.
- blackbrokkoli 7y ago
  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
  - jimmaswell 7y ago
    I could say it's hard to assume good faith from you. You're making ridiculous leaps. We'd be stuck still riding horses and buggies if people had your mindset in the early 1900's.
  - Hermel 7y ago
    Why are you so convinced that everyone would immediately want to use Libra? Do you think the Euro is such a mess? If that’s really the case, wouldn’t some people using an alternate currency be a step forward? If Libra is going to be more economically than a typical bank, that will take many years and give plenty of time to react in case of problems. Also, it should first be up to the people for themselves to decide what means of payment they are using. The government should only intervene when the market fails.
2ion 7y ago
> 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 control of everything. Germany is deconstructing itself by attacking irrelevant topics like this with excessive rigor while ignoring millenium problems in governance, such as unchecked mass migration. What I want to say is: your idealistic POV does not reflect the realities of governance, just the realities of partisan opportunism. That's it.
- stkdump 7y ago
  > 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.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    14.8% seems to be the real figure for Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany
    - freeflight 7y ago
      That's not "the real figure", that's a UN estimate. If you want the real figures you need to ask the German Statistische Bundesamt. Which put the number at 22,5% in 2016 [0], at 23,4% in 2017 [1] and at 25,5% in 2018 [2]. Keep in mind that those numbers are averages for the whole country and thus can be very misleading in their individual effects on each region. Because a whole lot of regions that previously had barely people with a migration background, at least from the MENA regions, have now seen a surge of MENA refugees. This has visibly changed the landscape in some cities in the East, in the West not so much because Western Germany already had a lot of Muslim migration for decades, tracing back to literally mail ordering Turkish guest workers from Istanbul. That's why in many bigger Western cities you will find very "diverse" districts often referred to as "little Istanbuls" and Döner shops are abundant everywhere. Thus in West Germany MENA refugees usually have an easier time integrating and finding contact trough the established Muslim sub-culture there. The same does not hold true for East Germany, it doesn't have such a history of Muslim immigration, what is there in migration background is mostly from Eastern Europe, a bit of Vietnamese, due to the GDR times. But what the East did and still does have: Lot's of cheap and affordable housing, room for the federal government to cheaply "store" migrants. By now many Eastern German cities kinda look like their Western counterparts but in a way sinister way: Large groups of young men just hanging out around the Plattenbauten they were put in, with everything from families to pensioners living right next to them, and yes crimes have increased because those guys also can't work (wouldn't want to steal a German the job), so they have nothing to do but hang out and get bad ideas. [0] https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2017-08/statistisches-bundesamt-migrationshintergrund-einwohner-deutschland https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2017-08/stati... [1] https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2018-08/migration-deutschland-migrationshintergrund-bevoelkerungsanteil-statistisches-bundesamt https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2018-08/migration-deutschla... [2] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article198890559/Statistisches-Bundesamt-Jeder-Vierte-in-Deutschland-hat-einen-Migrationshintergrund.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article198890559/Sta...
the-dude 7y ago
From a history perspective : the hyperinflation leading up to the 3rd Reich.
- bko 7y ago
  Which is one reason why capital controls are so destructive. Allowing denizens to keep their savings in whatever form they so choose is a human right. Libra will afford people the option to invest in and use a token that is backed 1 for 1 to a basket of global currencies and government bonds at a low cost.
  - gzer0 7y ago
    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.
    - bko 7y ago
      Giving people an option to invest in a basket of relatively safe investments and currencies is growth of private power that will lead to fascism?
      - oblio 7y ago
        You're assuming those people are not forced, tricked or otherwise persuaded by a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to use Libra. And that company has every incentive to do what I listed above. It also has very shady morals, as proven repeatedly. Yes, it's a small individual loss (not being to invest in Libra) but probably a big collective gain.
        bko 7y ago
        > You're assuming those people are not forced, tricked or otherwise persuaded by a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to use Libra Anybody who creates a product tries to persuade people to use their product. You can be a cynic and just attribute ill intent of basically everything but it's not really productive Facebook doesn't control Libra. They have a non-controlling stake in the Libra Foundation, a non-profit.
ThomPete 7y ago
Germany is notoriously anti credit cards so no surprise when it comes to them. Its a stupid move of course but my guess is that they are worried it will be successful and threaten the EURO.
- eastendguy 7y ago
  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.
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    I'd wager that about 90 % of "credit card transactions" in Germany are actually Girocard transactions. Virtually every bank card is a Girocard.
    - freeflight 7y ago
      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 probably pay for with my Girocard. Makes me wonder if my cash withdrawals are counted as CC transactions?
      - majewsky 7y ago
        That should be easy to figure out by looking whether the transaction shows up in the checking account or in the credit card account.
        freeflight 7y ago
        The money is taken from the CC account, so I guess that would make it a CC transaction when I draw money to pay in cash? That's kinda funny lol
tsss 7y ago
> 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 If you watched the news some time during the last 30 years you get quite a different impression. The German government parties, particularly CDU, CSU and SPD, are _constantly_ trying to grab power and erode our civil liberties; They barely do anything else. If I had a euro for every law that those three passed that was obviously unconstitutional I'd have enough money to bribe my own CSU congressman. The only problem the German government has with Facebook Libra is that they themselves don't control it.
- mmmBacon 7y ago
  >> The only problem the German government has with Facebook Libra is that they themselves don't control it. I don’t see why this is hypocritical, a problem, or even an argument. The CDU, etc... are elected by the German people and hence are designated by the people to control state power. It’s their job to control these kinds of things. Facebook is elected by no one, represents only Mark Zuckerberg’s interests, and is accountable only to him.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    >It’s their job to control these kinds of things No, that’s not a given. Many people don’t agree that it’s the government’s job to decide what kind of currencies you’re allowed to hold and trade.
buboard 7y ago
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.
- darawk 7y ago
  Like any incumbent, they don't like competition.
- akie 7y ago
  Oh come on, you’re being (deliberately?) quite liberal with the truth here.
  - darawk 7y ago
    Not really. Germany effectively controls the euro, and it's not a great thing for many of its member countries. It was entered into as a union, sure, but now it's effectively a prison.
  - buboard 7y ago
    Maybe not "imposes" , it's voluntary participation. But there is no easy , not even intermediate route out of the Euro. And as money, it's not much different from a hard currency you can't control for countries that can't catch up with the developed economies of the north.
    - azernik 7y ago
      The "liberal with the truth" bit isn't about the ability to exit; it's about the EU being "externally controlled". The EU is an organization of which each Eurozone member is, well, a member. They have votes in the EU Parliament and European Council (the latter is responsible for appointing the ECB president) and a say in deciding the membership of the Executive Board. (Indeed, the German Constitutional Court generally rules on the constitutionality of power transfers to Brussels based on the degree to which the control of said powers is democratic.)
lacker 7y ago
The strange part to me is just that there are already hundreds of crypto currencies available in Germany. When the government says that yes, these hundreds of currencies are fine, but Facebook can’t create one, then it just seems like the policy is anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook.
- burlesona 7y ago
  It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky. The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly, the premise of most western democracies) is to prevent the over-concentration of power. Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before. Germany's response of essentially "yeah no, we're not letting Facebook make money here," seems prudent to me.
  - downandout 7y ago
    Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. This is hyperbole at best. Facebook does not have an army, weapons, or literally anyone that would be willing to die or even be physically put out to defend it. I’m no Facebook fan, but let’s not let Facebook hysteria overrun these comments.
    - TuringNYC 7y ago
      It is unrealistically limiting to think modern wars are fought only with armies. Most wars are quiet and fought with capital, thought, rhetoric, and policy. Armies only come into the picture if all else fails.
      - dantheman 7y ago
        Can you point me to a 'modern war' without armies? I'm interested in what you actually think a war is?
dpau 7y ago
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.
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  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.
  - black_puppydog 7y ago
    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.
    - auslander 7y ago
      > 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.
      - insulanus 7y ago
shapiro92 7y ago
dude are you for real? Germany is one of the slowest moving countries in terms of innovation (minimum 1 month to setup a business) while maintaining a high level of corruption, Deutsche bank, pharmaceutical companies etc etc. They give no shit about protecting anything but uncontrolled money flowing around without them being able to do anything about it.
WhoBeI 7y ago
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.
- smsm42 7y ago
  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 for things of value in some places. > Your Bitcoin won't change in value or disappear because your country and another get in a fight If one of them decides that banning bitcoin would serve their interests - it will get banned. You, of course, could work around it - as people do for centuries with drugs, guns and ideas proscribed by governments - but then you'd have to suffer the consequences when you're caught. Yes, when, because if you live in government's jurisdiction and they have interest in getting to you, they will.
  - daniel_iversen 7y ago
    > 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!
    - smsm42 7y ago
      > Yes but these other currencies don’t have the possibility to be the most used and powerful currency for everything you do Why not? There's possibility that everybody would start flying around so much that United airlines miles would be so valuable that people would volunteer to be beaten up just to get a chance for getting some. This is a very remote possibility, but nothing in the laws of nature or laws of men preclude it, so it's a possibility. Facebook currency, which doesn't even exist, has roughly the same chance to match this description as United miles. But somehow United miles is fine but Facebook currency is Pandora's box. Note that Bitcoin is not pandora's box, Ethereum is not, Monero is not, 9000 cryptos that nobody can even count, let alone track, is not, but most white collar, buttoned down, corporate vanilla safe cryptocurrency that have ever been proposed, the most soft target, which would be the easiest thing in the world to track and regulate ever in crypto history - that one is the Pandora box! How does it even make a little bit of sense to you?
kazen44 7y ago
I agree with this comment. Also, i think it shows a major difference in the way of doing bussiness and between the economic models most used in european countries vs the USA. Most notably the idea of a much more cooperative economy vs the highly competitive american model. things like the rhineland model[1] are common across most western european countries for a reason, especially outside of the anglo-american sphere. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy#Rhine_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy#Rhine_ca...
smsm42 7y ago
You sound like somebody tried to force you to trade in Libra and German government prevented it. But Libra is not money - unless you choose to trade in it and use it as medium of exchange, and nobody so far tried to make dealing with it involuntary. So what exactly German government saved you from?
- Certhas 7y ago
  It saved me from having to live in a world with an overly powerful, not democratically legitimized financial entity. Given the power cooperations already yield this is a _good thing_ in my view.
  - smsm42 7y ago
    > It saved me from having to live in a world with an overly powerful, not democratically legitimized financial entity You mean, besides about 100 or so banks and trans-national corporations, including Facebook itself, that already exist? But yes, surely banning one more cryptocurrency out of over 9000 already existing makes huge difference. Not. > Given the power cooperations already yield this is a _good thing_ in my view. You view seems to be "corporations have too much power, so any action that hurts any corporation, even if it doesn't change anything and does not improve situation in any way, is good". This is not a very sane approach to anything.
    - Certhas 7y ago
      Banks are heavily regulated, and Libra would not be just another cryptocurrency. It's reasonable to expect that it would have been (and still might be) considerably more powerful than any one existing bank. Comparing it to the toy money that existing crypto currencies are is likewise entirely irrelevant. It's structurally different for one, as Facebook et.al. would back Libras exchange rate. It's also backed by enormous economic power: https://libra.org/en-US/association/#founding_members https://libra.org/en-US/association/#founding_members
qaq 7y ago
Like Gazprom ?
gadders 7y ago
>> on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything You mean like the EU?
- lostjohnny 7y ago
  EU is not a private company, is made of 350 millions of EU citizens and we like it like that. More than having to worry about my kids getting shot at school by some other angry kid.
powerapple 7y ago
Is it just another kind of foreign currency, not controlled by German government. The reason why bitcoin is popular is that people believe governments and central banks cannot be trusted, and they are evil anyway. I understand why the governments do this, because they fear losing control.
- w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
  That's for the theory. In practice, Bitcoin is popular because it allow you to speculate on an instrument easy to manipulate if you have enough funding and because it allows you to buy drugs on dark markets. Beside that, due to the volatity of Bitcoin, it has no practical use.
Certhas 7y ago
Lage der Nation had a really good summary of Libra and summarized a lot of the concerns, especially on why this is not a case where you can let them do their thing, and regulate afterwards, when you've gathered some experience: https://www.kuechenstud.io/lagedernation/2019/07/26/ldn150-premierminister-johnson-rassismus-facebook-waehrung-feedback-klimaschutz/ https://www.kuechenstud.io/lagedernation/2019/07/26/ldn150-p... Of particular concern is the scale to which this can be bootstrapped by having the tech giants involved.
matcheek 7y ago
Interesting. But contrary to how you sell it it's the big German state that again knows better what's good for people. With that said it's not an opposite vector to some foobar from the past. It's the same foobar as it was in the past. No kidding. The big state is a problem. State having less and less control over people liberties would be the right direction and the opposition to that foobar. And not state telling people what currency they should use. Definitely not. I have spent past few years in fintech, mostly in crowdfunding. The lesson learned is that state is the biggest problem in many countries. Free People should have an option to make mistakes. If people are naive enough to buy shaky crypto they should be allowed to do it. And most countries at least don't penalize crypto. Here the problem is not the good of German citizens but who controls value flow . With this huge consortium behind libra, not just Facebook, it would be the first time in the crypto world where crypto would have a real chance of being used for transaction and not for investments, which may go totally in the interest of most Germans. All but the people that benefit on the endless quantitative easing cycles that Germany controlled ECB keeps injecting. Average German folks will lose on this ban.
cynusx 7y ago
Yes, distributism has been a founding principle of post-war europe. Not just in Germany but in all of western europe. That said, the governance of Libra is setup with distributism in mind. Facebook has set it up explicitly so they don't control the currency, a founding group of 100 corporations will control the reserve (one vote each) and they are explicit about accepting new qualifying members. If it takes off, it will attract a lot more corporations/institutional investors leading to free market control. However, I don't see the point why governments are afraid of it because the monetary policy mechanisms requires a fractional reserve banking system to enact its effects. Libra is fully asset-backed and wouldn't have an impact on any monetary policy. I think what most people don't understand is that monetary policy doesn't work by devaluing cash, it works by making debt cheaper leading to companies end individuals to take out more debt to invest and as a consequence push up aggregate demand.
- DSingularity 7y ago
  I don’t want corporations controlling the reserve. I want democratic controls.
towaway60 7y ago
Facebook is the last company I would trust with my money. The amount of shady stuff they did is just alarming.

ralusek 7y ago

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. Sometimes, and often, the entity capable of "regulating" is the tyranny. Imagine if Germany had had the capability to prevent payments to Jews, or track which households were spending more on food than they should and were likely harboring enemies of the state. I'm not saying Facebook needs to be the entity that does it, but monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny. I actually think this highlights one of the fundamental differences between Western liberalism and German schools of thought. Germany tends to fall back on the central authority, whereas liberalism thinks that the central authority is the single most corruptible attack vector.

ricardobeat 7y ago
> 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).
- ralusek 7y ago
  Facebook would already make the situation into 2 competing entities, as the state will always be the other.
lol768 7y ago
> 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'm not sure a union with a democratically elected parliament is comparable to a social media corporation which answers to its shareholders?
- denton-scratch 7y ago
  Why can other people not make that comparison? You seem to be doing just that - A has a democratically elected parliament B answers to its shareholders
  - lol768 7y ago
    I'm pointing out it's just not relevant to the conversation. They're too different to meaningfully (in good faith) bring up as a discussion point. The original comparison read very much as whataboutism to me.

Qasaur 7y ago

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.

arcticbull 7y ago
Monetary and fiscal policy is not the same as us balancing a checkbook at the end of the month. Money is created over time for many reasons, on a micro scale for stimulus, and on a macro scale because the economy grows over time and money represents a slice of economic activity. 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.
- Qasaur 7y ago
  >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 to the printing press (governments, banks, and asset holders in roughly that order) gain a higher purchasing power than those at the very end of the chain which has traditionally been wage-earners and average workers. There is no need to print money in a growing economy, it's purely ideology from the Keynesian economic establishment where they've somehow convinced the general public that it is crucial to have a steady inflation in an economy because otherwise people won't spend money or invest (which is a priori false, as time preference is a thing in both humans and firms). For thousands of years gold has been used as a monetary backing (which is deflationary by definition), and some of the highest recorded levels of economic growth in history has generally been slightly deflationary (the United States during the 1800s is a prime example).
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    > 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 be solved with a targeted tax. Most importantly, philosophically, nobody owes you a risk-free return over time on your idle, un-invested capital. I can think of no justification for why your dollar should be worth more in the future than it is today. At best, I could see an argument for the same amount, though I think a little bit less to encourage investment is a totally reasonable place to draw the line. > ...some of the highest recorded levels of economic growth in history has generally been slightly deflationary (the United States during the 1800s is a prime example). You mean the industrial revolution? I'd say there were externalities that affected that. Counter-point, the great depression.

helpPeople 7y ago

My government is so corrupt I'm happy to have multiple capitalist companies looking to provide alternatives. It seems very "all eggs in one basket" to trust the government.

KhoomeiK 7y ago

> 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. Ironic that aforementioned foobar in the last century was a governmental entity that existed entirely within the limits of regulation. Not to mention the completely reckless monetary policy of the Weimar Republic with respect to the Papiermark that arguably caused the rise of Nazi Germany.

blackbrokkoli 7y ago
Yes, I don't think we are disagreeing here. Perhaps I should have said intention of regulation instead of regulation. The past events showed that the regulation was rotten, not watertight and prone to abuse. Thus there was a restructuring from the ground up, not only in the law but also in culture, and so Facebook's behavior is triggering all the red flags.
mosselman 7y ago
So people or governments are not allowed to make mistakes and learn from them? If, apparently, something likewise happened in the past and caused lots of problems, the German government should just let it happen now just so that it isn't 'ironic'? Not to mention the fact that the German government around the second world war was completely different from the current German government in terms of the actual people making it up. Is it 'ironic' when governments try to improve equal rights for men and women just because there is oppression of either of the two in their past? What nonsense.
- np_tedious 7y ago
  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 Libra at all, but there is so so clearly big role for crypto currencies to play.

bko 7y ago

> 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 return when they invest your cash account. Thats it.

deleted 7y ago
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dmoy 7y ago
> 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?
- arethuza 7y ago
  Isn't it highly likely that any crypto currency will be seen as a vehicle for speculation?
  - wbl 7y ago
    Libra is a money market fund with a unique way of tracking ownership. That's it.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  The foundation and validators have various ways of making a return The users do not.
  - dmoy 7y ago
    Sure but how is that an investment return? Usually when you hear "take a portion of the investment returns" you're thinking expense ratios, some small fraction of the returns that the user is getting. If the user gets no additional returns, then it's just a fee, no?

tannhaeuser 7y ago

> 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 member), and see this as a preview for where things are going with France getting more weight as the UK is leaving.

arethuza 7y ago
"not very much longer an EU member" I don't think there is much chance of Brexit this year, and a pretty good chance that it will never happen. Mind you - always a chance that we'll simply get thrown out for being incompetent at running a country...
- eloff 7y ago
  The chance of the latter seems to be rising, EU leaders seem to be running out of patience with making Brexit extensions.
- scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
  Yeah it is very peculiar how the British elites was able to establish the Mandate for Palestine to give Jewish people their own state but haven't been able to establish something giving British people their own state even after it was explicitly requested.
  - withoutboats 7y ago
    Mods: This user's posting history makes clear they are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Why have you not banned them? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028
    - 7y ago

Hermel 7y ago

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 currencies. Why do you think using Russian rubles for payments should be perfectly legal but using Libra for payments is completely evil? It does not make much sense to me.

blackbrokkoli 7y ago
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
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  I could say it's hard to assume good faith from you. You're making ridiculous leaps. We'd be stuck still riding horses and buggies if people had your mindset in the early 1900's.
- Hermel 7y ago
  Why are you so convinced that everyone would immediately want to use Libra? Do you think the Euro is such a mess? If that’s really the case, wouldn’t some people using an alternate currency be a step forward? If Libra is going to be more economically than a typical bank, that will take many years and give plenty of time to react in case of problems. Also, it should first be up to the people for themselves to decide what means of payment they are using. The government should only intervene when the market fails.

2ion 7y ago

> 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 control of everything. Germany is deconstructing itself by attacking irrelevant topics like this with excessive rigor while ignoring millenium problems in governance, such as unchecked mass migration. What I want to say is: your idealistic POV does not reflect the realities of governance, just the realities of partisan opportunism. That's it.

stkdump 7y ago
> 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.
- arethuza 7y ago
  14.8% seems to be the real figure for Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany
  - freeflight 7y ago
    That's not "the real figure", that's a UN estimate. If you want the real figures you need to ask the German Statistische Bundesamt. Which put the number at 22,5% in 2016 [0], at 23,4% in 2017 [1] and at 25,5% in 2018 [2]. Keep in mind that those numbers are averages for the whole country and thus can be very misleading in their individual effects on each region. Because a whole lot of regions that previously had barely people with a migration background, at least from the MENA regions, have now seen a surge of MENA refugees. This has visibly changed the landscape in some cities in the East, in the West not so much because Western Germany already had a lot of Muslim migration for decades, tracing back to literally mail ordering Turkish guest workers from Istanbul. That's why in many bigger Western cities you will find very "diverse" districts often referred to as "little Istanbuls" and Döner shops are abundant everywhere. Thus in West Germany MENA refugees usually have an easier time integrating and finding contact trough the established Muslim sub-culture there. The same does not hold true for East Germany, it doesn't have such a history of Muslim immigration, what is there in migration background is mostly from Eastern Europe, a bit of Vietnamese, due to the GDR times. But what the East did and still does have: Lot's of cheap and affordable housing, room for the federal government to cheaply "store" migrants. By now many Eastern German cities kinda look like their Western counterparts but in a way sinister way: Large groups of young men just hanging out around the Plattenbauten they were put in, with everything from families to pensioners living right next to them, and yes crimes have increased because those guys also can't work (wouldn't want to steal a German the job), so they have nothing to do but hang out and get bad ideas. [0] https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2017-08/statistisches-bundesamt-migrationshintergrund-einwohner-deutschland https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2017-08/stati... [1] https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2018-08/migration-deutschland-migrationshintergrund-bevoelkerungsanteil-statistisches-bundesamt https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2018-08/migration-deutschla... [2] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article198890559/Statistisches-Bundesamt-Jeder-Vierte-in-Deutschland-hat-einen-Migrationshintergrund.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article198890559/Sta...

the-dude 7y ago

From a history perspective : the hyperinflation leading up to the 3rd Reich.

bko 7y ago
Which is one reason why capital controls are so destructive. Allowing denizens to keep their savings in whatever form they so choose is a human right. Libra will afford people the option to invest in and use a token that is backed 1 for 1 to a basket of global currencies and government bonds at a low cost.
- gzer0 7y ago
  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.
  - bko 7y ago
    Giving people an option to invest in a basket of relatively safe investments and currencies is growth of private power that will lead to fascism?
    - oblio 7y ago
      You're assuming those people are not forced, tricked or otherwise persuaded by a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to use Libra. And that company has every incentive to do what I listed above. It also has very shady morals, as proven repeatedly. Yes, it's a small individual loss (not being to invest in Libra) but probably a big collective gain.
      - bko 7y ago
        > You're assuming those people are not forced, tricked or otherwise persuaded by a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to use Libra Anybody who creates a product tries to persuade people to use their product. You can be a cynic and just attribute ill intent of basically everything but it's not really productive Facebook doesn't control Libra. They have a non-controlling stake in the Libra Foundation, a non-profit.

ThomPete 7y ago

Germany is notoriously anti credit cards so no surprise when it comes to them. Its a stupid move of course but my guess is that they are worried it will be successful and threaten the EURO.

eastendguy 7y ago
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.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  I'd wager that about 90 % of "credit card transactions" in Germany are actually Girocard transactions. Virtually every bank card is a Girocard.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    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 probably pay for with my Girocard. Makes me wonder if my cash withdrawals are counted as CC transactions?
    - majewsky 7y ago
      That should be easy to figure out by looking whether the transaction shows up in the checking account or in the credit card account.
      - freeflight 7y ago
        The money is taken from the CC account, so I guess that would make it a CC transaction when I draw money to pay in cash? That's kinda funny lol

tsss 7y ago

> 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 If you watched the news some time during the last 30 years you get quite a different impression. The German government parties, particularly CDU, CSU and SPD, are _constantly_ trying to grab power and erode our civil liberties; They barely do anything else. If I had a euro for every law that those three passed that was obviously unconstitutional I'd have enough money to bribe my own CSU congressman. The only problem the German government has with Facebook Libra is that they themselves don't control it.

mmmBacon 7y ago
>> The only problem the German government has with Facebook Libra is that they themselves don't control it. I don’t see why this is hypocritical, a problem, or even an argument. The CDU, etc... are elected by the German people and hence are designated by the people to control state power. It’s their job to control these kinds of things. Facebook is elected by no one, represents only Mark Zuckerberg’s interests, and is accountable only to him.
- kortilla 7y ago
  >It’s their job to control these kinds of things No, that’s not a given. Many people don’t agree that it’s the government’s job to decide what kind of currencies you’re allowed to hold and trade.

buboard 7y ago

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.

darawk 7y ago
Like any incumbent, they don't like competition.
akie 7y ago
Oh come on, you’re being (deliberately?) quite liberal with the truth here.
- darawk 7y ago
  Not really. Germany effectively controls the euro, and it's not a great thing for many of its member countries. It was entered into as a union, sure, but now it's effectively a prison.
- buboard 7y ago
  Maybe not "imposes" , it's voluntary participation. But there is no easy , not even intermediate route out of the Euro. And as money, it's not much different from a hard currency you can't control for countries that can't catch up with the developed economies of the north.
  - azernik 7y ago
    The "liberal with the truth" bit isn't about the ability to exit; it's about the EU being "externally controlled". The EU is an organization of which each Eurozone member is, well, a member. They have votes in the EU Parliament and European Council (the latter is responsible for appointing the ECB president) and a say in deciding the membership of the Executive Board. (Indeed, the German Constitutional Court generally rules on the constitutionality of power transfers to Brussels based on the degree to which the control of said powers is democratic.)

lacker 7y ago

The strange part to me is just that there are already hundreds of crypto currencies available in Germany. When the government says that yes, these hundreds of currencies are fine, but Facebook can’t create one, then it just seems like the policy is anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook.

burlesona 7y ago
It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky. The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly, the premise of most western democracies) is to prevent the over-concentration of power. Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before. Germany's response of essentially "yeah no, we're not letting Facebook make money here," seems prudent to me.
- downandout 7y ago
  Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. This is hyperbole at best. Facebook does not have an army, weapons, or literally anyone that would be willing to die or even be physically put out to defend it. I’m no Facebook fan, but let’s not let Facebook hysteria overrun these comments.
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    It is unrealistically limiting to think modern wars are fought only with armies. Most wars are quiet and fought with capital, thought, rhetoric, and policy. Armies only come into the picture if all else fails.
    - dantheman 7y ago
      Can you point me to a 'modern war' without armies? I'm interested in what you actually think a war is?

dpau 7y ago

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.

theturtletalks 7y ago
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.
- black_puppydog 7y ago
  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.
  - auslander 7y ago
    > 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.
    - insulanus 7y ago

shapiro92 7y ago

dude are you for real? Germany is one of the slowest moving countries in terms of innovation (minimum 1 month to setup a business) while maintaining a high level of corruption, Deutsche bank, pharmaceutical companies etc etc. They give no shit about protecting anything but uncontrolled money flowing around without them being able to do anything about it.

WhoBeI 7y ago

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.

smsm42 7y ago
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 for things of value in some places. > Your Bitcoin won't change in value or disappear because your country and another get in a fight If one of them decides that banning bitcoin would serve their interests - it will get banned. You, of course, could work around it - as people do for centuries with drugs, guns and ideas proscribed by governments - but then you'd have to suffer the consequences when you're caught. Yes, when, because if you live in government's jurisdiction and they have interest in getting to you, they will.
- daniel_iversen 7y ago
  > 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!
  - smsm42 7y ago
    > Yes but these other currencies don’t have the possibility to be the most used and powerful currency for everything you do Why not? There's possibility that everybody would start flying around so much that United airlines miles would be so valuable that people would volunteer to be beaten up just to get a chance for getting some. This is a very remote possibility, but nothing in the laws of nature or laws of men preclude it, so it's a possibility. Facebook currency, which doesn't even exist, has roughly the same chance to match this description as United miles. But somehow United miles is fine but Facebook currency is Pandora's box. Note that Bitcoin is not pandora's box, Ethereum is not, Monero is not, 9000 cryptos that nobody can even count, let alone track, is not, but most white collar, buttoned down, corporate vanilla safe cryptocurrency that have ever been proposed, the most soft target, which would be the easiest thing in the world to track and regulate ever in crypto history - that one is the Pandora box! How does it even make a little bit of sense to you?

kazen44 7y ago

I agree with this comment. Also, i think it shows a major difference in the way of doing bussiness and between the economic models most used in european countries vs the USA. Most notably the idea of a much more cooperative economy vs the highly competitive american model. things like the rhineland model[1] are common across most western european countries for a reason, especially outside of the anglo-american sphere. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy#Rhine_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy#Rhine_ca...

smsm42 7y ago

You sound like somebody tried to force you to trade in Libra and German government prevented it. But Libra is not money - unless you choose to trade in it and use it as medium of exchange, and nobody so far tried to make dealing with it involuntary. So what exactly German government saved you from?

Certhas 7y ago
It saved me from having to live in a world with an overly powerful, not democratically legitimized financial entity. Given the power cooperations already yield this is a _good thing_ in my view.
- smsm42 7y ago
  > It saved me from having to live in a world with an overly powerful, not democratically legitimized financial entity You mean, besides about 100 or so banks and trans-national corporations, including Facebook itself, that already exist? But yes, surely banning one more cryptocurrency out of over 9000 already existing makes huge difference. Not. > Given the power cooperations already yield this is a _good thing_ in my view. You view seems to be "corporations have too much power, so any action that hurts any corporation, even if it doesn't change anything and does not improve situation in any way, is good". This is not a very sane approach to anything.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    Banks are heavily regulated, and Libra would not be just another cryptocurrency. It's reasonable to expect that it would have been (and still might be) considerably more powerful than any one existing bank. Comparing it to the toy money that existing crypto currencies are is likewise entirely irrelevant. It's structurally different for one, as Facebook et.al. would back Libras exchange rate. It's also backed by enormous economic power: https://libra.org/en-US/association/#founding_members https://libra.org/en-US/association/#founding_members

qaq 7y ago

Like Gazprom ?

gadders 7y ago

>> on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything You mean like the EU?

lostjohnny 7y ago
EU is not a private company, is made of 350 millions of EU citizens and we like it like that. More than having to worry about my kids getting shot at school by some other angry kid.

powerapple 7y ago

Is it just another kind of foreign currency, not controlled by German government. The reason why bitcoin is popular is that people believe governments and central banks cannot be trusted, and they are evil anyway. I understand why the governments do this, because they fear losing control.

w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
That's for the theory. In practice, Bitcoin is popular because it allow you to speculate on an instrument easy to manipulate if you have enough funding and because it allows you to buy drugs on dark markets. Beside that, due to the volatity of Bitcoin, it has no practical use.

Certhas 7y ago

Lage der Nation had a really good summary of Libra and summarized a lot of the concerns, especially on why this is not a case where you can let them do their thing, and regulate afterwards, when you've gathered some experience: https://www.kuechenstud.io/lagedernation/2019/07/26/ldn150-premierminister-johnson-rassismus-facebook-waehrung-feedback-klimaschutz/ https://www.kuechenstud.io/lagedernation/2019/07/26/ldn150-p... Of particular concern is the scale to which this can be bootstrapped by having the tech giants involved.

matcheek 7y ago

Interesting. But contrary to how you sell it it's the big German state that again knows better what's good for people. With that said it's not an opposite vector to some foobar from the past. It's the same foobar as it was in the past. No kidding. The big state is a problem. State having less and less control over people liberties would be the right direction and the opposition to that foobar. And not state telling people what currency they should use. Definitely not. I have spent past few years in fintech, mostly in crowdfunding. The lesson learned is that state is the biggest problem in many countries. Free People should have an option to make mistakes. If people are naive enough to buy shaky crypto they should be allowed to do it. And most countries at least don't penalize crypto. Here the problem is not the good of German citizens but who controls value flow . With this huge consortium behind libra, not just Facebook, it would be the first time in the crypto world where crypto would have a real chance of being used for transaction and not for investments, which may go totally in the interest of most Germans. All but the people that benefit on the endless quantitative easing cycles that Germany controlled ECB keeps injecting. Average German folks will lose on this ban.

cynusx 7y ago

Yes, distributism has been a founding principle of post-war europe. Not just in Germany but in all of western europe. That said, the governance of Libra is setup with distributism in mind. Facebook has set it up explicitly so they don't control the currency, a founding group of 100 corporations will control the reserve (one vote each) and they are explicit about accepting new qualifying members. If it takes off, it will attract a lot more corporations/institutional investors leading to free market control. However, I don't see the point why governments are afraid of it because the monetary policy mechanisms requires a fractional reserve banking system to enact its effects. Libra is fully asset-backed and wouldn't have an impact on any monetary policy. I think what most people don't understand is that monetary policy doesn't work by devaluing cash, it works by making debt cheaper leading to companies end individuals to take out more debt to invest and as a consequence push up aggregate demand.

DSingularity 7y ago
I don’t want corporations controlling the reserve. I want democratic controls.

towaway60 7y ago

Facebook is the last company I would trust with my money. The amount of shady stuff they did is just alarming.