
Facebook will make the money now - samsgro
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-18/facebook-will-make-the-money-now
======
smsm42
There's a bunch of problems in current banking system, and unfriendly user
interfaces, obscure rules with many gotchas and transaction times are some of
them. However, to think that I will trust Facebook more with my money than I
trust my bank is, on the current stage, I think plain insane.

Also, does using Facebook currency for paying your bills means if you get in
trouble with Facebook (which anybody now could by posting a wrong joke, having
wrong political ideas or upsetting wrong people) you can not pay them anymore?
Would Facebook control the transaction processing (i.e. via Messenger or
otherwise)? If yes, then definitely not with a ten foot pole.

~~~
nacs
> does using Facebook currency for paying your bills means if you get in
> trouble with Facebook (which anybody now could by posting a wrong joke

Their official site says Libra has been set up as a subsidiary of Facebook and
that it has it's own privacy policy, ToS, etc so I think there is some degree
of separation there (not that I'd necessarily take FB at their word when it
comes to this kind of thing).

~~~
smsm42
That would really be tested when Al Qaeda opens the account there (and why
won't they?) and start using it for money transfers. Imagine the press and the
political pressure.

And once they have the solution to stop Al Qaeda, the same solution also works
for stopping people from donating to a politician that Facebook doesn't like.

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momentmaker
Libra is right next to Gemini in astrology and guess who knows Gemini.com?

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TACIXAT
Alright, this is just a prepaid access system built on top of _crypto_. I
strongly believe the need for a prepaid access system to lower transaction
fees for moving money digitally, but the companies backing this are some of
the most vile. This consortium are never going to do anything in the users'
interest. If they're making bank on interest from deposits, that's never going
to flow back.

As well, all these companies (sellers of prepaid access) are going to need to
be registered as Money Service Businesses (MSB) in the US. That puts them
under all the AML/KYC laws. So we don't even get our libertarian wet dream of
money without the red tape. We'll see what their privacy protections look
like.

I want this technology to exist. I would rather pay 5 cents per news article I
read than being prompted for a 10 dollar per month subscription. However, I
want this to fail miserably due an extreme lack of faith in the companies
behind it. All these companies will fight for regulation that cements their
position and prevents others from entering the market.

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stillbourne
Hey, anyone remember the last time companies printed their own money? Man, the
return of company scrip. I don't see at all how this can turn out bad.

~~~
creaghpatr
Yeah, if I remember correctly, a company called Paddy's Pub tried it a few
years ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyxxE1AcUSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyxxE1AcUSM)

~~~
rchaud
Paddy's Dollars had numerous problems, biggest of which was seigniorage.
Because of the expensive print colors used on on the bills (then justified as
an 'old poor' move), it cost more to issue Paddy's $ than what the tokens
themselves were worth.

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lostmymind66
All of these cryptocurrency experiments eventually point out the reason
centralized banks were invented in the first place. Usually through major
thefts and loss of assets.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> All of these cryptocurrency experiments eventually point out the reason
> centralized banks were invented in the first place. Usually through major
> thefts and loss of assets.

Yeah. Central banks are actually a kind of technology, which I don't think a
lot of people recognize.

But even with software and silicon technology, lots of people are hasty to
throw out the old without really understanding it, so they can build something
"new." It's seems even harder to get such people to recognize value of
technologies that aren't made from computers.

~~~
soulofmischief
It's so much more complex than "young naive devs want to throw out the
manual". Extremely valid criticisms towards central banking have existed since
before central banks even existed. Just ask my man Thomas Jefferson what he
thinks about central banks.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Just ask my man Thomas Jefferson what he thinks about central banks._

Appeal to authority.

~~~
trentmb
No- they just told you to read Jeffersons musings on the topic of central
banks.

~~~
lisper
Yes, but why Jefferson? Why not Arglebargle? Or me? I have musings on the
topic of central banks, would you like to hear them?

~~~
trentmb
> Yes, but why Jefferson

Because they thought Jeffersons thoughts on the matter were relevant.

> Why not Arglebargle?

Because I know what that word means.

> Or me?

Because "lisper central banks" doesn't produce any meaningful results in a
search engine.

> I have musings on the topic of central banks, would you like to hear them?

Sure.

~~~
lisper
OK: there are two fundamental problems that have to be solved in any monetary
system: how to keep the records, and how to control the money supply. With
regards to the latter, there are only two options:

1\. Let the money supply be controlled by the laws of physics, e.g. use a
scarce material as money.

2\. Let the money supply be controlled by some policy.

The second option subdivides into two further sub-options:

2a. Let the free market produce money competitively like any other product.

2b. Let the government (or a private entity acting on behalf of the
government) do it as an artificial monopoly.

That last option is a central bank.

Those are all the possibilities. All of them have been tried at one time or
another in human history. Flawed as it may be, the one that has produced
objectively the best results in terms of economic stability and prosperity has
been 2b. And there isn't really much more that can be said about it.

Oh, almost forgot:

> > Arglebargle?

> Because I know what that word means.

Arglebargle is the name of an obscure author who wrote on all manner of
topics, but whose work has been largely forgotten.

~~~
icebraining
> Flawed as it may be, the one that has produced objectively the best results
> in terms of economic stability and prosperity has been 2b.

I'm certainly no expert, but I've read a bit into 2a (so called "free banking"
eras) and they seemed overwhelmingly quite stable. On what do you base an
objective dismissal of that approach?

~~~
lisper
Mainly my knowledge of the history of the financial system in the U.S. which
was characterized by regular panics, crises, and bank runs before the Federal
Reserve was founded. (Of course, the Fed bungled it badly in the Great
Depression, but has done a pretty reasonable job since then.) Looking now at
the history of free banking in other parts of the world it looks like it is
not invariably catastrophic. Maybe it's a cultural thing. I suspect that free
banking works better in a world where everyone knows everyone else, and the
banker's customers know where the banker lives so if he screws things up too
badly there's a real risk that people will literally show up on his doorstep
with pitchforks.

~~~
icebraining
The system in the US before the creation of the Fed wasn't free banking; after
the civil war, the National Banking Acts of 1863-64 created a network of
chartered national banks with a single currency backed by the US Treasury.
Then in 1879, the US went back to the gold standard, so you're on (1), not
(2a).

~~~
lisper
On that view there has never been a 2a system. No one would honor a private
bank note that was not backed by some asset or government fiat. Such a note
would, quite literally, be worth no more than the paper it was printed on.

~~~
icebraining
There's a difference between people freely choosing what assets are acceptable
to back a given currency and having many currencies floating in value against
each other, or the government deciding what each currency can be backed
against and at what value (the National Banks had to accept each other's
currency at par value).

~~~
lisper
Yes, of course. But if you have currencies backed by too many different kinds
of assets those currencies aren't money any more, they are tokens in a barter
economy.

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velcrovan
“Libra”? Should have named it Cancer

~~~
ilaksh
[https://github.com/libra/libra/issues/41](https://github.com/libra/libra/issues/41)

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GrumpyNl
I bet you have to buy them with good old dollars.

------
elwell

        (is-coincidence? (= (alpha->num-sum "Libra")
                            42
                            answers/life
                            answers/universe
                            answers/everything))

~~~
thestartup

      1) Insufficient sample size (1)
      2) Insufficient improbability of occurrence

