Fed Chief Calls For Facebook To Halt Libra Project Until Concerns Addressed (reuters.com) 100
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that Facebook's plan to build a digital currency called Libra "cannot go forward" until serious concerns are addressed. Reuters reports: "Libra raises many serious concerns regarding privacy, money laundering, consumer protection and financial stability," Powell said during his semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. "I don't think the project can go forward" without addressing those concerns, he added later. Powell said any regulatory review of the project should be "patient and careful." He noted that existing rules do not fit digital currencies. "It's something that doesn't fit neatly or easily within our regulatory scheme but it does have potentially systemic scale," he said. "It needs a careful look, so I strongly believe we all need to be taking our time with this." A Facebook spokesperson said in response: "We are very much aligned with the Chairman around the need for public discourse on this. This is why we along with the 27 other Founding Members of the Libra Association made this announcement so far in advance, so that we could engage in constructive discourse on this and get feedback."
In other words (Score:1)
We want our cut...
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I see no reason why they should let people create their own currencies if they can stop them. Money is based on trust and that trust is based on regulation (there are some reasons why you would not trust.) If somebody can create a currency then anybody can, as you see with Altcoins. This does not help but destroys what we have. FB really point to no reason why there is an improvement, other than they see a business opportunity. But if every company has it's own currency then we don't have money anymore. Mon
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Just regulate it like any other commodity. Tax it like barter when used for purchases of goods and services. No big deal.
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"This does not help but destroys what we have."
You mean what THEY have.
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Who would stop him? (Score:2, Insightful)
Realistically, if the Fed doesn't have legal powers to regulate Zuck, who exactly would stop him? They won't get a law passed before the next election.
Mitch McConnell has made it clear he will block everything from the House. Trump and Mitch* both benefit from all that Facebook trolling the Russians did, they won't tackle Zuckerberg. So Zuck won't be regulated.
Zuck is a sociopath, not an idiot. He knows everything is up for sale now, and he can buy the dollar printing machine if he plays it right.
Users doin
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"But if every company has it's own currency then we don't have money anymore."
There will be an app for that.
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Your comment doesn't reflect an understanding of how the Fed functions. Powell isn't like a CEO of a regular bank. His job is to ensure that monetary policy keeps the economy stable. He can ignore something like Bitcoin as long as it remains a niche. If Libra takes off the way FB hopes it will, then the Fed's ability to influence the economy through monetary policy will be dampened, perhaps dangerously so.
His misgivings about Libra are primarily focussed on the last item in the summary's list: financial sta
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Well, considering its sizable global user base, the thought of it becoming an international "standard", replacing the (petro)dollar, or any government backed currency, is rather disturbing.
His job is to ensure that monetary policy keeps the economy stable... They're worried about excessive inflation that they can't control. - my emph
Yeah, the fed did a bang up job a dozen (and 20, 40, 46, 90) years ago. Fed scams vs. Facebook scams, is there really going to be a difference? I mean, both are rooted in Wall S
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What happened to the USD a dozen years ago? Do you have no understanding of the difference between monetary and economic regulation?
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Nonsense the fed very much functions like any other back with the exception they have special powers to regulate other banks are not themselves beholden to capitalization rules; but do have some additional mandates to stabilize the overall money supply and strength of the dollar.
They very much do care about being profitable. They are quasi privately owned after all. If they did not care to be profitable there would be no reason to lend the government money for example the Fed board could simply take reques
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So, you're in favor of unregulated currency, including the money laundering that goes with it?
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including the money laundering that goes with it?
You mean like with political campaigns, "charities", and the derivatives markets, etc, etc, etc? For some people it already is totally unregulated, time to spread the wealth a bit more evenly. If they can print their own money, we should have the same rights.
Crypto is just competing with usury. One is no worse than the other.
Who talks like that (Score:5, Funny)
"We are very much aligned...."
Who talks like that? You might as well follow up with, "but we really need rotating for an extra $24.50 we can do it for you."
Re:Who talks like that (Score:5, Funny)
Business types seem to like to make up their own language constantly.
It kind of reminds me of the kids in high school who wanted to sound smart so they used unusual words, but they didn't really understand what they meant so it sounded weird.
Better than onboarding though.
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It kind of reminds me of the kids in high school who wanted to sound smart so they used unusual words, but they didn't really understand what they meant so it sounded weird.
"Oh, stop being such a pedantic sesquipedalian :-)"
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If you are a C-level executive there is a newsletter named "buzzword weekly" that contains the current list of buzzwords. It is kind of like a one-time pad or a secret handshake. If you use the wrong buzzwords they other Cxx will know you are fake and not let you get the good liquor at the clubhouse.
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"We are very much aligned...."
Who talks like that?
I do. Quite frequently. In fact, virtually anyone who has to collaborate across groups with different goals (which means anyone trying to accomplish anything of substance) is going to spend a fair amount of time thinking about whether they and others are aligned on a particular topic or goal. "Aligned" is a very nice word for it, too, being a little deeper and more descriptive than "in agreement with". It indicates that you not only have the same intention, but for roughly congruent reasons.
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"Aligned" is a very nice word for it, too, being a little deeper and more descriptive than "in agreement with".
No they mean the same thing lol. You're just picked up slang from being a manager.
As a language technique, it is probably even more powerful to say, "You are right" because that will make the other party feel good.
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"Aligned" is a very nice word for it, too, being a little deeper and more descriptive than "in agreement with".
No they mean the same thing lol. You're just picked up slang from being a manager.
Nope. They're different to me, and to many other people. The fact that you don't understand the distinction doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Re: Who talks like that (Score:2)
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Tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are many forms of authoritarianism, "fascism" being only one specific flavor. Perhaps left wing authoritarianism is no better than right wing authoritarianism, but it's not fascism. Groups like antifa, whether you agree with their goals or not (I don't), never claimed to be pro-freedom or anti-violence. They claim to be pro-left and anti-right (fascism being a right wing ideology). So at least they are honest about what they are.
Re: Tell me again (Score:1)
Left and right are antiquated concepts, born out of musty debunked 19th century political economy.
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Not in the same way that 'right and left' are debunked. The idea that there is a single-line spectrum for all politics is a little ridiculous. It makes it convenient for the demagogues.
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The people's REPUBLIC of China is communist.
Nazis are communists.
Therefore republicans are Nazis.
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Just THINK it!!!
Just pick up any history book that covers free banking.
Man, Economy, and State is the definitive work.
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"But isn't that what exactly cryptocurrencies really are doing???"
No.
"Why do you think "Satoshi" took first 1 MILLION BITCOINS for himself & disappeared into hiding???"
These guys. Satoshi took the first million coins for himself for the same reason every business founder takes all the initial ownership interest for themselves. If his brilliant new currency wasn't brilliant according to the free market it wouldn't be adopted like the millions upon millions of other currency and coupon ideas people have c
What leverage ratio? (Score:4, Interesting)
I assume Zucks plan is to create a fake currency that Facebook users can buy to create fake value based on FB money exchanges, and he can print more of secretly in the background.
So what ratio was Zuck thinking of?
For US banks its about 12x to 20x, they can create 20 times the amount of money magically from thin air, as long as they have 5% coverage with actual money.
I assume that's Zuck's plan, FB users buy Zuckdollars for actual dollars, to do Facebook payments, and in the background, for every F$1, he prints F$20, and uses F$19 to pay Facebook bills or converts them to actual dollars slowly.
So yeh, you can see why the Fed would be against companies creating their unregulated private currencies.
That's essentially what's propping up the deficit. That $600 billion increase per year in debt, caused by the tax cuts to the Epsteins of the world, is covered by money printing. FB's magic funny money would undermine that.
Re:What leverage ratio? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. FaceBucks are only supposed to be created when someone deposits a RealBuck. There's no need for elaborate theories. Facebook wants to track what you spend your money on, and they're tired of paying VISA and Mastercard for access.
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Nope. FaceBucks are only supposed to be created when someone deposits a RealBuck.
Facebook supposed to do many other things, like respecting your privacy. Why do you expect this time to be different?
To become a government you need people, your own money, and arms. FB has people, can afford to buy arms, and now working on creating money.
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You may want to look up how fractional reserve banking works. This plan is occurring in real life, and it is fully supported by the Fed. But it is all above board, and the Fed knows how much currency is "made up" buy lending activities.
It would be a major problem if some unregulated secret organization started doing the same thing. A company as huge as Facebook could force others to accept their currency if they want to get paid.
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Except that isn't what they are doing exactly... If it was they would be functionally no different than a pre-paid credit/debit card. What they are actually doing is tying their coin to a 'basket' of currencies.
Which means at the least they will be also acting as a currency exchange (effectively). People would be able to buy in say $ make a payment to puppet account and redeem in EUR for example. So you will FB being used by at least small time currency speculators likely outside the normal financial repo
Say what? (Score:2)
Nope. FaceBucks are only supposed to be created when someone deposits a RealBuck. There's no need for elaborate theories. Facebook wants to track what you spend your money on, and they're tired of paying VISA and Mastercard for access.
How so? Look at the list of who else is in the Libra Association. https://libra.org/en-US/partners/ [libra.org]
This isn't just FB's gig, they can't do it alone. They would have a seat at the table and are one of the big names on the front-end. But they have to have some of those other companies for it to work. Hint: Visa and MC are both in there... they have the payment backbones that are needed, and they have all of the security/tracking/auditing/regulations/etc. in place.
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>> caused by the tax cuts
Caused by SPENDING.
I don't think the project can go forward (Score:2)
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you can't stop people from solving math problems with their computers.
No, but you can block them from running the bitcoin servers.
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Where it seems to be "stoppable" is in its conversion value. What determines the intrinsic value of bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency?
Conventional money is so widely used you can determine its purchasing power and hence its value. Cryptocurrency's "value" is really only determined by a how a few, small exchanges value its conversion into the dominant currencies and there's a lot of good arguments that these exchanges or the cryptocurrencies themselves are manipulated by dominant holders. There really i
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You may not, but you can make it illegal which will make it nearly worthless. Or, you can agree to have it regulated as it should be.
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And they are hard to fake. As dumb as I think Bitcoin is as a currency; it is infinitely more reliable than something under the control of a company with Facebook's reputation.
Who's concerns? (Score:2)
When I saw this article in my RSS feed earlier and skipped past it, I had wondered who's concerns it was though: consumer privacy or the banks? This is coming from the Federal Reserve after all, an organization managed by the banks.
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I am more interested in people thatare torn between their hatred for Facebook and their hatred of the Fed.
Why didn't facebook call it the "Zuck?" (Score:2)
That'll be 20 zucks, please...
makes perfect cents!
Fed is running scared (Score:5, Interesting)
This is wonderful. "Fuck Facebook" and all that but I am delighted to see them about to fight and bribe their way to running an electronic SDR for the IMF.
It's an electronic stablecoin, not a cryptocurrency, but if the Military Finance Intelligence Complex is shitting bricks because they'll loose the printing press of the War Machine, then hallelujah.
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No way (Score:1)
No government in their right mind will allow anyone or company for that matter to undermine their ponzi scheme. To much at risk.
Government versus Mega-Corporation (Score:2)
Snake versus lizard. Always support the lizard.
wtf? did i wake up in an episode of Mr Robot (Score:1)
Seriously. it's e-corp, complete with their new currency.
Woludn't that be nice if there really was a group of crackers good enough to fuck up facebook royally.
well... (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong with FB, which is already spying on everything it can get its hands on in order to sell our data to whoever gives them pocket change, also knowing about every purchase and transaction you are making?
Remind me why that should worry me...
spin it (Score:2)
"A Facebook spokesperson said in response: "We are very much aligned with the Chairman around the need for public discourse on this. This is why we along with the 27 other Founding Members of the Libra Association made this announcement so far in advance, so that we could engage in constructive discourse on this and get feedback.""
translation: Damn, we really screwed up this one, lets spin it so that it looks like we are the good guys here. next time don't make the same mistake and announce our product when
Fed Chief calls kettle black (Score:2)
Those are exactly the same concerns we have with the Fed, maybe Zuck should just buy the Fed and skip the middle man.
It’s no surprise (Score:1)
The fed doesn’t want any competition and is very afraid of losing its game.
And they’re the ones who built this whole global debt system in order to control everybody