I suspect there's a lot more behind this statement than meets the eye:
Inflation, and the ability of the state to force it upon its citizenry by forbidding the use private money - has come to be viewed as inherent to the sovereignty of nations. The world's governments are now entering a new phase in which none can afford to hold the more valuable currency due to the damage caused to export business. Net importers like the US have been holdouts, but even it too will have to bow to reality.
This conflict means that, no matter how well intentioned, policy makers will be feel compelled to devalue their own currencies. It's a race to the bottom, but without a bottom. Alternatives, especially private alternatives readily available to citizens, will increasingly be viewed as the enemy.
>Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish.
They exist entirely at the behest of their respective nation states' laws and regulations, and are completely subordinate to all official law enforcement and military forces. It's a flawed analogy. This would be tantamount to a private military company asserting their right to conduct foreign wars in the name of a subset of citizens.
The monetary policy of the currencies underlying libra are also fully determined at the behest of their respective nation states (or centralized monetary authority in the case of the EU). So, actually not that flawed. Governments and central banks are foolish to not get behind something like this because the alternative is something they can't influence at all like Bitcoin which maintains no peg to anything they do.
Libra is still a problem. They start with a basket of USD + Yen + EURs to start. This appeases governments, just for the reason you mention "based on their currences".
...but Libra is designs that they can move away from them over time. It can move to revenue generating investments, like corporate bonds (like money markets do).
Libra can then wait until closer to countries defaulting on their national debt. The countries then start money printing at far higher rates. Their currencies drop in value (aka far higher inflation rates). Libra then shifts to corporate bonds and revenue generating assets.
This is good for citizens. It moves Libra from unsound money (USD + Yen + EURs) to sound money (asset backed & revenue generating assets). That makes Libra more powerful than bitcoin.
This becomes a strategic problem because it can cause a RUN on the national fiat currency, as Libra flees it. Libra then is infitely better than national's fiat currency, because Libra is asset backed. The US Dollar has about $0.03 worth of gold backing per $1.00 (after all of the money printing).
Yes, Bitcoin is relatively speaking a pure idea. It competes in the realm of other pure ideas. At least, if we are unmooring ourselves from national identity it is a clean break with new dangers and new opportunities.
Libra is an idea AND a political entity, which feels like some mixture of status quo and new world which makes me uncomfortable.
What would the assets generate revenue based on? If it‘s fiat currencies you still have exposure, if it‘s Libra you run the risk of currency panic and it‘s not dissimilar to a fiat currency panic except there‘s nothing really available to stop precipitous economic effects.
Gov bonds, corporate bonds, REITs, that today all pay USD, or Yen, or Euros, or what have you. So still based on fiat. Except this revenue basket just looks like an opaque, complex security, and we saw how well that turned out during the last financial crisis.
i don't think the goverments are foolish in this regards.
What are the advantages of libra compared to a normal bank transfer inside the bank union? Almost all positive aspects of libra already exists in the eurozone thanks to SEPA.
From an american perspective libra seems like an improvement, but the US is decades behind compared to the rest of the world when it comes to banking.
Pretty much everything Academi/Xe/Blackwater ever did was at the behest of the US government. GP was talking about a scenario such as Apple hiring Academi to destroy Samsung's factories.
So far we have private companies providing security/defensive services, but we have yet to see private companies providing mercenary/offensive services without the explicit involvement of a government.
The Pinkertons are considered the epitome of the "Wild West" - that is, the total lack of state control of law and order in the American West. Their intervention in strikes in the East is, to put it mildly, not a good example of law and order and a functioning state.
the last time I heard something about asgaard was years ago but as far as I know they're almost exclusively in personal security.
It's true that on the fringes there are private intelligence companies but the way the US has used PMC's, which at some point outnumbered american soldiers in the middle east, is a privatization of war not really thinkable in europe.
If the UK is part of Europe, there are Aegis, Erinys, Control Risks, STEPP, and many others. In France, there are Æneas, Anticip, Corpguard, Défense Conseil International (linked to French government), GEOS, KB (they specialise in private arms trading), etc.
Let's get real for a minute: France and Germany do not want Facebook, of all businesses, to monitor most private monetary transactions. Yesterday a social network, then a press/media entity, now a "central" bank with no traditional jurisdiction but its own private virtuality? It's preposterous, particularly considering the track record of this company.
The statement you quoted is just typical gov/political PR, common rhetoric.
However, it's everything but a bizzare statement, fundamentally. Ask yourself: how does the USA treat the US Dollar, would they be willing to just let it wane or die, be "invaded" by a foreign and private currency, as if it were not "inherent to its sovereignty"? Would the Fed be OK to just vanish and let the BCE or some private Asian conglomerate run the monetary show from San Francisco to Berlin passing by tokyo in terms of monetary policy? You in fact support the opposite view, inflation has indeed become many a government's tool.
Come on. This comment was either disingenuous or wildly uneducated about macroeconomics and political theory, either way totally fails to account for/relate to the European political/philosophical framework. Your world view is absurdly narrow, hyper-centered on the peculiar American case: few countries have privatized their citizens' State hence sovereignty to such an unfettered extent.
> how does the USA treat the US Dollar, would they be willing to just let it wane or die, be "invaded" by a foreign and private currency
This can only happen one of two ways:
a. US government declares that currency legal tender. They won't do it ever.
b. all of US citizens voluntarily agree to accept this currency instead of dollars, only using dollars when they must (e.g. when paying taxes) but otherwise avoiding it like plague. This has been a common occurrence in places with unstable national currency - e.g. exUSSR countries in 90s-2000s, and many others. At that point, the US dollar would be effectively dead anyway as currency, and the only way to recover it would be stabilize it back and make it preferable means of trade.
The only way for other currency to push out US dollar is for US citizens and the whole world to become convinced this currency is better for them - safer, more stable, more convenient, more trustworthy - than the US dollar. If anybody can ever do that, it's not Facebook. So there's nothing to worry about.
> wildly uneducated about macroeconomics and political theory
What exactly in macroeconomics or political theory suggests that any private coin - of which literally thousands already exist - pose any threat whatsoever to the existence of national currencies?
They, of course, pose tax-avoidance, money-laundering, etc. risk - and if particular state's central bank goes completely bonkers and ruins their own currency with their monetary policies - as it happened in Zimbabwe, Venezuela and many countries before that - then the national currency can vane and die. But that happened many times before Facebook even existed and will undoubtedly happen again. Libra has zero to do with it, and nothing you just described comes even close to explaining bizarre and non-sensical action of European government. It's mostly looking as "this new thing is confusing to me so I ban it just in case". Funny thing it's not even new, it's just pure ignorance.
> It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years:
That‘s a single, mostly dead non-profit project in a tiny area, not accepted by most stores even in that area and 99% of Germans have never heard of it. Hardly comparable to Libra.
Your German example is a bit silly to use here given that its exchange rate is 1:1 with euros. There are other regional currencies in other countries, they don't usually operate independently from the country's own currency though.
Yes - you have to be a member of the Chiemgauer e.V. association in order to use or accept the vouchers, which is why it's called "vereinsintern", i.e. "internal to the association". It's not a general-purpose currency.
IANAL, but the association giving out the vouchers would probably sue for fraud, since the merchant acts like a member of the association even though they are not.
Not quite the same kind of inflation hedge as "free floating" limited-issue cryptocurrencies then?
(This is one of the things that confuses me about Libra's target market; if you believe the cryptocurrency marketing about privacy and permissionlessness and inflation-hedging, then Libra is terrible at those things. If you don't, and you're in Europe, you just use SEPA.)
Note that Asgaard is not operating on behalf of the German government. The service it provides is completely different to politically expedient way of projecting military power by the state.
So is Academi. Their primary mission is protecting corporate interests in unstable countries / war zones. Asgaard used to do the same (I am not sure if they still exist).
Academi a.k.a. Blackwater of "Nisour Square massacre" [1] ? Same company whose founder is pitching "to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro" [2] ? Same company that is now a member of the Constellis Group[3] ?
Pardon me for not taking the corporate rebranding shenanigans too seriously.
Well, Maduro put Venezuela into deep humanitarian crisis already, with looting and starvation abound, so it is pretty normal that somebody wants to do something about that. Even if only for profit reasons.
This clip from Mr. Robot S02e11 regarding eCoin, substituted with Libra in this case, maps suprisingly well to the hypothetical narrative on the shifting nature of skewed monetary power.
"Be my guest, regulate the sh1t out of it. I'll give you side-doors, back-doors, trackers, whatever you want. Just don't shut it down." Intense scene.
Good decision by Germany/France on this one. This is the kind of thing has to be stopped soon because once it starts being popular it becomes more of a corporate power-capture pandemic.
Those regional currencies have popped up several times, the Chiemgauer is just the only(?) long-living one.
Official stance IIRC is: illegal, but so small and irrelevant by volume that it's best to ignore it and let people have a little fun and community engagement.
Should I give you the list of EU private military companies? It is even more fun as the UK is still part of the EU, and the British have practically invented the concept, and still prevail on the market.
> Alternatives, especially private alternatives readily available to citizens, will increasingly be viewed as the enemy.
Trust is the central component of the monetary system, you must trust the notes and systems used to exchange money. Creating a framework that brings this trust has been a central component since the invention of money[0], thru issuing that money and having the king or whatever passed as authority sign the coins. This is why issuing forged money has also always been such as an important crime - because that was forging the signature of the king/queen/emperor/minister of treasury.
So it's not that surprising to see that guaranteeing that trust and trying to prevent the issuance of alternative currencies is a role that governments attributed themselves in that framework.
One question is whether it actually is their role to say "you should not trust anyone else's signature" - aka your enemy reference
The more important one to me is, accepting this is now a thing, whether they should instead regulate what issuing organizations need to provide as guarantees under that signature.
I personally think so, because I don't trust FB one bit, and I'd love them to be bound to a set of rules
There is a quibble to be made although in the main I'm quietly nodding and agreeing.
> none can afford to hold the more valuable currency due to the damage caused to export business.
So it is said, but there are more effective ways to prop up an export business. Eg, direct subsidies for strategically important sectors. Lowering currency value does help exporters, but it helps them by basically giving free goods and services to foreigners at the expense of someone else. The US lowering their currency doesn't result in a better deal for the US nation. It results in more goods and services leaving the country than is honestly justified for the amount of imports. Resources are misallocated away from US consumers to foreign consumers. Economically speaking, that is an own-goal.
The US debt-to-gdp is on a wartime footing [0]. Devaluing the currency favours debtors. A link between those two facts is more plausible than governments really believe giving goods & services away to foreigners is a path to prosperity. There is a broad economic philosophy that has taken root that debt funded consumption is to be encouraged and monetary policy is a key tool for that viewpoint.
"Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish."
I'm sorry but you are drawing a false equivalence. Security may be inherent to sovereignty, but you would have to argue that a MONOPOLY on security is inherent to sovereignty, in order for your argument to apply to currency.
> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”
From a legal perspective, there are three things that create monetary power.
1. The money created by the monetary power can be used to settle tax liabilities. Currently no currency except Federal Reserve Notes can be used to settle U.S tax liabilities.
2. The money created by the monetary power is not subject to capital gains tax when it is transferred. Currently, everything that pretends to be money is actually considered property and thus subject to capital gains tax on every single transaction. The tax is measured in its value in money.
3. The monetary power has the power to destroy money's value. In United States v. Kahre, a guy in Nevada was paying people in gold coins that were issued by the U.S government and circulated in daily commerce in the 1900s as legal tender. He used the face value of the coins stamped on them to report and pay his income taxes. The IRS said to him that those coins aren't money any more, even though they were at some point. A 15 year criminal conviction resulted.
By virtue of the taxing authority of governments, only the government has a right to monetary power. In fact, without tax authorities, the monetary power wouldn't exist.
You are exactly right. Private currencies will be seen as the enemy, because they are a threat for exactly these reasons. Mall-level security is one thing, systemic monetary power quite another. A Europe which relies on private currency is a continent without controlled inflation, meaning you can just sit on your holdings and do nothing with your money (meaning actually doing nothing, not investing, not giving it to a bank for them to invest. nothing) and yet stay rich. the decrease in investment would mean it gets harder to fund any kind of business. Economic problems would be very hard to fix without the ability to pump money into the system. Also with competing currencies there is potential for chaos. One currency with a lot of savings might just fall over the next day. governments would be asked to convert tax money to prop them up. the euro is good enough for now. maybe it can in the future be modernized with blockchain like technology to get the benefits of currency technology without incurring systemic risk. i dont think there is much choice for europe but to ban these things eventually. especially since facebook is a foreigh company.
> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”
Also, what the hell is that supposed to mean? If something is inherent to something else, it doesn't mean it's exclusive to it. Maybe something got lost in translation, but if not - they don't even know how to say whatever it is that they want to say.
Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as against their soverignty? Do they treat gold similarly?
«Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?»
No, and that's the great point everyone is missing. Paraphrasing their logic: "it is inherent to the sovereignty of nations that no private entity can claim monetary power". In other words, they don't want private entities to control monetary power, but they tolerate this power being in the hands of "public" entities, such as the peer-to-peer/decentralized nature of many cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
This we-will-block-Libra attitude combined with we-will-torelate-Bitcoin-and-others is a big sign of approval for these cryptocurrencies.
If "monetary power" is "inherent to the sovereignty of nations" (quoting the article), they're also against bitcoin.
I doubt the use of the words "private entity" was specifically intended to exclude decentralized currencies. It probably actually means "anyone who is not us."
No, read very carefully the way they worded the sentence. What is "inherent to the sovereignty of nations" is not "monetary power" but "no private entities having control of monetary power".
They are not saying governments should have control of this power. They are just saying no private entities should have control.
> In a joint statement, the two governments affirmed that “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”
I parse that as: monetary power is inherent to the sovereignty of nations; thus, no private entity can claim it.
It's like saying: "No dog should be allowed to eat chocolate, which is toxic to animals."
It would be helpful to have the actual original statement, but I wasn't able to find it very quickly and gave up.
Since I am getting downvoted: Is this a Continental English vs. American English thing? Because as a native American English speaker, there is no doubt at all what the sentence means in American English.
It's a pretty obvious term. Obvious in the way that it includes Libra (where Facebook is a private entity), and excludes something like Bitcoin which is not directly controlled by any such entity.
"Private entity" is more of a legal term than anything else (than common english). That's is exactly why it's obvious, because it is used in an official document, which is not likely to use the common english definitions and use more legal ones.
Please stop calling me dumb. I'm not dumb. This is my second time asking.
I don't think it's being used in a legal sense in the statement quotes in this article. If it is, I'm not sure how "private entity" is defined in the EU, France, and Germany.
"Private entity" actually is clear in common English, but my experience is that governments tend to take words from common English and use them differently.
If you have specific legal experience with this term in a particular legal jurisdiction---and you very well might---it would be helpful to say so.
That is exactly the point. That would be a threat as they see it (just from reading the statement even). That's why bitcoin which is not a private entity, is not seen as a threat at this time.
mrb's comment that "we will block Libra and we will not block Bitcoin* as some sort of tacit approval is bullshit.
Bitcoin is tolerated because it's not centralized, and no one (obvious) entity is controlling it. If the EU governments could, they totally would ban Bitcoin.
Libra, on the other hand, is a power grab by someone they can regulate, so they will.
France & Germany could block or ban Bitcoin if they wanted to, just like China. The fact they don't imply they tolerate Bitcoin. They tolerate it because it isn't controlled by a private entity.
Well that one is easy to answer - it's obisouly in the term "private entity". Bitcoin is not a private entity, corporation or even a determined set of individuals. Obviously neither is gold itself.
> This conflict means that, no matter how well intentioned, policy makers will be feel compelled to devalue their own currencies. It's a race to the bottom, but without a bottom. Alternatives, especially private alternatives readily available to citizens, will increasingly be viewed as the enemy.
The ability to devalue their currency is an essential tool that central banks wield to battle financial crises.
Keynes pointed out that workers don't want to take a pay cut (and employers don't want to offer a pay cut, because they fear causing resentment), so nominal wages are "sticky." When they need to fall to reach price equilibrium, the economy tends to experience mass unemployment instead. It would be very difficult to convince all workers universally to accept a pay cut. The alternative is to devalue the currency so everyone is affected through the currency rather than by trying to propagate policy changes throughout the private sector.
Also, countries can have huge problems when they take on debts in a hard currency which they can't devalue. This is how you get runaway hyperinflation. Their revenues are in the local currency, but their debts are in (usually) USD. If they run low on foreign currency reserves, they can be forced to sell huge amounts of the local currency on the forex market in order to acquire sufficient USD to pay their debts. I can see why France and Germany wouldn't be eager to see yet another USD rise to prominence and leave them disadvantaged in debt financing.
Another talking point which comes up all of the time is the tension introduced when different regions (like Germany and Greece) are forced to use the same currency, even though normally economic forces would cause the weaker region's currency to move against the stronger one's. Devaluation would be fantastic for Greece but it's hobbled by crushingly expensive exports since it's in the Euro monetary union.
Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target.
Germany has profited immensely from the use of the euro in foreign trade. Had it kept the Deutschmark, German exports would be by some esteems 25% more expensive than they are now, given the strong fiscal position of the country.
Germany is in a unique position of being able to jawbone about devaluation and monetary policy while reaping the rewards of spendthrift member states.
When you replace "Germany" with the german state or its tax revenue I would agree. Having a low value / devaluing currency goes to the disadvantage of people getting their salary in that currency.
it's also great for people running businesses which exist to nominally try to protect wage earners of that currency from inflation, e.g. pension funds, investment firms, CEOs.
"Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target."
Germany has, and has had, an immense interest in keeping their currency artificially devalued and they have achieved this by entering into a fixed exchange currency union with countries like Italy and Portugal and Spain.
The PIIGS currency is, relatively, overvalued in comparison to the German currency because they have the same value.
So a first glance at German policy which is in place to protect their fragile banking system which is overexposed to PIIGS debtors looks to be currency strengthening - and perhaps it would be if they had their own currency. However the broad impact of German policy (their policy to be in a monetary union with PIIGS) is tremendously weakening of their currency, relative to the other members of the Euro group.
Is there any sign of a crypto currency that people want to use? Libra is an unregulated, centralized bank account that hides behind a blockchain. I still think it might succeed on social effects if it allows e.g. organizing betting pools and paying out without Libra backers getting their hands dirty—if anyone can sell that it’s Facebook, a reliable social institution, for better or worse. But generally there’s no strategy for luring people into the market and away from cash or cards.
Chiemgauer is run by a non-profit and is a regional currency designed specifically to avoid international interests removing money from the area. My home us county has some terrible incarnation of them. Calling it private (implying for profit, in my mind) or at all comparable to Libra requires some flexible thinking when it very different from the Chiemgauer in every sense EXCEPT being run by a non government entity.
Also these bills literally say on the bill what currency they’re pegged to every time I’ve seen them. There aren’t enough in circulation for basic transactions otherwise.
"Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish"
Security for a nation state is different to a security guard standing in a shop. Also I'm quite sure that nation states reserve the right to claim a monopoly on certain parts of the security industry. The monetary/security power is in being able to claim that monopoly, as your currency example shows, the nation state can allow certain behaviours, that doesn't mean it has to allow everything.
"Inflation, and the ability of the state to force it upon its citizenry by forbidding the use private money - has come to be viewed as inherent to the sovereignty of nations"
So it isn't a bizarre statment then since you're pretty much agreeing with it. Maybe you only think it's bizarre because you don't like that nations accept that they have and want this power?
I am pointing out that everyone has heard about hyperinflation crisis, and many people in this thread are pointing fingers and writing about it as if it a series of contiguous policies followed as a logical consequences. That's not a fair statement because there were several violent changes of government, with different monetary policies. And many gaps in your (and mine) understanding in how these regimes manages economy. Can you, or anyone else here, really comment on monetary policy of nazi germany without looking stuff up?
That's why I think, that, to claim it's not fair to reference things that happened "100 years" ago in germany. In US, which does not have such background, that would be more reasonable.
There’s a big difference between a local currency in a small region, or even a distributed crypto like bitcoin, and someone like Facebook. When Facebook starts pushing in a direction towards being an independent state-like power, you have to remember they have a “population” of 2.1 billion (daily active isers)
Facebook if it were a country would literally be bigger than China. Their political power is fast approaching that of a nation state, they can already impact elections, have shitloads of money, etc.
When they do anything that smells even remotely like moving towards sovereignty, yeah you bet countries are gonna take notice.
Perhaps not physically, but having influence over 2 billion minds grants a lot of power should you want to use it. All political action starts with an idea.
But high currency allows huge discounts on purchases. If there is a race to the bottom those with high currency will own the world and can finance it through debt.
The alternative is that all matters of security become political.
We've seen plenty of examples where politically controlled security forces have done terrible things to significant portions of the citizenry they are presumably there to "protect & serve."
We need more financial freedom in the west. Facebook is right to allow its users the ability to protect their assets with Libra - backed by a basket of currencies. I'm very excited about this idea; of course Governments are not going to be comfortable with something they can not control. Whey they go to the printing press to pay for their deficits I certainly want the ability to protect my assets with a stronger currency.
Not sure to be more comfortable to rely more on the interests of a private US company that has already been proven un-ethical several times than to trust an elected (so revokable) governement ;-)
But in Europe, we have more trust in our own governement and less in corporation than in the US, where it seem to be the opposite
I would rephrase this to say, in America we have less trust in government and more trust in the individual. The distinction is this: No one is forcing anyone to use Libra its your choice. : )
> No one is forcing anyone to use Libra its your choice.
Don't be naive.
- In order to make a choice, you need to be properly informed. Now, most people won't have the time or interest to see what Libra is and what the consequences of widespread Libra adoption would be.
- Facebook can force a sector of their paying users (mainly advertisers) to use Libra.
- Facebook also has a lot of influence, most people use at least one of Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp. Those apps can be used to advertise and push Libra.
- Once Libra adoption reaches a critical point, you'd need to use it because you need to buy things.
- You don't need to use it to suffer negative consequences due to a private foreign for-profit business controlling monetary policy.
Nothing indicates that Facebook would have a better track record in controlling monetary policy (which is admittedly pretty hard), and at least central banks are under clear regulations and guidelines.
Furthermore, Libra would have incentive to move the policy towards further profit for the members, while central banks have incentives to stabilize the economy.
> I would rephrase this to say, in America we have less trust in government and more trust in the individual.
I've seen that said many times in fora (fortunately not so often on HN), but the only people that seem to subscribe to it are the preppers and the gun fanatics, usually using some kind of reference to words that have not been updated in a couple of centuries. It's about as useful as wanting to back to the glory days of England.
Americans trust their government on average just about as much as people of other countries trust theirs, with a notable exception made for the Swiss.
> The distinction is this: No one is forcing anyone to use Libra its your choice. : )
And it is the choice of the democratically chosen governments of France and Germany to decide to so something about it, and I'm fully in agreement with that.
The last we need is for the Zuckerbergs to have the power to start dictating monetary policy, the amount of power he has today is already way more than he should have.
Note that neither Germany nor France has decided to 'block bitcoin', or outlaw it (which they could do, but it remains to be seen how much effect that would have). And we are not forced to use that either.
At this point my opinion of Facebook is so low that I'd rather trust the incompetent monetary policy of governments than the competent but positively evil policy of Facebook.
I'm aware that I'm very biased here but the tragedy that is Facebook upsets me all the more for what it could've been. Instead of being a boon to society, they've become the worst form of surveillance capitalism.
I wouldn't trust facebook with handling my garden, let alone a monetary system. They have proven time and time again that they are reckless if not outright malicious and outdo even some incumbent bad guys in the sheer underhanded disregard for anything but their own bottom line.
I don't like facebook either, I don't use it but I do like this idea. Libra is an innovation. A cryptocurrency backed by currencies (and credit markets) is very exciting.
It is an interesting idea, but we cannot look at it in vacuum. Does the value of an idea transcend the context in which it is born and where it is executed? Perhaps, but Facebook has shown time and time again that it cannot be trusted to do the right thing, it will systematically choose profit. Sometimes those two align, but this is not a foundation to build the future of our society on.
So, if "they" decide to do something with their currency, "you" would like to be able to opt out. So you position your interests outside theirs (correct me if I'm wrong). Fair enough, it's certainly your right.
But in that light, what France and Germany are doing makes sense too. At the end of the day, they too have the right to protect their collective interests, correct?
Or would you have them do something that goes against their interests so you would be able to protect your assets?
Well, I do respect that, and being in favour of innovation is certainly desirable in many contexts.
On the second part of your comment: I suspect some tech companies were given a while lot of leeway in many aspects by society at large, because it was generally believed that they would act in a more responsible way. Now, we come to the realization that maybe some of that leeway was misplaced.
There's another HN article in the frontpage today that basically floats the idea that Big Tech is a menace to Democracy itself. I think that's partly the explanation why people (and nations in general) are so suspicious of Libra.
I feel its most Facebook and BigTech that are facing scrutiny, It is targeted and justified but they are not entrepreneurs.
They are now large institutions,and should face scrutiny.
> Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations
No, it's not: providing security is a goal, several powers inherent to sovereignty might be applied toward that goal (conscription power, warmaking power, the power to impose punishment, and various other incidents of the monopoly on legitimate violence; even the monetary power is applied to that end), but the goal is distinct from the inherent powers of sovereignty.
What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish.
It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer
I suspect there's a lot more behind this statement than meets the eye:
Inflation, and the ability of the state to force it upon its citizenry by forbidding the use private money - has come to be viewed as inherent to the sovereignty of nations. The world's governments are now entering a new phase in which none can afford to hold the more valuable currency due to the damage caused to export business. Net importers like the US have been holdouts, but even it too will have to bow to reality.
This conflict means that, no matter how well intentioned, policy makers will be feel compelled to devalue their own currencies. It's a race to the bottom, but without a bottom. Alternatives, especially private alternatives readily available to citizens, will increasingly be viewed as the enemy.