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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 31 2018, @11:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the gotta-hide-it-somewhere dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

British Prime Minister Theresa May and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are among the world leaders who've expressed alarm at the rise of virtual cash to move money offshore. The U.S. Congress held hearings this month, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called on the world's 20 biggest economies to work together to make sure cryptocurrencies don't "become the next Swiss bank account." The concern comes after a successful international crackdown on tax havens in traditional banking.

"Every country is scrambling to come up with an answer," said Drake, who serves on the boards of 25 public and private companies. "There needs to be a regulated structure that won't kill the industry."

The earliest adopters of the practice were criminals, and their involvement has risen steadily, according to a three-year study by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan Washington think tank. Next came users like Drake, who said he follows U.S. law by reporting his companies' holdings. Drake said better oversight would help legitimize the industry.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-29/crypto-as-next-swiss-bank-account-sends-governments-scrambling


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Geezer on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:19PM (6 children)

    by Geezer (511) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:19PM (#630918)

    Interesting concept, but given the failure rate of startups and .gov's brilliant management track record, the startup capital would eventually just add to the national debt. Government agencies can't file bankruptcy. Would that they could.

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  • (Score: 2) by Geezer on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:26PM

    by Geezer (511) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:26PM (#630920)

    Before somebody brings up "what about Detroit?", you need to distinguish entities from agencies. A city, as an entity, can file for bankruptcy, but a city agency, like a sewer department, cannot.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:33PM (4 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:33PM (#630924) Homepage Journal

    Which is why you make them independent entities. If they fail they file bankruptcy and the government picks something else or tries again with different management. Startups generally fail for either having a bloody stupid idea, bad management, or because of not enough backing. The latter would not be the case for a government-seeded startup and the others would mean they need to fail. The key here is you don't let Congress touch them in any way after they're initially funded.

    As for the national debt? Give the program a while to get on its feet then stop allowing deficit spending at all. If Congress wants money for a rainy day, they can save it like the rest of us.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:07PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:07PM (#631136)

      Most government agencies have no method of generating a profit. So unless you want to go full Ferengi and turn life into a massive set of micro-payments I suggest you take a good hard look at your Church of Capital Gains.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:12PM (1 child)

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:12PM (#631207)

      > stop allowing deficit spending at all. If Congress wants money for a rainy day, they can save it like the rest of us.

      The (Keynesian) point of deficit spending is to deal with a crisis situation, because raw capitalism really sucks at preventing major recessions from turning into full-blown depressions.
      The problem with deficit spending is that politicians love to give tax cuts as soon as the economy perks up (W, Trump), rather than follow that second part of the theory which calls for paying off your debts before the next rainy day.
      Actually saving ? You must be joking ! A rainy day fund is stolen taxpayer money!