Is Libra doomed?
Facebook’s planned digital currency has had a miserable few months
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Oct 24th 2019
ON JUNE 18TH Facebook announced Libra, a new global payments system and currency, to be launched in 2020. Dubbed(绰号) the“Zuck Buck” by Brad Sherman, an American congressman, the plan was to employ a mix of entrepreneurial(企业家) daring and the technology underlying cryptocurrencies(加密货币) to shake up the world’s financial systems. Money would move at the speed of a smartphone-swipe, even across borders. Libra would lubricate(使润滑) life in the rich world and revolutionise it in poor countries, where basic financial services are dear(珍贵) and often scarce(稀缺). After all, as the firm points out, 1.7bn people have no access to a bank account. Besides further expanding Facebook’s empire, Libra would bring them into the financial fold.
附注：
- Zuck=扎克伯格 - Buck=美元的俚语.....
所以ZuckBuck=扎克伯格+扎克美元的一语双关
美港电讯24日讯，国会议员Brad Sherman称：“我认为Libra很明显算是一个共同基金，Facebook马克-扎克伯格有很多钱，但是他没有权力印刷更多钱，可一旦Lirba发行，他将拥有这种权利，我觉得Libra更合适的名字应该是ZuckBuck‘扎克币’，请美国证券交易委员会阻止他们这么做。那些想要取消联邦政府权力的人，对数字货币都感到很兴奋。”
In the subsequent four months, Libra has had a bruising(麻烦) time. Many of its partner firms have got cold feet. Politicians and regulators around the world have made disapproving noises. On October 23rd Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s boss, spent a lonely few hours in Washington, DC, fielding mostly hostile(反对、敌意) questions from American politicians on the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.
One problem, as Mr Zuckerberg admitted, is Facebook itself. Maxine Waters, the Californian Democrat who chairs the committee, began proceedings with a litany of its misdeeds, pointing out that it is subject to antitrust(反垄断) investigations in 47 states (see article), that Russia has used it to meddle(干预) in American elections, and that it has been fined $5bn for deceiving consumers. Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, accused Mr Zuckerberg of lying to European regulators over the firm’s merging of user data from WhatsApp, a messaging service bought by Facebook in 2014, with those from the rest of the company. Why, the congresswoman wondered, should a firm like that be trusted with something as important as a currency?
Mr Zuckerberg pointed out that Libra would be administered not by Facebook, but by the Libra Association, an independent body that includes other companies and is based in Switzerland. But the association is already not what it was. Of the 28 original members, a quarter have left. PayPal, an online-payments firm, departed(离开) on October 4th. A week later eBay, Mastercard, Mercado Pago, Stripe and Visa—another group of payment firms—jumped ship, as did Booking Holdings, a travel company. PayU, a Dutch firm, is the only payments firm still in the association. Other remainers include two ride-hailing firms (Uber and Lyft), a pair of telecoms companies (Iliad and Vodafone), a gaggle of venture capitalists and a handful of charities. The association’s head of product, Simon Morris, left in August.
Other questions concerned users’ privacy and Libra’s potential attractiveness to money-launderers. Mr Zuckerberg promised that Libra would not launch until it had permission from America’s alphabet soup of financial regulators. But for a currency with global ambitions, placating the Americans will not suffice. France, Germany and Italy have already said they may block Libra; ministers in India, which has more than half a billion internet users, have been unenthusiastic(缺乏热情) too. Facebook has said that, unlike most cryptocurrencies, Libra will be backed by a basket of assets, including currencies and government bonds. A report by the G7, a rich-country club, nevertheless said that Libra, if widely adopted, could pose a risk to the global financial system and should not go ahead until it could be proved safe. That Libra has been described as a cryptocurrency (exactly how it would work remains unclear) will not have helped: regulators are well aware of cryptocurrencies’ reputation for scams (欺诈) and shady dealing.
Still, positive thinking is the order of the day, at least in public. Mr Zuckerberg talked at length about the value of innovation, and Libra’s potential to spread freedom and democracy around the world. After the defections from the Libra Association earlier in the month David Marcus, the Facebook employee leading the initiative, tweeted that “in a way, it’s liberating”. Perhaps. But Facebook may hope there is not too much more liberation to come. ■
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本期主要内容：
社论：拯救世界珊瑚礁、西方吸取普京成功教训
印度经济、伊丽莎白·沃伦：美国资本计划
美国：弹劾川普、川普撕碎另一项武器条约；
美洲：加拿大选举、墨西哥“风景线”、
亚洲：泰国王妃、亚洲珊瑚虫灭绝危机
中国：新疆、北京Gay nightlife 、周恩来；
中东和非洲：俄国在非洲、叙利亚战争
欧洲：蓝色多瑙河经济、西班牙历史：Franco
英国：39人冻死在火车集装箱
特刊：印度：两个莫迪
商业：肢解大科技公司
财经：日本的海外投资、Facebook虚拟货币
科技：与假消息抗争、 博物馆性别选择
书刊和艺术：欧洲文化历史
讣告：美国伟大的文学评论家去世
回复TE2019 获取经济雪人mobi PDF等格式网盘链接地址
更多阅读：
01[经济学人19年42期]茶馆专栏：中国人是时候尝试豆腐了
02[经济学人19年41期]The 2019 Nobel prizes
03区块链研究报告
04Libra研究报告：区块链加密数字货币
05原创丨区块链是场重大革命，不懂将被社会淘汰！
06Libra听证会最全实录
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