6 Comments

The relief from administrative drudgery that (some of) these technologies promise is very alluring. Is it not only that it is being hijacked for nefarious purposes that it is suspect? Could it not be regulated to prevent the totalitarian terrorism the technocratic oligarchs are intent on implementing (as well as lesser abuses)?

Expand full comment

Magnitsky Act will do little against Putin et al. like I mentioned in my post. Putin is so well diversified and rich that if you took 90% of his assets he would still be not too worried.

Expand full comment

Could I please have an explanation of what (crypto-)SDR is?

Expand full comment

“The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members. SDRs can be exchanged for these currencies.”

So WTF distinguishes currencies from claims from potential claims? If it is agreed on as something in terms of which things' values (at a given time) can be quantified and it is easily transferred from the custody of one person to another then it might as well be a currency, mightn't it?

It strikes me that all this mumbo-jumbo amounts to conjuring tricks to confuse and conceal so that people's bluff can be called more easily (by giving an impression of mysterious complexity). And this caper is not confined to just “economics”.

Expand full comment