European Central Bank Chief Economist Warns of US Financial Dominance (bloomberg.com) 114
European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane warned that Europe must develop a digital euro to counter growing American influence over the continent's financial system [alternative source] amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Lane specifically cited Europe's "current dependence on US payment-card providers Visa and Mastercard, as well as technology companies including PayPal, Apple and Google" as a vulnerability requiring urgent action.
His comments come as President Donald Trump's administration promotes dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide as part of a broader cryptocurrency strategy, alarming European officials. ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau recently cautioned that "the US risks bringing about the next financial emergency through its support of cryptocurrencies."
"The digital euro is not just about adapting to the digital age. It is about ensuring Europe controls its monetary and financial destiny," Lane told a conference in Ireland, noting that a digital currency would "limit the likelihood of foreign-currency stablecoins gaining a foothold" in Europe.
His comments come as President Donald Trump's administration promotes dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide as part of a broader cryptocurrency strategy, alarming European officials. ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau recently cautioned that "the US risks bringing about the next financial emergency through its support of cryptocurrencies."
"The digital euro is not just about adapting to the digital age. It is about ensuring Europe controls its monetary and financial destiny," Lane told a conference in Ireland, noting that a digital currency would "limit the likelihood of foreign-currency stablecoins gaining a foothold" in Europe.
20 years (Score:5, Interesting)
20 years we've been telling this to our dear European leaders. 20 years and they have not done anything except putting redtape roadblocks in our way of developing these alternatives. And why? to appease the globalization and the Americans forcing us to be "their market", crushing our competition and sneaking their managers into European companies then shutting them down.
So screw you Europe, and screw you America. You fucked an entire generation and now you come home crying?
Re:20 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya, let's gamble the future of the U.S.'s reserve currency on the crypto-markets. 'tis nothing but yet another gamble by el Bunko. And his track record on gambling, if you don't count outright fraud, is terrible. Want to guess how this will turn out?
Re:20 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Running a casino into the ground should disqualify him from having an opinion on crypto.
Re:20 years (Score:5, Funny)
Running a casino into the ground should disqualify him from having an opinion on crypto.
That’s ok then, he bankrupted 6 into the ground not 1.
Disagree - ECB Diplomat Class mad at change (Score:2)
World leaders, NGO leaders, non-profits, government officials are upset that the US expecting the EU + UK to pay for their own defense. This is preventing business as usual by the world's diplomat class.
The international agencies depend on the USA to keep the diplomatic class employed
UN - USA contributes 22% of their budget - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ... World Bank, IMF
WTO - USA contributes 11% of their budget
NATO - USA contributes 16%
UPU - 12%
Re:20 years (Score:4, Informative)
Good start (Score:5, Insightful)
"European Central Bank Chief Economist Warns of US Financial Dominance"
Ok, I can see it, that's a reasonable concern.
" European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane warned that Europe must develop a digital euro"
Wow, that is not the solution, I promise. What are you thinking??
Re:Good start (Score:5, Insightful)
" European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane warned that Europe must develop a digital euro"
Wow, that is not the solution, I promise. What are you thinking??
Basically, they are questioning the fact that VISA/MC - American companies - get a cut every time any European buys groceries at his local store. In Finland, not *that* long ago, we had national debit cards that were completely internal to FI and used FI brokers. These days the debit card offering is Visa Debit. (Credit was always handled by VISA/MC/Diners/Amex/etc).
Chinese have their Alipay and similar systems, so might as well set up our own system. Of course there's a bunch of mobile payment apps - but I think even those are still backed up by a credit card company. I mean, when you set up Paypal/Venmo/whatever account, the most common setup is that they ask for credit card number. You can theoretically transfer funds using wire transfer instead, but, well, then you either have to do that for every transaction or if you do a larger at once, you lose the interest.
And frankly, credit cards are just so darn convenient and come with additional protections (e.g. if you have booked a travel and the airline/hotel goes bankrupt - you get your money back from CC organization).
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You can just use SWIFT. We already have free online purchaces that doesnt use VISA or MasterCard.
Though we might want a unified protocol to manage holds, to fullfill all the functions the credit card system has.
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Ehm. Not sure you understand how it works, or if you are just stupid in Finland. But in Germany and Denmark we also have debit cards backed by a US system. In denmark by VISA and in Germany by Maestro, but the cards use the local infrastructure and costs a few cents for the merchants not a few percentage like if the US system was used. So the cards still work, they are just doubled in functionaliy, the US system is only used outside the local market.
Though I think it would be great if we could combine all t
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Sure it is not cricket that EU citizen are forced to bank using US credit cards.
But a digital currency is never a solution.
And why would be? I mean, the EU banking system works very well, I can transfer money to people and companies in other EU (especially euro) countries without problems or delays.
Similar works for many other developed nations, I have never had problems receiving my pay from the US, UK or Dubai and that's all without 'digital' currencies or credit cards.
Re:Good start (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, we need a digital euro like we need another russian gas pipeline.
What we could do with is a European based version of Visa/Mastercard/Paypal - *that* makes some sense.
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Though I agree on not needing a digital euro.
Europe definately could benefit from a russian gas pipeline that hasnt been blown up by America.
https://tradingeconomics.com/e... [tradingeconomics.com]
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That is quite funny. Is this evidence provided by the US intelligence service during the Biden administration?
Cute
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no it was evidence collected by Sweden, Denmark and Germany by simply following the boat used. The boat was traced back to Germany and in Germany it was made clear that it was hired by a bunch of Ukrainians. Later it was also told by the Ukraines themselves that Zelensky had thought about it in a hypothetical way but then some one else high up in the military chain decided that it was a good idea.
The whole idea that the US somehow would be able to conduct such an operation is ludicrous, the path in, The Kat
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There needs to be some option for buying things online that doesn't go through rapacious middlemen and i
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A digital Euro makes sense. It is not a cryptocurrency, it's a real currency with a central bank and backed by governments. The digital part is just creating new ways to use Euros, that don't require going through the existing payment systems.
You can take a 10 Euro note and give it to someone else. You should be able to give someone 10 Euros digitally, without having to use a banking system. Of course you may want to use a banking system because they provide protections against fraud and extra consumer righ
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No. A Euro-backed Stable-coin would be comparable with real Euros. A "Digital Euro" without backing is no more viable than a Bitcoin or Eth...arguably less since BC and Eth have an existing market. Hence, the idea of stablecoins.
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His logic also makes no sense. "We don't like Visa and Mastercard" is fine, and the natural conclusion would be "we should make our own payment processing system." Instead he wants a digital currency, so he probably doesn't even know what that is.
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Digital Euros already exist (most currency never gets printed or minted, be it dollars, Euros, or whatever.) I'm wondering therefore what you mean by a digital euro because in all honesty the thing Lane is probably proposing is a cryptocurrency - a type known as a stablecoin, sure, but nonetheless something that's maintained by a blockchain or something very, very, similar to a blockchain.
And that's just nuts quite honestly. There's no benefit at all to having something like that, you're inserting a dead we
And what about the DNS? (Score:1)
Re:And what about the DNS? (Score:4, Interesting)
The DNS root servers are maintained by the IANA, which is part of ICANN; a nonprofit in the US. If the Trump regime decides to use that against the rest of the world, the root name servers will be set up somewhere else, but where? And who will follow and who won't? The Internet will be split up.
We will all need to install a PiHole*, and set up 4 DNSs, two in IANA and two in the alternative.
I do not live in the USoA or EU, and have already a PiHole. If an scenario like the one the OP envisions happens, a whole cottage industry of Mom&Pop companies will sell and install said PiHoles...
* Or other suitable internal DNS
Re:And what about the DNS? (Score:5, Insightful)
DNS was devised in a time when the Internet was more family than corporation or utility. As with many of the underlying foundations of the Internet, this relies on mutual trust, respect, shared goals, and intention to achieve goals for the common good.
John Postel must be weeping. Few will stand for the better, but many will argue and complain. Some will just do not-good things.
And the world is beginning to look to the path of Balkanizing the Internet because, thankfully, the Internet is important. And not always in alignment with the ambitions of some leaders.
Remember, the Internet recognizes censorship as damage, and routes around it. And the Internet exposes the intentions of all - censors are exposed as opposed to freedom.
EU wants to control over how you spend (Score:2, Troll)
Re: EU wants to control over how you spend (Score:2)
Source?
Re: EU wants to control over how you spend (Score:2)
But Canada is not in the EU.
Re: EU wants to control over how you spend (Score:2)
There is nothing globalist about any of it.
Canada froze bank accounts of a few people who created a national emergency. This has literally nothing to do with removing global trade barriers to enable growth. You can argue about this being government overreach perhaps.
But it begs the question, why would anyone who is focused on eliminating trade barriers want to block consumers from spending money? It makes no sense.
Now ok, maybe Americans are more paranoid because of Americas desire to punish the poor for be
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Canada froze bank accounts of a few people who created a national emergency.
A few people honking outside of PM office does not constitute a national emergency outside of Banana Republics like Canada.
Re: EU wants to control over how you spend (Score:2)
Blocking borders with weapons does how ever.
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Re: EU wants to control over how you spend (Score:2)
Timeline is fine. The protests crossed a line and the response was what it was.
I imagine that any free society would have done the same. I imagine most free societies would have stopped a protest of this magnitude a lot sooner. The incredible amount of leeway given to the protesters was quite something. Same with the occupy Wall Street protests. They lasted about a year before various levels of government in Canada started cracking down on them. Though they were far less disruptive
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I imagine that any free society would have done the same.
Not for any definition of free I am familiar with. Canada under Trudeau clearly crossed the line into authoritarianism.
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Perhaps there is some country as free as you imagine, America sure would have done more.
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He has been grabbing American citizens who don't look American enough. Here's a search page full of stories for you, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=grab... [duckduckgo.com].
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You say that when they're parked outside your house, blocking your driveway, stealing your water and electricity and assaulting you with noise 24 hrs a day. They were also financed by other countries and too stupid to understand it was America stopping them at the border and too lazy to actually work when there was a huge demand for truckers.
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Same globalist bullshit.
Yep, the American right wing financing them for globalist reasons.
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Why is Trump so fond of it then? https://coinmarketcap.com/curr... [coinmarketcap.com]
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No it's not. It's supposed to be equivalent to cash.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pres... [europa.eu]
Of course, that whole post could be just a big lie, but if the schema allows offline transactions then there bound to be some privacy built in. Of course it comes ultimately down to trust, but if it's technically possible to transactions offline - even daisy-chained ones - there's bound to be technical means for privacy protection too.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. That the US having per-transaction control over EU citizen spending is better than the EU having it?
Law of unintended consequences (Score:2)
Re:Law of unintended consequences (Score:5, Informative)
Seeing things from north of the border, there's nothing "appearing to" about it. Any country and people that won't do exactly as he asks the moment he asks it he considers his enemy, regardless of what the relationship was in the past, or its past importance. Trumps' team told our negotiators that after April 2, only countries that have a very special relationship with trump will be exempted from tariffs on a case by case basis. We're talking mafia-style here. In other words the options are have your government be completely subservient to trump (a vassal state) personally, or have your economy ruined and then we'll take you over directly. I wish I could get my republican friends to understand why we are taking this so seriously.
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Wait until Poland, maybe along with the Baltics, builds nukes.
curious (Score:1)
Why is it OK for Europe to demand the US spend mountains of cash defending them [from the supposedly threatening Russia] year-after-year and decade-after-decade, while they buddy-up to that same Russia for affordable energy? Why is it OK for Europe to demand high tariffs on American products for decades while the US allows their stuff in easily? This completely unbalanced arrangement is a left-over of the immediate aftermath of WWII when the US was very healthy and wanted to help Europe re-build. It's a bit
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Why is it OK for Europe to demand high tariffs on American products for decades while the US allows their stuff in easily?
You're just making stuff up here. We have had numerous trade disputes with Europe over the last decades, and prior to Trump there are were already thousands of tariffs on European goods. Tariffs which been negotiated and bargained for and hammered out over a long period of time. Have you ever wondered why European cheese is so incredibly expensive in the United States? Or why SUVs suddenly became popular, despite being objectively terrible vehicles?
We've had numerous trade disputes with Europe in the pas
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Unsurprising. (Score:1)
A globalist banker coming up with another reason for doing what they wanted to do anyway? Shocking.
Uh, wasn't the Euro supposed to stop US dominance? (Score:3)
I mean, wasn't that the whole point of the Euro being rolled out around 1990, to allow Europe to dominate (or at least counter) US dominance in the financial markets, and unwind the effects of Bretton Woods?
And how is that going?
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"unwind the effects of Bretton Woods?"
Um, Bretton Woods died in 1976, which was only a ratification of what happened in 1971 when the US went off the gold standard.
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Yes, the end of Bretton Woods was a result of the Nixon shock in 1971 see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I mean, wasn't that the whole point of the Euro being rolled out around 1990, to allow Europe to dominate (or at least counter) US dominance in the financial markets, and unwind the effects of Bretton Woods?
Not really, those were the sensationalist headlines. The main idea was to facilitate commerce in the Euro Zone (which is different from the European Union).
The countering of the USoA dominance was, at best, a tertiary objective. But the Information sources of the era ran with it, because it sold more newspapers.
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Stop inter-European wars, or at least wars between the great European powers.
Damage Trump is doing is permanent (Score:3, Insightful)
I say what they owe us because technically it's our debt but we leverage it to make the US dollar orders of magnitude stronger and then use that to get super cheap imports worth way way more than the interest we pay. It's a form of economic imperialism.
If you're driving a nice SUV that you park in a nice garage odds are it's that system that makes that possible.
Not that Americans understand this. It is way too complicated. Hell the only reason I know about it is a high school history teacher of all things explained it to me. It is very much not common knowledge. For obvious reasons we don't like to talk about our imperialism.
Thanks to the sheer and competence and greed on display all those systems are being broken down and there are going to be lasting consequences for America. If you are under 65 you are going to experience those consequences first hand.
In about 2 years you are going to get so much propaganda telling you to vote Republican it's not even going to be funny. And you are going to get so much propaganda talking about how weak and ineffective Democrats are skillfully pushing your buttons to make you hate them.
It's up to you to see past propaganda and figure out what the right thing to do is. I'm not sure it's really going to matter because they're not planning on letting anyone vote but there's a small chance we can pull back from this.
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The English pound sterling was the dominant reserve banking currency for centuries.
We lost that status because something more reliable came along.
Guess how easily the US dollar could lose being the dominant reserve banking currency with this nonsense, when the second-oldest central bank in the world couldn't hold onto that status for a country after hundreds of years of holdin git.
Re: Damage Trump is doing is permanent (Score:2)
We know jobs won't be coming back, because that's what AI is for. We got a problem! Too many people and an unsustainable model for society.
So we're having a non linearity period. A Malthusian moment. We are goi
Re:Damage Trump is doing is permanent (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what's interesting? Not once today had the thought of transgendered individuals entered my mind. Why do conservatives constantly think about people who make up 0.5% of the population?
Re:Damage Trump is doing is permanent (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Damage Trump is doing is permanent (Score:5, Informative)
The right wing did find a single drag queen that got caught doing something horrible. From 10 years ago. Now that I think about it from 15 years ago now. They beat that drum periodically. Meanwhile literally every week two or three pastors get caught diddling kids along with half a dozen conservative writers
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Why do conservatives constantly think about people who make up 0.5% of the population?
Clearly a sick obsession about them.
They didn't not initially anyway (Score:2)
They were Republican town halls where the Republican voters would complain that the Republicans wouldn't shut up about it or do something to fix their lives and economy. This lasted for several years.
But after 10 years of TV telling them that they're supposed to be scared of transgendered girls well, these people cannot do anything the TV doesn
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Today, the president of the United States threatened to send people to be tortured in El Salvador for vandalizing a Tesla, and this is what you're worried about.
How did you get so weak?
This wasn't a problem (Score:2)
until the orange emperor ascended.
A CBDC is the solution? (Score:3)
That's like cutting off your leg to fix an ingrown toenail. To my EU friends, don't go down this path. Don't let this fear mongering on your own side trick you into accepting this non-solution. CBDCs give the banks and the governments control over everything. Develop your own credit/debit systems if you must, but never fully centralized digital currency.
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This is broadly true about all current workable digital currencies. Every cryptocurrency system needs a public ledger to limit how much fraud happens, but bad actors will use the log of transactions against people.
US consumer banks are incompetent (Score:2)
Not the USA! (Score:2)
I understand the USA had a system that worked in the 60s but things do improve over 60 years.
Except that the USA never improves, as can be seen in the current political climate there.
50 years ago: Nixon commits a crime, and resigns to avoid impeachment (which would have gotten rid of him). Later pardoned by Ford because reasons.
Today: A convicted felon and rapist is elected President.... again!
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I can open an account while sitting in bed, using my phone, in just a few minutes.
Seems way better than 25 years ago.
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Right man.
Umm... (Score:2)
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Yeah, by digital they mean crypto, which only advantage to the old digital currency is that it is better for crime because it can't be reverted like bank transactions can.
So, once again.... (Score:1, Interesting)
So, once again, the EU is crying about "American dominance".
I can't help but wonder if these people put ANY THOUGHT AT ALL in why they are being dominated. You know, things like, what it is about EU culture that results in it not creating these mega companies that are so successful world-wide?
The response seems to be "govt must create something" in response to anything that comes along.
Have they considered that if they really want to solve this problem, they need to look A LOT DEEPER into why the problem o
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Question: What it is about EU culture that results in it not creating these mega companies that are so successful world-wide?
Answer: The EU has a culture in which they don't like being dominated by global mega companies.
And you... you think that's... bad?
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I think you're a bit off there.
It seems the EU doesn't like being dominated by non-EU companies.
The problem that it has is that it doesn't seem capable of creating dominating companies itself.
Domination comes from being very highly successful. So successful that domination is an emerging property.
So, the real question is, why hasn't the EU created a Visa or Mastercard? Or a Facebook? Or a Microsoft? Or an Amazon? Or an Apple?
Not "why hasn't the EU creating dominating companies?"
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Domination comes from being very highly successful.
Highly successful, at authoritarianism. Highly successful at concentrating wealth into the hands of a few people. Not so much if you are highly successful at democracy. Or highly successful at equitable distribution of resources.
Why is Amazon so limited in France? Because the French have decided to maintain their small bookstores instead. Why does France not have a giant Amazon-equivalent? Same reason.
The US and Canada have very similar laws when it comes to bird flu, and yet only the US is having pro
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It's unfortunate France misses out on the benefits of Amazon.
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So...EU == LESS.
Got it.
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No, trump sucks.
Not sure what that has to do with the topic though.
The real goal... (Score:2)
All modern currencies are already "digital". The goal if these centralized currencies is control. The government will have direct knowledge if all transactions, and will he able to block any that they dislike.
Today, blocking or seizing your assets requires cooperation of your bank, which requires a court order. When the government directly controls the flow of money, well, this is a wet dream for totalitarians.