Based on an article written by some "tech expert" (whatever that actually constitutes these days) there have been some calls for Apple and Google to "open up their wallets" to legislation, as they lay outside of Australia's regulations. Considering Apple handle 80% of mobile pay services, that is a pretty big loophole oversight - but that doesn't matter...
Th Australian Treasurer:
“For a lot of people it’s the fact that, you know, now you don’t have to carry a wallet around … and that has made their lives a lot more convenient and a lot better,” he said.
Yes. This is true, people are getting more accustomed to paying with digital wallets.
“And we don’t want regulations that get in the way of that ... although we obviously do need to regulate things like Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. So it's a balancing act for the government.”
Umm....
The article had nothing to do with crypto at all, it was about a recommendation to designate tech companies as payment providers, which would make them fall under local legislation. This had nothing to do with Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, but we can see where the treasurers mind is at.
It doesn't matter if the centralized conglomerates are taking advantage of the Australian economy, extracting massive amount of wealth through every channel they can control - as long as individuals are kept powerless.
"It's a balancing act for the government"
Indeed.
"How do we make ourselves even wealthier, take more control and still maintain the appearance that we are helping the average person?"
It is absolute nonsense.
More and more I feel that the only way the global economy is going to have any chance of improvement is if the current system gets absolutely wrecked by individuals who have had enough and start acting outside of it as if it doesn't exist. It is funny to think that for years, people have said how Crypto doesn't exist, yet these non-existent tokens are apparently the largest threat to the economy it has ever faced.
With a 2 trillion dollar market cap, the entire crypto market is only 1/4 the size of the largest managed fund, yet the amount of legislation that it is planned to be poured onto it is enormous.
The thing that threatens the governments and institutions isn't the value, it is the paradigm shift in the population to a position that realizes that what they have been offering at a premium, can be accomplished far, far cheaper and in a way that spreads wealth amongst those who access and utilize the economy, rather than driving an ever-increasing skim off the top up to a tiny sliver of owners.
Banks know that they can't offer the kinds of returns that an AMM can, because they have massive overheads and, hundreds of millions in executive salaries to pay. How can they compete long-term, once more services are built upon the pools and we start doing collective things as individuals, like insuring ourselves, providing mortgage loans and providing the start up capital to new business, so that the likes of BlackRock will have to compete to own.
Ownership matters and one of the travesties that have befallen us, is that many people have believed the lie that it is better to trade ownership for lifestyle and rent instead. I am not just talking about housing here of course, it is about the entire economy, where businesses themselves are being consolidated into fewer and fewer hands.
Real estate property has value because it is real, meaning it is physical - but what people forget is that businesses are also very much like real estate, because they are turned into an "entity". Businesses don't die, they can persist eternally and they never need pay an inheritance tax on what they earn and what they earn is subject to far less tax than the average employed person pays - even before the creative accounting practices that allow them to reduce it to near zero are applied.
This means that they are able to attract our value with most of it going in a single direction, not being returned to the average population. They use their profits to buy more "property" with harvesting power and increase their share of the pool. To keep growing, they just have to convince more people that not being part of the pool is better than the yield the pool offers.
You don't want to be an owner - it is too much hassle! Just buy yourself a car instead!"
While they are investors in every car manufacturer on earth and since you don't have the cash to buy outright, they will also provide you with a loan to cover the cost. As said, they earn on every channel, all designed to maximize extraction and minimize leakage back down the mountain.
When will it end?
Well historically, it has ended when the people are starving enough that they organize an uprising and revolution - but that needn't be the case now. Instead, the revolution can be far quieter, less bloody (though it will likely be bloody as those in power want to keep it) and much more efficient, as the revolution can come through the silent protest of non-usage, a boycott of the economy as we know it, the utilization of what will replace it.
It sounds far-fetched to think about replacing forms of governments as we know them, but it has happened many times in the past and will happen in the future too. It is part of the evolution of our species and it is required for us to improve as a society. However, in the past, there wasn't the global channels of communication available to push messaging as there is now - the problem is, these channels have been used to convince us that what we have is the best there can be, even as it continually fails and harms us.
Yet for us to have better, we need to do better and for that, we require the tools of work, which we have to build ourselves as the ones available to use out of the box, are designed to keep the status quo in power, not dismantle it because it no longer serves its purpose.
It's a balancing act.
W e need to act in our best interest, rather than theirs.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]