ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks
– Leaked messages sent by Mark Zuckerberg to a friend at Harvard as he was building Facebook
Years ago, Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that he doesn’t think Facebook is a business. “In a lot of ways, Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company,” said Mr. Zuckerberg. “We’re really setting policies.” He has acted consistently as a would-be sovereign power. For example, he is attempting to set up a Supreme Court-style independent tribunal to handle content moderation. And now he is setting up a global currency.
– From Matt Stoller’s recent article: Facebook’s Undemocratic Currency
For a long time, I’ve maintained there’s no doubt the current system/paradigm we live under will collapse under its own weight, but that doesn’t keep me up at night. What keeps me up at night is understanding we still have no idea exactly what will replace it. It could very well be a more decentralized and free world, a world less defined by brute force, grotesque power concentrations and coercion, but it could also very easily go the other way. The coming out party for FacebookCoin (aka Libra) is in my view the first real indication the forces of corporate oligarchy are determined to ensure the new world reflects their vision and is under their control.
Though I’ve seen many thoughtful and important articles on the dangers of Facebook and a consortium of large corporations building a new financial system in broad daylight, I have yet to see anyone explain precisely what seems to be going on. I think the level of strategic long-term thinking happening here is more extensive than even the most cynical observer is willing to contemplate. This looks like a power play of monumental proportions.
I’ve come to view Mark Zuckerberg as a strategic genius with zero ethics. In other words, he probably has a plan beyond your field of vision and you can’t take anything he says at face value. This is how we’ve seen him operate within Facebook and via the various wildly successful acquisitions he’s completed over the years, most notably Instagram and WhatsApp.
You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see that the current global financial system is failing and won’t be around as currently structured much longer (years not decades). Nowhere is this more apparent than in the fact that negative yielding global bonds just pushed back into record territory at $12.5 trillion.
Market Value of Global Negative Yielding Debt jumps $714.4bln yesterday to RECORD HIGH $12.47 Trillion pic.twitter.com/NrjshGgbOk
— Eric Pomboy (@epomboy) June 19, 2019
If I can see where this is headed, Zuckerberg and his top team at Facebook can see it too. As such, I view FacebookCoin as the corporate oligarchy’s first serious attempt to position itself to be chieftains of a key segment of what will be the financial system(s) of the future.
This is exactly why I think the fiat “backing” is a Trojan horse. He’ll drop the backing as soon as it’s convenient and attempt to make FacebookCoin the global currency of surveillance capitalism, “backed” by all of your private information. https://t.co/tZ2CqYiEVA
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) June 19, 2019
I do not think Zuckerberg’s ultimate goal is running a stable coin, although he could live with that arrangement and benefit from it for as long as necessary. I think the main reason Facebook has structured the coin with fiat backing is to make it seem less threatening to the current monetary establishment and world governments. It’s a way of saying Facebook isn’t trying to compete with the current status quo, but rather make the status quo run more smoothly and efficiently. Then, once it has a foot in the door and gains traction amongst its massive user base, all Facebook has to do is wait until the current assortment of global governments and their respective central banks fail.
At that stage it can remove the fiat currency backing (who will want it anyway), and let FacebookCoin free float. With the credibility of global governments and central banks in the toilet by then, Facebook and its corporate oligarch partners will be in a prime position to take over a sizable chunk of worldwide payments using their own currency. In other words, this appears to be a long-term scheme by elements of corporate oligarchy to position themselves as an unelected and unaccountable future sovereign power.
All that said, I want to be clear about something. Just because the above represents a plausible scenario doesn’t mean it’ll work out that way. If enough people recognize the dangers of this scheme, it could very well be stopped in its tracks.
In this regard, I want to highlight one of the biggest threats posed by a financial system run by a corporate oligarchy. For one thing, there’s the ever-present issue of censorship. I understand why many in the “crypto” world are fine with FacebookCoin since they see it as a threat to state power and control, but this is myopic in my view. Let’s not forget who is silencing the voices of Americans online in 2019. It’s not the state, but rather Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. If we allow these companies to gain control of payments, you can be sure the same sort of unaccountable blacklisting will follow in the world of transactions.
Zuckerberg wants to do with money and payments what he’s already done with speech.
He wants control of what you can do in the most fundamental areas of human freedom: communications and money. Allowing any person or company this sort of control is absolute insanity.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) June 19, 2019
Also, similar to what many of the tech giants have done with speech, Facebook could easily team up with governments or government linked deep-state type entities to stop transactions or freeze the accounts of “problematic” citizens. It would be a very convenient way to get around the rule of law in a place like the U.S., and would represent a perfect symbiotic relationship of tyranny between what could at that point be a vestigial state apparatus and empowered tech giant oligarchs.
Ultimately, what’s going on here gets at the crux of everything I’m trying to discuss at Liberty Blitzkrieg. Namely, that the old world is dying and the most important thing that’ll occur over any of our lifetimes is the sort of world we create, or allow to be created, in its wake.
The launching of FacebookCoin represents one segment of corporate oligarchy throwing its hat in the ring, and a very dangerous one at that given the already existing dominance of tech giants in the communications realm. From my perspective, communications and money are two aspects of human existence so fundamental to liberty they should remain as free and uninhibited as possible. To trust these things to a collection of billionaires and their corporations would represent the pinnacle of short-sightedness and insanity.
The Whitepaper 18/Jun/2019 Dumb fucks on brink of trusting me second time.
— mBit (@mdotbit) June 19, 2019
h/t to Nick Carter for the image at the top.
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Conspiracy theorist! Or as seems to be the case these days, an outspoken person ahead of the game, predicting exactly what is coming. 🙂
On the upside, by the time facebookcoin gets a hold, the bank of mum and dad will be bust, so a big tranche of people using FB will have nothing to pay with anyway. Hopefully the kids see the picture, are into some new social media system and just refuse to participate in Zuckerbergs megalomania.
This should be a good prod in the eye for bitcoin develpopers to get their act together and work on the user friendly aspect of the system. There seems to be much smugness around the fact that Bitcoin is so arcane and if you want to take part, you really should knuckle down and study hard. That is not a great stance when you know FB will make their crypto the easiest thing on the planet to get into.
Unfortunately I need to speak my peace… looking around the world , I see chaos and gloom . Sorry but try as I might , there’s not much to look forward to .
Interest rate increases are only but a hop skip & a jump from our happy go lucky world. The brutal effects of what’s in store , scares the bajebers out of me … but a necessary adjustment to the lack of respect for money ( notice I didn’t say dollar ) .
What the world capital flows has in stock for , the middle class is going to be a brutal world / individual awakening.
This criminal who runs this “ DATA COLLECTION COMPANY “ is one of the many roots of the evil infecting the world … and as we go blissfully down the road , the hammer is just about ready to strike .
God help those who are in debt up to their eyeballs . It’s not their fault their fault and out of touch with money & the power it yields ..
Nevertheless they are …as %85 of consumers will be slaughtered, which BTW how markets work .
14 yrs of ZERO % interest rates ?? What do you expect ? We are on the precipice of chaos , to each his own and F —k the rest …. and this idiot … should be in jail !!! … just a simpletons opinion .
This is an interesting article for what it posits. That said a baseline needs to be established to work from when building theories. Some have posited that the real mandate of the CIA, established at the insistence of Wall Street and beyond, from the get go has been to establish a technological control grid over the people. From this was birthed In-Q-Tel which is likely the parent of Facebook, Google and a number of other corporations and their front men (Elon Musk springs to mind- his grandfather the head of Technocracy Inc in Canada back in the day) that serve this mission of building this control grid. Libra coin is just another part of this effort. The IMF and World Bank have shown growing interest in cryptos over the last half dozen years. So this means the entire Financial World Order has interest in block chain technologies, with who knows who that really developed this tech?
Most of us reading here must know by now that nation states are no longer sovereign entities and mostly perform as cutouts that serve the New Financial World Order, as penned by the Tri Lateral Commission when it held a conference back in the late 1970s with this the very title of that gathering. These folks plan ahead as per the oft quoted David Rockefeller autobiographical remarks of his on globalism. We have already in fact a loosely operating one world governance doing business behind the facade of the old system of sovereign nation states. These states still go about their pretensions as they are still useful and necessary to some degree by their controllers.as these states propagandize, misinform and obfuscate the truth from the people while legislating in these controllers interests.
So this is my baseline when viewing announcements forthcoming from the world’s interwoven financial-corporate power grid tapestry. If FB wants to market a crypto it is because the ‘power grid’ intends that FB do this and Zuck takes his orders or gets out. If the power grid wants to trial run a large corporate crypto it will only be in their own interests and that means against your interests… unless they coincide with the New World Financial Order just as Zuck’s do.
Hey Dude brilliant insight !!!, Agree totally with everything u lay out here. Zuc is merely executing orders from an oversight mechanism. Really not sure how this ultimately plays out as Libra coin will ultimately render 3rd world currencies into toilet paper. Govts will have no control over sovereign states as they will have lose control of their banking sector/ Fiat currencies. How do u see 3rd world countries navigating this.
Hey Tony, I can’t think of any state that has complete control/sovereignty over its currency. All the world’s currencies are under central bank/treasury department and FX market management. The trick for the globalists is to get from where we are now, with the Fed Reserve Note (FRN) and the short list of other lesser world reserve currencies to one world reserve currency not based or tied to any nation state but rather to some world banking institution like the IMF. The IMF already has its own currency in circulation, the SDR, and this may just be used as a stepping stone to some form of one world digital currency, likely a crypto, issued from a single banking entity in which all will have their bank accounts.
Third world currencies exist only as referenced to the FRN, really just as everything else on the planet is if given value. These are the easiest to manipulate and the most vulnerable to attacks. That said I read and listen to guys with a lot more knowledge of the financial world than I do. Guys like Krieger, Steve Guinness and Brandon Smith (Alt Market) and then sort of boil down what they all have to say to arrive probably somewhere near to what the reality might be.
Totally agree , we live in very interesting times, it will be fascinating watching the power play between nation states develop , particularly how the mechanics of the new world currency are brought into play.
ABC7 says: With most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, anyone can lend computing power to verify transactions and to prevent anyone spending the same digital coin twice. With Libra, the verifications will initially be managed by its founding companies, such as Facebook and PayPal. Facebook believes the closed approach will mean better security.
If true, then Libra is not even a cryptocurrency.
I’m led to believe the major shareholder of Facebook is a Swiss bank if this is true the bankers will in fact control it
Michael, Have you seen this?
https://edri.org/facebook-patent-lending-based-on-social-connections/
Your negative scenario has a decent chance of coming true. Add the info from the above link and Zuckerberg will run his own private version of China’s Social/Financial Credit system, only larger.
Excellent article Michael, thank you and you highlight the real risk we all face: the oligarchs that control and run the mega corporations. Some fear that governments are the problem but Prof Richard Wolff has a real handle on who are the people to blame:
https://www.rdwolff.com/
perhaps i am just ignorant, but i cannot imagine the circumstances in which i or anyone else would want to use facebook coin. traveling abroad and not worrying about currency conversion is the only use case that comes to mind. can someone please enlighten me about why and how people would want to use facebookcoin?
Well one primary reason , I live in a third world country where our currency can devalue by 15 % in a day all depending on the political statements that get muttered , this has a net result of pushing inflation thru the roof on a 3 monthly time frame. By transfering fiat to Libra i remove the risk of our local currency devaluing and i maintain purchasing power of the dollar
why not just buy dollars? or euros? or gold? or whatever? do you really need another choice based on a basket of currencies and controlled and monitored by facebook and visa and master card?
i guess it would be a convenient way to get a BASKET, instead of committing to any one currency, but you can do that already.
please explain
In South Africa u cannot just buy foreign currency without having travel visa’s & air tickets . Libra coin would be simple for most SA citizens , pop your savings into libra and its instantly converted to USD, best hedge ever against inflation in South Africa . Purchasing power of the ZAR remains pegged to the stable coin USD at time of transfer and not to ZAR local currency which fluctuates wildly . Trading in ZAR goods & services u are losing 25% purchasing power minimum pa.
good answer. but are you sure you’d be allowed to buy libra, or preferrably some less corruptible coin.
your guess is as good as mine how 3rd world govt’s react to libra coin, but its gonna be fascinating to watch this unfold . The implications for 3rd world banking sector’s is nothing short of catastrophic & i look so forward to their demise.
We are still in the very early stages of collapse. Supposing the computers and the grid will be online in the advanced stages of collapse is shortsighted.
How will Bezos/Amazon react to Libra?
Will Amazon come up with its own quasi-crypto currency?
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Brilliant, Michael. Thanks so much for sharing.
The Holy Bible says that those without the Mark of the Beast one day will not be able to buy and sell. You have identified the scaffolding (along with the social credit piece) for how that could happen.