Comments on: “Peaceful resistance” to FATCA will result in an alternative financial system

By: statelessman

statelessman — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 23:03:15 +0000

There is already a new worldwide financial system called Bitcoin and already a market for those who wish to jump to the system.

Learn more at http://weusecoins.com

It’s small now just like the Internet was say 15 years ago, no one owns it, it’s P2P and protected by strong cryptography.

By: A Gentleman's Rapier

A Gentleman's Rapier — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:52:27 +0000

The issue is that many banks fund their operations on the US markets. At the moment, there is no viable alternative, and setting something up to rival it would take a generation – even more than 10 years.

There was an effort, unsuccessful, to try to refocus European markets away from London and towards Frankfurt, to be closer to the ECB amongst many other reasons. Never took off (and it resulted in Frankfurt becoming a much more boring place than it was before.)

Frankfurt isn’t London, and nowhere else is New York or Chicago. Place and amenities have a lot to do with the successful location of markets.

The resistance must come from governments and not banks. The US – rightly – feels they have the banks by the short-and-curlies.

By: recalcitrantexpat

recalcitrantexpat — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:49:30 +0000

This is what I have been advocating for ever since FATCA was born. It makes entirely no sense that there is not room for more than one banking system in this world. If the U.S. wants to play games with New York and use access to its banking system as a means of extortion then it should suffer the consequences that ensue from such anti trading behavaviour.
Money is a commodity and it should trade like any other commodity, which means that it should be free from political interference. The amount of money that FATCA compliance will cost to banks of Third World countries will negate the benefits of better tax collection. For them they can get better results just by improving their governance.