EMU_boo

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   11-2-95. FT:


   "Electronic money in a race with Emu."

      Economic and monetary union or electronic money? Recent
      suggestions that the start of Emu might be delayed
      beyond 1999 raise the intriguing possibility that a
      viable international electronic money will be available
      before the European single currency. Depending on your
      perspective, this would be either disaster or nirvana.
      Disaster, because governments and central banks in
      countries with weak currencies would lose the seignorage
      that currency issue brings, and the sovereignty it is
      supposed to provide (but may not). Disaster, because it
      would destroy two central aims of Emu: the sharing of
      power between monetary authorities, and the attempted
      imposition of currency soundness by institutional fiat.
      Nirvana, because it would provide people with a powerful
      protection against the random and hidden taxation
      imposed on them when governments inflate, and because it
      would create monetary soundness via market forces.


   EMU_boo  (5 kb)


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