Interview with Bernard Lietaer - Economist, author and professor

PayPal: Galactic Currency Coming Soon

SPACE, TECH NEWS, SPACE TOURISM

PayPal: Galactic Currency Coming Soon for Space Travelers

"If you’re there and buying your morning coffee, what’s the currency you’re going to use?"

By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times | June 27, 2013

Last Updated: June 27, 2013 8:39 am

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The commercialization of space is now a reality. Virgin Galactic will launch its first commercial flight this year. A space hotel is set to be constructed by 2016. And now, the first steps are being taken to create an intergalactic currency.

PayPal will unveil PayPal Galactic on June 27 at 9 a.m. and bring together leaders in the scientific community, including the SETI Institute and Space Tourism Society, to help create a currency for space and off-Earth colonies.

“If you want space tourism to thrive, you need commerce,” PayPal President David Marcus told Epoch Times in a phone interview.

The idea for PayPal Galactic came up while Marcus was having a discussion about the upcoming space hotel, and a question arose: “If you’re there and buying your morning coffee, what’s the currency you’re going to use?”

A slew of other questions followed, and Marcus said they realized “we have to come up with the answers since this is coming up in three years, and Virgin Galactic flies its first flight this year.”

They began discussions with members of the scientific community to find out what it would entail and this evolved into the creation of PayPal Galaxy. Following its announcement, the stakeholders will further this discussion with governments and companies working on space tourism, trade, and colonization.

Anuj Nayar, senior director of communications and social media at PayPal, said in a phone interview that the first step for PayPal Galaxy is “to drive the questions” on what would be required to create an intergalactic currency.

And the questions raised by PayPal Galaxy are by no means simple. How will banking systems adapt to intergalactic currencies? What about risk and fraud management? Who will regulate it?

Yet, PayPal is already in a unique position to help create this type of currency. “We already work with all the governments in every market,” Nayar said, ”and that is exactly the point.”

The Next Step

The necessity for a space currency is only just emerging, yet for astronauts the need is already there when they are otherwise cut off from the market here on Earth.

“Trips to Mars, the moon, even orbit will require we provide astronauts and astro-tourists with as many comforts from home as possible, including how to pay each other,” Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon and who will join PayPal at the unveiling of the new currency, said in a press release.

While space tourism is still an expensive endeavor, it appears likely to become more viable as interstellar commerce grows.

The idea is simple. Space hotels would mean job openings in space. Services would be needed, as well as deliveries of food and other products. As traffic increases, travel prices are likely to go down.

John Spencer, president of the Space Tourism Society, said in a phone interview: “Aviation in the beginning was a rich person’s pursuit. But what happens is, technology and awareness and interest, as it grows, brings the prices down.”

“It’s actually great timing for Paypal to step forward and begin to very seriously take an approach to see how we make a very scalable Internet and space payment system,” he said.

Spencer is helping push the bar for space tourism. As one of the first space architects he has designed functional moon bases, space hotels, and space super yachts.

He is also helping start the first space sports, and is helping plan a lunar race with moon rovers, “The Great Lunar Race,” to take place within the next decade.

The benefit of the increased interest in space is important, he said, since it gives people “a positive view, a healthy view of the future.”

The development of an intergalactic currency is also raising a unique discussion on how humankind could create a currency if we could start all over again, but have our current knowledge.

Hill Ferguson, PayPal vice president of global product, said in a phone interview, “We’re asking ourselves how we would do this from scratch if none of the hardware was there and none of the networks were built, and the answer is very different from where we are today.”

“You wouldn’t go to a new planet or a space station and start laying copper wire and creating hard currencies, or things like that,” he said. “You would skip those technologies and go straight to wireless communication protocols and mobile-based form factors.”

He said developing an intergalactic currency is the “ultimate product development challenge.” It’s also an interesting opportunity, since “you are starting from a place without a legacy.”

The new payment method will be officially announced by David Marcus, the president of PayPal, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, on June 27. The live stream will begin at 9 a.m. PDT (12 p.m. EDT), and will be viewable here after 4 p.m. PDT.

Portugal: can anyone topple the troika?

Whoever Portugal's prime minister is, the troika is in charge

Could Pedro Passos Coelho become our second prime minister in two years to be toppled by the backlash against austerity?

• Joana Gorjão Henriques
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 July 2013

Link to video: Portuguese prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho: 'I won't resign'

Portugal's government is on the verge of collapse, and the script of its demise couldn't have been more dramatic. On Monday, the finance minister, Vítor Gaspar, the widely criticised architect of the country's €78bn bailout plan, resigned. On Tuesday, minutes before his successor, Maria Luís Albuquerque, was sworn in, news broke of the resignation of foreign minister Paulo Portas, the leader of the centre-right party in the coalition government.

Then came another twist: the prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, refused to accept Portas's resignation and gave a public address in which he said he would "not abandon Portugal". In an attempt to block Portas' coup, Passos Coelho also said that he wanted a dialogue with the junior party and to avoid early elections. The collapse of the Portuguese government increasingly resembles a tragi-comedy.

One TV image summed up the awkwardness of the situation: as Albuquerque was signing her ministerial vows, Paulo Portas's parting statement was being shown in the background. Albuquerque, who was previously the treasury secretary, starts her new job still carrying the baggage of a recent scandal relating to swap contracts in state companies. You can't help thinking: for how many hours will she be in her job?

The key question, though, is how long Passos Coelho will be in office. Could he become the second Portuguese prime minister in just two years to be toppled by the backlash against the troika's austerity programme, after José Sócrates in 2011?

Gaspar had announced his departure from the government in a harshly worded letter in which he criticised the conflicts within government triggered by his bailout programme – in effect, he was criticising the opposition he had faced from figures such as Portas, who had spoken out against the pension cuts. Portas was briefly promoted to number two in government after Gaspar's resignation, and had been tasked with overseeing cuts and to plan state reform.

The troika – the European Commission, the Central Bank and the IMF – will visit Portugal in two weeks to assess how the country is managing the €78bn bailout. Many are very worried about whether Portugal's government will be able to hold its own in negotiations. If Passos Coelho stays, he won't be able to run an unmanageable government for too long. The best alternative would be to hold the elections early, and that's what people are crying out for on the streets. The big question now is what the president, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, a supporter of Gaspar's austerity measures and Passos Coelho's government, will decide to do.

If he calls for an election, the alternative to the current coalition government would be António José Seguro, leader of the centre-left party, PS. Though he is generally regarded as a weak leader, overall discontent will probably make him the favourite. If Seguro does become Portugal's next prime minister, though, his task won't be very different from that of Passos Coelho: like Italy and Greece, we live in troikaland, and our real prime minister is the troika. And can anyone topple the troika?

ICAP executive seen linked to LIBOR scandal

CORRECTED-ICAP executive seen linked to LIBOR scandal - Wall Street Journal

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• Financials »

Thu Jul 4, 2013 11:50am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/04/icap-libor-idUSL2N4H22RZ20130704

(Corrects June 26 story to make clear allegation of manipulation came from regulators)

(Reuters) - A senior executive at British brokerage firm ICAP PLC knew of an arrangement with UBS AG that U.S. and British regulators allege was part of a scheme to manipulate benchmark interest rates, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited sources familiar with the matter.

The executive, David Casterton, was included in some emails sent in 2007 documenting the discussions, in which UBS agreed to make quarterly payments to ICAP for help in rigging the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, the paper said on its website on Wednesday.

A call and email to ICAP spokeswoman Brigitte Trafford were not immediately returned after business hours.

The rate-fixing scandal has infected many of the world's biggest banks, put in motion new attempts to set global interest rates and indirectly led to the departure of several top executives at Barclays PLC (BARC.L) and UBS.

Casterton, who the paper said is a longtime deputy to ICAP Chief Executive Michael Spencer and currently head of global broking at the London-based firm, would nevertheless be one of the most senior executives affected by the Libor scandal, the Journal said.

An ICAP spokeswoman told the paper that no one at the company was "aware of any corrupt payment from any source at any time" and said it would be false and defamatory to suggest otherwise. (Reporting by Jed Horowitz; editing by Lisa Shumaker and Tom Pfeiffer)

Farage: The eurozone is causing youth unemployment

Regulation is what keeps bankers out of prison

2/giu/2013

http://www.ukipmeps.org | http://www.ukip.org
• European Parliament, Strasbourg, 12 June 2013

• Speaker: Godfrey Bloom MEP, UKIP (Yorkshire & Lincolnshire), Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group -http://www.godfreybloommep.co.uk

• Debate: Financial services: Lack of progress in Council and Commission's delay in the adoption of certain proposals
Oral questions - [2013/2658(RSP)]
Followed by a round of political group speakers
The vote will be held on Thursday
- Sharon Bowles (O-000063/2013 - B7-0208/2013)
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Council
Lack of progress in Council on financial services files
- Sharon Bowles (O-000065/2013 - B7-0209/2013)
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Commission
Delay in the Commission's adoption of financial services proposals

Transcript:

Thank you, Madam Chairman,

Commissioner [Barnier], I am not without some sympathy - as a matter of fact - with the Council on this, because you are trying to do the impossible, and I think the parliament is trying to make you do the impossible.

The long-and-short of it is, as well known in Austrian Economics, in order to regulate financial services you would need perfect knowledge of the market - impossible, it cant be done. It's sometimes known as the 'fatal conceipt'.

What we need to go back to is 'liberty of contract', so the individual, the investor can contract, under law in a property-owning democracy, with whomsoever banker or investment manager he wants without interference of the state and the implicit guarantee of the taxpayer that goes with it.

Central bankers and retail bankers hide behind regulation. They are not dominated or guided by regulation! It's what keeps these people out of prison when they cheat the general public, and ytou are part of the conspiracy.

Move away from prescriptive regulation, for goodness sake, and let the law of the land take its course.

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• Video: EbS (European Parliament)
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• EU Member States:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom

Why the whole banking system is a scam