Women’s empowerment in many developing countries is in its early phases, but the right policies can set women everywhere on a path toward the same prosperity and freedom enjoyed by women in today’s advanced countries.
Many have argued that banning or restricting use of cash will reduce criminal transactions within the underground economy. However, just how much underground economic activity constitutes truly harmful criminal acts, as opposed to productive activities that evade taxes or other regulations but nonetheless increase social welfare, is unclear. Further, the likely effects of a cash ban on genuinely predatory activities such as extortion, human trafficking, drug-related violence, and terrorism are extremely difficult to quantify.
Advocates of phasing out currency also see it as a means of allowing monetary authorities to implement negative interest rate policies. Negative rates could then be imposed on all money holders, acting as a direct tax on their money monetary balances. The necessity of this tool is questionable at best – there are only three instances in the past quarter century where negative interest rates could possibly have been helpful, hardly meriting the extreme measure of eliminating cash. Negative interest rates in a cashless economy end up giving an unelected regulatory body discretionary power to tax money and would require massive restructuring of financial institutions and norms.
It is the advocates of restricting hand-to-hand currency who bear the burden of proof for such an extensive reshaping of the monetary system, no matter how cautiously or slowly implemented and no matter whether all cash is eliminated or just large-denomination notes.
For example, one former regulator from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has suggested that the second-most-popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum, is a security to which securities regulations should apply retroactively. However, this view has been recently contradicted by a top official at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who stated that the decentralized nature of the Ethereum network means its cryptocurrency does not fit the established definition of a security.
A clear, reasonable, and appropriate definition of what qualifies as a security would allow the market for cryptocurrencies to develop while also enabling securities regulators to properly fulfill their mission to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.
Nearly half (48%) have “hardly any confidence” in either. Nearly three-fourths (74%) of Americans believe regulations often fail to have their intended effect, 75% believe government financial regulators care more about their own jobs and ambitions than the well-being of Americans, and 80% worry regulators allow their political biases to impact their judgment. While six in ten believe that regulations in the past have produced positive benefits (59%) and can make businesses more responsive (56%), nearly two-thirds (62%) worry that regulations too often cause more harm than good.
A plurality (41%) of Americans think the financial industry needs more oversight. However, only 18% think the problem is that there are “too few” rules on Wall Street. Instead, 63% say the government fails to “properly enforce existing rules” (40%) or enacts the “wrong kinds” of regulations on big banks (23%).
Over the last few decades, however, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of extreme poverty. In fact, the share of the world’s population, as well as the total number of people living in poverty, is at an all-time low, despite a population increase of 143 percent since 1960. The left-leaning Brookings Institution predicts that absolute poverty will have been practically eliminated throughout the world by 2030. If this is not good news what is?
The ostensible purpose of the U.S. Export-Import Bank is to assist in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to international markets. So what’s not to like? Well, according to Cato scholar Daniel J. Ikenson, the U.S. Export-Import Bank does more harm than good:
“For all the praise Ex-Im heaps upon itself for its role as a costless pillar of the economy, it is difficult to make sense of the collateral damage left in its wake. Thousands of U.S. companies would be better off if Ex-Im’s charter were allowed to expire, as scheduled, on June 30.”
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