I read a little more about their plan. The gist is that for every Facebuck in circulation, the value of that Facebuck will be held in reserve by Facebook with unnamed securities. Any Facebuck would be redeemable in local currency.
There plan seems to be, give us money, we invest money, we keep interest on said investment, you get a gift card.
It doesn’t sound like a great investment choice for end users, but probably better than Beenie Babies or Baseball Cards.
The anecdote about my son’s inability to open an account at a rural Thai bank even though he is a Thai citizen is true, but OFF-TOPIC. I might discuss the incident in more detail in a Mundane or IMHO thread … but the snippish answers I got here incline me against that.
I mentioned it here as an example of financial controls, and because I’m curious how many of you realize that bank and stockbroker customers all over the world are being asked about their U.S. tax status. Many American expats here in Thailand are unaware of it, and wouldn’t be unless they opened a new account during the five years or so these new rules have been in effect.
The usual solution, BTW, is “Don’t ask don’t tell!” The bank would be happy to open the account (on presentation of Thai ID) if we answered “No” to the citizenship question (or more typically just not have asked the question at all), but my son will use this account to receive direct deposits from the U.S. Government that he’s entitled to as a U.S. person. Not informing the U.S.G. of the U.S. status of this account-holder would be pushing our luck, no?
There are further details to the story but, as I say, it’s off-topic and the comments here, mostly quite WRONG, don’t motivate me. I’ll correct one specific confusion:
I asked this question at 2:30 pm and got the answer Yes after less than a minute. I drove to pick up my son, returned with him to the bank, watched them lock the door at 3:30 pm, and finally learned we wouldn’t be able to open an account at 4:55 pm. (My son was proud of me for not losing my temper! 
) The bank spent about 4 man-hours working on this(!) since there were sometimes 2 or 3 officers trying to help and they were constantly on the phone to headquarters.
Does this help, manson1972 ? Do I guess correctly that you’ve not done a lot of banking in rural Thailand?
From the Guardian:
Lawfare’s Nicholas Weaver agrees that this is a bad idea, and he lays out lots of reasons why; for example:
Points are not a currency.
What about Chuck E Cheese Tokens?
You’d be incorrect in that guess.
But he couldn’t open an account because he was a US citizen, or because the place was closed?
Trying to read between the indignation, it sounds to me like his son tried to open a business account that could do international wire tranfers to and/or from the US, and the bank decided that the cost of compliance with US banking regulations made this an unprofitable venture, and so the banks corporate office said no.
Somehow this was due to the onerous requirement that his son fill out a W9.
Wrong again. Totally wrong. Shall we bet? Put money in escrow and get affadavits from the bank’s headquarters management?
I bet you aren’t very good at telling an anecdote.
Do you want to explain directly, and without hurt feelings and invective what happened and how it relayes to the onerous US banking regulations that only expats understand?
Why are you making such a big deal about the teller, instead of why the teller is asking? Forget about the bank teller. When preparing forms required by your jurisdiction’s regulators, he or she is only acting on behalf of those regulators, so lying on the forms is considered lying to the regulators directly. Lying to government regulators gets people charged with criminal acts (in the US, typically violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq.; I don’t know what the Thai equivalent is).
For an equivalent domestic example, try stating on the paperwork you give the bank teller that you are not subject to backup withholding when you really are. See how Uncle Sam responds if/when they catch you.
Where are you getting anything about this being a business trying to open a commercial account? I read this to be something more along the lines of an individual trying to receive Social Security benefits or the like.
Post #33
I think perjury was hyperbolic, so I riffed on it.
The US government has a legitimate interest in protecting the US banking system, and in collecting taxes. In pursuit of those two interests, they require Americans living abroad to report income, including interest earned from banking. A banking institution would file a 1098 to the IRS and a 1099 to the individual. In order to file those documents the bank would need to know the individual’s tax ID number. The form for this is the W9. They also require foreign banks to comply with certain regulatory oversight in order to wire transfer funds between US banks and foreign banks. Once money is in the US banking system, it is generally accepted to be legal money. The reason that everyone can accept this is due to regulatory oversight. If a rural Thai bank cannot comply with US banking regulations, then they can’t send money into the US banking system.
That seems to have inconvenienced some Americans living abroad. Having to go through customs upon returning from a vacation inconveniences me, but I understand why we have customs.
You’re right. 
I do a much better job though when my credibility isn’t repeatedly insulted. Almost all the guesses have been quite wrong. For example, most of the accounts of the larger retail banks here can easily accept direct deposits or wire transfers from the U.S. AFAICT.
There were reasons I omitted some interesting details from the bank-account(s) anecdote. The reasons for the omissions, sorted in decreasing importance are:
(a) brevity,
(b) the details were completely unrelated to my anecdote’s relevance to the thread,
(c) other details, incl. personal or confidential.
I hope those who need to continue this discussion will open a new thread: in Mundane or, preferably, BBQ Pit. If someone insists on guessing any specific obstacle(s) that I suppressed for personal reasons, please PM me your guess. AtDhVaAnNkCsE.
The vast majority of my transactions are already invisible to the government, and I am using a system that is sponsored by that very government. The United States dollar still has physical forms in the form of 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, and $1 coins; and $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 banknotes.
To my knowledge, there is no system of monitoring what those banknotes are exchanged for, and since I seldom buy anything on-line, and won’t use a credit or debit card for anything I buy at a store, I’d wager that the only transactions of mine that are visible to the government are my employer’s direct deposits into my bank account, the three checks I have to write each month for my monthly bills, and the once-per-month cash withdrawal I make at the teller.
Although the reason for this is not because I’m worried that the powers that be will see that I chose the chips and soda instead of the fresh vegetables, or whatever else they might want to learn about me from my purchasing habits. The reason is because people tend to spend more frivolously with any method of payment that isn’t physical cash (cite), and I have found that to be at least partially true for myself.
If you say so, I guess?
In what way are they not a currency? You can buy things with them. You can transfer them to others. You can “earn” them in a variety of ways.
What’s your definition of currency? Are Facebucks a currency? If so, what do they have that airline points lack?
I also raised an eyebrow at that post and would be curious to hear Isamu’s answers to these questions.
I just had a random thought (might have been mentioned already, but hell, it seemed original to me): what if the aim here is to create an entirely new type of virtual society or virtual state. The first step is to create a real marketplace with real trade and real economic systems. Facebook wants to use its “currency” to facilitate commerce via its platform. This is probably not really a major revelation, but the potential scale of it is something that could have a profound impact, particularly if others like Amazon or Google respond in kind. But what if there were one company that dominated social media, dominated search, and dominated buying and selling online? And what if that company had its own currency? In some regards, it would have as much economic power as many nation-states in existence today. And with the amount of data and information that it has about each individual, the potential for corruption and control would be difficult to resist, I would think.
Aye; we’re at the cusp of a change in bloc ideation. China, IMO, isn’t even prepared for it. Immortal persons (companies) will be a challenge for geographically contained blocs to overcome. I mean, how do you contain an immortal entity that has no form and exists simultaneously around the globe in many unique single entities?
I dunno if that’s the goal of the people involved in this, but this is a way to chip away at nations’ sovereignty. And once the chips start flying, well, I’m not sure they’ll stop for a long, long time. Who’s gonna be in charge: the people with the money or the people?
The nationalists (both left and right) will throw a fit, but libertarians have predicted for some time that this could and should happen. Governments are no match for capital, the Cold War proved that.
Cyberpunky extraterritorial corporations aren’t much better than governments. In fact they’re worse in every respect.