Pirate Party MEP Helps Draft New Credit Card Company Controls 129
Dupple writes with this excerpt: "It has become an increasingly large problem that Visa, MasterCard, and Paypal control the valve to any money flow on the planet. Today, the European Parliament established this as a clear problem, and initiated regulation of the companies, limiting and strictly regulating their right to refuse service. The Pirate Party was the initiator of this regulation, following the damaging cutoff of donations to WikiLeaks, after said organization had performed journalism that was embarrassing to certain governments."
Now that is something to think about... (Score:4, Insightful)
...how it is that banks can control the abstract tool used for easing trade ......
So I want to trade you for something you have but I don't have what you want so we used this abstract tool to allow you to then get what you want from some one else.
But we cannot even do that because some bank which originated in the support of the basic idea of this abstract tool decides they don;t want to?
They are contradicting the purpose of the abstract tool of money. They are contradicting their own original objective.
catch-22 (Score:5, Insightful)
True dat (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalists really are no longer in the business of letting their readers know what their government doesn't want them to know.
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Donate money to one or both the governments and get the laws fixed. Next Question.
Re:Regulation is problematic (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe there should be a regulation then "don't put all those cables on the ground" ;)
In my experience analogies are like fauly watches, they are seldom correct and most of the times gives a sense of undestandning something but in reality just complicates things.
Cables are good or bad (Score:5, Insightful)
If you throw cables on the floor for any reason, or string them at random heights or intervals to please one particular person, yes - they can bring all progress to a halt.
Properly planned and distributed, however, they can take a seemingly impossible task - such as spanning a large body of water, capturing a large number of fish, jumping out of an airplane from several thousand feet up and landing safely, or climbing a very tall structure - and make it a straightforward task.
The only difference between gridlock and utility is the thought and care with which the regulations are laid.
Not "American fundamentalist moralism" (Score:3, Insightful)
The MEP, Christian Engström", who instigated this is being disengenous when he claims the problem he is fighting is "American fundamentalist moralism". If you RTFA you find out that it was Swedish banks denying purchases of "horror movies, movies with nudity, or sex toys" and trying to shove blame off on "vague rules from Visa and Mastercard". Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal allow purchases of these items every day the world over. He should instead be blaming Swedish fundamentalist moralism. This strikes me as nothing more than another European statist power grab against an American company. If the Europeans want in on the payment processing business then they should create a competing company, not use big government to attempt to seize power over American companies.
Re:Not "American fundamentalist moralism" (Score:4, Insightful)
If you RTFA you find out that it was Swedish banks denying purchases of "horror movies, movies with nudity, or sex toys" and trying to shove blame off on "vague rules from Visa and Mastercard".
Oddly enough, contemporary Swedish fundamentalist moralism doesn't seem to include problems with "horror movies, movies with nudity, or sex toys". It may have a real problem with wikileaks, though, comparable to the problem the U.S. (and UK, and, and ...) governments have with wikileaks.
Visa and Mastercard have a significant problem with displeasing governments: if you don't forbid them acting in concert to please their home governments, your country gets whatever the U.S wants (as discussed in several other threads in this discussion).
--dave
Re:Journalism.....!? (Score:2, Insightful)
And who, exactly, gets to determine who the "true" journalists are?
Well, Slashdot, apparently. As the introduction to this story has not only decided that Wikileaks is "journalism", but also that depriving it of funds is "damaging".
Is it ok for someone to determine this as long as you are in agreement?
Re:Regulation is problematic (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh Americans... will you ever realize, that regulation is when you get to say "No! Stop it! We won't have it like this! Now it's my rules!"
Which is your only damn defense against those 20-page terms & conditions contracts.
Why the hell you would complain about such regulation, that does you good, and instead choose to defend the companies, that get to do way too much already, so they can do even more evil shit, is a riddle to us non-Americans.
It's like a rape victim complaining that his savior should not tell his rapist what to do so much.
Then again, in North Korea, they really believe that if you touch an American flag, your hands will rot off. As if that would really actually happen...
So I guess people can be brainwashed into almost any delusion... even that their rapist would be the one that needs "more freedom"... and protecting your own rights would be "harming the free market".
Re:BIIIIIITTTTCOOOOIIINNNSSS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if you have an extraordinarily loose definition of "money."
Re:Now that is something to think about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Noone is stopping you from using your money to buy something from another person
This argument is complete and utter horseshit. If I cannot transfer money, they are in fact stopping me from doing it. No bank or credit card agency should be allowed to prevent me from making a lawful transfer without good reason. And "I don't like what that organization is doing" is NOT a good reason. Not when you have entrenched yourself so deeply in the global financial infrastructure.
Re:Regulation is problematic (Score:5, Insightful)
They are conditioned to believe this shit at early ages... "If you want to be rich some day, you have to think this way and support Free Market Capitalism. Anything else is just bad, and you don't need to know any more about it. Let's just call it all Socialism. It kind of rhymes with Satan, well, it starts with the same letter, at least."
This is why you have stupid people, who haven't a pot to piss in, that lobby against things that are in their own interests, in favour of the corporate greed.
Ordinary workers, living from paycheck to paycheck, getting in debt, saying that at least under (Insert Republican candidate they've been conditioned to support) they get to "keep what they have". No sir, they don't want anything like subsidized health care, they'd rather go into mortal debt for an emergency appendectomy. At least they are living the American Dream and doing it on their own, because government handouts are Socialism, which is the same as Communism (See, the old U.S.S.R. had the word "Socialist" in the title)
Now these big companies, whose "freedom" they worship, are wanting to claw back their meager wages and benefits while execs get bonuses. Damn those unions for interfering with the God Given Rights of the corporations.
Of course not all Americans are this obtuse, it's just that they are also taught to be very vocal when others don't agree with their beliefs, or criticize their country.