The following item will appear in No. 23 of the EIR Strategic Alert Service in Germany this week.
As the US Congress gets ready to pass the so-called GENIUS Act, speculators uncork champagne bottles while experts warn about the dangers of legitimizing stablecoins. Some supporters of President Trump are deluded by the narrative that stablecoins will undermine the oligarchical power of central banks, which might be true, but the alternative to oligarchy is not anarchy.
One competent voice on the matter is Paolo Savona, the current head of the Italian stock exchange watchdog Consob. Savona is a physical economist and is no friend of the financial oligarchy. He was a candidate for finance minister in the Conte 1 government in 2018, but that job was vetoed by Brussels. Eventually, he joined the government as Minister for Relations with the European Institutions, from which position he called for a radical shift in EU fiscal policies, in favor of FDR-like “New Deal” growth policies.
Speaking at a panel of the “Festival of Economics” May 23 in Trento, Savona said that he considered “the legitimization of cryptocurrencies a fatal risk—the danger is that we lose the concept of money,” explaining that “wrong choices lead to fatal outcomes and can even destroy a system.” He reiterated that “the fundamental risk is that these private currencies could replace public money because they are more profitable,” but at the same time, private money “cannot be reimbursed, because there is no debtor—ultimately, no one is responsible.”
“I do not want to place my seal of approval on the legitimization of cryptocurrencies,” Savona concluded.
