TCM:
At 10:14 PM 4/10/96, Bill Stewart wrote:
Of course, if you happen to become dead while you're storing it, the paper cash is far more useful to your heirs, so I assume we'll have a government-sponsored cash-escrow system announced soon to protect the government's interest in collection of inheritance taxes...
Don't give them ideas, Bill! They are known to monitor our list for insights into what to regulate next, and I can see the 15-watt lightbulbs going on over their heads as they ponder the wonderful opportunities presented by "digital cash escrow."
give me a break!!! the future government attempts to squelch, suppress, restrict, prohibit, regulate, tax, spindle, and mutilate Digital Cash will make Clipper look as significant and threatening as a christmas tree ornament. we have not seen the tiniest shred of the panic and paranoia that will resonate through government once they get a clue about what Digital Cash means to the future of the world. furthermore, it is my belief that there are some very rich people that effectively control our governments, who have strangleholds on various aspects of the world economy that will become a tad upset as well. as I wrote in an earlier essay, the possibilities of combining digital cash with stock market company shares suggest a radical new economy that would have the potential to topple a lot of very powerful existing interests, in the way that printing presses once toppled the Church. to borrow a bit of Chinese black humor, "we live in interesting times". we will be living in even more interesting times shortly.