I used to think that the problem of anonymous credit is hopelessly intractable. I mean, who would loan money to an anonymous entity that may disappear at any time without a trace? Reputation, which is useful for other types of anonymous cooperation, is not a good solution in this case, since typically you need to borrow money to invest in reputation. Recently, I came upon a solution, inspired by an essay by the economist Steven Landsburg. I have to admit however, that the solution is fatally flawed. But I present it here anyway in the hope that one of you can offer an improvement that would make the scheme practical. The idea goes like this. The government announces a new series of anonymous zero-coupon treasury bonds that mature in 10 years, backed by a special lump-sum tax to be collected when the bonds mature. The proceeds of the bond auction and the tax are distributed equally among everyone. So basicly, the government forces everyone to take out a loan on the credit market and guarantees its collection. Anyone who does not want the loan anonymously buys treasury bonds with all of his distribution, holds them for 10 years, redeems them at maturity and uses the proceeds to pay off the lump-sum tax. The fatal flaw, of course, is that there is no reason why the government would want to help people get anonymous loans. Can anyone find a way to fix this? BTW, if anyone is interested in Steven Landsburg's essays, they are available at http://www.slate.com/Code/Compost/Compost.asp?Sort=Section&Key=20. I also highly recommend his book, _The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday Life_. "All crypto is economics." - Eric Hughes