The presidential election season is upon us. Republicans who want to oppose President Biden are rolling out their position papers. As expected, someone has just released their plan for the future of cryptocurrencies. Any and all ideas are debatable in a free society. However, what comes to mind for us is this. Who gets to decide what is important for crypto and how it may or may not affect our pocketbooks and American society?
How About Deregulation of Crypto and Gutting the SEC as Well?
Vivek Ramasamy is an American entrepreneur worth nearly a billion dollars. He is running for president as a Republican in the primaries. He gets about 5% of potential Republican votes in the polls which, sadly for him, is down from about 12% three months ago. Like a lot of supposedly self-made millionaires and billionaires he is pretty negative on regulation of anything that he personally is involved in. That slant on things appears to have spilled over into his view on cryptocurrencies. Mr. Ramaswamy thinks that all crypto regulation should be rolled back and at the same time the Securities and Exchange Commission should lose most of its staff and its regulatory authority. This would be part of a program where 75% of federal employees would be fired.
What Should Folks Who Got Swindled During Crypto Winter Think of Mr. Ramasamy and His Proposals?
Many, if not most, federal regulations were not imposed until some sort of problem arose. Most of the folks in crypto abhorred the idea of regulating crypto until they lost their money. Now many are true believers. The basic reason why the USA elects its officials is that we learned long ago that when folks like kings remain in power forever and ever they screw up. The USA has endured for more than two centuries despite a lot of occasional stupidity and corruption because we get to throw the bums out. We get to vote first in the primaries and then the general election to choose who we want to be responsible for deciding things like whether or not to fire three-fourths of the federal government. These sorts of arguments always boil down to who gets hurt and who makes money or stays out of jail due to things like gutting the SEC.
The Shadow Government That Has Quashed Crypto
Ramaswamy says that ever since crypto was invented a “shadow government” of the “administrative state” plus “cronies on Wall Street” have sought to quash the rise of crypto. He is going to fix all of that if elected. As is usual with this sort of broad proposal, the details do not include whether or not anyone will be available to make social security payments to folks who paid into the system all of their lives. There is nothing about how, under his plan, another FTX fiasco with billions in losses would be avoided. Nor are there details about making certain that crypto and DeFi evolve into level playing fields and not playgrounds for the rich with mom and pop investors being constantly taken to the cleaners.
Does Anyone Agree With Ramaswamy About Crypto?
The main issues in the coming election for president, all representatives, and a third of the US Senate include how folks perceive the economy, spending money helping to defend Ukraine, Israel, and maybe Taiwan, as well as the right of a woman to control her own body in regard to abortion. Crypto issues for most folks fall far below these other issues in voters’ minds. Thus, anyone who want to change the crypto regulatory arena needs to frame the issue in terms of a shadow government boogie man in Washington. Pampered government workers are a favorite theme as well as is unspecified corruption somewhere or other. Nobody else on the Republican side of the aisle is going this far.
How We Decide in a Free Society Will Affect Crypto?
The USA does not have a pure democracy where every one of our 360 million citizens votes on every single decision. We have a representative democracy where we elect representatives to make decisions. These decisions include choosing who works in the administrative arm of the government and which rules and regulations they enforce. When it becomes apparent that the current government is not dealing effectively with an issue we have the opportunity to vote them out of office. Thus, folks who want to promote their own special interests need to get the attention of the people in order to get their representatives elected. We the people then decide on the merits of ideas like firing three-fourths of the federal work force and letting the next FTX mess occur without having done anything to stop it.
SlideShare Version – Who Gets to Decide What Is Important for Crypto?