From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 94 08:07:15 PDT
To: perry@imsi.com
Subject: Re: e$: Cypherpunks Sell Concepts
Message-ID: <199408071506.LAA29437@zork.tiac.net>
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At  8:20 AM 8/7/94 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

>It is perfectly feasable to track all financial transactions in the
>U.S., down to the "quarter for a phone call" level, without
>eliminating all capacity to use the data or placing more than, say,
>another several percent burden on the cost of all transactions. I know
>how to architect such a system, and I'm sure that I'm not the only
>one. It would be a big job, but not an impossible one, especially not
>with modern computer systems. A several percent burden on the economy
>would be devistating, but from the point of view of the bureaucrats it
>probably isn't such a bad thing.

Ahh. Perry to the rescue. This is even better than being technologically
impossible.  Economic impossibility is *just* as physical (I cite the
failure of command economies like the USSR and Cuba as my evidence) as is
technology, and since we're looking for a business case here, your reply
comes in at the nick of time. One more point for regulatory arbitrage. That
"several percent" deducted from the gross domestic product of a nation
could tip the balance of it's international competitiveness, and could
forgo that country's requirement for trapdoor ecash.  The threat of that
could be enough to shoot down the idea on this side of the American border.

Parkinson's law holds that organizations like bureaucracies tend to expand
to use all their available resourcess. But it's a law of biology that a
parasite doesn't kill its host.

Does your Forbin project above include the ability to store and retrieve
*all*  transactions down to a quarter phonecall permanently?

ObThreadPlug: Here's my panel categories for the afternoon "where do we go"
session: Chair: Famous Software/Biz Heavy or TechnoVisionary 1. Internet
access provider, 2. Underwriter, 3. Financial Operations Person, 4.
Regulator or Lawyer, 5. Politician. Any other ideas??

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

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