> Electronic cash – ie the anonymous electronic equivalent of paper
> money – poses a significant, if long-term, threat to governments
> globally through the leakage of tax revenue "offshore".

I can not claim to know the measure of the type of money movements
you are addressing here, but based on your own characterization of
its nature as a "leakage", I would strongly question the **extreme
remedy** that you advocate as a counter measure.

> In addition, the growth of proprietary currencies such as Beenz
> means that Central Banks are in danger of losing control of the
> money supply, with possible inflationary consequences.

<this is the sound of me blowing a cherry>

Let me remind you that this scarecrow of "inflation" and "unstable
monetary system" is precisely the ruse that was used last time, when
the US Government abdicated its right of Issuance of Money and
control over monetary policy.

And it is specially galling, considering the recent and on-going
pressure by IMF (that outstanding democratic institution) and FRB
(ditto) on poor old bewildered Diusenberg to cut interest rates (even
though inflationary measures were and are on the uptick in EU-land
and even though the ECB charter is **most explicitly clear** on the
nature of ECB's mission), to speak of the concern of the 'Central
Bankers' for the control of inflation.

So what happened to the concerns over the horror of inflation then?
Does that only apply when undemocratic institutions wish to further
erode our God Given rights?

How does the saying go? Fool me once shame on you, ....

You also claim that "Only by direct issue of electronic money –
which, as Robin Bloor pointed out, "knows who owns it" – can
governments avoid such leakage."

This is most certainly not true.

(This is leaving aside the question that what exactly is done today
about "leakage" when we do have anonymous paper money? I guess we
should ask Marc Rich about that, eh?)

Certainly, if issuance of e-Money was limited to a government body,
and if such informational artifacts carried verifiable tags which
identified (a) the Sovereign authority, (b) Currency, and (c) Units;
and further if according to international agreements no exchange of e-
Money from one currency to another could occur without disclosure of
the involved parties, then you could easily stop
unauthorized "leakage" of monies across borders.

What you (seem to) advocate goes **far beyond** addressing
the "leakage" and provides **far too much power** in the hands of
unrepresentative, unaccountable, non-transparent, and clearly
unrepentant, entities.

Is that wise? Or are do we seem that stupid?


>
> And it appears inescapable logic that a "Value Transfer Tax"
> applied at the point of payment would render all existing taxation
> systems obsolete.

(By the content of your post I assume you are a 'subject' of the Q of
E). Here in good ol' USA, our tax system is based on _voluntary
compliance_. A VAT, or any such point of sale, tax system is of
course not voluntary and is compulsory.

And should the measure of a compulsory tax, such as you propose, be
deemed unreasonable by honest citizens, their refusal to comply would
be most detrimental to their lives and well being -- as (for one)
they would no longer be able to eat!

(Need I remind you why the colonists rebelled against the Crown in
1776?)


> The proposition is a simple, but powerful one. Electronic banking
> for all via the Central Bank.


** It is indeed a powerful device ** that is being proposed.

But since these central banks are not democratic institutions, and
here in US, the (nominally elected) Executive is afraid of making a
peep in regards to Monetary Policy -- the control over which (again I
must remind you) was deemed by the your own Iron Lady as the
fundamental measure of Sovereignty -- one must raise strong
objections in placing such absolute power in the hands of people such
as Mr. Greenspan (and who knows who else).

> For as Willie Sutton, the US bank robber famously said; "That's
> where the money is".

Correction: That's where the _Power_ is.

So my suggestion to those who put forth the arguements such as yours
for providing the means to our enslavement to few unaccountable
central bodies is:

Try again, for this won't fly.


Peace.