So now Brussels wants to join forces with Facebook, Google and alike, in order to also extract value from our personal preferences.

Sir, Mehreen Khan, Alex Barker and Rochelle Toplensky report that “Brussels is thinking about a “levy, which is likely to be set at a rate of 3 per cent… raised against advertising revenues generated by digital companies such as Google…fees raised from users and subscribers to services such as Apple or Spotify, and income made from selling personal data to third parties… it will raise about €5bn a year.” “Brussels proposes levy on Big Tech digital revenues” March 16.

For years I have argued that we users should have right to charge something for our preferences disclosed on the web, not only because that could yield a partial funding of a Universal Basic Income scheme, but, even more importantly, because that would help to limit the bothering and the waste of our limited attention span.

But seemingly Brussels wants to hear nothing about that, they as self appointed redistribution profiteers, want in on that revenue stream.

It is just like if governments, instead of helping to rid ourselves of the fastidious robocalls selling us all kind of products and services, would now share the incentives to push those calls even more.

Sir, though I do not live in Britain, or in Europe for that sake, I was pretty sure I would not vote for a Brexit… but every day that passes, and I read about things like this, the less sure I am of that.

@PerKurowski

Damages by Euribor rigging are peanuts compared to bank regulators’ rigging of credit allocation to the real economy

Sir I refer to Rochelle Toplensky and Martin Arnold write on “Brussels will hit HSBC, JPMorgan and Crédit Agricole today with multimillion-euro fines for rigging the Euribor interest rate benchmark” “Three banks fined over rate-rigging” December 7.

For years I have argued that if banks are to be fined, they should pay those fines in shares, since having their capital diminished by forcing them to pay cash, is pure masochism as that will affect their capacity to give credit; and since we also want banks to hold more capital.

But also in this case let me note that whatever damages these banks could have caused with their rigging of Euribor, these are peanuts when compared to what bank regulators did by rigging, with their risk weighted capital requirements, the allocation of credit to the real economy with their risk weighted capital requirements for banks.

If not fined, these regulators should at least be publicly shamed and banned forever from regulating banks… or anything else.

@PerKurowski

Moody, what would happen to US credit ratings if suddenly it was not any longer the world’s mightiest military power?

Sir, Rochelle Toplensky and Eric Platt write that according to Moody, the four primary factors it considers when assessing a country’s creditworthiness are “very high degree of economic, institutional and government financial strength and its very low susceptibility to event risk”, “Moody’s warns next US president over debt” September 8.

In the case of the US they perhaps miss a very important factor. As I once argued in a letter that the Washington Post published, “Much more important than a triple-A for the United States is the fact that this country is, by far, the foremost military power in the world. Lose that supremacy and all hell breaks loose. Keep it and a BBB rating could do.”

And so perhaps you should ask Moody: How would it impact your credit rating of the US if the US was no longer, by far, the mightiest military power? And would the credit rating of any closing up mighty then automatically improve?

@PerKurowski ©