Who will enforce your constitution and how will they enforce it?
Dear odolvlobo,
The WIP economy is based on a public ledger that is centrally controlled by the Federal Reserve of WIP. We explicitly reserve the right to take any action, up to and including rewriting the history of transactions retroactively. (This is part of the reason that during introducing we are pegging WIP to transactions with a nominal price of $0.)
So here are example things that we can do as part of enforcement:
- We can penalize accounts by saying they will be locked out of the Public Ledger for a specific amount of time.
- We can require evidence be submitted. For example, we would like to make ponzi schemes illegal in the WIP economy. As such, where the history of transactions is in line with a Ponzi scheme and without an apparent external source of WIP income for the person running the scheme, we can simply require detailed evidence of actual sources of income.
- If these parties refuse our process, we can simply actively prohibit them from continuing their operations. We can also reverse existing transactions.
- We can insure WIP, for example the WIP held in the CBIP bank and future banks. (Similar to the FDIC in the United States. - "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is an independent agency created by the U.S. Congress to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system by insuring deposits, examining and supervising financial institutions for safety and soundness and consumer protection, and managing receiverships.")
- We already have volunteers committed to making WIP a success. These volunteers can take many broad actions to ensure the fairness and transparency of the WIP ecosystem.
That said, although several mechanisms for enforcement are quite clear, the question remains: what rules shall be enforced?
To give you a simple example: as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of WIP I have received some WIP as a stipend. Over the holidays a family member asked for WIP, and I will be giving a small amount (0.1 WIP) to this family member, from my own stipend, and with full disclosure.
Naturally since I am Chairman of the Federal Reserve of WIP I could do things that ran strongly contrary to this separation of interests. At the moment there are no checks and balances. I could, for example, treat family members with special privileges. Or I could siphon off an unreasonable amount of WIP without public accountability.
While I have no intention of doing any of the above, some sort of central oversight and judicial process would certainly go a long way toward keeping WIP honest. At the moment you have no assurances - and no process in place - except for the unilateral decisions of the Federal Reserve of WIP, which is not subject to any regulation or oversight and can take any action at any time. While even with these restrictions there is strong interest in WIP, the economy will be even better off once further processes, checks, and balances are in place.
The result, a community-owned currency that has an actual monetary authority capable of easing the money supply and taking other actions to keep WIP at a reasonable level of inflation, with reasonable interest rates, and with high accessability, will be a boon to all its users. At the moment, other currencies have a 100% APR, if they are available for borrowing at all, for example.
For this reason I do welcome your suggestions on creating some of the above framework. Perhaps you would like to apply as an independent advisor? There is no stipend for this position, but your input would be very welcome.
Thanks again for your thoughts, and I do look forward to more of your input.
Wishing you happy holidays:
Chairman of the Federal Reserve of WIP
