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I've been thrilled at the response to my FT piece on miniBOTs in historical perspective. I am fundamentally sympathetic with the position below, so I want to take a little time to explain why I don't think it applies here... 1/x
As currently envisioned, miniBOTs would be denominated in euros and they would circulate VOLUNTARILY. So you can use them to pay your taxes (until another govt comes to power and says you can't) but you don't have to... 2/x
Zealous League voters *might* decide to accept them in their own businesses but if they owed payment to anyone outside Italy or someone less sympathetic to the League's politics, they might quickly regret that decision...3/x
So the problem with the miniBOTs is that they are a special-purpose money being _marketed_ (look at the designs!) AS money "tout court." .... 4/x
As @tomashirstecon suggested earlier today, a good analogy (if the League stays in power) may be company scrip: workers (in this case, Italian pensioners & others collecting state benefits) are obliged to accept it, but can only spend it in "company stores" ... 5/x
As in the film to which my title refers, there really are no heroes in this story. EU "austerity" is not the answer, but monetizing ultra-nationalist and xenophobic public opinion is no better...
