Why regulators need to rein in Facebook's Libra

The next big financial crisis may well revolve around "fintech" — the risky melding of finance and advanced technology. Specifically, I'm looking at Facebook's plan for a digital currency called Libra.

"Fools and their money are soon parted." "There's a sucker born every minute." Combine these quotes with this one: "Move fast and break things."

That was the motto of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. It fell into disrepute amid numerous scandals, including the company's role in spreading misinformation ahead of the 2016 election and repeated mishandling of privacy for its users.

The motto still drives this giant "disrupter." Now it wants to disrupt the world financial system.

Naturally, Facebook is cloaking the move in benevolence and tech-dazzle, calling Libra "a new global currency powered by blockchain technology."

And, "[subsidiary] Calibra will let you send Libra to almost anyone with a smartphone, as easily and instantly as you might send a text message and at low to no cost. And, in time, we hope to offer additional services for people and businesses, like paying bills with the push of a button ..."

Another attempt at soothing us is that the digital currency would be "fully backed by a reserve of real assets," as a white paper by Facebook's Libra Association put it.

Facebook even dragooned 27 partners, including Visa, Mastercard and Uber, to be partners in the cryptocurrency. The New York Times reports that some are quietly having misgivings.

They aren't the only ones. For example, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said Libra "will have to be subject to the highest standards of regulation." Fed Chairman Jay Powell said the central bank was "looking at it very carefully." Congressional hearings have been scheduled.

Attention should be paid.

In addition to the danger of fraud and hacking for the 1.56 billion daily Facebook users who might avail themselves of the cryptocurrency, Libra is an invitation to money launderers and terrorists.

Given Facebook's scale, Libra could present a systemic risk to the world financial system, supplanting traditional banks and central banks.

This Libra global bank wouldn't be backed by any central and would lack any dominant regulator. Wolf points out this presents a "nightmarish risk" to stability.

As Columbia University professor Katharina Pistor noted, "Facebook is barreling ahead as if Libra was just another private enterprise. But like many other financial intermediaries before it, the company is promising something that it cannot possibly deliver on its own: the protection of the currency's value."

She continued, "Libra, we are told, will be pegged to a basket of currencies [fiat money issued by governments], and convertible on demand and at any cost. But this guarantee rests on an illusion, because neither Facebook nor any other private party involved will have access to unlimited stores of the pegged currencies."

Libra connects commerce to banking, a recipe for trouble throughout history. No wonder U.S. regulation has long sought to separate the two, protecting the safety and soundness of banking.

In 2005, Walmart tried to break this wall, applying for a license in Utah for what was essentially a bank. A coalition of opponents put a stop to it.

Throughout most of the 19th century, the United States lacked a central bank. Currency included gold, silver and even notes issued by individual banks. The result was repeated banking-driven recessions — that didn't abate until the Federal Reserve was born in 1913.

Even then, the American banking system was rickety, contributing heavily to the Great Depression. It wasn't fixed until the reforms of the New Deal, especially the Glass-Steagall Act.

That was repealed in 1999 under a Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton, deregulation that set the table for the financial crisis of 2008.

Now we are at risk of setting a new table of catastrophe with Libra and other cryptocurrencies.

In the movie "No Country for Old Men," Javier Bardem's assassin gives a terrified gas-station owner the chance to "call it," his life in the balance on a coin toss.