Money & Markets Report: June 23, 2022

91 Comments

  1. Crypto and creditors: https://twitter.com/adamlevitin/status/1539012735043833858

    “The biggest pending legal change for crypto is the new Article 12 of the Uniform Commercial Code. A12 looks really technical and dry like all the UCC, but it’s got huge distributional implications … The key thing A12 does is it enables perfection of security interests in digital assets—cryptocurrency, NFTs, etc. Right now, it is not possible to perfect a security interest in these sort of assets in most states ..”

    1. I assume that you are talking about something that can be used to perfect humans as collateral.

      1. That’s the million dollar question, right? The draft makes liberal use of the word “control” (meaning private keys or digital account?) and needs lawyers to explain the implications. Today, a CER could be an NFT, but nothing excludes a future human-capital blockchain CER.

        Jan 2021 draft (17 pages): https://www.uniformlaws.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=9afdf04c-04f8-5b6c-0ee6-8610af6ffe71

        “The digital assets to which Article 12 would apply are referred to as “controllable electronic records.” Electronic records are information stored in a nontangible medium. “Controllable electronic records” are electronic records that can be subjected to control, as defined in draft § 12-105. This definition is meant to be flexible enough to cover controllable electronic records that may develop in the future.”

        https://businesslawtoday.org/2022/03/proposed-2022-amendments-uniform-commercial-code-digital-assets/

        “Under current UCC Article 9, a security interest in money can perfected only by possession. However, electronic money is not susceptible to possession. The proposed amendments provide that, if electronic money is credited to a deposit account (even one at a central bank), the normal deposit account perfection rules apply. Electronic money also would exclude money that cannot be subject to “control,” similar to control for a CER. If the electronic money is not credited to a deposit account, a security interest may be perfected by “control”.

        NH draft bill to implement the proposed changes, includes revision of “Money” definition, http://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_Status/billinfo.aspx?id=1877

        I’m a bit stunned that this comprehensive proposal is almost ready (July 2022) for enactment by some U.S. states, while most people are still unclear on the need for digital currencies, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/publications/blt/2022/04/2022-amendments-ucc/

        “For a CER that expressly provides its jurisdiction, perfection, other than by the filing of a financing statement, and priority are governed by the law of that jurisdiction. Otherwise the CER’s jurisdiction would be the jurisdiction whose law governs the system in which the CER is recorded. If no express provision is made in the CER or the system, the CER would be located in Washington, D.C. If Washington D.C. has not enacted the amendments, the substantive law rules of the Official Text of the amendments would apply.”

  2. Global sea lane and trade narrative from a book author who is donating all proceeds to medical assistance of refugees of the conflict in Ukraine, https://gcaptain.com/end-of-the-world-is-just-beginning-book-review/

    ““In the age of globalization, everyone could get in on global access, manufacturing, and mass consumption,” writes Zeihan in a chapter titled The Americanization of Trade. “The world needed more ships to transport more products, but in a world where competition among the Imperial Centers was no longer the global environment’s defining feature, security was no longer the overriding concern. Competition was no longer about guns and sealane control, but instead about cost. This shift from security to efficiency as the predominant corporate concern meant the world didn’t simply need more ships; it also needed different kinds of ships.”

    The world needed bigger ships that provided economies of scale and it needed to cut costs in other ways including slow steaming which significantly reduces fuel costs and carbon emissions but lengthens the amount of time a ship spends in hostile waters. US Naval protection eliminated hostilities which enabled companies to slow-steam an increasingly large amount of valuable cargo through historically dangerous waters. With naval protection, insurance companies could underwrite the risk at rock-bottom prices.

    … Maritime security has always been a hard sell to a mostly isolationist American public but lawmakers worked hard to hide the costs and eliminate all means by which the public could protest against the costs. Naval expenses were buried in joint operational spending bills. The US Maritime Administration was dismantled and the American merchant marine was allowed to rust away. Without many American ship captains or powerful American shipping executives around there simply weren’t many people with political clout or the type of media access needed to sound the alarm.

    That worked for a time but no longer does for one very big reason. China.”

  3. Russian “aggression” analysis by @fbfsubstack

    “Tomorrow the US Government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) will hold a briefing on the “Moral and Strategic Imperative” that makes it necessary to “Decolonize Russia”.”

    https://niccolo.substack.com/p/delusion

    1. I added the numbers from the visual capitalist:
      44,800 in red (millionaires left) and
      20,800 in green (millionaires registered at new place). Interesting, some millionaires didn’t report on their new destination. Could be anywhere. Or the number of the world’s millionaires decreased?

      1. Actually millionares are regularly churned. So may not be picking up the new numbers.

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