Free Republic

After a parliamentary inquiry, Germany has clarified its position on Bitcoin. The federal ministry of finance recognized Bitcoins as “units of account”—the cryptocurrency is therefore be considered as “private money”. That’s why, according to Die Welt, the government stated that there wouldn’t be a tax exemption on commercial activities that use Bitcoins. In addition to paying capital gains tax, Bitcoin users should now pay sales tax (VAT) as well. Member of Parliament Frank Schaeffler considers Bitcoin mining as private money creation, and says that the same fiscal and legal rules should apply to Euros and Bitcoins. Yet, it is still...

We have plenty of socialists in politics. That's evident. So, it stands to reason that some in politics would also want socialist style (public financed) political campaigns. An interesting point is that, whereas the Democrats are the primary proponents of socialism in the U.S., it seems to be conservatives who are the driving force behind publicly financed political campaigns. The argument is that offering public funds to help people run for public office takes private money out of politics. That would, of course, be self-evident. The problem is, there are also a couple very important unintended consequences most people do...