Rahn: SEC, Not ICOs, Should Be Abolished

Richard Rahn, who is on the board of the American Council for Capital Formation, rightly calls for abolishment of both the Federal Reserve and the SEC, after considering which of the two agencies might be doing more to kill innovation. A recent SEC move against "initial coin offerings" (ICOs) -- a form of IPO by digital currency companies -- prompts his informative and indignant column, which ends as follows:

The dollar is now worth about 1/24 of what it was in 1913, after the creation of the Fed. That is, the Fed has destroyed about 95 percent of the value of the dollar -- which meets the definition of grand theft. Fed Chairman Yellen has been complaining that inflation is not high enough. She wants 2 percent per year or more -- i.e. more theft. Again, the Fed was supposed to preserve the value of the currency, not steal more.

Many smart techies are trying to develop new private digital monies and payment systems to get around the government theft and tyranny. Ever-increasing regulatory costs for banks force them to increase fees on things like international money transfers. The result is that the techies are also developing global money transfer systems that go around the overregulated banks.

What need to be abolished are not ICOs, but the SEC and the Fed, which are unnecessary dead weights on both our economic well-being and liberty. [link omitted]

Opposing all economic regulation, I balk at the term "overregulated," but I otherwise find much to like and little to dislike about the piece. Not only does Rahn properly call inflation theft, he also notes that those functions of the SEC that are legitimate are, in fact, redundant.

-- CAV