By "doing business in a country" I mean actually going to that country to do business. I'm not suggesting that Google has to obey Chinese laws if Chinese citizens visit the Google web site and buy Google products from it using a credit card from a non-Chinese bank and they are either ordering non-tangible items or if they are ordering tangible items, they will not be shipped directly to China. Even if the customer is trying to pay with a Chinese-bank credit card or is trying to have tangible goods delivered to China, it's only a problem for Google if it expects to be paid and it expects the goods it delivers won't be confiscated at the border.
However, Google is, or at least at one time was, actually operating as a business in China.
Or rather, you need SOMETHING to prevent those in physical possession of the metal from absconding with it and SOMETHING to protect you if they get robbed.
On the whole (exceptions abound), a functional government with a functional court system to enforce contracts and a functional law-enforcement mechanism punish thieves are better at doing this than an individual or corporation.
When scientists in the "hard sciences" use terms like "settled science" it should be taken with the understood "... unless of course we get new evidence."
"Settled science" means that just about all scientists agree that the existing evidence leads to a given conclusion, and that the evidence and logical arguments have already been picked to death and barring actual new evidence or some currently-inconceivable way of interpreting existing evidence, the "scientifically settled conclusion" will be treated as scientific fact.
Newtonian physics was "settled science" for centuries... until new data rolled in that made scientists think "um, that's odd, this data doesn't match the known laws of the universe, and we've looked at this new data over and over again and it's not a case of a bad measurement. Perhaps what we thought was fact isn't," at which point previously-settled science became... unsettled.
As for the "soft" sciences, well, it's probably unfair to use the term "settled science" at all. A less-definitive phrase like "most psychologist agree that..." or "the social anthropology community generally accepts..." are sufficiently strong to allow the layperson to treat the "generally accepted scientific idea" as fact, while giving scientists the wiggle room to quickly admit they were wrong if it turns out they are.
If you are denied credit because of a credit-bureau snafu, consider suing for a declarative judgement that the credit bureau's records cannot be considered complete and accurate, then sue the company that denied you credit for an injunction preventing that one company from making credit decisions based only on the not-independently-confirmed, legally-judged-to-be-not-complete-and-accurate information returned by that credit bureau.
If you win, this will force that one customer to either fire that credit bureau or double-check any negative reports against another bureau, which will increase his costs.
It will also save an step for others who are denied credit based on inaccurate records from the reporting bureau that had bad records on you if they want to take similar action
The resulting news coverage may shame the companies into being more pro-active than they already are and/or get TV-time-hungry lawmakers to make noise about the issue.
Even if it doesn't, the resulting loss of business resulting from the injunctions will get the attention of the bureaus whose record-keeping has been judicially ruled to be incomplete and/or inaccurate.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and yes, I do post as if I live in a fantasy world where good always prevails.
Non-transferable gift certificate good for dinner tonight at a restaurant halfway around the world from me.
Obligatory update: The real Mafia just called, they say any business that wants to operate like this needs to come to an "intellectual property agreement" with them first.
And the site you use to convert your dollars to bitcoin will be illegal. What then?
Then I convert them to one of many other freely-convertible currencies then convert those to dollars. Or I just spend them, probably with a merchant who doesn't need US dollars.
It sounds like there is a market for something like BitCoin, but where all coins are pre-mined and backed by a fixed commodity and an insurance and legal structure that protects against theft of the underlying commodity.
Imagine a parallel pre-mined-on-launch "bitcoin" that was backed by a legal entity that owned $21M,* 21M Euro, 21 million grams of gold, or some other fixed tangible or intangible good that had a stable value. In such a world, the bitcoin would operate much like an electronic version of bearer-ownership-certificate for a closed-end mutual fund, but without any voting rights.
*I'm using 21 million as a convenient number based on the maximum number of bitcoins that will ever be minted.
If it's left up to one Government to determine what is and is not an illegal site,
Actually, that's the way most laws work:
In general, sovereign states determine what is and is not illegal within their domain, subject only to their "basic law" (i.e. Constitution) and the ability and willingness of the people to rise up and revolt and the ability and willingness of outside actors (typically other governments, but sometimes people or corporations) to sanction or to go war with the sovereign state if it does something that offends someone.
Google is hosted in the United States. It does business in other countries. If another country tells Google "don't allow our citizens to access XYZ or we will kick you out" or "don't allow site XYZ that is in our borders to be accessed through Google or we will kick you out" then Google has a choice: Play by the rules or pack up and go home.
Since Google is based in the United States, it is subject to United States laws. If the Federal Government (or the state government where Google operates) gives a lawful order to Google, Google has a choice: Obey the law or cease being headquartered in the United States. If the request has to do with US-based web sites or US-based users, the choice to move his HQ abroad isn't enough, it will have to both move abroad and exit the US market, or obey the law in question.
Now, fortunately for companies headquartered in the United States, we do have a working court system and if the government asks Google to do things that the government is prohibited from requiring Google to do, Google can say "no" and if the government keeps insisting on action, Google can go to court and get an order requiring the government to back off.
Also, fortunately for Google, it's sitting on more than enough cash to fight a legal war with the United States and not lose purely due to inadequate representation or legal attrition. Smaller companies and individuals on the other hand can be and are bullied to the point of suicide by the United States Government.
* It offers the payer something of value, such as anonymity or not having to carry a wad of cash, compared to at least one of the current methods of payment he uses * It offers the payee something of value, such as the ability to attract new customers, lower transaction fees, etc. compared to any one of the payment methods he currently accepts.
In Africa, one common way of doing business is to use cell phones as a way of communicating money transfers, in much the same way that debit cards are used in the United States today. A "cell phone money app" that could operate in multiple currencies combined with vendors who accepted multiple currencies including BitCoin would be a viable use for this currency.
Now, as to what businesses would want to take bitcoin? Probably only those that catered to customers who currently pay in cash or with prepaid, anonymously-purchased prepaid debit cards. Even then, would the Truly Paranoid(TM) really trust any method of exchange that involved the use of a cell phone with a fixed Bluetooth and WiFi address or other "unique characteristics" that could be traced back to them? Buying a new cell phone every few weeks adds up, so the Truly Paranoid(TM) will still use cash or anonymously-purchased prepaid debit cards for low- and even medium-dollar purchases.
One other thing bitcoin is good for: Like any other somewhat stable currency or commodity, it can be used as an investment hedge. The downside to using Bitcoins as a hedge is their limited supply - if a significant percentage of Bitcoins are owned by investors and they all try to sell at once, well, that's not good for the investors. But as a small part of a much larger currency hedge, it has value.
Visa could choose to not do business with blacks if they choose to? If you say no, where is the line drawn?
Except for the fact that Visa operates in country that prohibits racial discrimination by law AND the fact that they would be subject to customer boycotts even if it were not legally prohibited, yes, they could choose not to do business with people of a certain race.
In the United States, there are many local "businesses" that are organized as private clubs and who restrict club membership to people of certain age, religious, gender, or racial groups. Typical examples are golf clubs, alcohol-serving "private" establishments, and the like. Other "private club businesses" include professional associations, fraternal associations, and associations which have other specific "affinity criteria" like the age-based "AARP."
Laws limit the kinds of goods and services they can offer on a "members only" basis. For example, the wholesale "club" known as Sam's Club must offer certain regulated products like alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs without regard to "membership". On the other hand, a "night club" that sells alcohol for on-premises use only is not required to sell alcohol to non-members.
If Bitcoins become the legal equivalent of a foreign currency, then Congress will have the ability to regulate its value:
US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, says "The Congress shall have the Power to... coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin... emphasis added".
Prior to the 1960s or 1970s, it was common for foreign currencies to have fixed exchange rates against the US Dollar. The changing world economy as well as other laws such as the fixed price of gold in the United States made such fixed rates problematic, but Congress can still impose fixed exchange rates if it wants to (if it did so against a major currency today, it would likely cause a trade crisis, but doing so against BitCoin right now wouldn't have much of an economic impact on the national or global economy).
Imagine what would happen if Congress declared that the BitCoin was to be treated as an international currency, and that it would have an official exchange rate against the dollar far, far, below its free-market rate. Initially there would be a huge arbitrage opportunity until the value of BitCoin against other major currencies collapsed, which would probably happen very quickly. Mining would practically cease. Once the reality of a "non-floating, greatly devalued" bitcoin set in, there might still be some trading among people who were already using it and some trading among people who had no other way to trade anonymously, and there would be some hoarding by speculators, but otherwise it would become irrelevant.
The article refers to someone whose virtual currency "borrowed" significant elements from US currency. While his "medallions" weren't anywhere close to being replicas with US-mint-issued currency, there were enough elements to cause confusion about just who or what was backing the coins' value. Calling them "Liberty dollars" when that is the common name for a historical US coin probably didn't help.
If he'd minted them as "Liberty Money," used units other than "dollars," "cents," or any other past or present unit used by the US government, and avoided words, coin-sizes, and other attributes that might cause confusion he would likely have been free and clear legally. If he went further and put "not backed by any government" or similar words on all coins and paper-money products, that would've been even better.
His mistake wasn't making a second currency. His mistake was either not knowing the law and going out of his way to avoid even the appearance of violating it or knowing the law and being arrogant enough to dare the government to step in. If his goal was anything other than to go to jail, he failed. On the other hand, if his goal was to become a legal martyr and the money thing was just a means to an end, he succeeded.
"Legal tender" is anything the government says it is.
"Currency" is anything two or more transacting parties say it is. "Goodwill," "reputation," "an understanding that if I do this for you, you'll do something for me later," and the like are all "currencies" in this sense.
In a more tangible sense, soldiers in WWII used unopened packs of cigarettes as currency, even though it had no legal backing whatsoever. In some American cities, street people have used bus tokens and other useful items that could later be exchanged for a needed good or service as currency, again, without legal backing.
I'm not ignoring your last sentence, but until or unless Bitcoin-holders attempt to seek the same status for Bitcoins that non-domestic sovereign-backed currencies have, I don't think there will be a problem. From a legal standpoint, bitcoins are more analogous to limited-edition art prints, where "limited" is a very high finite number and where everyone has the ability to, with some expense on their part, create new prints until the limit is reached. This is only a legal analogy, in practical terms Bitcoins are a lot easier to transfer than a paper art print.
Your first 3 words are in the present tense. As far as I know, BitCoins are legal as of the time of your post, at least in the United States, where Google is headquartered. I can't speak for the United Kingdom, where TFA is presumably published (it's a ".uk" domain).
As for the rest, bureaucracy and courts tend to move slowly, and I very much doubt BitCoins will become illegal in the United States in such a short time-frame.
What COULD happen quickly is that the IRS would re-interpret the "1099" requirement that requires individuals to report if they pay more than a few thousand (or hundred?) dollars to an independent contractor in a given year to specifically include Bitcoins (arguably, it already does, under taxable barter rules)
States, perhaps under federal pressure, could also use existing sales tax laws and rarely-enforced "use tax" laws to crack down on the use of Bitcoins for taxable transactions where taxes were not paid, forcing the owner to testify through subpoena where the money came from "as part of a tax investigation." If just one state government does this successfully, there will be a chilling effect on the use of anonymous currency for transactions where media exposure could be embarrassing or worse.
--
For those outside the United States:
Most states in the USA have a sales tax paid by the consumer on the in-store price paid for non-essential goods and, in some states, services. Goods bought by mail-order from an out of state company that doesn't have a "presence" in your state are exempt from sales taxes, on the grounds that my state has no authority to compel an out-of-state business to collect them. However, most states require buyers to send the state a check at the end of the year for a "use tax" for all goods bought out of state and shipped home. This "use tax" is typically the same as the sales tax, minus the amount of sales tax that was paid to another state. So if I live in a state with 8% tax and go on vacation to a state with 5% tax and buy a $500 computer and bring it home, I owe my home state $15. $15 = 8% of $500 for "use tax" minus 5% of $500 that I already paid in sales taxes to another state. If the state I bought is from is one that will give sales tax refunds to vacationers, I can the $25 sales tax back, but if I do, my "use tax" bill goes up from $15 to $40, so I gain nothing except the satisfaction that the $25 is being used by my government, not some out-of-state government.
Use taxes are on the honor system and are almost never enforced because it's literally not cost-effective unless the amount owed is very high and the evidence of tax evasion is solid.
The problem isn't antibiotics and heavy metals per se, it's
* Having them in amounts that are above legal limits * Having them in amounts that are generally known to be unsafe, even absent legal regulations * Having them in biologically significant amounts without notifying the consumer
The first is a legal problem but all are moral problems and the last two are likely health and/or environmental problems.
Trace amounts of antibiotics and heavy metals that are well below legal thresholds, below any levels known or strongly suspected to cause a safety issue, and which are either clearly labeled or which are below any levels known to be biologically significant either for the consumer or the environment (i.e. what goes down the toilet or what's left in our body when it rots away) can remain unlabeled without being a problem.
Note that "levels known to be biologically significant" may be "any measurable amount" for certain heavy metals, certain allergens, and certain chemicals that easily pass into the unborn offspring of a pregnant woman or to her child through lactation.
Slashdot Mirror
By "doing business in a country" I mean actually going to that country to do business. I'm not suggesting that Google has to obey Chinese laws if Chinese citizens visit the Google web site and buy Google products from it using a credit card from a non-Chinese bank and they are either ordering non-tangible items or if they are ordering tangible items, they will not be shipped directly to China. Even if the customer is trying to pay with a Chinese-bank credit card or is trying to have tangible goods delivered to China, it's only a problem for Google if it expects to be paid and it expects the goods it delivers won't be confiscated at the border.
However, Google is, or at least at one time was, actually operating as a business in China.
Or rather, you need SOMETHING to prevent those in physical possession of the metal from absconding with it and SOMETHING to protect you if they get robbed.
On the whole (exceptions abound), a functional government with a functional court system to enforce contracts and a functional law-enforcement mechanism punish thieves are better at doing this than an individual or corporation.
Does adding the qualifier dismal before the word science increase or decrease the "deservedness" of quotation marks?
When scientists in the "hard sciences" use terms like "settled science" it should be taken with the understood "... unless of course we get new evidence."
"Settled science" means that just about all scientists agree that the existing evidence leads to a given conclusion, and that the evidence and logical arguments have already been picked to death and barring actual new evidence or some currently-inconceivable way of interpreting existing evidence, the "scientifically settled conclusion" will be treated as scientific fact.
Newtonian physics was "settled science" for centuries ... until new data rolled in that made scientists think "um, that's odd, this data doesn't match the known laws of the universe, and we've looked at this new data over and over again and it's not a case of a bad measurement. Perhaps what we thought was fact isn't," at which point previously-settled science became ... unsettled.
As for the "soft" sciences, well, it's probably unfair to use the term "settled science" at all. A less-definitive phrase like "most psychologist agree that..." or "the social anthropology community generally accepts ..." are sufficiently strong to allow the layperson to treat the "generally accepted scientific idea" as fact, while giving scientists the wiggle room to quickly admit they were wrong if it turns out they are.
I see you paid attention to the "we need improvements to the prisoner library" scenes in The Shawshank Redemption.
If you are denied credit because of a credit-bureau snafu, consider suing for a declarative judgement that the credit bureau's records cannot be considered complete and accurate, then sue the company that denied you credit for an injunction preventing that one company from making credit decisions based only on the not-independently-confirmed, legally-judged-to-be-not-complete-and-accurate information returned by that credit bureau.
If you win, this will force that one customer to either fire that credit bureau or double-check any negative reports against another bureau, which will increase his costs.
It will also save an step for others who are denied credit based on inaccurate records from the reporting bureau that had bad records on you if they want to take similar action
The resulting news coverage may shame the companies into being more pro-active than they already are and/or get TV-time-hungry lawmakers to make noise about the issue.
Even if it doesn't, the resulting loss of business resulting from the injunctions will get the attention of the bureaus whose record-keeping has been judicially ruled to be incomplete and/or inaccurate.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and yes, I do post as if I live in a fantasy world where good always prevails.
Non-transferable gift certificate good for dinner tonight at a restaurant halfway around the world from me.
Obligatory update:
The real Mafia just called, they say any business that wants to operate like this needs to come to an "intellectual property agreement" with them first.
And the site you use to convert your dollars to bitcoin will be illegal. What then?
Then I convert them to one of many other freely-convertible currencies then convert those to dollars. Or I just spend them, probably with a merchant who doesn't need US dollars.
So, what would be the result of payment processing being halted on a site which is operating legally in a large country?
I bet certain record-company executives wold love to find out, and in their minds there is probably no better way to find out than to actually try it.
It sounds like there is a market for something like BitCoin, but where all coins are pre-mined and backed by a fixed commodity and an insurance and legal structure that protects against theft of the underlying commodity.
Imagine a parallel pre-mined-on-launch "bitcoin" that was backed by a legal entity that owned $21M,* 21M Euro, 21 million grams of gold, or some other fixed tangible or intangible good that had a stable value. In such a world, the bitcoin would operate much like an electronic version of bearer-ownership-certificate for a closed-end mutual fund, but without any voting rights.
*I'm using 21 million as a convenient number based on the maximum number of bitcoins that will ever be minted.
If it's left up to one Government to determine what is and is not an illegal site,
Actually, that's the way most laws work:
In general, sovereign states determine what is and is not illegal within their domain, subject only to their "basic law" (i.e. Constitution) and the ability and willingness of the people to rise up and revolt and the ability and willingness of outside actors (typically other governments, but sometimes people or corporations) to sanction or to go war with the sovereign state if it does something that offends someone.
Google is hosted in the United States. It does business in other countries. If another country tells Google "don't allow our citizens to access XYZ or we will kick you out" or "don't allow site XYZ that is in our borders to be accessed through Google or we will kick you out" then Google has a choice: Play by the rules or pack up and go home.
Since Google is based in the United States, it is subject to United States laws. If the Federal Government (or the state government where Google operates) gives a lawful order to Google, Google has a choice: Obey the law or cease being headquartered in the United States. If the request has to do with US-based web sites or US-based users, the choice to move his HQ abroad isn't enough, it will have to both move abroad and exit the US market, or obey the law in question.
Now, fortunately for companies headquartered in the United States, we do have a working court system and if the government asks Google to do things that the government is prohibited from requiring Google to do, Google can say "no" and if the government keeps insisting on action, Google can go to court and get an order requiring the government to back off.
Also, fortunately for Google, it's sitting on more than enough cash to fight a legal war with the United States and not lose purely due to inadequate representation or legal attrition. Smaller companies and individuals on the other hand can be and are bullied to the point of suicide by the United States Government.
VISA did pay a small or as you point out, perhaps not so small - public relations cost when they did this.
Bitcoin is best suited for any transaction where:
* It offers the payer something of value, such as anonymity or not having to carry a wad of cash, compared to at least one of the current methods of payment he uses
* It offers the payee something of value, such as the ability to attract new customers, lower transaction fees, etc. compared to any one of the payment methods he currently accepts.
In Africa, one common way of doing business is to use cell phones as a way of communicating money transfers, in much the same way that debit cards are used in the United States today. A "cell phone money app" that could operate in multiple currencies combined with vendors who accepted multiple currencies including BitCoin would be a viable use for this currency.
Now, as to what businesses would want to take bitcoin? Probably only those that catered to customers who currently pay in cash or with prepaid, anonymously-purchased prepaid debit cards. Even then, would the Truly Paranoid(TM) really trust any method of exchange that involved the use of a cell phone with a fixed Bluetooth and WiFi address or other "unique characteristics" that could be traced back to them? Buying a new cell phone every few weeks adds up, so the Truly Paranoid(TM) will still use cash or anonymously-purchased prepaid debit cards for low- and even medium-dollar purchases.
One other thing bitcoin is good for:
Like any other somewhat stable currency or commodity, it can be used as an investment hedge. The downside to using Bitcoins as a hedge is their limited supply - if a significant percentage of Bitcoins are owned by investors and they all try to sell at once, well, that's not good for the investors. But as a small part of a much larger currency hedge, it has value.
Visa could choose to not do business with blacks if they choose to?
If you say no, where is the line drawn?
Except for the fact that Visa operates in country that prohibits racial discrimination by law AND the fact that they would be subject to customer boycotts even if it were not legally prohibited, yes, they could choose not to do business with people of a certain race.
In the United States, there are many local "businesses" that are organized as private clubs and who restrict club membership to people of certain age, religious, gender, or racial groups. Typical examples are golf clubs, alcohol-serving "private" establishments, and the like. Other "private club businesses" include professional associations, fraternal associations, and associations which have other specific "affinity criteria" like the age-based "AARP."
Laws limit the kinds of goods and services they can offer on a "members only" basis. For example, the wholesale "club" known as Sam's Club must offer certain regulated products like alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs without regard to "membership". On the other hand, a "night club" that sells alcohol for on-premises use only is not required to sell alcohol to non-members.
How many of these sites have you seen pay anyone anything? (emphasis added)
If the sites don't pay anything they wouldn't need any incoming money.
Oh, you mean paying the artists, sorry, my bad.
Bitcoins possess YOU!
That's like saying "I don't possess a computer, I possess a hunk of plastic, silicon, and other bits of matter carefully arranged in a certain way."
If Bitcoins become the legal equivalent of a foreign currency, then Congress will have the ability to regulate its value:
US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, says "The Congress shall have the Power to ... coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin ... emphasis added".
Prior to the 1960s or 1970s, it was common for foreign currencies to have fixed exchange rates against the US Dollar. The changing world economy as well as other laws such as the fixed price of gold in the United States made such fixed rates problematic, but Congress can still impose fixed exchange rates if it wants to (if it did so against a major currency today, it would likely cause a trade crisis, but doing so against BitCoin right now wouldn't have much of an economic impact on the national or global economy).
Imagine what would happen if Congress declared that the BitCoin was to be treated as an international currency, and that it would have an official exchange rate against the dollar far, far, below its free-market rate. Initially there would be a huge arbitrage opportunity until the value of BitCoin against other major currencies collapsed, which would probably happen very quickly. Mining would practically cease. Once the reality of a "non-floating, greatly devalued" bitcoin set in, there might still be some trading among people who were already using it and some trading among people who had no other way to trade anonymously, and there would be some hoarding by speculators, but otherwise it would become irrelevant.
Interestingly, States have the right to make gold and silver legal tender but they do not have the right to coin money.
The article refers to someone whose virtual currency "borrowed" significant elements from US currency. While his "medallions" weren't anywhere close to being replicas with US-mint-issued currency, there were enough elements to cause confusion about just who or what was backing the coins' value. Calling them "Liberty dollars" when that is the common name for a historical US coin probably didn't help.
If he'd minted them as "Liberty Money," used units other than "dollars," "cents," or any other past or present unit used by the US government, and avoided words, coin-sizes, and other attributes that might cause confusion he would likely have been free and clear legally. If he went further and put "not backed by any government" or similar words on all coins and paper-money products, that would've been even better.
His mistake wasn't making a second currency. His mistake was either not knowing the law and going out of his way to avoid even the appearance of violating it or knowing the law and being arrogant enough to dare the government to step in. If his goal was anything other than to go to jail, he failed. On the other hand, if his goal was to become a legal martyr and the money thing was just a means to an end, he succeeded.
"Legal tender" is anything the government says it is.
"Currency" is anything two or more transacting parties say it is. "Goodwill," "reputation," "an understanding that if I do this for you, you'll do something for me later," and the like are all "currencies" in this sense.
In a more tangible sense, soldiers in WWII used unopened packs of cigarettes as currency, even though it had no legal backing whatsoever. In some American cities, street people have used bus tokens and other useful items that could later be exchanged for a needed good or service as currency, again, without legal backing.
I'm not ignoring your last sentence, but until or unless Bitcoin-holders attempt to seek the same status for Bitcoins that non-domestic sovereign-backed currencies have, I don't think there will be a problem. From a legal standpoint, bitcoins are more analogous to limited-edition art prints, where "limited" is a very high finite number and where everyone has the ability to, with some expense on their part, create new prints until the limit is reached. This is only a legal analogy, in practical terms Bitcoins are a lot easier to transfer than a paper art print.
Your first 3 words are in the present tense. As far as I know, BitCoins are legal as of the time of your post, at least in the United States, where Google is headquartered. I can't speak for the United Kingdom, where TFA is presumably published (it's a ".uk" domain).
As for the rest, bureaucracy and courts tend to move slowly, and I very much doubt BitCoins will become illegal in the United States in such a short time-frame.
What COULD happen quickly is that the IRS would re-interpret the "1099" requirement that requires individuals to report if they pay more than a few thousand (or hundred?) dollars to an independent contractor in a given year to specifically include Bitcoins (arguably, it already does, under taxable barter rules)
States, perhaps under federal pressure, could also use existing sales tax laws and rarely-enforced "use tax" laws to crack down on the use of Bitcoins for taxable transactions where taxes were not paid, forcing the owner to testify through subpoena where the money came from "as part of a tax investigation." If just one state government does this successfully, there will be a chilling effect on the use of anonymous currency for transactions where media exposure could be embarrassing or worse.
--
For those outside the United States:
Most states in the USA have a sales tax paid by the consumer on the in-store price paid for non-essential goods and, in some states, services. Goods bought by mail-order from an out of state company that doesn't have a "presence" in your state are exempt from sales taxes, on the grounds that my state has no authority to compel an out-of-state business to collect them. However, most states require buyers to send the state a check at the end of the year for a "use tax" for all goods bought out of state and shipped home. This "use tax" is typically the same as the sales tax, minus the amount of sales tax that was paid to another state. So if I live in a state with 8% tax and go on vacation to a state with 5% tax and buy a $500 computer and bring it home, I owe my home state $15. $15 = 8% of $500 for "use tax" minus 5% of $500 that I already paid in sales taxes to another state. If the state I bought is from is one that will give sales tax refunds to vacationers, I can the $25 sales tax back, but if I do, my "use tax" bill goes up from $15 to $40, so I gain nothing except the satisfaction that the $25 is being used by my government, not some out-of-state government.
Use taxes are on the honor system and are almost never enforced because it's literally not cost-effective unless the amount owed is very high and the evidence of tax evasion is solid.
The problem isn't antibiotics and heavy metals per se, it's
* Having them in amounts that are above legal limits
* Having them in amounts that are generally known to be unsafe, even absent legal regulations
* Having them in biologically significant amounts without notifying the consumer
The first is a legal problem but all are moral problems and the last two are likely health and/or environmental problems.
Trace amounts of antibiotics and heavy metals that are well below legal thresholds, below any levels known or strongly suspected to cause a safety issue, and which are either clearly labeled or which are below any levels known to be biologically significant either for the consumer or the environment (i.e. what goes down the toilet or what's left in our body when it rots away) can remain unlabeled without being a problem.
Note that "levels known to be biologically significant" may be "any measurable amount" for certain heavy metals, certain allergens, and certain chemicals that easily pass into the unborn offspring of a pregnant woman or to her child through lactation.
I had the "deadpan" setting a bit too high. Please accept my apologies.
This was about adulterating honey with other sweet materials or honey that is contaminated with antibiotics and heavy metals.
If a wanker is adulterating your honey, well, I think I'd rather die of heavy metal poisoning than think about what he's adulterating it with.