Do economic sanctions work in a crypto world?
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this Whaddya Wanna Know Wednesday, we’ve got a listener question about how effective U.S. economic sanctions are when cryptocurrency can be used to evade them. Then we look at what’s causing the nursing shortage — COVID-19 isn’t the only reason. Plus, Kai Ryssdal fields a question about his career in the foreign service.
Do you have a question you want us to answer? You can send us a voice memo or call us at 508-UB-SMART (508-827-6278). You can also email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org!
Here’s everything we talked about on the show today:
- Treasury Warns That Digital Currencies Could Weaken US Sanctions from The New York Times
- Cryptocurrency Industry Gets Tailored Guidance on Complying With US Sanctions from The Wall Street Journal
- Treasury unleashes cryptocurrency sanctions to fight ransomware from Politico
- Justice Department Sets Up National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team from The Wall Street Journal
- Hospitals try to manage omicron surge along with staff shortages from Marketplace
- Global shortage of nurses set to grow as pandemic enters third year – group from Reuters
- The U.S. needs more nurses, but nursing schools don’t have enough slots from NPR
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody, I'm Kyle Rizzo, welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make the day make |
| 0:09.7 | sense without popping our peas. |
| 0:12.0 | Thanks for coming on and being with us. |
| 0:14.2 | What abs? |
| 0:15.2 | And I am Samantha Fields. |
| 0:17.4 | It is what do you want to know Wednesday, the day we answer listener questions? |
| 0:21.2 | You can send those to us by email to makemesmart at marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508UBSmart. |
| 0:29.2 | Our first question today comes to us from Kevin and Ohio who sent us this via email. |
| 0:34.2 | He writes, with the decentralization of cryptocurrencies and its greater acceptance around the world, |
| 0:39.8 | how would government sanctions work in the future or will they? |
| 0:43.3 | Great question. |
| 0:44.3 | Kyle, you want to take this one? |
| 0:45.3 | Yeah, it's actually a really good question and the answer I think is in that coded to the |
| 0:49.5 | question, which is will they? |
| 0:51.5 | And it's going to be really hard, right? |
| 0:52.9 | Because one of the things that cryptocurrencies do is let you get around many of the formal |
| 0:58.0 | regulatory structures of the global financial system. |
| 1:02.7 | And that is where sanctions work. |
| 1:04.7 | So look, here's the deal. |
| 1:06.1 | The United States government, both the Fed and Congress and the executive branch have been |
| 1:09.4 | paying more attention to crypto of late and by late, I mean the last like 18 months, |
| 1:14.4 | two years really, when it's gotten to be really out profile because of all the ransomware |
... |
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