So how does one respond to comments, in light of these current (and past) events, on the idea that no-one will be able to "trust" the reputations of anonymous brokers, sellers, or issuers.
All were supposedly trusted and respected institutions that had established track records that suddenly collapsed. I'm most fascinated by the E-bay case where a seller of collectible ceramics was able to build quite a positive reputation and then leverage that reputation to bilk buyers out of a few hundreds of thousands of dollars. At least we know this guy's name. In an anonymous world we wouldn't even have that. I suppose that the risk of fraud could be reduced by the use of "insurers" that would have to ante up money if a party reneged on a contract (and perhaps knows the identity of that party). But what prevents that insurer from becoming an "Anderson" ? How is our hypothetical "Joe Six-Pack" going to be able to buy into anonymous entities when this kind of risk is probably a certainty. -Neil
