Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash • Hacker News Board

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#91

Post by lazide » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:48 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #74

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperinflation and concerning political instability worth relocating over can happen without quite reaching the level of a zombie apocalypse.

But is this what preppers are really prepping for? Maybe I'm just too far into the conspiracy theorists and what not, but my personal experience with preppers are way way way futher than fears of social unrest.

Near as I can tell it’s a generalized fear they are attempting to address this way, and don’t often really fully understand it or why they are even doing it.

If you think of it however as not needing to be rational, but more or from an evolutionary perspective ‘folks in the past who had similar types of fears and discomfort might have survived prior insane disasters that no one else expected to ever occur’ it might make more sense.

It doesn’t have to be rational. It doesn’t even have to help them survive or be successful most of the time. If it works even a little better and they survive when everyone else died because of their insane paranoia, those genes will propagate.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#92

Post by chaganated » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

TheBobinator wrote: post #72

rsj_hn wrote: post #6

There is a lot of rumor and speculation about very benign things. 1. Precautionary savings. In a low interest rate environment, there is not the same penalty for holding cash as getting interest in a savings account. A lot of people find it prudent to have a buffer of cash, say enough to cover 1 month of expenses. So cash withdrawn from an ATM but put into a piggybank or under the mattress will appear here as "missin…

Almost all US banks have had upside down Texas ratios since 2000. Used to be savings accounts paid the rate of inflation, but not paying inflation and driving investments into riskier classes is the way they are driving revenue to pay off their bad debts. With covid, the likelihood of bank failures has risen considerably as the savings money is drying up or moving out of cities and investment risks have raised consid…

first really clear-minded reply in this thread... check profile... -8. disgusting. my primary regret about going into computers is that i have to keep tabs on this soul-sucking nerd groupthink circle-jerk.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#93

Post by lazide » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:50 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #51

XorNot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern banking was also basically invented because of this very problem - gold was inconvenient so you had gold coins with insigna's which promised a standard weight of gold and could be reasonably trusted due to being hard to forge. Which gave way to IOUs from gold smiths, since carrying large amounts of coins was still hard. Which, well, everyone knows the rest.

Right, so again, what do these people think they are solving? There's plenty of logic flaws with the doomsday preppers, but returning to the gold economy is just where I draw the straw. Sure, store all the food, guns/ammo, fuel, water, etc you can, but if the world is that screwed up, we've all seen the movies on how well best laid plans workout.

See my comment above. It doesn’t have to make sense in our current environment for people to do it.

Doing this kind of thing has meant their ancestors survived crazy insane disasters that most others did not, so they are going to keep doing it to some extent no matter what.

Think of it as humanities extra parity bits. Most of the time they’re useless, until they’re the only reason we’re still here.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#94

Post by lazide » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:52 AM UTC

tacLog wrote: post #82

vl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would you go about that? And how are you going to make sure you are buying gold and not gold-plated lead?

I think he is talking about the reletively high number of people that buy and sell gold for cash as private parity sales. Generally, I have been gold authenticated by taking the density with a good scale and water displacement. Though that technically could be faked it would be very hard. If you wanted to do it quickly you could probably cut a corner off because the stuff in circulation is normally high enough grade…

Honestly, no need - if you’re going that route, I’d personally want a XRF machine or ultrasound tester at least.

Plenty of reputable shops, and most are more than happy to do cash transactions.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#95

Post by anonporridge » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:05 AM UTC

imroot wrote: post #84

anonporridge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precautionary savings of physical cash may even be on the rise as people realize how easily their economic lives could be switched off in an instant in the increasingly digital world, whether by being intentionally targeted or accidentally disabled with a lot of bureaucracy slowing down the correction. Having enough cash under your mattress that authority figures can't easily take from you is a psychological comf…

Slowing down the correction? I had 40K taken by US Bank last year...365 days have passed and they're still coming up with excuses as to why they can't disburse that amount to me. Thank god that I had the insight to start a savings account at a Credit Union about 10 years ago, and moved half of my paychecks there via direct deposit. I now keep cash in a safe (what safety am I getting keeping that cash in a CD at .05%?…

Don't forget civil forfeiture.

The government can legally just take your wealth from you, and you have to prove that you it came from legit and legal means, and they can drag their feet even when you produce proof.

https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#96

Post by strken » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:06 AM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #26

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pseudo-relevant anecdote: I wanted to buy a used car a few months ago off someone on Facebook. We were meeting up same day so the easiest method seemed to be cash. I went to the bank to withdraw $7000 and was informed, much to my surprise, that it is impossible to withdraw more than $3000 without 48 hours notice. Suffice it to say, I've been seriously considering the tradeoffs of hoarding cash under my mattress.

You're not that many steps away from being a gold bug or a bitcoin hodler.

I don't think this is true. I don't know anyone who would have benefited from owning gold or bitcoin in an emergency. However, my hometown once had its only internet exchange catch on fire, and the bank had a multiple-hour queue going around the block to withdraw a maximum of (I think) $300 in cash. I've also loaned money to people whose bank accounts got flagged.

For those reasons I keep a week of cash on hand, not because civilisation might collapse, but as a buffer if my access to the banking system is disrupted.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#97

Post by walterbell » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

This month, G7 finance ministers released a policy paper on Central Bank Digital Currencies, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/g7-public-policy-...

> When designing CBDCs, public authorities should look to build in ways of countering fraud and other forms of illicit finance by looking to incorporate advancements in technology and/or innovative solutions that may improve the authentication and verification of transactions.

> Public authorities’ powers and use of data in any CBDC ecosystem to counter their use for illicit finance should be set out transparently in national legislative frameworks (see Principle 2) and those powers should not be used for other purposes.

We can expect bank lobbying in G7 countries for new legal kill-switch, data harvesting and analytics powers to "authenticate and verify" EVERY transaction that uses a national CBDC. Since CBDCs are scheduled for deployment by 2025, the pre-requisite national legislation would be needed by 2023.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#98

Post by _8j50 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:21 AM UTC

All noncash methods of payment have strings attached where consumers and merchants alike are subject to various controls and costs. Cash is simple, exchange something in your posession for goods and services. It cannot be used as a means of identity based regulation or to audit who is buying what from whom. I mean, bitcoin exists because of how unacceptable this is to everyone but the middlemen, bureaucrats and purse clutchers. It seems a bit obvious but I wanted to stress on this point that a cash resurgence could just mean market participants wanting more liberty.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#99

Post by walterbell » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #98

All noncash methods of payment have strings attached where consumers and merchants alike are subject to various controls and costs. Cash is simple, exchange something in your posession for goods and services. It cannot be used as a means of identity based regulation or to audit who is buying what from whom. I mean, bitcoin exists because of how unacceptable this is to everyone but the middlemen, bureaucrats and purse…

Yes, articles like this one can become inadvertent advertisements for the benefits of cash.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#100

Post by hypertele-Xii » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

chiph wrote: post #31

anonporridge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precautionary savings of physical cash may even be on the rise as people realize how easily their economic lives could be switched off in an instant in the increasingly digital world, whether by being intentionally targeted or accidentally disabled with a lot of bureaucracy slowing down the correction. Having enough cash under your mattress that authority figures can't easily take from you is a psychological comf…

Hurricane season started in the southeastern US on June 1st. It's not uncommon for folks to have a few hundred in cash for when the power goes out and the credit card terminals aren't working.

Sometimes the card systems don't work on a normal day.

I was checking out food at a supermarket with debit when the card reader crashed. Cashier rebooted it but it complained that I didn't have enough money in the account, which I definitely did. I checked my banking app and it showed as if the transaction had succeeded, but the supermarket couldn't produce a receipt and refused to give me the groceries. When I called the bank they said there's nothing they can do and it would sort itself out in two weeks. The supermarket info desk radio'd that apparently someone else was also having trouble checking out with debit.

That was the day I vowed to always withdraw a month's expenses in advance and fight against full computerization of cash. I can imagine someone getting screwed real good having their food budget stuck in a banking error for half a month unable to buy food!