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Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

economist.com

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Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#211

Post by mdp2021 »

lazide wrote: post #89
dylan604 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the rational thinking of gold exchanges. You missed the detail about this being confusion on preppers. If the world has gone to shit (nuclear war, zombies, etc), then gold just isn't that useful. If it was silver, you could at least melt it down and kill the vampires with it. You're attempting to use logic in a place where there is none.

Zombies have always been a thinly veiled analogy for fear of the mindless hoard of ‘everyone else’ coming to get you. In my opinion anyway.

Not exactly. It was an analogy for the «mindless hoard» of the conformant - the "silent majority" -, promised a dull excuse for a life, but free of care inside a social system, which «comes to get you» with that promise wanting to assimilate you; more specifically the system would have been consumerism (as in "live to have and purchase"), installed over anti-intellectualism (as was already a very evident trend half a century ago). The revealing moment was the scene in which "ghouls/zombies" drive shopping trolleys.

Romero confirmed the depiction was that of "the revolution", where "the awake" realizes the vast majority is assimilated, but discovers "humanity" inside himself and decides that it is worth fighting to defend it, as the core hidden topic in the original work which provided the inspiration: Richard Matheson's I am Legend.

All of that installed in the social crisis of confusion, incompetence and violence seen as the core aspects of the '60 in the USA.

...Since we are discussing about cash, and surely you wanted to be on topic, I assume you meant to state "ghouls also renounce to privacy", worsening the scenario Romero originally depicted. Well noted.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#212

Post by mistrial9 »

bigger_inside wrote: post #143
inopinatus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a lot of rumor and speculation about very benign things. There is certainly misrepresentation and rumour-mongering in these comments, but not in the article, and there's nothing benign about international money laundering, or more precisely, nothing benign about the people it enables. > $50 Billion in cash is basically nothing. It's like 2% of currency in circulation. This is very far from the numbers quot…

"Money Laundering" is the narrative that always drives monetary controls, and by inference, when they're successful, everything that's not under digital surveillance is under suspicion of money-laundering. In practice, AML laws don't protect from large sums being washed by nefarious billionaires at all - as we well know, the existing banking systems with their tax and reporting havens are well able to handle large am…

I don't accept the parent description here because it makes everyone instantly into "law obeying" or "outlaw" in the first pass. Things are not that simple and our own ontologies can't force them to be so. I invite the reader to broaden the thinking here.. There is not one bright line of LEGAL|ILLEGAL, not even close. Those whose job it is to refer to this line, may say so. The effort of those whose job depends on these definitions, does not make it so.

Let's go way back to the wild days of "utterly different tribes interacting." You know, really basic things are really very different, between people. What is legal are base definitions, but differences grow from there and increase. A system of physical currency bridges that divide.

Now let's think of "the Empire that takes taxes from all tribes." Of course there is an effort to standardize practices, so that Empire can collect vastly larger sums than any one or ten tribes, and use that money to build roads, forts, harbors and hire police/troops.

With this aggrandized example pair, think of the role of cash, banking and transfer of money. It is not "illegal" to handle money outside of accounting practices of Empire, but by keeping and holding your own money in your own ways so you are defining economic territory outside of the control of a centralized/tax system. Legions of accountants will oppose this, since the accountants are paid more by Empire.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#213

Post by leetcrew »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #78

I find it strange that people trust the banks with their money, given their history and their behavior.

what's the alternative? there's a small risk that the bank screws me at some point, but if I don't make some kind of positive EV investment with my savings, it's a near guarantee that I'll never be able to retire.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#214

Post by mdp2021 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #107
lazide wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zombies have always been a thinly veiled analogy for fear of the mindless hoard of ‘everyone else’ coming to get you. In my opinion anyway.

And what are X-Men the movies about? Transphobia no doubt

...And this parent post seems to mean, with self-harming rhetoric, that the «veiled analogy» depicted a context of anti-intellectualism - as just written explicilty nearby. Yes, well noted.

The writer probably wanted to subtly refer to relevant Danish-American actress S.J. (a cryptic critique of the frugal accomplished Northern Europe?) in her statement "If I pay bucks for a movie ticket, I do not want to go there and think" (quoted from memory). Too subtle, let us not speak in riddles! (Even that «transphobia», presumably to be read as "fear of [monetary] transactions" - privacy, availability, inflation, currency as a token without intrinsic value: with such obscurity, little of the message can pass.)

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#215

Post by 99mans »

Complete horseshit propaganda from the biggest pro-globalist newspaper.

> For most of us, a bank account isn’t about profit or loss, it’s about security: it prevents your life savings from being erased by a house fire, burglary or infestation of rodents

Guys, there's totally not a fiat currency collapse incoming. It's RODENTS eating CASH you have to worry about. Keep calm and trust the banks until the bitter end. How does anyone read this bs with a straight face?

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#216

Post by b112 »

anonporridge wrote: post #81
vl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was underreported shortage of cash since the start of pandemic. My branch for a while wouldn’t give out more than a $1000. Before the pandemic $10000 were fine.

There has also been a shortage of metal coins, because physical exchange isn't happening as much during covid. Although, I still personally believe that coins at least up to the US quarter should probably be abolished. Quarters are really the only thing semi useful as a medium of exchange, and even they are starting to lose their utility. Maybe dollar coins can still be useful.

Canada got rid of pennies.

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#217

Post by b112 »

franga2000 wrote: post #126
anonporridge wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the value of coins? Paper and plastic notes seems more convenient in most cases. Metal coins seem like a case of holding onto tradition despite losing the original reason for the tradition.

As you said, in most cases. Mechanical (no electronics) vending machines are only possible with coins and even with electronics, sorting/recognising coins is far easier than notes. A basic coin also takes more effort to forge (well enough to pass at a gas station) than a basic note, although notes seeming everywhere else but the US have obvious safety features that completely beat coins. They're also much easier to h…

Coins also last a lot longer, and are harder to accidentally damage / destroy. Canada moved to 1 and 2 dollar coins, for just this reason.

(Plus, 2 dollars is like a quarter 50 years ago....)

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#218

Post by bouncycastle »

I like to use cash for the privacy.

If you are concerned about giving your data to Facebook, then you should also be concerned about giving your data to the banks. I'd argue that the banks have more important information on you, and you never known who they share it with

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#219

Post by hunterb123 »

knownjorbist wrote: post #144
hunterb123 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a habit of doing that: https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-...

This isn't the same at all, other than it's a lot of money going somewhere in the middle east. It was their own money being returned to them and not pallets earmarked for development disappearing into the night.

Well that's the official story. The ulterior is it was basically a ransom payment for hostages released at the same time.

But really I was just noting how we love sending pallets of cash to our adversaries.

We have no way of knowing how they spent those pallets of bank notes in either exchange.

The whole point was our government loves to use cash in deals yet label civilians with too much cash as criminals!

Re: Banks, gangsters and the strange resurgence of cash

#220

Post by BitwiseFool »

joe_the_user wrote: post #73
eganist wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to Google the north korea thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar TIL. Thanks!

I'd just note a full read of the article shows that the origin of the bills is apparently quite murky and North Korea is just one of several accused sources. Israel blames Syria, some US media blames the CIA. Nothing is proven and nothing is certain.

>"blames the CIA"

I cannot believe people would dare suggest that such an upstanding organization would do such a thing. For shame! /s

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