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Moving money internationally

bam.kalzumeus.com

31–40 of 230 posts

Re: Moving money internationally

#31
post #3

Very nice article explaining SWIFT and some other things. Being from a country no one gives a fuck about, I have experienced the sort of "discrimination" described many times. Banks, ISPs, stores, local ad users would just refuse to sell to me. It's a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless. I still remember a needlessly lengthy email from an incorporation service explaining to me the difference between "lawyer" and "…

Fwiw, I'm born-and-raised in the USofA and I couldn't tell you the difference, I think that person was just an asshole. (Though I suppose I also have learned most things from tv shows and the internet.)

I agree with them just being an asshole. A lawyer is someone with a JD. An attorney is someone licensed to practice law. For a lay person, I don't think it's at all inappropriate to conflate the two, and giving them crap about it is definitely an asshole move.

Re: Moving money internationally

#32
post #11

This is a great overview. They seem to be implying that banks that are otherwise not required to abide by sanctions (say, one located in China) can easily bypass SWIFT restrictions and transact with the affected Russian banks directly. How true is this part in practice? I'm going to ignore the last bit since that is tangential to the topic and ripe for starting a flame war.

> can easily bypass SWIFT restrictions and transact with the affected Russian banks directly “Easily” is the squishy bit here. If they’re settling in dollars, probably not, unless someone’s carting around paper dollars. (This has been done.) If they’re settling in rubles or yuan, for most definitions of “easily,” yes.

> If they’re settling in rubles or yuan, for most definitions of “easily,” yes.

Completely agree with your comment, just wanted to add that the vast majority of international companies will require a settlement in DM currencies (mainly dollar). This ensures that the relative size of the deal stays stable, as these currencies are highly stable and not subject to domestic manipulation. For a deal to be settled in, say, yuan, you would have to be pretty darn sure that your exposure to yuan is highly predominant: your in/outflows will be yuan-relative.

Re: Moving money internationally

#33

Is it just me or is patio11 becoming more and more full of himself? I used to enjoy his writing a lot, but after joining Stripe it seems that something has changed. "I work for the Internet at Stripe" he says without further explanation. Unless "Internet at Stripe" is some internal Stripe group (then please explain what that is), he should have just written that he works at Stripe, full stop. Otherwise anyone could s…

I wouldn’t say that. I think the level of rigor is lower than earlier writing, but the voice is the same. Then again more recent topics are more complex.

Re: Moving money internationally

#34

Is it just me or is patio11 becoming more and more full of himself? I used to enjoy his writing a lot, but after joining Stripe it seems that something has changed. "I work for the Internet at Stripe" he says without further explanation. Unless "Internet at Stripe" is some internal Stripe group (then please explain what that is), he should have just written that he works at Stripe, full stop. Otherwise anyone could s…

[deleted]

Re: Moving money internationally

#35
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about the exact same thing. I lost most respect for him in that fiasco. He even said he'd stake his reputation on it, so I guess it's appropriate.

He didn't punch a toddler in the face. He was wrong about something in some tweets that probably reached an audience smaller than a mediocre college football game, I don't see how that obligates him to apologize or otherwise prostrate himself.

> He didn't punch a toddler in the face.

If your defense of someone has to start with such a hilarious strawman, it might be an indicator you're defending something not worth your time.

Re: Moving money internationally

#36
post #5

Is it just me or is patio11 becoming more and more full of himself? I used to enjoy his writing a lot, but after joining Stripe it seems that something has changed. "I work for the Internet at Stripe" he says without further explanation. Unless "Internet at Stripe" is some internal Stripe group (then please explain what that is), he should have just written that he works at Stripe, full stop. Otherwise anyone could s…

Well, if it seems that more and more people are becoming full of themselves and it affects your mental state, I'd recommend changing your own attitude towards it. You can only change yourself, not other people.

[deleted]

Re: Moving money internationally

#37
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't punch a toddler in the face. He was wrong about something in some tweets that probably reached an audience smaller than a mediocre college football game, I don't see how that obligates him to apologize or otherwise prostrate himself.

> He didn't punch a toddler in the face. If your defense of someone has to start with such a hilarious strawman, it might be an indicator you're defending something not worth your time.

Says the group arguing about someone being wrong on the internet about nothing of importance.

https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: Moving money internationally

#38
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He didn't punch a toddler in the face. If your defense of someone has to start with such a hilarious strawman, it might be an indicator you're defending something not worth your time.

Says the group arguing about someone being wrong on the internet about nothing of importance. https://xkcd.com/386/

This discussion itself is of nothing important. However, that doesn't preclude it from being a place where moral relativity exists and can be debated. I am not sure I understand your assumption that the importance of a claim or discussion is related to whether it can be morally judged.

Re: Moving money internationally

#39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says the group arguing about someone being wrong on the internet about nothing of importance. https://xkcd.com/386/

This discussion itself is of nothing important. However, that doesn't preclude it from being a place where moral relativity exists and can be debated. I am not sure I understand your assumption that the importance of a claim or discussion is related to whether it can be morally judged.

Doesn't mean there's value to it. This is a perfect example of manufactured moral outrage, justified post-hoc.

The onus is on the outrage to justify it, not on the accused to defend against it.

In this context, someone was expecting another person to exhibit a particular response to earn redemption based on an absolutely benign incident. At a certain point, the yelling just becomes tedious and unproductive regardless of the philosophical value of debate and discussion.

"I'm outraged because someone was wrong and no one was hurt and no harm was done" is just hubris.

Re: Moving money internationally

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too reread this sentence a few time to try and understand the message. I think that the author is trying to convey that he believes his work has a positive impact to the "global health" of the internet. Although this may come across of "full of himself" I think that it may be more of a positive mindset view of his work. If we can't convince ourselves of the value of our work then how we will ever convince the world…

It sounds like it's just Silicon Valley's "making the world a better place through scalable fault-tolerant payment APIs", except unironically.

I think it's specifically a play on Stripe's mission statement to "increase the GDP of the internet" so in that light he "works for the internet".

I like his writing, but his miss on that Japan covid thing (linked in threads elsewhere) and his knee-jerk (imo, at least overly general) anti-crypto hostility has caused me to down-rank my prior for him a bit.

That said, if you write a lot publicly you're going to be wrong sometimes. I don't expect people to be perfectly consistent or perfectly correct (I'm certainly not).

I also don't care that brilliant people sometimes come off a little abrasively, it's better imo than pseudo-humble crap. I don't even think it really applies to patio11 who comes across earnest and helpful in his writing and goes out of his way to do good (salary negotiation article is still best source on the net, the vaccine availability thing).

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