Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 717 posts

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#441

Post by lazide »

ryandrake wrote: post #419
lazide wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such central database, for one. All the transactions are controlled by multiple independent parties, whose interests do not align to do that as they’d lose their customers to their competitors when it came out what was happening. Some of the data does go through central clearing at some step (ACH, Fedwire), but credit card charges, Zelle, cash, checks deposited at the same bank, etc. do not.

Since we are talking about nazis, it doesn’t really matter what is in the interest of independent banks and CC companies. The nazis will simply send the storm troopers to them and get the lists of people donating to synagogues, easy peasy. With cash, you stay out of those databases in the first place.

Which takes time, so records can be disappeared. And since they don’t control the format of the records (yet) or what’s in the records (yet), they are also a ton of work to use.

Definitely not impossible, but much harder than if there was a single centralized system - dramatically harder.

Cash is king though, as you say.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#442

Post by crote »

lazide wrote: post #364
codehalo wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know if the money was used for trafficking. Are you reading what you are writing?

Are you reading what you are writing? People can (and do) know things without having enough evidence to stand up in court. It’s how 99% of everything works, frankly. Banks right now are denying transactions because they ‘know’ it’s fraud, based on ML models and probability and no other evidence. If you require someone to not ‘know’ something until they have enough evidence they could prove it in court, they won’t be…

In other words, they don't know. They just have a fuzzy feeling, nothing more than that.

Would you be okay with the police being allowed to randomly enter your home and seize whatever stuff they want, just because they have a hunch? Or would you rather they have to get a search warrant first, which requires at least some form of evidence?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#443

Post by colinsane »

jevgeni wrote: post #400
FateOfNations wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they knew the payment was for a contract killing, they should be picking up the phone and calling law enforcement. This isn’t even about individual transactions. The situation here is more like them saying, “your business has characteristics in common with the kind of a business that might facilitate a contract killing and we’re lazy so we just aren’t going to do any business with you at all”.

The knots HN ties itself into bashing "EU regulations", but then easily deciding to impose arbitrary regulations on payment companies is a sight to behold.

if you took a thousand people who adhere to different ethics and polled them on questions of ethics, would you expect the net responses to adhere to any consistent ethics even if each individual's responses did?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#444

Post by stale2002 »

lazide wrote: post #305
arcticbull wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea where you got "237%" but no, of course, the rule I have in mind would require charging fees proportional to the risk. This is well-worn ground. And if somehow the risk is double what the charge is (?!) then that's the risk. They'll have to step up their customer validation at PornHub.

The poster was noting there is historic precedent for parties to charge punitive fees to the point it’s defacto banned for things they don’t like. It would be challenging to stop without mandating some explicit formula too, which can be gamed.

> The poster was noting there is historic precedent for parties to charge punitive fees to the point it’s defacto banned

Obviously, the answer is to disallow that.

And if people break the law, and do it anyway, by trying to be "clever" then a judge and jury can punish them.

This punishment works especially well, with this thing called "discovery", in which the legal system can parse through your internal communications, to see if you are intending on defacto banning it.

> It would be challenging to stop without mandating some explicit formula too

No it wouldn't be.

Just do it, like we do many other laws. Give a vague description of whats not allowed, and let the jury figure it out. And give a large fine if they lose the court case.

That's enough deterrence to stop people from gaming the system. Just give them a huge fine if they try to do that.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#445

Post by selcuka »

tchaffee wrote: post #265
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. There are other mechanisms to target illegal actions, such as sending the police to arrest the person. Those actions are guarded by due process and the right to trial. Using the financial system to target people is not.

So you would willingly, knowingly, and personally process a transaction to kill someone? Not your problem, let the police discover it?

Your ethical thought experiment is fair. What would you do if you knew that it would be used for illegal activity. The point you are missing is the payment processors should not even try to detect what the payment is made for. It should not be their job.

Does postal system open every envelope to see if there is cash inside sent as an illegitimate payment to someone? Because it's easier to do it online should not be the base for justifying it.

Would you be happy if your email provider scanned all your emails using ML systems to detect illegal activity? For some reason we value the privacy of our communication more than other types of transactions.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#446

Post by pdonis »

lazide wrote: post #440
pdonis wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People can (and do) know things without having enough evidence to stand up in court. But "people" cannot use that knowledge to deny access to money to other people if they don't have evidence that can stand up in court. Yet banks can. That is wrong. That is giving banks too much power without accountability. Yes, some of the entities they cut off will "deserve it", at least in your eyes; but many others won't. We a…

Since banks are the ones who control access to money, and banks are doing it, who are these other people that you are talking about that aren’t allowed to do it? Banks are doing this at the behest of the gov’t. Oh, and those sanctions and the like - what do you think they actually look like paperwork wise? You seem to be arguing that what is, isn’t? If you want to say that what is, is bad, then hey I’m not arguing ag…

> who are these other people that you are talking about that aren’t allowed to do it?

I don't know. You used the word "people", not me. If you just meant "banks", it would have been clearer to say so.

> Banks are doing this at the behest of the gov’t.

Yes. That doesn't make it right. The government should not be allowed to deny people access to money without due process either.

> You seem to be arguing that what is, isn’t?

No, I'm arguing that what is is not what should be.

> If you want to say that what is, is bad, then hey I’m not arguing against that!

Good! That wasn't clear to me from your previous post. If you agree that what is going on now is bad, then we're in agreement.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#447

Post by walterbell »

renewiltord wrote: post #168
incone123 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they were making that argument, more that websites don't usually take cash anyway. (Can't imagine pornhub selling gift cards at the supermarket checkout next to the App store ones)

Interesting. We could probably sell cards with crypto on it with immediate resolution by simply transferring the passphrase/wallet rather than on the chain. Could do it with pure stablecoin.

Texas has proposed a gold-backed digital currency, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35866856

> The comptroller would also be required to create a mechanism that would allow the new gold-backed digital currency to be used by citizens for their daily transactions. “In establishing the digital currency the comptroller shall establish a means to ensure that a person who holds the digital currency may readily transfer or assign the digital currency to any other person by electronic means.”

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#448

Post by stale2002 »

tchaffee wrote: post #406
zhfliz wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're free to decide who to do business with if you're not providing a core utility service. would you like to no longer receive water or electricity at your home because your utility companies don't like you, despite (being willing to) paying the bills like any other citizen?

Due to limited infrastructure resourcess, water and utility companies are a near monopoly which is why they need these types of regulations. There is no physical limitations to the number of possible payment processors so the actual fix is more competition and more companies. No need for neutrality regulations when you have thousands of companies competing.

Ok got it, so this means that your previously statement, where you said "My basic human freedoms should include the right to not do business with a hate group for example", is not true, or not your full opinion.

You actually think that there are certain situations where it is OK to force basic utilities to transact with everyone.

You just disagree where exactly the line is. But at the end of the day, yes you also agree that some companies should be forced to engage in certain transactions.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#449

Post by sslayer »

elzbardico wrote: post #332
theturtletalks wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a clever setup. Using laws like the Anti-Money Laundering rules, the government nudges credit card companies to avoid high-risk businesses. These companies can then turn away any business without explaining why, all in the name of "security through obscurity." But when you think about it, this setup skips past important legal protections like due process and the presumption of innocence. It's like the government…

That's my biggest issue with this state of affairs. I am not a libertarian preaching unrestricted Laissez-Faire. But I do think that having your access to a payment system blocked should only happen as a result of a legal procedure with ample defense rights and based on laws voted by a parliament.

Having any access to paying for the necessities of life should NEVER be in the hands of a system that can be corrupted.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#450

Post by DerekL »

walterbell wrote: post #16

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/10/war-on-cash-nyc-enfo... > In 1978, Massachusetts became the first to enact such a law, requiring retailers to accept cash and credit. In passing its ban in January 2020, NYC joined New Jersey, Philadelphia and San Francisco, which all approved such bans in 2019.. Two rationales motivated NYC’s ban. First was the large number of NYC residents – more than 10% – who lack bank acco…

I can imagine this scenario:

Cashier: Your total comes to $8.45.

Customer: All I have is a $20. Is that okay?

Cashier: Yes, it’s San Francisco law that we accept cash.

Customer: Okay, here.

Customer: …

Customer: Where’s my change?

Cashier: We accept cash, we don’t give change.

The San Francisco law doesn’t require that change be given. Be prepared to carry small bills and coins.

Post reply on HN