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

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

#451

Post by walterbell »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #439

Honestly I don't really care about the freedom argument anymore. If the government wants they can just black bag you anyway. And we all know how many time leftists have had someone "deplatformed" from money for thinking wrong. It just doesn't make a difference. What it would make a difference with is crime. All the drug dealing, child prostitution and money laundering from those businesses would be fucked overnight.…

  you've got every single financial record
Like these records of 7-figure financial flows? https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/09/3-count-felon-jpmorga...

> secret documents leaked from FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the U.S. Treasury .. “show that five global banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.”

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

#452

Post by tchaffee »

selcuka wrote: post #445
tchaffee wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

That's not practical. You wouldn't be able to refute charges. Payment processors couldn't price in risk for sprcific industries. You've created more problems than you've solved.

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

#453

Post by throwaway14356 »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

the most worrisome part is that the legal system is apparently to lazy to just follow the process. Fearmongering big tech companies into doing their job for them should be banned by international treaty.

If we/the voter wants a copyright monitoring system or transaction monitoring bolted onto every tube we should get a bill for it. We should pay for every bit of work done at our request by the companies.

Let it cut deep into the budget. We want to know what the orwellian society costs.

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

#454

Post by crote »

tchaffee wrote: post #350
kortilla wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bit of bullshit because these payment providers accept transactions for the government which consistently kills people at the local, state, and federal level every day. If you “know” the money is for a hit job, you contact the FBI or local police and they can mobilize protective services and arrest forces.

I'm not claiming payment processors are moral. I'm asking if the freedom to refuse unethical business should be your right. I was responding to the position of a parent comment that processors should accept even illegal transactions. Of course you contact the police in the situation I described. Do you accept the payment though or do you refuse the transaction? You keep avoiding a specific yes or no question.

> freedom to refuse unethical business

There is a massive difference between "unethical business" and "illegal business". As banks provide critical infrastructure, they should absolutely not be allowed to refuse business they consider "unethical", just like a power company should not be allowed to cut someone off because they think they are behaving "unethically".

As to "illegal business", the simple fact is that the bank doesn't know enough to make a meaningful distinction. It is simply impossible for a bank to know for a fact what a payment is for. They only know the source account, the destination account, the payment value, and a user-provided description. That's just not enough data to make a decent judgement. Plenty of jokers out there who will label their rent transaction as "extortion payment", after all.

Sure, if they have reasonable suspicion they should forward the information to the police, but they should not be allowed to block it unless given a court order.

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

#455

Post by walterbell »

lottin wrote: post #165
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absence of cash should terrify anyone. So ridiculously easy to quash any dissidents if you can cut off their ability to buy anything with a single click of a button. I don't use much cash at all but if my government was planning on ending all cash, I'd go out and buy a bunch of precious metals. Can't trust my basic freedom with Visa and Paypal.

Sorry, this is a lot of nonsense. Any government that has the ability to prevent dissidents from paying for stuff also has the ability to employ much more brutal and effective methods of quashing dissidence.

> methods of quashing dissidence

Some countries have constitutions, armed citizens, some police who believe in the rule of law, and would like to maintain at least an appearance of due process.

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

#456

Post by Aerbil313 »

theturtletalks wrote: post #150
onionisafruit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

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…

Digital money is clearly a downgrade. In the yet ole times, all money (precious metal coins) was decentralized, anonymous and untraceable! It even worked in all world without any exchanges! /Poe

(Poe’s law, take it as you want.)

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

#457

Post by throwaway14356 »

onionisafruit wrote: post #116
arcticbull wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

I would go the other direction. You list the painting on the gov website, they do the transactions and all of the weird taxes, fees & vat around the world, check if is stolen, where it did come from, if it is real etc etc what ever weird shit they want, all you get is the after tax money. No need for accountants nor quadruple book keeping, just do the business.

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

#458

Post by _8j50 »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

Not just that but the fact that in order to simpy exist your transactions must be tracked by some company! Screw that. That society should not exist. Period.

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

#459

Post by walterbell »

DerekL wrote: post #450
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.

In a dense urban area, competition for many businesses is a short walk away. Once the playing field has been leveled by a municipal law, there is little to be gained by antagonizing customers who can walk to the nearest competitor.

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

#460

Post by throwaway14356 »

colinsane wrote: post #329
onionisafruit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway, would they not be facilitating a crime (“aiding and abetting”)? are you saying we should specifically exempt payment processors from being held responsible for crimes that the rest of us — or any other business — could be found guilty of when performing the same functions? or are you suggesting something more broad: that…

It should ofc record the transaction. If no one is killed the recipient did us a service.
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