491–500 of 717 posts
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I'm not familiar with Brazil's system, but moving a central bank to being democratically controlled is betterbthan leaving this in the hands of a private company. The US central bank isn't currently democratically controlled, but it could be. Then collectively we could decide how a Brazil type system should function. People are better served when their banks aren't run for-profit.
There should be no central bank.
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This might work but sending cash in the mail is a pretty terrible idea. Most postal services strongly discourage it, or you're using recorded services which are expensive and add all the same tracking issues.
Postal services deny liability. If you send cash and it is stolen you can not sue or get redress from the postal system
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If you know it is for human trafficking, why would you cut off the payment instead of arresting the people?
Because arresting people requires evidence and due process, which is work.
Such work is paramount in order to maintain the foundations of an accountable society. The alternative being suggested here is no better than witch hunting in the worst case, wherein certain groups/classes of people are barred from doing their business online just because of the sensitive nature of a given topic. (drugs/medicine, pornography, gambling, political donations, etc.)
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What's the basis for this advice? Personally I'd be far more interested to learn that someone running for office refuses to use a credit card to buy groceries because they fear having that information collected and used against them... than that they once spent $500 in a single month on Twinkies. If someone wants to use your spending history against you they don't actually need your credit card bills these days, they…
A friend who worked in credit finance many years ago warned me they were “thinking” (wink wink) about doing things like selling your food purchase history to medical insurance companies for the purposes of declining claims on the basis of long-term bad eating habits. I believe it was and still is illegal, but if corporations are allowed to do this, then they will, and it’s worth it to them. I wouldn’t conflate politi…
after that you need some magic to deanonymize the anonymized data, but in the 90s plenty of people claimed to do that already. the famous case was infact with health insurance and burgers... but i can't recall any names.
edit: in the usa
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Who controls the central bank in Brazil? Who can implement changes to this system? How much PII is recorded with each transaction and who can view it?
Don’t forget ‘what happens when the gov’t changes to someone who doesn’t like you’
I say that as someone whose government currently doesn't like them.
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It's easy to use a stolen credit card, nobody asks for ID. Mugging isn't that uncommon, I interrupted a robbery just over a week ago.
Again, since the system is based on trust, the vast majority of stolen credit cards results in no serious loss of value to the individual.
Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…
> what are the main benefits of going fully cashless One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office. At the systemic lev…
Granted, I don't see a lot of campaign ads, but has this ever happened? Has anyone ever run an ad like "My opponent's credit card bill shows they bought nothing but Funyuns and Jack Daniels for the entire month of August. How can you vote for this person?"
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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…
> if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway If the payment processor knows what your contract is for, it should have an obligation to report it to you. If the payment processor knew the transaction was for contract killing then it should have an obligation to report it to the authorities. > are you suggesting something more broad: that in the chain of cause and e…
This is the difference.
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Don’t forget ‘what happens when the gov’t changes to someone who doesn’t like you’
I usually chalk that up to "if that happens I have bigger issues" because such a government could just seize my bank accounts and suddenly I have nothing. I say that as someone whose government currently doesn't like them.
If everyone is using gov’t e-currency, you’d not have that option.
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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…
patio11 covers this a bit in a series of blog posts in his newsletter: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-... . Quoting a relevant paragraph from the AML post above: Much like KYC, AML policies are recursive stochastic management of crime. The state deputizes financial institutions to, in effect, change the physics of money. In particular, it wants them to situationally repudiate the fungibil…
Normally, if the government suspects you of money laundering, they build a case and bring it to court. The burden of proof is on them to prove you’re laundering money or selling illegal goods. Here, they found a way to not only lessen their work load by deputizing private companies, but also affectively gave payment processors a moat and impunity to decide what people can and cannot sell everywhere.
Visa and MC are well within their rights to deny any person for any reason, but the government should have their own processing network. My gut is saying this will never happen since Visa/MC would lobby heavily against it. Even if one is created, expect it to be neutered.