Earlier quoted context omitted.
the logic is: "everything I don't like (gay people etc) is communism"
That's very uncharitable. The Epoch Times is explicitly anti-CCP; anti Chinese communist party.
The CCP hardly qualifies as communist,
Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
101–110 of 140 posts
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#102I continue to be convinced that the only valid use cases for crypto are scams and money laundering -- chalk up this one to the latter. Can anyone name an application besides those two things that traditional finance doesn't handle better?
The other guy that said this has been downvoted because Hacker News for whatever reason seems to be out of the loop on how this works, but buying illegal drugs on the Internet is a perfectly valid answer. It's more or less the most accepted way short of a corrupt physician writing bullshit prescriptions of getting steroids and any other performance enhancing drug for athletes. And it's far safer and more effective to…
> because Hacker News for whatever reason
HN is largely pro-status-quo. Deferring to parasitic gatekeepers is how things get done in the worldview of the HN mindset, so this reaction shouldn't surprise you.
When evaluating a given action from the HN zeitgeist, a decent rubric is: if a Western government authorizes it, it is universally good. If a Western government discourages it, it is Hitler.
Further, and importantly: if the action in question is determined to be Hitler, it is not merely bad; it is unthinkable (because the mere act of considering it would make you, the thinker, also Hitler), and therefore not worthy of being considered an option in the first place.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Explain why someone would want to open a new empty bank account in someone else's name other than because they couldn't or don't want to open a new empty bank account in their own name. That's the crime we're talking about here. Not committing fraud so you can steal someone else's money, but only lying about your name because you don't want to give your name and the law prohibits you from not giving a name. The probl…
> Explain why someone would want to open a new empty bank account in someone else's name other than because they couldn't or don't want to open a new empty bank account in their own name. Putting income into someone else’s tax bracket is the obvious use case. You lack imagination or experience with the real world.
That has nothing to do with this. To do that you would be long-term leaving the money in their account, requiring their cooperation because they would have the legal right to withdraw it. The same scheme works when you have the person whose name is on the account open it themselves.
On top of that, that isn't even how withholding works. The tax isn't taken out by the bank, it's taken out by the employer, so to make your scheme work you'd have to be lying to the employer about who the employee is rather than the bank about whose account it is. And doing this kind of thing by any mechanism also doesn't need to be bank fraud because it's already tax fraud.
Moreover, in practice how those schemes work doesn't require you to put some other person's name on the account, because they would put a corporate entity's name on the account, where the corporation is a legal entity type or is incorporated in a jurisdiction that has different tax treatment. It seems like you're just making up fake problems with giving people the ability to buy things digitally without having their privacy invaded.
You need an example of something it would enable somebody to do that isn't already independently illegal. Otherwise you don't need this to be illegal because you can still prosecute them for that.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#104[flagged]
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#105[dead]
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are countless stories of small businesspeople suddenly being locked out of their bank accounts because their transaction patterns looked suspicious This doesn’t sound like one of those stories. Remains to be seen once the prosecution and defense make their cases in court and a judge or jury rules on it.
> This doesn’t sound like one of those stories. Even if this turns out to be one of the stories where the defendants are actually wrongdoers, those laws are still resulting in "countless stories of small businesspeople suddenly being locked out of their bank accounts because their transaction patterns looked suspicious." Which isn't worth it, because the wrongdoers can still be prosecuted for their underlying crimes…
Huh? I'm not big on police over-reach but to claim that the chain of responsibility for a crime ends at some arbitrary point is silly on its face. Should either side of a hitman-for-hire arrangement not be penalized for participating in a crime? Should we eliminate laws criminalizing murder because some people are wrongfully tried and convicted? Turning off a criminal's money laundering spigot is a deterrent against committing that crime.
I don't see how that's confined to a logical argument. Surely there must be data to back up this claim if it's so easily provable. How much stronger would the dollar be today? Source? Even a source for "countless small businesspeople being locked out of their bank accounts" would be interesting.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Explain why someone would want to open a new empty bank account in someone else's name other than because they couldn't or don't want to open a new empty bank account in their own name. Putting income into someone else’s tax bracket is the obvious use case. You lack imagination or experience with the real world.
That has nothing to do with this. To do that you would be long-term leaving the money in their account, requiring their cooperation because they would have the legal right to withdraw it. The same scheme works when you have the person whose name is on the account open it themselves. On top of that, that isn't even how withholding works. The tax isn't taken out by the bank, it's taken out by the employer, so to make y…
Not all transactions are subject to withholding, especially the ones one might want to hide.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#108I continue to be convinced that the only valid use cases for crypto are scams and money laundering -- chalk up this one to the latter. Can anyone name an application besides those two things that traditional finance doesn't handle better?
Speculation / gambling. Crypto is the greatest casino ever.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#109[dead]
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#110I continue to be convinced that the only valid use cases for crypto are scams and money laundering -- chalk up this one to the latter. Can anyone name an application besides those two things that traditional finance doesn't handle better?
Speculation / gambling. Crypto is the greatest casino ever.
The stock market is far larger than crypto, and RoaringKitty is proving that it is the greatest casino ever.