25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society • Hacker News Board

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#131

Post by _red » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

theamk wrote: post #123

_red wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monetary implications are even scarier. The real reason they are pushing for "cashless society" is so they can impose negative interest rates. Since you won't have the option to withdraw your funds into cashier, you bank balance will be debited monthly as a privilege for giving the bank money. Its their next hairbrained scheme to try and shore up their ponzi-scheme economy.

I don't see how this will work, unless every country does this, or your currency becomes non-convertible. And even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on.

>I don't see how this will work, unless every country does this, or your currency becomes non-convertible.

You say this as if tax fraud is a consequence free activity.

>And even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on

Sure, but everyone will do that, so those asset prices will surge making it a poor investment

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#132

Post by Avamander » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #112

majewsky wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be money, but not cash. I can absolutely take back a Paypal transaction with buyer protection.

And, just like money is a layer built on top of cash, I assume that one could build a third-party escrow service on top of GNU Taler which has this “buyer protection” feature, with the added bonus of not one actor having a monopoly on it – whereas if Paypal stops liking you, you are out of luck.

There are other alternatives to Paypal as well. This feature should be built into the currency instead of just forcing everyone to reinvent the wheel for zero benefit.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#133

Post by repolfx » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

ACS_Solver wrote: post #43

deogeo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless they believe you're laundering money or financing terror groups Do they have to prove this, or is their belief enough? And are we okay with the punishment for money laundering being death by starvation and homelessness?

There's a fairly high burden on the financial institution, they have to show you're not complying with anti-laundering legislation, but that falls short of proving actual money laundering. So there's a problem. I think the way it would work legally is that a person would automatically regain access to a bank account if they receive welfare, as said welfare would then be income with a known legal origin, but I am not…

Not quite. For one individuals don't have to comply with AML rules if they're just behaving as normal individuals, those rules affect companies.

For another, banks don't have to show anything. It's risk management, they can close your account if they believe you're high risk, partly because if they didn't they'd get fined by the USA for money laundering. See: HSBC, whose fines were largely due to not closing accounts aggressively enough.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#134

Post by repolfx » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

theamk wrote: post #123

_red wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monetary implications are even scarier. The real reason they are pushing for "cashless society" is so they can impose negative interest rates. Since you won't have the option to withdraw your funds into cashier, you bank balance will be debited monthly as a privilege for giving the bank money. Its their next hairbrained scheme to try and shore up their ponzi-scheme economy.

I don't see how this will work, unless every country does this, or your currency becomes non-convertible. And even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on.

And even then, you would still be able to buy stocks, expensive jewelry, gold, houses and so on.

Yes, that's the idea! The point of negative interest rates is to force people to buy things, thus jacking economic growth like caffeine to a coffee addict. So this is hardly any solution.

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#135

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

frosted-flakes wrote: post #124

lawn wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You trust each other to list what common items they've bought. We have separate bank accounts and credit cards and we split the bills most things, like groceries. But we don't look into what personal purchases we make, for example me buying Lego. It's pretty easy to decide if we should pay together or not. At least for us.

I agree that each spouse should have some of their "own" money to spend as they see fit, but to me, it makes sense for all income to go into a single pot. Shared expenses come from the pot, while a certain amount of spending money is set aside for each spouse each week/month/whatever. Whether that money is put into separate accounts or is just two lines in the budget doesn't really matter. (YNAB would be good for som…

[deleted]

Re: 25M Brits would struggle in a cashless society

#136

Post by marchenko » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #59

sametmax wrote: post #47

Another problem is that no society is perfect. And even if it were, it won't stay that way. There is a need for a small grey area in any system to stay sane, where people can workaround the limitations of said system. Yes, it will be abused, and also used for nefarious purposes. But it's better than the alternative. You need people to sometimes be able to do things the state doesn't approve. You need children to be a…

There is a need for a small grey area in any system to stay sane, where people can workaround the limitations of said system. There is a similar analogy to what is happening in the computing world, and I've heard it called "the insecurity that gives us freedom." I agree.

This comment and its parent are both excellent. I've often heard security and freedom described as a tradeoff; the idea of a causal relationship is intriguing.