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The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

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Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#31

Post by comfypotato »

rt4mn wrote: post #6
rektide wrote: post #2

Younger me was so excited by bootstrapping new connectivities & systems, resented government survelliance of personal lives. The Manifesto of Cyberspace was scrawled across my brain. But wow, my dislike for how many vast powers in the world are so very un-observable was also high then, & the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-mor…

> the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-more. While I agree the implications are concerning, I think its difficult to overstate just how much of a stranglehold the US regulatory and surveillance machine has over the global financial system. Trying to buy and sell things online without sharing your real name or address is functio…

Pointless yelling ensuing: why do you care if people track your chocolate spending? You’re not important enough for anyone to ever put your face to your name to your purchase of the chocolate. Forgive me if I’m talking to someone famous, but I’m not. Nobody gives a damn about you on the internet. They want to know you bought chocolate because they want to sell you more chocolate. That’s it! Just be grateful you don’t have to get off your ass to order the chocolate.

I’ve never understood the hubbub over privacy. Outside of obviously malicious attacks (that we should be well-protected from) it all just seems that you’re being observed so that other people can make money. That doesn’t bother me if I’m getting something out of it (chocolate). There are extreme examples of employees with access viewing the data, but they should be considered statistically insignificant in the discussion because they’re so rare.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#32

Post by notch898a »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #29
majormajor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing will be 100% proof around evasion or exploitation. The answer isn't to do nothing and let it be a free-for-all.

I think both sentiments have merit and are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Money stuff tends to follow power laws. The basic, beaurocratic checks probably dissuade 80% of offenders while only stopping maybe 20% of the volume. Doing nothing would leave those 80% of offenders free to launder which seems bad. Meanwhile, it seems fair to call the measures mostly ineffective. There’s also a cost to these measures. The…

Just as likely IMO is that the 20% are using regulatory capture to stomp out the 80% and consolidate their business and create even more effective crime.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#33

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #29
majormajor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing will be 100% proof around evasion or exploitation. The answer isn't to do nothing and let it be a free-for-all.

I think both sentiments have merit and are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Money stuff tends to follow power laws. The basic, beaurocratic checks probably dissuade 80% of offenders while only stopping maybe 20% of the volume. Doing nothing would leave those 80% of offenders free to launder which seems bad. Meanwhile, it seems fair to call the measures mostly ineffective. There’s also a cost to these measures. The…

> basic, beaurocratic checks probably dissuade 80% of offenders while only stopping maybe 20% of the volume

Concentrating illicit behavior into fewer nodes also makes whacking them when necessary simpler. I doubt the concentration this paper notes would occur were Russian and Chinese oligarchs able to hold dollars without KYC.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#34

Post by Scoundreller »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger You're describing cash + digital money.

Yea, but cash isn’t very web3 now is it.

Shhhh, no talk about our web4 plans

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#35

Post by csydas »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #9
rt4mn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-more. While I agree the implications are concerning, I think its difficult to overstate just how much of a stranglehold the US regulatory and surveillance machine has over the global financial system. Trying to buy and sell things online without sharing your real name or address is functio…

"I should not have to share my bloody name or address with anyone to order a god damn box of chocolate." You don't. Get off your ass and go buy a box with cash. On the drive over meditate on who generally benefits when given the ability to move large sums of cash anonymously (hint: terrorist organizations, drug cartels, and tax dodging oligarchs).

I think you're missing the point here. I'm not a crypto advocate, but Visa and Mastercard definitely have too much power as do most online transaction processors, and the amount of information that online processors collect (at the request and joy of governments) is quite scary.

A select few organizations can control whether you can buy necessities or not and cut you off even from legally earned money on a whim. Banks have finite cash on hand which limits your mobility and liquidity at any given moment in the event of an emergency. Online commerce at this stage may as well be a secondary benefit given how your information is scooped up and resold to advertisers.

Financial systems are quite convenient, there's no denying that, but they're extremely fragile and the system exists at the whim of a few select people. Visa and Mastercard have demonstrated they can effectively remove persons from modern civilization at their discretion, not even with official government requirements, and that this has not been challenges is really unsettling.

To reiterate, cryptocurrencies are not the answer here in their current state, as they're too unstable and basically inherit not only all the issues that normal banks bring, but also introduce a ton of new issues. I don't know how to ensure sovereignty for individuals who are legally earning compensation when a support representative for banks can click on a checkbox and make them penniless. Nevermind if the company the representative works for is influenced by an unhappy government.

Finance is terrifying, and we're really in a strange place where we don't have a good answer for ensuring individual sovereignty with any currency, crypto included. I stress over this because I'm less and less confident every year that there is a good solution for this besides eschewing Finance entirely (and that's quite the magic trick...)

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#36

Post by JumpCrisscross »

luckylion wrote: post #20
mihaic wrote: post #18

After being in the crypto space for a while, and thinking a lot about the problem of tracing money, I've come to the conclusion that the system I'd prefer would be a hybrid. Everyone needs a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger. I've mentioned this to a few friends, who've always called it dystopian, yet all alternate systems seems to be worse i…

> yet all alternate systems seems to be worse in terms of illegal abuse worse than that system, sure. Worse compared to a fascist state that has near total control over everyone? I don't think it's clear that tax evasion and black market deals are worse than that, the scale is just different. China is much deeper in technology than the Soviet Union ever was. Imagine what Stalin had done with China's abilities in 2023…

> don't think it's clear that tax evasion and black market deals are worse than that

The paper's original context is the War in Ukraine. That doesn't mean we shred up our Bill of Rights. But the counterfactual is starker than tax evasion and cocaine naughties.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#37

Post by notch898a »

kornhole wrote: post #27
berjin wrote: post #21

Every time I have to fill in some AML (anti-money laundering) form I think how much of a waste of time and money it is for every party involved since the real big fish are getting around it with professional help. It's all very kafkaesque and invasive so I come to the conclusion it's more about powerful governments existing to gain more power than it is about solving any injustice.

Like many laws, they apply to you and me, not to the oligarchs. The international lawyers and accountants are the gatekeepers that navigate them through the loopholes.

That reminds me of FATCA. They made the burden just high enough for banks taking sub six-figure accounts that it's worthless to bank an American customer overseas unless they are rich.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#38

Post by paxys »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19
mihaic wrote: post #18

After being in the crypto space for a while, and thinking a lot about the problem of tracing money, I've come to the conclusion that the system I'd prefer would be a hybrid. Everyone needs a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger. I've mentioned this to a few friends, who've always called it dystopian, yet all alternate systems seems to be worse i…

> a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger You're describing cash + digital money.

1. This system is too complicated and messy, we need to throw it away and rebuild it from scratch.

2. This new system is so simple and works perfectly.

3. Hmm, it doesn't account for this one problem. Doesn't matter, we can just iterate and add in a special case.

Repeat 3 a few hundred/thousand times.

4. This system is too complicated and messy, we need to throw it away and rebuild it from scratch.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#39

Post by zehaeva »

rt4mn wrote: post #6
rektide wrote: post #2

Younger me was so excited by bootstrapping new connectivities & systems, resented government survelliance of personal lives. The Manifesto of Cyberspace was scrawled across my brain. But wow, my dislike for how many vast powers in the world are so very un-observable was also high then, & the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-mor…

> the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-more. While I agree the implications are concerning, I think its difficult to overstate just how much of a stranglehold the US regulatory and surveillance machine has over the global financial system. Trying to buy and sell things online without sharing your real name or address is functio…

What's entertaining about this line of thought, that corporations will only treat your data without care and you really need to worry about the government because they'll kill you is that there is a long history in the US of corporations straight up murdering people.

And I'm not even talking "accidentally", or though neglect. I'm thinking of the union busting efforts of the railroad and mining companies in the late 1800s and early 1900s where the corporations straight up murdered folks.

Re: The Offshore Networks of Oligarchs

#40

Post by anigbrowl »

majormajor wrote: post #24
berjin wrote: post #21

Every time I have to fill in some AML (anti-money laundering) form I think how much of a waste of time and money it is for every party involved since the real big fish are getting around it with professional help. It's all very kafkaesque and invasive so I come to the conclusion it's more about powerful governments existing to gain more power than it is about solving any injustice.

Nothing will be 100% proof around evasion or exploitation. The answer isn't to do nothing and let it be a free-for-all.

That's not what was proposed. The problem is that things like KYC laws are now probing down to thresholds like $600, so the cumulative cost (both directly, of compliance, and indirectly, of overbearing surveillance, chilling effects etc.) is hugely increased for little benefit. In the name of limiting untoward concentrations of money capital, it creates untoward concentrations of political capital.
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