431–440 of 915 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, if the thing you are trying to work around is a law preventing you from paying 300K in cash, I don't think using bullion changes much about how wealthy you are.
What if you're trying to work around a law preventing you from paying €10,001, like the law being discussed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You wouldn't walk 200 miles on foot to go meet a friend when you had a car on the driveaway? Perfect example. I wouldn't do that, no, but I wouldn't want it to be illegal.
True but would you want it to be illegal if the vast majority people that did walk 200 miles on foot instead of driving, did it because they were doing it to get away with committing a crime?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it a pity? Over time it will be revealed which group was thinking with the most clarity and prudence.
It's a pity because we should be seeking solutions for both problems, money system allowing negative rates and private transactions. They should not exclude each other because both are important for different reasons.
all fiat currencies have number-go-down technology. look at a graph of purchasing power vs time for any fiat currency. It always trends towards zero.
start using a currency with number-go-up technology. look at a graph of bitcoin. instead of going down, the number goes up. you should adopt this type of currency.
I am aware this sounds stupid. I am also 100% convinced that it is true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans aren't used banking systems that work.
Neither them nor Europeans are used to less benign governments. And the problem with good governments (and fair elections and other properties of decent democracies) is that they can accidentally let bad actors in (populism is one helluva drug for the masses), and bad actors may attempt to undermine the institutions, turning democracies into kleptocracies and dictatorships if they succeed. Then all those safeguards i…
I'm pretty sure Europeans have heard of Hitler and Stalin and their ilk.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re kidding, right? Average people buy cars with cash: a teen saving from first jobs for a first used car… eventually, “10k” will be where “teen” used cars land … and boom, average person. A person with a down payment on a house. …I can go on. The point is this: casting this wide a net in the name of “fighting terrorists” is absolute nonsense, and not worth what would happen to a terrorist in this net: a few extra…
Average Europeans use bank transfers or debit cards to make these payments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This change would affect Monero too. If you buy Monero through any sort of company that is following the law, they will have to enforce this on their customers.
Ideally, you could afford to never have to convert your Moneros to cash.
As in, if you tried to buy a house, you'd still need to go through money laundering checks. You'd always be limited to small value transactions if you never wanted to pass some sort of KYC/money laundering check at some point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Name one practical reason to pay amounts higher than 1.000€ in cash." it's 10.000 euros, you're off by an order of magnitude. Can you name one practical reason to pay more than 10k cash?
Car, house, selling/buying land etc. Mostly coz many banks take % cut on big money tranfers so taking it out and just giving it to someone in a bag is sometimes tens of thousands cheaper
In most of the EU, buying land and houses is done through a notary services. Depending on the country, you either do a SEPA transfer directly to the notary, and they then send it to the other party. Or, in other countries, you do the SEPA transfer to the other party, and then the notary approves the ownership-transfer once both parties confirm the money-transfer is complete.
Estate ownership is not proved by a piece of paper like with American "titles", they're backed with government-kept records, which only a notary can change. (and that's what you pay them for, in addition to taxes)
Nothing is happening in cash, because many EU governments want to be able to follow the money used to buy estate. Notaries usually report the transfer to the tax authorities. If the money cannot be justified, the notary must cancel the transaction, and some financial investigators will follow up.
There are no fees, as opposed to what many other HN commenters says. Because if your bank has fees for SEPA transfers, you can always switch to virtual-cross-EU-online banks which have no fees for SEPA transfers.
However, you will be notary fees, which most of it is just plain tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I very much doubt there are money people that walk into an apple store with 10k in their back pocket to pay for some computers. Same with farmers. How many farmers living in this modern age are walking around with 10k in their back pockets? In the vast majority of cases, I would argue that people just use their bank account for such large payments these days.
> I would argue that people just use their bank account for such large payments these days. Yup, and now they are _forced_ to. Its a single point of failure. One which the government conveniently has control over. I'm surprised the HN crowd isn't grasping this more clearly. Backups are important.
You can have more than one bank account.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The uppercase tells me you have strong feelings about this and maybe I’m missing something obvious. Would you explain why my freedom will be diminished by this? I can still pay and buy whatever I want. It just happens faster and more secure.
Maybe you do, but not all countries function as well as yours. I'm Greek, and I remember a few years ago when we could only withdraw 50 euros a day from ATMs. You're on the happy path, and wondering why anyone would complain when the path is so happy. The problem is what happens when that breaks down, and when that happens you definitely want to be able to use cash.
Dear people who come up every time with their own version of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear", break your bubble sometimes, talk to your work colleague from outside of America (or "the west"), ask them what it's like to live in a country where you cannot trust your own government. What it's like to live in a post-communist country, what it's like to live in a country with central planning.