Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for • Hacker News Board

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#711

Post by hnthrowaway8860 » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 5:47 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #668

hnthrowaway8860 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously doubt that. I might bot be able to afford the exact house you most desire in the exact location that you desire. But if you restrict the definition of "rich" to only include people that can, then it's a very odd set that's left. I'm sure Elon desires a house on Mars, and he can't afford that either.

You don’t know me or my situation. Houses in Seattle are upwards of 750k for something that isn’t a fixer-upper. And if a house meeds work that’s even more money. Being able to “afford” something is more than having the cash to buy it or credit to finance it. There’s a huge difference between being rich (or wealthy, not the same) and simply having more than someone else.

True, I don't know you, but you've now given some information to work with. With a 300k income, you should be able to put away 50k a year without problem. That's a 20% downpayment after 3 years for a 750k house. (If you can't save 50k a year then that's because of lifestyle choices like what car you drive, when and how much you eat out and where you go on vacation. That's fine, but your choice, so don't complain.)

> There’s a huge difference between being rich (or wealthy, not the same) and simply having more than someone else.

No. That's basically the definitions of those concepts. They are relative to how well off everybody else is.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#712

Post by whimsicalism » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #536

theturtletalks wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

More generally, large unaccountable bureaucracies are fundamentally against the intent of the Founders, the spirit of the Bill of Rights, and the principles of government by the consent of the governed. That these bureaucracies are powerful private oligopolies rather than formally governmental in nature is mostly just an uncorrected oversight on behalf of those who set up our political and legal systems without the b…

Appeals to the founders are not compelling to me, they intended to have tons and tons of private activity regulated in the purview of private enterprise.

I agree that perspective might have been misplaced, but the founders were not in favor of powerful oligopolies under the control of the government.

Valorization aside, let's remember that the US has only been close to a majoritarian democracy for the last ~70 years or so. We can't necessarily look at the intentions from 200 years ago to decide on how political structures should be made, but we can observe their successes and failures.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#713

Post by whimsicalism » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #94

Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

Can't co-exist with chargebacks IMO and chargebacks are the entire reason we have credit.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#714

Post by whimsicalism » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

nulbyte wrote: post #485

MBCook wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand that, how do you square that with one category of business causing way more chargebacks than average? Do they just have to eat it? Or can they charge higher fees to those merchants? If the latter they could quickly use that to discriminate. $100/tx fee would kill most any normal business. Perhaps the problem is the government doesn’t provide a non-cash lowest common denominator, so people are basic…

I'll preface this by stating that I work for a large bank, and the opinions I express herein are my own. > ... how do you square that with one category of business causing way more chargebacks than average? Simple: Liability shift. The liability shift is what spurred merchants in the U.S. to finally, albeit begrudgingly, modernize by upgrading their terminals to take chips and NFC. They did so because the cost of not…

I don't see how this applies to enforcing payment processors carrying all 'legal transactions' despite risk of chargebacks. Are you saying that the payment processors should be able to say 'for certain transactions, you are liable'?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#715

Post by whimsicalism » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #381

xg15 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses are one thing, but what I find truly dystopic about the idea of 100% cashless societies is that you could off people in the same way. If today, you lose access to your bank account for whatever reason, you still have various options how to purchase necessities: If you got some spare cash, you could use that; otherwise you could ask a friend to lend you some cash. In a cashless society, that won't work: Eve…

5% of the US population is unbanked. A "cashless" society would shut out a massive number of poor, undocumented, homeless, etc and make life even more difficult for them. It would also cause skyrocketing issues with burglary, mugging, etc. Many porn actors have been blacklisted from the US banking system. Conservatives got tired of losing US supreme court cases over censorship laws and regulations and shifted to enfo…

My guess is most of the % that is unbanked is either undocumented, has a history of bank/credit fraud, or has some alternative bank-like structure they are relying on (when I attended an inner city black high school, a lot of (largely black) people used cashapp seemingly in place of having a bank)

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#716

Post by latchkey » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #569

standardUser wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Elaborate black markets exist and thrive all over the world. Maybe in the most brutally restrictive regimes they can truly ban something people want. But the rule across most societies is: ban something people want, then an unregulated black market will fill the void, regardless of laws, and will probably bring otherwise avoidable violence.

If black markets are your backup strategy then all countries would have to abolish their paper currency at the same time because nothing prevents you from paying with dollars, yen or euros in a foreign country.

https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20181026/owner-of-vietn...

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#717

Post by mulmen » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 11:02 AM UTC

hnthrowaway8860 wrote: post #711

mulmen wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t know me or my situation. Houses in Seattle are upwards of 750k for something that isn’t a fixer-upper. And if a house meeds work that’s even more money. Being able to “afford” something is more than having the cash to buy it or credit to finance it. There’s a huge difference between being rich (or wealthy, not the same) and simply having more than someone else.

True, I don't know you, but you've now given some information to work with. With a 300k income, you should be able to put away 50k a year without problem. That's a 20% downpayment after 3 years for a 750k house. (If you can't save 50k a year then that's because of lifestyle choices like what car you drive, when and how much you eat out and where you go on vacation. That's fine, but your choice, so don't complain.) >…

Yes, I could penny pinch to buy a house for an exorbitant sum. That also contributes to increasing housing prices. Or I can keep renting and saving for retirement. The fact is tech salaries are actually modest and everyone else is getting really screwed. The idea that tech workers are villains only plays into the hands of the truly wealthy.