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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

economist.com

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Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#741

Post by matheusmoreira »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #564
matheusmoreira wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops the government from blocking your Pix transactions on a whim. They can just turn off your money whenever they want. They can confiscate your money any time if they want. They can do pretty much anything. Conspiracy theory? It's cyberpunk stuff, the likes of which we see in fiction. Only it's not fiction. We're watching the whole thing unfold right before our very eyes. I remember watching videos of peop…

They could have always done it at your bank as well. Easy electronic transfer changes nothing in that regard.

They have done it before. The difference is you can withdraw your cash if you see it coming. The government's end game is to get rid of physical cash with Pix and soon Drex.

Without physical cash, your finances are one hundred percent controlled by the government. Sure, it's convenient, but you pay for that convenience with your freedom.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#742

Post by jcgl »

fesoliveira wrote: post #431
sephalon wrote: post #420

I wish more of these government-baked payment systems would just use GNU Taler [1] instead of implementing their own walled gardens. GNU Taler ensures that the paying customer is anonymous while the merchant is identified and taxable. This is great for privacy, but not very attractive for commercial companies as your revenue has to be fully based on fees instead of making extra money by selling your customers data. T…

> GNU Taler ensures that the paying customer is anonymous This right here is the reason why governments won't use it. Governments want transactions to be traceable so that they can audit your taxes. I don't have any issues with that, I actually don't mind paying taxes, but I would never expect a government, no matter how progressive, to use a privacy-based protocol or solution.

It’s designed with taxes in mind. Total user cashflow is still apparent at the bank, just like if you withdrew cash. And the amounts received by vendors are visible as well. So taxable there too. That’s a big part of what’s so cool about it.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#743

Post by matheusmoreira »

chgs wrote: post #608
owebmaster wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major economic crisis? 4 years growing >= 3% doesn't look like a crisis to me.

I assume op is talking about if it were implemented in the US.

Not at all. I thought twice before discussing this because brazilian politics aren't the point of this thread. The fact is Brazil is facing a major crisis due to stupid fiscal policy. Government spending is high and taxes need to make up for it. They were stupid enough to increase taxes on fuels, thereby making everything more expensive.

This is a country with obscenely high interest rates, currently at over 14% per year. It's just ridiculous. And inflation is still hovering between 4% to 5% per year, just under pandemic levels. The solution is for the government to stop spending money. They don't want to do that, they want to increase taxes instead. As a result, we're at record breaking taxation levels, last year Brazil achieved its highest tax revenue since 1995.

The current administration spent the last two years crying about the central bank's high interest rates. I can't even fathom what'd happen to this country if they got what they wanted. Mercifully, central bank has some degree of autonomy from their stupidity. After a couple years they get to appoint the head of the central bank. It turned out even their own guy wasn't stupid enough to lower the rates.

I think the only reason they haven't taxed Pix yet is the fact Pix is too popular already. I have no doubt they're still gonna manage to increase revenue by cross referencing Pix data for tax purposes.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#744

Post by mdnahas »

nirui wrote: post #206

I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same ques…

Some services, like payment, are most convenient when done by a monopoly. It makes sense to have them blessed by the govt. They could be govt run or regulated monopolies or have the rights to operate the monopoly bid for by competing companies.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#746

Post by Vilian »

darthrupert wrote: post #603

Is it possible to calculate how much wealth they are saving by not having to create a profit and other kinds of free market deficiencies?

Take the average fees that Visa or MasterCard require and multiply by the volume of transactions that goes through pix i guess

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#747

Post by matheusmoreira »

sephalon wrote: post #420

I wish more of these government-baked payment systems would just use GNU Taler [1] instead of implementing their own walled gardens. GNU Taler ensures that the paying customer is anonymous while the merchant is identified and taxable. This is great for privacy, but not very attractive for commercial companies as your revenue has to be fully based on fees instead of making extra money by selling your customers data. T…

Governments all over the world generally want more surveillance, not less. Brazil in particular will never use it: anonymity is literally unconstitutional in Brazil.

There was a fun period where the brazilian government mandated the use of free and open source software in its computers. I remember lots of people who complained about the quality of OpenOffice. Microsoft managed to put an end to that at some point. After former president Dilma's impeachment, I think.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#748

Post by Vilian »

nwah1 wrote: post #288
cubefox wrote: post #63

Theortically it would now be possible to implement a similar service in the US using FedNow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow Of course in practice it is a chicken-egg situation. Few people will use it over established credit based systems unless there are other incentives. Credit card companies, including PayPal & Co, are essentially rent seeking: They are middle men that technologically aren't needed anymore fo…

Credit cards don't just offer chargeback capabilities. They offer pro-active fraud protection. They alert you for all kinds of threats, data breaches, double-charges, etc. They will sometimes lock your card and not let a payment go through, if it is suspicious, unless you perform extra confirmation via email/text/push. They offer virtual cards that you can activate or deactivate with any given vendor, to improve your…

Both central bank and the individual institutions deal with fraud in Pix

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#749

Post by Vilian »

carlosjobim wrote: post #661
tumsfestival wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy here we go, the bolsonaristas are here to claim that Bolsonaro and his cronies definitely didn't try to overthrow the current government in favor of a military dictatorship and that there's definitely not a mountain of evidence pointing in that direction. Nope, it has to be some deep state commie conspiracy of course.

It was not Bolsonaro who was put in jail, it was his political opponent.

And he got out, using the same justice system, because of the irregularities of the arrest, not sure if it's an authoritarian indicative or just the justice system being terrible slow
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