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Comment by jakobegger | Hacker News Reader

At the risk of getting a few downvotes, I'm going to state that I'm all for outlawing cash payments for amounts larger than a few thousand dollar/euro.

Corruption and tax evasion are a big problem in Austria (as presumably in most parts of the world), and cash payments make them so much easier.

I just don't see a legal reason why I'd want to pay for a large purchase in cash. Almost all large purchases require some kind of paper trail anyway, so it's not like giving up cash means giving up your anonymity.

Am I missing something obvious?

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Yes, because your buying into their FUD. Getting rid of physical cash would make it far easier for central banks to go negative with interest rates. Why would they do this? Because the idea is to force people to spend money to prop up the economy instead of government looking to see it itself is the burden through excess borrowing, taxation, and regulation. Also, with a purely digital system you could not escape negative rates or bad money policy because you don't have it in any real sense.

The real threat however is they could simply ban the sale of any good or service by flip of a bit. Let alone the surveillance possibilities, everything you buy would be logged and could be used against you at a later date and not just by government officials but in any court of law or hacker. They could impose fees or penalties and there would be no escape from it. You could not simply pull your money out of the bank because there is no physical representation to hold.

Cash is freedom. Freedom to associate and support whom you want without trace. That is not a freedom we should ever give up lightly.

> Why would they do this?

Because every true banker salivates at the thought of giving you a savings account that earns -1%.

...but only after cash is banned, so client won't walk out of the bank with the pile of banknotes. Which is the whole point of the posted article.

>and not just by government officials but in any court of law or hacker.

Or business partner. Advertisement agency see that you have recently bought some personal item and they now show you ads for related items. Show you recently paid for a funeral and show you ads for 'saving their memory'. Shows you recently cream from a personal medical issue and show you ads for all related material... hope a friend isn't looking at the screen.

Even if I would agree with you, there is an issue with POS where Visa/Mastercard/AMEX control the space, so the government is favoring an oligopoly in the middle of every transaction (with credit cards).

Also, you are playing against privacy because some corrupt people use cash, sounds a similar argument than prohibiting cryptography.

Encryption=terrorism, cash=terrorism.

Larry Summers: "The fact that... in certain circles the 500 euro note is known as the “Bin Laden” confirms the arguments against it."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/16/its-t...

Allowing a 'yes I'm 18' button allows for children to be exposed to obscene material very very easily. And since the government can already track what you visit, what is the big deal with adopting UK's system for allowing access to obscene material where you have to opt in and identify yourself?

Or perhaps the more famous one... a lot of crime that hurts a lot of people is made so much easier by privacy. Since the government can already invade that privacy anyways (either illegally without penalty or legally by getting a court order), I just don't see a legal reason why you'd demand so much privacy from the government. If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have any reason to hide.

The core problem with all of these is simply put: I do not need to justify why I have a freedom, you need to justify why I should lose it. And 'making crime easier' is not a valid justification.

Cash transactions can be strictly peer-to-peer. Any electronic interchange requires an intermediary (be it centralized or decentralized).

If you believe entirely in the wholesomeness of the intermediary, it's great. But becoming dependent upon the intermediary makes you beholden to it.

Tax authorities found myriad ways to catch and prosecute tax-evaders in past, where cash transactions were the rule.

>I just don't see a legal reason why I'd want to pay for a large purchase in cash.

And that's fine. Don't use cash. But just because you don't see a reason to pay for a large purchase in cash doesn't mean other people don't.

The correct answer to someone who asks "Why should you be allowed to pay for something with cash?" is "Because I want to, and beyond that it's nobody's business."

The obvious you're missing: Catching a few bad guys isn't worth putting everyone at risk. It's nobody's business what I spend my money on. And the real bad guys will still find a way.

That doesn't make sense. If the transaction is illegal, it's already illegal. And if it's not, there's no reason to ban it.

Also, many Amish people don't use banks and pay for heavy farming equipment with stacks of cash.

Yes, you miss the obvious!

The big fish have a bunch of "fake" companies, they pay little tax and are still very corrupt. And they system in such countries helps them. Yet for normal people, cash means freedom. No one can control or spy on what you do with your own cash money. People with higher education would never trade cash for convinient and bullshit bingo.

People with higher education, largely left-leaning, make that trade every day. They have a strong desire to bend others to their will in a manner eerily similar to that of religious fundamentalists. They don't mind advocating for tax increases, regulation, or a cashless society so long as they believe it will have a greater negative impact on X undesirables (e.g. the wealthy, multinational corporations, bankers). However as you've mentioned, these same wealthy institutions are the most immune (see: regulatory capture, Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich). They've just advocated for their own downfall in the process and are oblivious to it all.

Your argument is a little extreme, but with good testing you might be able to prove it in most cases.

A few interesting concepts: Cost of carriage: a fistful of cash is easy to carry, but a truck full of benjamins is not.

Should it be possible to make recordless transactions? What kinds of transactions? Are there exceptions?

Who should profit from containers for cash? (Visa network fees, the cost of a leather wallet, the cost of computation for BitCoin, the bank)

I've run out of time to keep whiteboarding ideas before I catch my bus, but, to summarize, I sympathize with your desire to do good in the world but there are a lot of ways cash is used that you might consider as you work on this idea.

>Am I missing something obvious?

Freedom

In Slovenia it is illegal to use cash for [business] transactions bigger than 100 or so euro. I moved out soon after that happened for unrelated reasons, but I haven't heard anyone non-shady complain.

I haven't heard of any definitive results in driving down corruption and the grey market either though.

The fact that people don't understand the risks they're exposed to doesn't make those risks go away. And once the data is exploited it'll be too late.

The costs may be invisible. You aren't seeing the things people would be able to do but don't because they can't use cash.

Another inexplicable downvote. Thank you for the relevant input and the practical angle at the cash ban.

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