Comment by inopinatus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by inopinatus | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> There is a lot of rumor and speculation about very benign things.

There is certainly misrepresentation and rumour-mongering in these comments, but not in the article, and there's nothing benign about international money laundering, or more precisely, nothing benign about the people it enables.

> $50 Billion in cash is basically nothing. It's like 2% of currency in circulation.

This is very far from the numbers quoted in the article, which shows two thirds (£50bn) of all British pounds sterling banknotes (£75bn) being unaccounted for, and then similarly one-half of all Euros apparently circulating outside the eurozone.

This article wasn't written by, or from the perspective of, Americans. There's a brief mention, though - $7,000 per US citizen is in circulation. Somewhere.

> this whole article is complaining

There are no complaints registered in the article, unless you count the cash mule's plaintive wail about how heavy the suitcase was.

This article is a careful discussion about folks in authority seeming unburdened by the discrepancy.

> raise interest rates and increase law and order

Parochialism doesn't solve global issues.

"Money Laundering" is the narrative that always drives monetary controls, and by inference, when they're successful, everything that's not under digital surveillance is under suspicion of money-laundering. In practice, AML laws don't protect from large sums being washed by nefarious billionaires at all - as we well know, the existing banking systems with their tax and reporting havens are well able to handle large amounts of official money officially, and still out of sight. In practice, AML is a narrative that serves to legitimize controls on quite lower levels - in the 1000s. 2% of cash unaccounted for is nothing, and - I mean, preaching to the choir here - to try to hinder surveillance regimes (in the sociological sense, not the dictatorship sense) is absolutely legitimate for every normal person.

Also, western privilege: western banks rarely close their doors and leave you without access to your digital money, and rarely hyperinflate it away without any recourse (though they also have, historically). While cash doesn't protect against the second danger, it well protects against the first -within- western countries. Now, in other places hoarding Euros and Dollars, it protects against both.

Anit-Money-Laundering (AML) laws, in practice, do not protect us from greedy billionaires. They protect surveillance and hyperinflation states from citizens trying to protect themselves against them.

All that is to say nothing of the numerous times it turns out the banking system is itself the criminal actor. Just looking at the most recent scandal listed on Wikipedia [0] I see Madoff near-single-handedly exceeded the 50 billion in missing cash with his ponzi scheme.

It isn't like removing privacy stops crime, it just makes corrupting the government more profitable.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporate_collapses_an...

I don't accept the parent description here because it makes everyone instantly into "law obeying" or "outlaw" in the first pass. Things are not that simple and our own ontologies can't force them to be so. I invite the reader to broaden the thinking here.. There is not one bright line of LEGAL|ILLEGAL, not even close. Those whose job it is to refer to this line, may say so. The effort of those whose job depends on these definitions, does not make it so.

Let's go way back to the wild days of "utterly different tribes interacting." You know, really basic things are really very different, between people. What is legal are base definitions, but differences grow from there and increase. A system of physical currency bridges that divide.

Now let's think of "the Empire that takes taxes from all tribes." Of course there is an effort to standardize practices, so that Empire can collect vastly larger sums than any one or ten tribes, and use that money to build roads, forts, harbors and hire police/troops.

With this aggrandized example pair, think of the role of cash, banking and transfer of money. It is not "illegal" to handle money outside of accounting practices of Empire, but by keeping and holding your own money in your own ways so you are defining economic territory outside of the control of a centralized/tax system. Legions of accountants will oppose this, since the accountants are paid more by Empire.

"one-half of all Euros apparently circulating outside the eurozone."

Its common for wealthy (upper middle class, not oligarch) folks in Russia to have proper safe at home, and to keep thousands of Euros in cash there.

They often use Euro's because Ruble devalues a lot. Additionally, they have justified distrust in the ability of the government to run the economy and banking system, and it is their stash in case either collapses.

So cash does not mean Crime, it could also mean you don't want to be left out in the cold.

Doesn't even need to be 'wealthy', just be above payday-to-payday survival and have savings.

One thing that's also benign but not mentioned by the grandparent is that any economy which has considerable foreign travelers passing through will likely end up losing some cash. I have two pint glasses sitting on my desk, one for coins, the other for bills, they are literally packed full of money from my various travels. Last time I checked, I had almost 300 euros in there and I haven't been in the Eurozone in quite some time (pandemic notwithstanding). I'm not sure if others are like me, but usually I just get cash from an ATM and pay the conversion fee but I refuse to convert back because the money changers at the train stations and airports rip you even harder than the ATM does. It just rubs me the wrong way to take it both coming and going on the conversion. So I keep the bills, and at worst case they're souvenirs.

I too have a drawer of various currencies, some of them even since retired, or issued by governments/nations that no longer exist.

However, given that international travel took a nosedive in the last 18 months whilst banknote production continued to stampede, I'd have to suggest that hoarding by globetrotters doesn't account for any current discrepancy in production vs use in observable trade.

€300 seems a lot to have in cash anyway, regardless of tourism. That is probably more than most people would want to risk on loss/theft.

It's three times what I routinely carry, which is still above average:

https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/892967a8146e4cc8... or https://www.statista.com/statistics/787626/average-amount-of...

It’s about what I withdraw at the airport. I don’t know the next time I’ll find an ATM that accepts my card. I only want to pay the fixed fee once. I estimate my risk of a mugging, while non-zero, to be very low.

At the airport is the start of the trip. Would you have €300 leftover in your cash jar?

I'm probably in a minority, but I keep an envelope of $1000 in my safe next to my passport at home. Not quite the petty cash jar, but I have it handy in case.

Paying electronically has improved a lot in the last dozen or so years, but my typical strategy had always been to keep $50-100 of local currency in my front pocket, and then another $200 usd in my money belt (along with my passport) for a typical day.

Between food and drink, lunch, busfare etc $100 generally covered most expenses beyond tickets to events, and then $200 USD was usually enough to solve any significant problems if you miss your bus ride home or whatever. If you sprain your ankle in some castle ruins, you likely don't want to spend half the afternoon hobbling around historic cobblestone roads in a village somewhere looking for an ATM to get taxi fare back to the hotel. Taxi drivers rarely turn down USD.

That said, ATM fees internationally, depending on your card issuer, can be pretty expensive, ATM fees + forex fees can amount to over 10% if you're only pulling out $100/day. If you don't mind the risk, pulling out the maximum amount of cash per day (usually $400 I've noticed) gets total fees down to about 4%. If you're a student backpacker on a budget for weeks on end these fees can be a substantial fraction of your travel savings/budget.

I carry between £30 and £200. I aim to have about £100.

I have a single debit card, and a credit card I haven't used for years (I always failed to pay it off at the end of the month). The reason I carry cash is in case my debit card stops working - suspended by the bank due to suspected fraud, card stops working in card-readers, bank decides to close my account without warning or explanation.

£100 should last me a couple of days, in which time (hopefully) any problem with the card should be resolvable.

I don't carry shrapnel any more. I don't use cash in shops, unless they have a minimum card spend (then I have to carry the shrapnel change home). COVID has led to many shops having a preference for card payment, so I comply.

Perhaps I should peel off all but £30, and keep it somewhere safe at home. But I'm not afraid of being robbed in the street.

You can't even replace your phone for that much.

I don't carry less than the cost of a new phone, new laptop, and at least a week in a hotel.

All sorts of systems can fail that make cards and ATMs stop working. Look at Puerto Rico after Maria.

Generally speaking I get a pretty large sum of cash out at the beginning of a trip upon arrival and try to use cash for everything. It does depend on where I'm visiting, but the reality is that in a lot of the world there are places which only accept cash or where you can have a simpler transaction using cash. When I return, I just dump whatever remains in the jar. In theory I would take it with me if I visit a place that uses that currency again, but I usually forget and since I have to get more from the ATM anyway I don't really worry about it. It's not as if I brought back 300 euros from one trip. I have currency in there right now from about 28 different countries.

Regarding cash to carry, I basically am not concerned with pick pocket / theft, for a number of reasons, and am more concerned with a business being unable to take a card for some reason. For instance, my primary travel card is an American Express which is not accepted by small businesses in a lot of countries, such as restaurants and shops. In these cases I have a backup card, but I would prefer to use cash. I also ensure I have enough cash to always get me back home and in communication, so enough to replace my phone and get a return plane ticket.

I imagine locals don't need to carry as much cash as foreigners because they have a different set of concerns and easy / ready access to more cash without being charged exorbitant fees for access.

I have had to carry a fair amount of cash into foreign countries, especially that time I had to bring fresh, non-wrinkly notes because the tour vendors demanded it. The bank was absolutely not surprised by my request.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com