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Comment by lockhouse | Hacker News Reader

Hard disagree, the federal government already has too much power. Giving them that sort of access and direct control over personal financial assets would be widely abused.

The government and those who work for them are not your friends. The power you give them can and will be abused and will never be returned to the people without great difficulty and probably bloodshed.

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Thing is neither are the oligarchs who run the financial system. Take a look at the labor struggles of the early 1900s in the US - that wasn't people struggling against a government using their army, it was people struggling against private ownership turning hired militias against their employees.

The problem is concentrated power. Whether it's government or private, concentrated power in anything is bad

Yes but in theory the banks are under the pressure of competition. Anything that is moved under the umbrella of the federal government essentially becomes a monopoly.

I can switch banks in less than an hour, it takes months to years to switch countries.

Like in theory Google and Microsoft are competing? Or CVS and Walgreens? Or Boeing and Lockheed? Or Visa and MasterCard?

Oligopolies are arranged monopolies with the further disadvantage of not being subject to the freedoms and rights set out by the constitution. Unless they are broken up, we'll eventually be in a place where things are worse than under government control

All of those businesses you mentioned do largely compete with each other, in addition to other smaller players in their respective spaces.

Could you give an example of them not competing?

A government run bank seems particularly scary in this highly polarized political climate. What if this administration decided not to give out loans to buy ICE cars, but the next administration swings to the right and decides to not give out loans to buy EVs?

The federal government having direct access to your checking account is scary as well. What if they had the ability to freeze the bank accounts of those who refused to get the COVID vaccine or asked the wrong questions on social media?

The government running our entire banking system directly is one of the most dystopian things I can imagine.

How does that theory outweigh the theory that government is under the pressure to bow to the will of the people?

Particularly when even with healthy competition, the only thing that incentivizes a given bank to do is be slightly better than their nearest competitor in some way—whereas while your specific vote may be one among many to the government, it must follow the will of the people when enough of them agree that something needs to change.

I can switch banks until my face turns blue, but if they've all decided that the thing I want isn't worth their money, and are happy to ignore the option to compete by offering it because they've achieved a local maximum of profit-to-effort, it's not going to do me any good.

> The government and those who work for them are not your friends.

Neither are corporations. Both will abuse you. The difference between the two is that you have at least a chance of altering how government works, but you have no chance with a corporation.

They both have highly imperfect avenues with which we can exert influence, but one has more power to compel you to support them legally “or else”.

> one has more power to compel you to support them legally “or else”.

I think that they both have approximately equal power to do that.

That same one also has far more mechanisms and legal avenues for accountability, vs the other that tries to shuffle people off into arbitration and the like, while at the same time spending money to lobby against legislation that might impact its business model.

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