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Comment by zorrb | Hacker News Reader

Look, I think most reasonable people would agree the Washington Post is pretty much a joke at this point.

However, I have toe vehemently disagree with your rationale. This line of thinking has to stop. Just because YOU can't think of any reason to carry "large" sums of money doesn't mean there IS no legitimate reason. Innocent until proven guilty, all that jazz.

"Think about it. Why would YOU, wear sagging jeans?"

Also, yes, it IS ridiculously expensive to challenge a seizure of money. This happens ALL OF THE TIME in the south, where cops do illegal searches, find money and say DRUG MONEY DRUG MONEY, and 99% of people are SCREWED because the system is stacked against them.

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Tell me a legitimate reason to carry thousands of dollars of cash around. While some, here, will think of outlier reasons and point to a few "two thousand dollar" situations, the point of the whole thing is that there are a multitude of tens and hundreds of thousands and millions in cash that ARE stopped and picked up all the time for illegal reasons and the POST (and posters here) are ignoring that fact. (Except for the one line I show in my other post.)

Ignoring the other side of the story is what's going on here.

This was the standard argument in the USSR for everything. Who won cold war?

1) because I like cash, I like the feel of it, it's real money not bits.

2) Because I don't trust my banks.

3) because they charge fees to transfer the money same day I don't want to pay

4) because I don't like the government and I don't want them to have records of my business transactions if I can help it. I'm honest, I pay my tax but I don't want the IRS keeping records on where I buy my car and from who.

5) because I get a discount for paying in cash.

6) because I borrowed the money from family who do business in cash.

7) because I'm paying someone who prefers cash.

8) because I have to pay 30 different people and I don't have all their bank details.

9) because we've always done payroll in cash.

10) Because I'm taking the cash overseas to a country where US Dollars work and electronic bits don't.

There's 10. There are at least 100 more. And loads I haven't even thought of.

Using cash is a right, and you should feel bad.

Clearly you like breaking laws given your posts and should be arrested and have your property confiscated. What other reason could you have for your lack of respect for law? See how that goes? In soviet Russia, you're welcome.

>Tell me a legitimate reason to carry thousands of dollars of cash around.

A legitimate reason would be whatever reason I happen to choose, no different than if I choose to use a credit card, Bitcoin, or write a cheque. No one should have to defend their legal transactions to you or anyone.

That said, some governments are moving down the path of outlawing large cash transactions. Here is one example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/10/17/large-cash...

More than half of all seizures are below $9000 - the amount of money you may use to buy a second-hand car. The amount of money that you may be using to pay for a group holiday. Hell, I brought a couple of thousand dollars in cash with me to the US on holiday a few years back.

You may be doing payroll for a small business that pays cash. You may have collected cash from a door-to-door sales job. Possibly you've withdrawn cash to put down as a deposit on an apartment or house. Maybe you're paying for a course for professional qualifications. Maybe you owe three month's back rent.

I'd reckon that all of these put together are more probable than funding a terrorist cell or setting up a drug deal. I'd certainly not give up my rights to do these things "just in case".

First, our system is supposed to be protective of the innocent. Carrying cash is very very far from being a violent crime or any other type of police emergency. There is never a case based on safety for confiscation.

Second, there are, for example, antique fairs where sellers are not going to take a check from random unknown buyers rom all over the country. Also, some people, notably some immigrants, of which there are a historically large number now, do not trust banks or bank instruments, or simply do not know which bank instruments would be trusted for which types of deals.

Last week, I switched banks. Rather than wiring the funds or spending money on an official check, I took out all my money in cash and brought it to the new bank. I could have been buying a kilo of coke, or funding terrorist activity, but I was just switching to a bank that's present in the state I moved to. I've done this twice before, and amazingly, I'm still not a criminal.

Are you asking for ONE specific legitimate reason? Say you don't trust banks, how do you purchase expensive items? Maybe you don't have a bank account for WHATEVER reason? Are you now a criminal because you don't have a bank account?

Or, are you really asking, what is the RATIO between what you'd deem "legitimate" reasons to carry money and what you'd deem "ill-legitimate"? What is the correct ratio? If we take 50% of the "bad guys" money, and 50% of innocent citizens is that too high? 60/40? 80/20? What is the correct ratio? How can you even know?

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