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Comment by hnnewguy | Hacker News Reader

>"But it's ok to destroy the ability of normal people to save or conduct business."

I will never understand this argument. What right do people have to a return on their savings? None. It's an economic transaction.

You realize that when you "save" money, there's someone on the other side of that transaction that is taking that money, along with some risk and ingenuity, and putting it to work economically?

If you want return now, take more risk. The world is awash in capital, safe assets earn nothing.

As far as "conducting business", the largest corporations are selling massive amounts of debt at historically low rates; it's not a bad environment to conduct business.

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I don't know why understanding my viewpoint is difficult. Earning interest isn't some sort of exotic memory of the ancient past. You could get 4.75% 5-year CDs as recently as 2008.

Why 2008? "Safe" assets earn nothing because the US has printed trillions of dollars to shore up bank balance sheets at low/no cost to the banks. Large, "too big to fail" banks and large corporate entities are awash in cash. Smaller business entities have a hard time getting access to capital.

Meanwhile, we've tightened controls on physical money to the point where people with straightforward business models like salons, laundromats and retail are one jump bank compliance offer away from some sort of interaction with law enforcement.

>"But it's ok to destroy the ability of normal people to save or conduct business.

"Conduct business" doesn't mean large corporations selling debt on capital markets. There are day-to-day financial transactions, by those of us who aren't, you know, large corporations. Forcing everyone to go to electronic money is a kind of radical step. If you read the article, you'll notice that one of the implementations recommended by the economists quoted is to require all transactions to be conducted in a reserve currency. The entire thing is about giving central banks more power, according to Citigroup. Citigroup is also quoted as saying that they like that idea, very much.

These sorts of actions are not the way to instill trust in government. The article says as much, in acknowledging that anyone who already has a lot of trust in government won't mind giving it more, by removing any further anonymity in financial transactions.

The post by so-called economist Frances Coppola in Forbes claims that consumers have an irrational fear of a cash-less society. I think she is too glib, and so is Citigroup. Requiring all transactions to be electronic, or in a reserve currency, or using tax stamped bills will result in a black market or underground barter economy. That's just how people are.

> I will never understand this argument. What right do people have to a return on their savings?

None. But people are coerced into depositing their savings. To such a degree that the typical person simply cannot comfortably think about not depositing their money. That's for pimps and drug dealers (and they expect that even pimps and drugs should start doing that as soon as they're successful enough to figure out how to launder it).

And what do you get for depositing it? For the last 20 years, bankers have been deputized as spies, first for the drug war and only for deposits of $10,000 or more. But now for tax cheats, and for deposits less than $10,000. How much less? No defined amount. If they think there's a chance that you're doing $100 to try to skirt the $10,000 rule, then they have to report that too.

God help you if you run a small business that brings in a few thousand per day/week... I suppose then you're expected to save it up to $10,000 before depositing, just to avoid suspicion (though the DEA will then be putting you under a microscope).

We put up with alot of shit to deposit money. It's not absurd to think that if we somehow play by the rules, maybe that money will earn enough interest to keep up with inflation. Hell, we all grew up being taught in public schools that banks use deposits to earn money, and give us a cut. That's the way it used to work, at least... now I guess that they earn all their money by gambling with the viability of the world economy and playing games of "Spot the Pyramid Scheme!", so they have to penalize us for it.

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