That would severely limit the potential sellers. Many, if not most, sellers need to make a large lump sum payment when they leave their house. This can either be to pay off a current mortgage payment, buy another property, education expenses, ect, ect.

A family that received a million dollars in cash for a house, but then financed their new home as if they were first-time home buyers, would probably take 10-15 years to spend a million dollars in cash.

It just doesn't make sense, and the details are probably deliberately left out of the article. My (probably wrong) guess is that someone is selling cryptocurrency for paper cash, and that someone else is buying cryptocurrency with funds that are inside the banking system.

When talking to the dealer at Carmax (which is large and theoretically reputable as far as car dealerships go) he said it wasn't that uncommon for people to pull out rolls of $100s and pay for cars in cash. He told us a story that implied the money was not from above board income, given the way the guy and his supposed wife was dressed and how they acted. Had no problem selling them a Caddy.

I dunno if there is some alternative verification that happens as part of the process, but he didn't make it sound like it.

Bottom line is that they want the sale. So they have figured a system where they do it x% of the time and get away with it. Maybe they place a part of the cash with another car transaction?

In theory all transactions above $10k in cash must be declared, but penalties are only if you get caught and bonus time /end of qtr is 18 days away.

Come to think of it, I wonder if the "wife" was there solely to put her name on the transaction so if the feds come knocking it would be her name that they put on the warrant?

My dad until recently has bought new vehicles every few years in cash.

Probably the most cash I've ever seen at once was when we bought a chunk of property in cash-we took a paper grocery sack full of cash to the real estate agency. You could tell they'd never seen that much cash in person.

Ban cash. Most people use cards in the UK. We should push for that in North America.

Nope, not for me. Cash beats everything, where it's practical to use. And there's privacy

a guy i knew used to say something like “the british are a slave people without the torch of liberty in their hearts.” i used to think it was funny and weird but it just seems more true as time goes on.

Say it into the CCTV camera.

I like cash. It's the only semi-anonymous method of making payments.

For instance, I can offer cash to folks so their bosses don't snatch their tips.

I think you only feel this way as you generally agree with the process and "rules" around payment and settlement. Would you feel differently if you had a embarrassing or frowned-upon hobby, or didn't agree with some change to the centralized, public payment system?

I would think we should fund research and studies that deal with why such a hobby is embarrassing or frowned upon, if not illegal. Try to improve society by tackling the problem, not covering up for someone's misgivings.

Please no. The privacy and cant-buy-without-a-middleman concerns greatly outweigh the concerns of a small minority of bad-faith use.