One important future to avert is where organized crime is rampant. Even if we look at only the economic costs, one study in Italy suggests mafia domination cost 16% of per-capita GDP. Given the US's $20 trillion GDP, that's quite a lot. And that's ignoring people's preference for security and safety. As an entrepreneur, for example, I think it's great that I don't have to worry about paying for "protection" to keep from having my business burned down or my legs broken.
We also have to look at terrorism. KYC/AML work to keep cash out of the hands of terrorists. Terrorism is, moral and human cost aside, very expensive. The 9/11 incident alone sees estimates in the $2-3 trillion range for total economic costs.
So even if KYC/AML really does cost hundreds of billions, which I doubt, it's a bargain compared to the problems it's meant to prevent.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12235
[2] E.g., see https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-world-after-911-part-... and https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011...
You’re making two separate, tenuous extrapolations here. Can you justify them?
The point of my original comment was to point out a couple of things we'd have to include in a cost/benefit analysis of KYC/AML regulation, not to actually do a proper analysis, which I would expect to run to hundreds of carefully researched pages.
It also flatly contradicts the fact that the US didn’t lose 16% of its GDP to mafia activity before KYC laws were introduced.
I stated my point quite clearly at the very beginning of this thread. Did you miss it?
> Unfortunately, your point is shallow and dismissive, rather than engaging substantively.
In what way is requesting evidence for an implausible extrapolation "shallow and dismissive"?
> If you're saying it seems silly to you, an anonymous rando, I can live with that.
Is "anonymous rando" supposed to be an insult of some sort? Is it relevant to the topic in some way, or just a plain ad hominem?
> try asking succinctly and with at least a modicum of respect
I did. You should do likewise.
> Because people generally have better things to do than spoon-feed anonymous jerks.
The only one being a jerk here is you, my friend. Take a deep breath and re-read the thread. And no, requesting evidence rather than accepting your assumptions at face value isn't "spoon-feeding". Frankly, your response (or lack thereof) gives the impression that you've been backed into a corner and have resorted to name-calling and "spoon-feeding" accusations to try to save face.
It's not about the quality of your point. It's about who's worth my time. This is the internet, where I can be in contact with most of the planet. As I explained long ago in my bio here, anonymous people with bad attitudes get less leeway from me. If you want conversation, you have to be worth it.
In addition, when you introduce words like "silly" and "implausible", you are either a) asserting you have a technology that allows you to objectively measure those qualities in discussions, or b) asserting that you have some expertise which makes you a more qualified judge than the person you are talking to. Presuming for a moment that it's the latter case, you're the one who has introduced yourself as the arbiter of all that's right and true. It's within bounds for me to point out that from my perspective you demonstrate no qualities that would make you the expert you are acting like.
You are of course welcome to have any impressions of me you like. Again, the feelings of anonymous randos are not high on my list of concerns. Less so, of course, for the ones who start out a discussion with the assumption I'm a fool.
No tax owing and received some hundreds of dollars in refunds from the IRS.
They even corrected a mistake resulting in an even larger refund (forgot to apply for some program).
All because of increasingly draconious laws for non-filers that conveniently ignore that most Americans abroad aren’t millionaires.
Cost: hundreds of US$, data entry and processing.
Benefit to US: ?????
It means to determine the actual beneficiery of a bank account in addition to traceability of the funds used.
The bloke showing id may not be the actual owner of the funds and it's up to the bank to determine this.
It involves, simplified, reporting requirements of US account holders by foreign banks to the US authorities. It's main purpose is to avoid tax dodging by US persons.
I'm not arguing that it's a great law, since it's not. For example: it can make it extremely hard for US persons living abroad to open a bank account because foreign banks just don't want to bother with those onnerous reporting requirements.
It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with KYC / AML provisions, which are very rightfully imposed on financial instituions. And yes, I work for one.
We don't have any problem with satire and sarcasm as such, but on a large public forum like HN, with everything a mile wide and an inch deep, they are nearly always associated with really low-quality discussion.
Confidence. If enough people think rice bags or pressed and aged tea is money, then it is. At least you can eat rice and drink tea, bank notes or crypto hashes not so much.
No, commodity money typically has a variety of practical functions and its function in an exchange system is born out of necessity. Not arbitrarily because people want to start doing accounting that way. I don't understand why people repeat this. It's not clever or insightful, and worse it's definitely not correct. It's gravely concerning that presumably basically educated people tout this line without a second thought when it comes to cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency finds its value purely out of someone hoping someone else will be left holding the bag, not because it's useful.
Financial privacy, especially from the state, is the ultimate form of privacy.
There's a reason we have had bank secrecy [0] a long time before anything like the modern Internet-based privacy movements, with their much more expanded definitions, came along. Heck, some countries based a whole lot of their appeal on the strength of said bank secrecy laws, like Switzerland.
B) Low-level crooks and privacy minded folks are the ones that get caught.
C) Cost of compliance with KYC/AML/ABC is greater than the money recovered.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2018/09/30/the-b...
> In that connection, a senior employee from the correspondent bank in question assessed that out of ten non-resident customers from the Estonian branch, the correspondent bank would be comfortable only with servicing one given the customers’ characteristics. The employee also warned Danske Bank against Moldovan customers and customers transferring money to Moldova.
Criminal organizations just mule the cash to a friendly bank. Then things proceed accordingly and the correspondent banks will blindly play along for years.
The end goal of these things are not what is sold in PR-speak. It is about expanding the surveillance state for TIA purposes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness#/m...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness
There is a reason they renamed this the "Terrorism Information Awareness" center and then "shut it down". But, of course, other agencies just quietly use the software instead with some superficial changes.
If you think any of these ever really get "shut down" because overreach or the like...yeah. They don't. They just re-named, classified, and better hidden in some intelligence agency's toolbox.
You shouldn't trust the labels on laws.
Low-level crooks getting caught is how higher-level crooks get caught.
> Cost of compliance with KYC/AML/ABC is greater than the money recovered.
Recovering money isn't even the main overt point.
AML is good because it makes it much more difficult for the proceeds of criminal activity to be blended in to the legitimate economy.
And can you explain how the average person is inconvenienced in any way, shape or form by AML / KYC regulations?
Sorry, but your argument, so far, is just libertarian drivel.
Money laundering isn't good; the actions which are termed 'money laundering' in the law are neutral.
> And can you explain how the average person is inconvenienced in any way, shape or form by AML / KYC regulations?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/09/01/police-seiz...
https://www.thestreet.com/story/12793654/1/file-10000-irs-fo...
https://ij.org/michigan-man-cleared-wrongdoing-still-fightin...
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-customs-a...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2018/05/15/...
And on, and on, and on. It's a real problem.
Just a second, in your original post you say:
AML is bad because it makes a crime out of something which isn’t actually bad.
So which is it? You can't have it both ways.
There are three moral valences: good, neutral & evil. ‘Money laundering’ is neither good nor evil, but simply neutral. The things it attempts to hide may be evil, but it itself has no moral value.
That is my whole point: criminalising it makes a crime out of something which is neither good nor evil.
This is why I cant stand ignorant crypto-fans.