That would be reported by the news and people would care. Whereas here we get this reaction: "they seized his money and say he is suspected of being a drug dealer, well then i have nothing to worry about - i am not a drug dealer."

I think the most common reaction is going to be "this guy carried my mortgage worth in cash on his person to the airport, I don't think I'm going to have that problem".

Until the time they go buy a $5000 used car.

Also, it's not just cash they go after. There are plenty of "State v. Diamond Necklace" or "State v. Various Electronics Valued at Approx. $1000" cases out there.

> Who buys a car with cash?

I did once. Why? Because I damn well wanted to, that's why! I am allegedly a free man living in the "free-est country on earth" so I gave my bank the required one week notice, came in with a bag, and walked out with the amount of cash necessary to buy my shiny new corvette. I then peacefully made my way to the dealership, where I signed the papers and handed them the money. No eyelashes were batted.

> there's zero doubt in my mind that anyone doing it is doing so for good reason

> in this case is almost certainly involved in drug or human trafficking.

Plot twist: i've never been involved in any drug/human trade, and made the money legally...

I gave you my "good reason". Feel free to call the DA in my area and tell them what to charge me with...

> In my [...] life

There's your issue. Not everyone is you. People have different situations and measuring them all against yourself is ... well ... wrong?

Eg: Have you "in your life" ever lived in a country where multiple bank runs happened during "your life", the banks ran out of money, and the government did nothing to make citizens whole? No? Cause that is one reason people would avoid banks - being bankrupted by such an event leaves a mark on you. Probably enough of a mark to keep you from banks forever, even if you move to USA...

> I did once. Why? Because I damn well wanted to, that's why! I am allegedly a free man living in the "free-est country on earth" so I gave my bank the required one week notice, came in with a bag, and walked out with the amount of cash necessary to buy my shiny new corvette. I then peacefully made my way to the dealership, where I signed the papers and handed them the money. No eyelashes were batted.

Doubt it, considering dealers hate handling cash and filing the anti-structuring paperwork. It certainly wouldn't be a situation where 'no eyelashes were batted', at the least they would have been upset that you were wasting their time.

> Eg: Have you "in your life" ever lived in a country where multiple bank runs happened during "your life", the banks ran out of money, and the government did nothing to make citizens whole? No? Cause that is one reason people would avoid banks - being bankrupted by such an event leaves a mark on you. Probably enough of a mark to keep you from banks forever, even if you move to USA...

So your reasoning for advocating to use cash is because some countries are unstable (even though as a result you are even more likely to robbed of your cash in them)?

Works even better in the EU. 20K in cash on an economy flight? Criminal! No other way. No way you saved up all of that, you poor pos!

It's better to have a clear law, even if it's wrong, so you can carry 19K in peace, then be randomly and unpredictably harrassed by authorities.

Eh, people would care for about 5 minutes, just like everything else. Remember when basically every American adult with a credit history had their entire credit files stolen? How many people do you hear talking about that now?

That is materially different than having your cash stolen from you by a seemingly random person at the airport. One results in a very small probability of it affecting you in any way, the other is someone stealing from you.

I think they are replying to the currency printing hypothetical not the 125,000-dollars-stolen-from-me hypothetical.

I thought they were comparing people’s reactions to news about equifax’s data breach exposing people’s social and other identifying info to news about the government stealing from people via civil asset forfeiture.

@zamadatix is correct.