Crime World

Yeah, I know. When I see these stories, WaPo always seems to be there first, and I weigh my options. Daily Mail? WaPo? New York Post? It all sucks.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-one-stubborn-banker-exposed-a-200-billion-russian-money-laundering-scandal-1540307327

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Thread:

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Usually I agree with Alexandra Erin, by in this case that doesn’t scan. People convert between any currency to another because they need to make a transaction in the other currency, full stop. I didn’t buy euros for a trip to the Netherlands because I no longer thought Canadian dollars were sound.

I liked Secret Gamer Girl’s points, though, in the first thread. And maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but it seems like both Bitcoin and blockchain have become less trendy of late.

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Secret Gamer Girl’s rant on bitcoin seems spot on! But when she gets to cash it goes off the rails.

If you go to buy something with paper money, and the store refuses to take it, and you wanted to be really dramatic about things, you could totally present that dollar in court and insist that it’s an enforceable contract.

If you actually went to court waving a dollar bill around and saying it was some kind of god-given contract and the seller was a criminal for not accepting it, the judge would give you that look they normally reserve for the ‘sovereign citizen’ crowd, throw the case out, and maybe fine you for contempt. Sellers are free to decide what forms of payment they accept, whether they accept cash, personal checks, third party checks, some credit cards but not others, etc.

I think it’s also important to keep in mind that making paper money/coinage worthless isn’t something the government is actually capable of doing in any meaningful sense.

There’s an entire list of countries that have had hyperinflation devalue their money. There are also countries that have recalled their money (that was a big kerfuffle in India recently). And of course, there are countries where cash is so rarely used that most places don’t accept it. Of course there are others where you need cash because most places don’t accept anything else. But to say that cash can’t lose value is just entirely wrong.

I wonder why the top half about bitcoin is so right, but the bottom half about cash is just all wrong.

The Alexandra Erin ones do seem to fit to me. Gold maintains its value over time despite inflation. The scam is getting people to believe it will gain value (it doesn’t) or that the economy is about to collapse (it isn’t) and gold will be the only thing with value. So of course, why do they want to sell theirs to you if they believe that?

Bitcoin does fit into that because it is not commonly used/accepted currency. It’s still “in theory it will be someday”. Sure some people/companies use it, but not enough for it to be viable as the average person’s everyday currency.

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If somebody asserts that you already owe them money, and you offer them cash, and they won’t take it, then that’s something you could argue about in a courtroom

Going to a store and trying to buy something is a slightly different situation

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Except Alexandra Erin isn’t talking about US cash and euros. She’s talking about guys like Tucker Carlson convincing you to buy gold for the apocalypse. Trading in regular currencies isn’t lacking faith, either. But if Tucker really thought the US was going to collapse and if he really believed that currency was going out, he’d be buying caps (aka the alternative, future commodity) and sweeping the Nuka Cola factory floor, not trying to convince you to buy the shiny things he pulled from the trash with your soon to be worthless US dollar (if he actually believed that).

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In her second tweet, yeah.

I know very much, because during Y2K my ex tried very hard to convince me to buy gold and silver with my life’s savings and keep it stashed in our apartment. Coincidentally, this was when he was getting ready to leave me.

I told him I was too busy with report card marking, that the school I worked at was just down the street and all schools had been set up as emergency shelters in case Y2K did happen, that if Y2K happened there’s no way we could defend ourselves and the stash from the ravening hordes in the apartment, and anyway in a Y2K case fresh water would be more precious than gold.

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I was hoarding water in my room for a while – I mean, they tell you to do that in case of disaster – but then the plastic jugs would leak sometimes, which was lame, and also I remembered that I have actually lived in buildings without running water, and I wasn’t schlepping water there, I was just going somewhere else during the day to use their facilities instead

And the same logic would apply after an earthquake or whatever

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This is absolute nonsense. If this were actually how the world works, capitalism itself couldn’t function, let alone fiat currency and foreign exchange.

If you hold assets that are worth money and you need liquidity (i.e. cash you can spend), you sell some of those assets in the knowledge that people will buy them because they hold inherent value. You can then use the liquidity you have gained to buy things you need. If I sell you a cow, that doesn’t mean I think the cow is worthless, it’s just that I have other needs that I can’t meet with just a cow, like paying for water and electricity.

People who hold shares or bonds are rarely able to use them directly to pay for purchases. Instead, they sell the assets they have in exchange for greater liquidity. That doesn’t mean that the asset itself is worthless, just that it holds value in a form that they can’t use to directly buy things.

Bitcoin isn’t accepted everywhere, so it’s natural to want to cash out into other currencies if you need liquidity. Even if this were not true, selling Dollars to buy Euros doesn’t mean I think the Dollar is worthless, just that I see other uses for Euros that mean I want to swap.

Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme with inherently high risks and it’s way too late to get involved now, but that has nothing to do with the reasons given in the post.

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If Tucker had enough Caps that he was comfortable with his holdings and also wanted to increase the viability of Caps as a currency after the apocalypse, he could sell a portion of his holdings to you and use the currency that you are willing to pay him for it to buy things pre-apocalypse with a currency that is widely used at the moment.

Those “buy gold and silver for the apocalypse” shills are being disingenuous but that’s because they’re trying to increase demand for an asset they already hold, and they’re not actually trying to help you out at all, despite their assertions to the contrary.

If a thousand penny-ante investors see the show and try to buy gold at once, the price increases because the supply is fixed and the demand has increased. So Tucker’s $10m worth of gold is now worth $12m and he can siphon off $2m to buy whatever he wants with no asset loss in real terms.

Gold would almost certainly lose most of its value after an apocalypse (it’s too soft for most post-industrial uses and too rare to be used as a common currency in a barter driven society) but that doesn’t mean it’s a useless thing to invest in or that it’s not a viable currency in and of itself.

Tucker Carlson is a lying, greasy little spiv but that doesn’t really have any bearing on gold’s usefulness or otherwise as a trading commodity, pre or post apocalypse.

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IIRC the big debate in the 19th century about money was not gold versus fiat currency but gold versus silver, with “free coinage of silver” being the populist position at the time

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What do you bet they emulate Uber and say “But we’re not in the hotel business!”

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They already have. That came up when a woman rented out her apartment for a week while she was on vacation overseas, and came home to discover her place had been used as a temporary meth lab. All her pots & pans, some of her bed linens, most of her furniture, and her stove were all badly damaged. They also tried to break into the safe in her bedroom. They failed, but it was so damaged she couldn’t use it again.

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The shooter’s name is Richard Jerome Rand IV. His victim was black, grew up in North Portland, and was homeless. They killed him for his car because they were fleeing a failed home invasion attempt.

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