3 ms·

Illicit capital outflows are robbing Africa of $88B every year

3 points by iafrikan 6y ago

forgotmypw17 6y ago
This is a demonstration of non-ledgered electronic currency's huge transparency problem, one of the reasons I have pledged to go freegan for my food and shelter. If I sell you a widget for a dollar, I have no idea whether you earned that dollar honestly or by robbing someone's natural resources. Conversely, if you give me an honest dollar for my widget, you have no idea if I stole it myself. It is a continuous and persistent process of obscuring the origins of every single thing you pay for and pay with, and it's causing direct and grave harm to us all. For me, the privacy trade-off is negligible, when I consider that my privacy has already been eroded to nothing as far as the data banks are concerned. I'll gladly trade all the fine minutia of my life in return for transparency everywhere else in the world. Imagine if everything you paid for could be traced dozens, hundreds, thousands of steps through its journey from mud to widget!
Arnt 6y ago
Well, what happens to the money? Surely the money isn't given as a present to someone outside Africa. It may be transferred to some bank or fund manager, perhaps, in which case the article is really saying that rich Africans choose to keep their ducats in Large Bank A instead of Large Bank B, both of which would probably turn around and buy the same assets if the customer's instructions are similar. B may have a head office in a glittering highrise in Lagos and A in a similar highrise one in London, but I rather doubt that the fund managers behave very differently. The pinstripe suits and highrise offices look the same. So... what happens to the money? The location of the bank is a detail. How does this money land in the hands of people who can transfer it to that bank, and/or why do banks A and B choose to buy assets outside Africa rather than on the continent?

3 ms·

Illicit capital outflows are robbing Africa of $88B every year

3 points by iafrikan 6y ago

forgotmypw17 6y ago
This is a demonstration of non-ledgered electronic currency's huge transparency problem, one of the reasons I have pledged to go freegan for my food and shelter. If I sell you a widget for a dollar, I have no idea whether you earned that dollar honestly or by robbing someone's natural resources. Conversely, if you give me an honest dollar for my widget, you have no idea if I stole it myself. It is a continuous and persistent process of obscuring the origins of every single thing you pay for and pay with, and it's causing direct and grave harm to us all. For me, the privacy trade-off is negligible, when I consider that my privacy has already been eroded to nothing as far as the data banks are concerned. I'll gladly trade all the fine minutia of my life in return for transparency everywhere else in the world. Imagine if everything you paid for could be traced dozens, hundreds, thousands of steps through its journey from mud to widget!
Arnt 6y ago
Well, what happens to the money? Surely the money isn't given as a present to someone outside Africa. It may be transferred to some bank or fund manager, perhaps, in which case the article is really saying that rich Africans choose to keep their ducats in Large Bank A instead of Large Bank B, both of which would probably turn around and buy the same assets if the customer's instructions are similar. B may have a head office in a glittering highrise in Lagos and A in a similar highrise one in London, but I rather doubt that the fund managers behave very differently. The pinstripe suits and highrise offices look the same. So... what happens to the money? The location of the bank is a detail. How does this money land in the hands of people who can transfer it to that bank, and/or why do banks A and B choose to buy assets outside Africa rather than on the continent?