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Omarova suggested the central bank could offer bank accounts to everyday Americans, which would represent a dramatic departure from the way the banking system i
by yholio 5y ago
Omarova suggested the central bank could offer bank accounts to everyday Americans, which would represent a dramatic departure from the way the banking system is currently set up.
Enthusiastically this! The payment system is essential infrastructure, with the demise of cash it will become effectively impossible to function in society without access to banking. Meanwhile, this service is provided by for profit agents that can deny your business for no reason and rely on an arcane industry of background checks and trafficked personal data to select their clientele.
Mind you, I'm talking about free payment services, the process of receiving and sending money, and a possible free debit payment network operated by the government, that guarantees service to anyone. If you need credit, you go to a bank, they can and should make money out of this, not by simply forming a payment cartel extracting rent from all businesses and citizens.
- mythrwy 5y agoYou bring up a good point about private services suddenly being able to cut people off from banking. But if governments had that power what might happen?
- dv_dt 5y agoThen people could choose. The choice cuts both ways by providing a pragmatic path for government market constraint as an alternative to the cat and mouse games of exquisitely intricate regulations.
- nicoburns 5y agoIt would be subject to a lot more scrutiny and due process?
- xvedejas 5y agoI'm not sure how to figure out which situation results in more scrutiny and due process. I can buy that private corporations are under-policed, but I'm not sure the government would police itself either. Maybe the best is a kind of adversarial relationship between the public and private entities? Anyone know of compelling studies on what ultimately is best practice for compliance?
- nicoburns 5y ago> I'm not sure the government would police itself either One would assume that if the law was intended that everyone can have a bank account, then ultimately one would be able to appeal through the courts. Which are not perfect, but are a hell of a lot better than a company just being able to make it's own decision without having to justify it. Of course, you could have a governmental setup without this aim. And you could regulate the private market. But generally speaking governmental organisations are held to higher standards and have less incentive to be non-compliant.
- FredPret 5y ago> But generally speaking governmental organisations are held to higher standards and have less incentive to be non-compliant Citation needed. I’ve seen precisely the opposite. What’s needed is external pressure to be a good actor. The courts can do that to a government - in a country with very strong institutions. With a decent number of competing banks and a strong regulator, you can get very far
- BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago> One would assume that if the law was intended that everyone can have a bank account, then ultimately one would be able to appeal through the courts Maybe we should first socialize the legal industry, such that suing the government is actually a realistic option for the common person who, at present, cannot afford to hire lawyers for something like that.
- kcplate 5y ago> I'm not sure the government would police itself either Has it ever?
- xvedejas 5y agoThere's clearly _some_ push-and-shove that happens some of the time, officials get fired for ethics violations, laws get changed, politicians lose re-election. I don't think it's worthwhile to be reductive, there's got to be a quantitative way to compare how different compliance schemes tend to fare.
- mythrwy 5y agoAnd political wrangling. And moral panics. And "national emergencies". And just about every other political abuse you can imagine. That's without getting into the weeds of how well they would do at it implementation or how much it would cost. Government could just do all the farming and manufacturing and food distribution also. Probably not very well and people would be much worse off and the system would be abused by those in power. Same concepts apply to this. Single responsibility principal, as much as possible, is an efficient idea. Government's job is to regulate. If there are problems with the current system that is largely a failure of regulation.
- oh_sigh 5y agoThe government already has that power - there are lists of people that banks aren't allowed to do business with, because the government says so.
- mythrwy 5y agoNot nearly to the extent directly controlling all transactions would give them. Not even close. What you are talking about is things like sanctioning foreign firms or individuals. Yes, the IRS could also come after your bank accounts but it takes some work and isn't suitable for mass population control. This is and that's unacceptable.
- yholio 5y agoGovernments have that power already. Various AML legislation can make any high street bank to not only block your account without reason util you prove your innocence, you can't even withdraw any of your money in cash. It happened to me in the UK, my account blocked with no reason for weeks until I summited all documentation. I was a foreign student at the time, almost destroyed me, no money for rent etc. In any case, it's a orthogonal issue, government power vs democratic accountability, the highly regulated private banking system certainly does not protect you against it, they will do whatever the government asks of them as long as they can maintain their key rent extraction monopolies.
- polski-g 5y agoIf there were government bank accounts, there wouldn't be instances of banks closing accounts for people's politics. The government bank would have to issue accounts for everyone because of first amendment protections
- alexnewman 5y agoYou know who had this? The USSR. This is about ending private banking. It's as bad as an idea as communism.
- vore 5y agoI think you need to come up with a more compelling point against this than "the USSR had it". You know who had public transport? The USSR. Public transport is as bad as an idea as communism.
- slt2021 5y agosuddenly, current state of public transport in the US makes sense
- ohCh6zos 5y agoI suspect you’re joking but I think there’s a good argument to be had for now allowing the government to have any influence in transportation.
- genocidicbunny 5y agoAnnoyingly, it had better public transit than the majority of the US does!
- splitstud 5y agoNo. Someone needs to come up with a compelling reason to change our practices first.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoIsn't sorry state of banking in US compared to pretty much everywhere in the world a compelling reason?
- selimthegrim 5y agoOh well, there goes any chance of getting district heating this lifetime
- rgrieselhuber 5y agoIf only we had a technology solution to payments and money transfer that didn’t depend on the whims of anyone, some sort of distributed cryptographically secured system?
- JaimeThompson 5y agoWhat system is that? Keep in mind that such a system has to be able to handle the TPS necessary.
- javert 5y agoBitcoin, which can handle unlimited TPS. The vast majority of US dollar transactions happen off of the Fed's official ledger. Similarly, the vast majority of bitcoin transactions need not happen on the blockchain. That's probably already the case today. The problem with bitcoin today is that the price is too volatile. Bitcoin proponents believe that can change with time and increasing adoption.
- JaimeThompson 5y agoDo you have a source for your first statement?
- javert 5y agoI explained the first statement in the rest of the comment. I don't think I understand what you're asking for. Or maybe you're referring to the second statement?
- JaimeThompson 5y agoI was asking for what systems currently in use can support that transaction rate. Based on my research no current crypto system comes remotely close to being able to handle the TPS needed.
- sennight 5y ago[flagged]
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago[flagged]
- sennight 5y ago[flagged]
- yholio 5y ago[flagged]
- sennight 5y ago[flagged]
- yholio 5y ago[flagged]
- sennight 5y agoA lame answer that happens to directly, and accurately, answer your question... better move the goal posts. I'm sure Lenin would strongly disapprove of a strategy wherein everything is regarded as a right to be overseen by the government, and proponents for said argument wouldn't be "useful idiots" at all.
- dang 5y agoI'm late to this thread, but the two of you broke the site guidelines badly. We ban accounts that engage in this sort of tedious flamewar. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on.
- javert 5y agoI think we should put the TSA in charge of the payments system.
- refurb 5y agoIndeed. The “banking should be public infrastructure” never make the connection with their comments about Guantanamo and the TSA. “We don’t need a warrant to see your banking transactions since the government itself provides the service”.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]