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Money, liquidity, and fungibility is a public good, it has been (and still is) a waste of public and private resources to attempt to alter that reality. Althou

Money, liquidity, and fungibility is a public good, it has been (and still is) a waste of public and private resources to attempt to alter that reality. Although this isn't a popular or public opinion by the public or banks or politicians, it is also the reality for banks and their host governments, and all lip service otherwise is either a lie for data collection or simply fails spectacularly at actually preventing any flow of funds. So, there isn't any point in saying "Credit Suisse is a rouge bank", because the whole idea of pretending to whitelist transactions and clients is flawed and useless. There isn't any point in saying "privacy laws are immoral" because it doesn't matter what anyone's background is, they can still access banking and pools of liquidity to move between assets and trade with others anyway. Even the vague idea of avoiding terrorist financing is flawed. Terrorism isn't expensive enough for this whitelisting project. People aren't flying planes into buildings because they don't want to fly planes into buildings. Its not that expensive. Let's drop the charade and reduce overhead costs for everyone. Congratulations, we've successfully stigmatized having money, except for the people that actually have it who ignored the cultural stigma and can afford better education and counsel on reality. Let's move on from this data mining and transaction whitelisting project.

strogonoff 5y ago
I believe KYC is a very good idea fundamentally, and I wish more banks took it seriously with their top customers as well (or more) as with the rest. It’s not in banks’ interests, of course. And I disagree that terrorism is cheap. Preparation for 9/11 allegedly cost up to $500K. Bojinka plot used fair amount of financing as well. Maybe those couldn’t be caught via financial controls and KYC, or maybe they could.
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  Expenses are interesting and add up rapidly (as any business owner knows)... 500k over two years for 20 people is only $1000/person/month and that has to account for all living expenses plus whatever else is required (flight training, cover identities, bribes, pay-for-play etc.)
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    Yes, of course the parent did not specify what they thought as “cheap”, I am only pointing out that it is apparently not as cheap as a couple of airplane tickets. In other words, their point was that all you need is a desire to fly an airplane into a building, but my point is that you need that plus XXX kilodollars (spread over time or not). Reportedly, one of the 9/11 guys was wired $100k in one go[0]—these amounts could be noticed, but dealing with very profitable accounts one might just be too greedy for that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_September_11_attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Septe...
    - from 5y ago
      But it's not like they put "explosives and other ordinances" in the subject line. For all the bank knew Atta was just some flight school student. If banks were to require justification for every wire transfer, legitimate commerce (also remittances and a bunch of other things) would grind to a halt.
      - radicaldreamer 5y ago
        Also, there are lots of wealthy Saudis all over and 100k probably doesn't even register as a "large" payment in those circles.
        strogonoff 5y ago
        KYC done properly means the bank understands every customer. What you do in life, what you get normally paid for, etc. Problem is, it’s tricky to do at scale and the banks want to profit more, so it makes financial sense for them to err on the side of caution with small accounts that are possibly net loss anyway (considering maintenance overhead, etc.) but starting with a certain level of wealth I think they are more than willing to not care.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- vmception 5y ago
  Correct, I consider that cheap when HSBC subsequently laundered billions of dollars over the following decade after the PATRIOT Act. The same PATRIOT Act that wouldnt have flagged wire transfers the terrorists used even if it existed before 9/11. It's just an opportunistic data collection program on everyone else. With billions slipping through from any random branch manager at any bank anywhere, how many 9/11s is that? Any time, for any reason, funding secured.
  - anonymouse008 5y ago
    I can't help but see KYC as a means for automated IRS cases. They are swamped and the basic associations from the new datasets are incredibly revealing.
    - mrlonglong 5y ago
      That's because Congress and the Senate out of pure self interest have chosen to restrict the IRS funding for decades. If they had the balls to increase funding I have little doubt they would have found and retrieved taxes rightfully due to the government.
harry8 5y ago
> it doesn't matter what anyone's background is, they can still access banking and pools of liquidity to move between assets and trade with others anyway. Julian Assange & Wikleaks had no access to the banking system because a US politician asked the banks to refuse them service at a time when they had not been charged with any crime. Whenever you see someone you "dislike" being dealt with in an extradjudicial manner just keep in mind that these are your rights that now don't matter.
- vmception 5y ago
  Right, correct, it should be illegal for the government to attempt leveraging financial intermediaries this way, even for people we don't like. Just like we don't cut the power off for people we don't like.
from 5y ago
I'm convinced there's always going to be some new frontier for regulators to say "if we could just get rid of this, there'd be no more crime." 80s/90s: offshore banks, bearer shares 00s: MSBs/money orders/check cashers 10s: prepaid/gift cards, crypto, luxury real estate Truth is that as long as you can triple your money bringing cocaine from Mexico to Texas people are gonna do it. If anything they've made it harder to track because instead of criminal proceeds just being deposited in a Miami bank account they're being used to buy cell phones for export to Colombia.
- vmception 5y ago
  and crypto brings back bearer shares on steroids not regarding anonymity but in fungibility and capital formation, selling and trading the shares is on another level

strogonoff 5y ago

I believe KYC is a very good idea fundamentally, and I wish more banks took it seriously with their top customers as well (or more) as with the rest. It’s not in banks’ interests, of course. And I disagree that terrorism is cheap. Preparation for 9/11 allegedly cost up to $500K. Bojinka plot used fair amount of financing as well. Maybe those couldn’t be caught via financial controls and KYC, or maybe they could.

radicaldreamer 5y ago
Expenses are interesting and add up rapidly (as any business owner knows)... 500k over two years for 20 people is only $1000/person/month and that has to account for all living expenses plus whatever else is required (flight training, cover identities, bribes, pay-for-play etc.)
- strogonoff 5y ago
  Yes, of course the parent did not specify what they thought as “cheap”, I am only pointing out that it is apparently not as cheap as a couple of airplane tickets. In other words, their point was that all you need is a desire to fly an airplane into a building, but my point is that you need that plus XXX kilodollars (spread over time or not). Reportedly, one of the 9/11 guys was wired $100k in one go[0]—these amounts could be noticed, but dealing with very profitable accounts one might just be too greedy for that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_September_11_attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Septe...
  - from 5y ago
    But it's not like they put "explosives and other ordinances" in the subject line. For all the bank knew Atta was just some flight school student. If banks were to require justification for every wire transfer, legitimate commerce (also remittances and a bunch of other things) would grind to a halt.
    - radicaldreamer 5y ago
      Also, there are lots of wealthy Saudis all over and 100k probably doesn't even register as a "large" payment in those circles.
      - strogonoff 5y ago
        KYC done properly means the bank understands every customer. What you do in life, what you get normally paid for, etc. Problem is, it’s tricky to do at scale and the banks want to profit more, so it makes financial sense for them to err on the side of caution with small accounts that are possibly net loss anyway (considering maintenance overhead, etc.) but starting with a certain level of wealth I think they are more than willing to not care.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
vmception 5y ago
Correct, I consider that cheap when HSBC subsequently laundered billions of dollars over the following decade after the PATRIOT Act. The same PATRIOT Act that wouldnt have flagged wire transfers the terrorists used even if it existed before 9/11. It's just an opportunistic data collection program on everyone else. With billions slipping through from any random branch manager at any bank anywhere, how many 9/11s is that? Any time, for any reason, funding secured.
- anonymouse008 5y ago
  I can't help but see KYC as a means for automated IRS cases. They are swamped and the basic associations from the new datasets are incredibly revealing.
  - mrlonglong 5y ago
    That's because Congress and the Senate out of pure self interest have chosen to restrict the IRS funding for decades. If they had the balls to increase funding I have little doubt they would have found and retrieved taxes rightfully due to the government.

harry8 5y ago

> it doesn't matter what anyone's background is, they can still access banking and pools of liquidity to move between assets and trade with others anyway. Julian Assange & Wikleaks had no access to the banking system because a US politician asked the banks to refuse them service at a time when they had not been charged with any crime. Whenever you see someone you "dislike" being dealt with in an extradjudicial manner just keep in mind that these are your rights that now don't matter.

vmception 5y ago
Right, correct, it should be illegal for the government to attempt leveraging financial intermediaries this way, even for people we don't like. Just like we don't cut the power off for people we don't like.

from 5y ago

I'm convinced there's always going to be some new frontier for regulators to say "if we could just get rid of this, there'd be no more crime." 80s/90s: offshore banks, bearer shares 00s: MSBs/money orders/check cashers 10s: prepaid/gift cards, crypto, luxury real estate Truth is that as long as you can triple your money bringing cocaine from Mexico to Texas people are gonna do it. If anything they've made it harder to track because instead of criminal proceeds just being deposited in a Miami bank account they're being used to buy cell phones for export to Colombia.

vmception 5y ago
and crypto brings back bearer shares on steroids not regarding anonymity but in fungibility and capital formation, selling and trading the shares is on another level