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Let's be honest for a second. There are very few instances where a person would ever 'need' to pay for something over €10k in physical cash?
by Teandw 4y ago
Let's be honest for a second. There are very few instances where a person would ever 'need' to pay for something over €10k in physical cash?
- ccn0p 4y agouh huh. and "Member states will have the flexibility to impose a lower maximum limit if they wish." Don't worry, the water around us that's heating up is for our own good and not at all to cook us.
- jjav 4y ago10K isn't that much money today, relatively easy to do. But much more importantly, inflation means 10K is less and less every year.
- SergeAx 4y agoThere are also very few instances where a person would 'need' to freely express their beliefs or opinions, so what?
- lzaaz 4y agoA vehicle, a house...
- senda 4y agoSure if you don't want to pay tax
- manscrober 4y agoyou don't pay tax on a used vehicle
- estebank 4y agoThat depends on the country.
- lzaaz 4y agoThat's right, I don't. Good thing about cars and houses is that you can pay some amount officially and then pay more money under the table.
- bigfudge 4y agoRight. But that is illegal and in my view also immoral. If you want to change the law campaign for it. But breaking tax laws is not a victimless crime. You are freeloading/stealing from the rest of us.
- lzaaz 4y agoIt's impossible to make people vote to give themselves less money.
- bigfudge 4y agoThat’s factually incorrect. Cf most of Northern Europe for the past 60 years.
- bigfudge 4y agoEdit - ah, I think you mean politicians? My comment still stands though. I don’t know the polling in the US, but spending on social programmes in Europe is broadly inline with public opinion, so the insunuation of a democratic deficit is misplaced, at least here.
- ericmay 4y agoI don’t think “need” is a good reason here or for anywhere else. You don’t need to pay for things in cash, you don’t need to make more money, you don’t need to play soccer. Etc.
- Teandw 4y agoWhat I mean is that for that sort of money, it would be somewhat strange to "want" to pay in cash. You wouldn't walk 200 miles on foot to go meet a friend when you had a car on the driveaway?
- coldtea 4y agoI should still be able if I want to.
- mort96 4y ago> You wouldn't walk 200 miles on foot to go meet a friend when you had a car on the driveaway? Perfect example. I wouldn't do that, no, but I wouldn't want it to be illegal.
- Teandw 4y agoTrue but would you want it to be illegal if the vast majority people that did walk 200 miles on foot instead of driving, did it because they were doing it to get away with committing a crime?
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoSo make the criminal act at the end of the journey illegal, not the act of walking 200 miles on foot. This feels like the question of Blackstone’s ratio: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” I’m not an absolutist about these things, but I take Blackstone’s side of this (very difficult) question.
- lordnacho 4y ago
- f38zf5vdt 4y agoAt the current pace of inflation, in 20 years €10k won't even pay a month's rent for a house or decent flat. Demonetization laws with fixed monetary amounts under inflationary systems are tyrannical.
- mberning 4y agoHorrible take. 10k is a pittance. Small business owners, farmers, people buying and selling vehicles, etc. It’s not a large amount of money. If you go down to the apple store and buy a couple well specced computers the bill is going to be over 10k.
- Teandw 4y agoI very much doubt there are money people that walk into an apple store with 10k in their back pocket to pay for some computers. Same with farmers. How many farmers living in this modern age are walking around with 10k in their back pockets? In the vast majority of cases, I would argue that people just use their bank account for such large payments these days.
- lilsoso 4y agoA new Macbook Pros can easily be over $6k (16", upgraded ram, upgraded hard drive, etc). $10k is not that much money. People do pay for these laptops in cash. A phone has cost over $1k for years. Think of the present rate of inflation. $10k is nothing, particularly a decade from now. Then think of two decades from now and this silly law still on the books.
- dahfizz 4y ago> I would argue that people just use their bank account for such large payments these days. Yup, and now they are _forced_ to. Its a single point of failure. One which the government conveniently has control over. I'm surprised the HN crowd isn't grasping this more clearly. Backups are important.
- coldtea 4y agoYes, and "if you have nothing to hide, you don't need privacy".
- joecool1029 4y agoNever bought a secondhand car have you?
- frereubu 4y agoI'm a relative old-timer, so have lived through plenty of times when electronic payments weren't commonplace, and have also bought a number of second-hand cars. I never used cash - I used banker's drafts, because I didn't want to be mugged and the untraceable cash to go missing. (And even then, they were all worth under €10k).
- Teandw 4y agoI'm not sure in a modern society why I would pull out $10k from my bank account to then pay a person $10k cash for a second hand car, so the answer is no.
- rootusrootus 4y agoYeah this is pretty much the reason cops seize money from unbanked people who try to use their life savings to buy something decently expensive. Because who could possibly be dealing in that amount of cash legitimately, it must be criminal.
- joecool1029 4y ago> Yeah this is pretty much the reason cops seize money from unbanked people who try to use their life savings to buy something decently expensive. I think it's going over most people's heads that buying and selling cars on Craigslist isn't like buying a car from a dealer. I could potentially use bankers drafts but many sellers know this is a commonly forged document and the risk isn't acceptable to them. Almost every single company/bank digital payment service is reversible or able to be cancelled (I naively was not aware of this until I was a part of the early bitcoin-otc community and got to witness the myriad of scams people ran once the other medium wasn't actually reversible).
- bakugo 4y agoWhy does it matter what I "need"? Why is it any of your business what I do with my money? I should have the right to spend it how I want, it's mine.
- Teandw 4y agoIt's not your money. It's partly mine and everyone else's in the country. Just like my money is partially yours. It's my business that you're paying your way in society in a correct manner so that I and others can benefit as part of a collective. (Not that it's always fair but that's a different argument.)
- rootusrootus 4y agoAh, so that's why the cops figure that having more than a few hundred in cash means it's partly theirs. Well, not partly, they generally seem to think is completely theirs.
- Sharlin 4y agoIf the money were yours, it would be legal to destroy cash you possess. I don't think it is in most places that use fiat as a medium of exchange.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- plastiquebeech 4y agoWhat about a car? You probably shouldn't finance a vehicle you can afford with current interest rates, and you may not want to give your debit card to a secondhand dealer for processing. While I do have fond memories of paying less than $10k for a beater, those days may not be coming back. In 10 years, high-end phones and computers could easily fall outside that limit too.
- ars 4y agoIf you are buying a used car from a private party, what else is there except cash?
- jacquesm 4y agoInstant bank transfer using your phone or laptop, smartcard + token.
- Aerroon 4y agoIf I were to wager then I would bet that at least half the population would be unable to make that work. I don't know anybody in real life who accesses their money via a phone. They can do it via a computer, but most people I know don't have laptops.
- TheHappyOddish 4y agoWild, lik Americans talking in another thread yesterday about cheques. Most people I know over 70 have internet banking on their phones. Every adult I know under that age does. Where do you live where this is incredibly rare?
- jacquesm 4y ago> I don't know anybody in real life who accesses their money via a phone. I don't know anybody that doesn't. And that includes 80+ year olds... mobile gear is how people interact with the internet around here and the internet is how people interact with their banks.
- ars 4y agoAren't those reversible? I would never agree to such a transaction with the reversible method of payment.
- jacquesm 4y agoNo, they are not reversible.