24 ms·

Austrian leader proposes enshrining the use of cash in country's constitution

189 points by justin66 3y ago

DarkNova6 3y ago
[flagged]
- kavalg 3y ago
  Do you have a source for the 50.000 € limit? At least where I live, even as of now it is more 5000 € for a single deal/sale. If the sale amount is above that, it must go through a cashless payment.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > 50.000 € limit That is meant to be a roof for all ("No country shall exceed etc.") - a roof for further decision national administrations may make.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > it is a little surprising to see such political news on HN In my experience, currencies have been of consistent interest in HN. At least, if you consider cryptocurrencies as such ;-) > But this is a none-issue > is meant to be a step against organised crime Perhaps recent developments around the world would change your mind? The Canadian trucker protests of 2022 saw political protestors get bank accounts frozen, and more recently a famous politician in the UK got de-banked partly out of his political views. And these are democratic countries with rule of law. The situation in places like China are a lot more dire, where the government can easily make you cease to be able to function in society, simply by freezing your WePay account.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    >In my experience, currencies have been of consistent interest in HN. At least, if you consider cryptocurrencies as such ;-) Not to mention stories like this are due to the changing impacts of fintech and schemes being used in tech to replace cash payments
  - alborzb 3y ago
    >> recently a famous politician in the UK got de-banked partly out of his political views As a person in the UK, who is fairly in touch with the media industry. This is such a non-story. I just want to do my bit to fight disinformation with the real information here : That FORMER (not current) politician is a TV personality, who works for a TV channel called GB News [1] GB News is directly managed by Paul Marshall, in a personal capacity (who also operates a hedge fund). [2] That hedge fund took out short positions against the bank (which means they made bets that the banks share price would fall). In fact they had the largest bet ever against the bank, since records began of short positions. [3] Coutts is a private bank that is exclusively for high net worth individuals [4] The TV personality withdraw money from his Coutts account and fell below the minimum balance requirements needed for an account with this private bank (which is £1million or $1.3million in dollars) [5] The TV channel then made a big splash by announcing that this man's account got closed due to his political positons, rather than the reality of his financial withdrawals. Which cause the banks share price to drop due to the negative media attention. This made a large profit for the hedge fund that had bet against the bank and was managed by the person who owns the TV channel that ran this story [6] [1] https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-government-and-politics-europe-tv-news-82c8f1b0d593cd5dfa1b0f88f5c4f2fe https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-government-... [2] https://www.gbnews.com/about-us/our-investors https://www.gbnews.com/about-us/our-investors [3] https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4111886/hedge-fund-marshall-wace-ups-short-bet-natwest https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4111886/hedge-fund-mar... [4] https://www.coutts.com/private-banking.html https://www.coutts.com/private-banking.html [5] https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/revealed-the-real-reason-farages-bank-account-was-closed-352051/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/revealed-the-real... [6] https://www.thenational.scot/news/23683277.nigel-farage-row-sees-gb-news-owner-profit-shorting-natwest/ https://www.thenational.scot/news/23683277.nigel-farage-row-...
    - reaperducer 3y ago
      The TV personality withdraw money from his Coutts account and fell below the minimum balance requirements needed for an account with this private bank From what I've seen on the news, the account balance issue was an excuse that Coutts came up with later, after it was revealed that he had his account closed because "his views do not align with ours" or something similar. There was a leaked email or memo or something with that information. Edit: According to what the Telegraph says are minutes of a meeting of Coutts' wealth reputational risk committee held on November 17 2022, they read: "The committee did not think continuing to bank NF [Nigel Farage] was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation. "This was not a political decision but one centred around inclusivity and purpose." He also said there was a perception that he was regarded as "racist and xenophobic", which he called an "appalling slur". https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66240298 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66240298
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    > The Canadian trucker protests of 2022 saw political protestors get bank accounts frozen I get it, but given that the protest was funded by right-wing groups in the USA, is it really valid to call it just a Canadian trucker protest? I thought the reason for freezing the accounts was that Canada had laws against undeclared foreign funded political activities (like the USA does as well)? And if it was cash, most countries already require you to declare, at the border, if you have more than $10k in cash (or untracked instruments of trade) when you pass through customs. I don't see a "right to cash" changing that, and the Canadian truck protest still wouldn't have been able to be funded by the Americans even if cash was used.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    in china recently businesses have been warned against refusing to accept cash. most online services also accept other payment options besides wechat. not having wechat pay is an inconvenience but not a tragedy.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Assuming you're Austrian and have a better grasp of this issue than I. That said, I think this is an interesting news story despite the Austrian politics; privacy & surveillance, fiat currency & inflation, economic access and freedoms... these are all issues that many countries and peoples will have to tackle in the coming years...
- account42 3y ago
  > They claim that the EU wants to ban all cash payments. But this is a none-issue, as the proposed EU law sets a limit to 50.000 € and is meant to be a step against organised crime. How does that make it a non-issue?
- ekianjo 3y ago
  Yeah and online censorship in the EU is only about going after child pornography. Do you believe in a lot of fairy tales too?
- benreesman 3y ago
  I think there's a general consensus that finance is squarely on topic for HN. Not to mention we end up talking about politics all the time too because hackers are people (for now! :P).
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > because hackers are people > finance It "only pays the equipment". > politics It "only affects the operating environment". "Little things".
    - benreesman 3y ago
      From a novel? A film? If so please share because it sounds interesting.
- tasogare 3y ago
  [dead]
gottorf 3y ago
I certainly would not mind similar provisions in law in the US.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  I certainly would not mind similar provisions in law in the US. I agree. Every time I see a sign that says "We're cashless!" I read it as "We're racist!" If the very minimal burden of handling cash is going to ruin your business, you're not a business. You're a hobby.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    It'll vary from place to place, but dealing with cash can be quite an expensive exercise. There are costs to depositing it for example. Plus there's a whole layer of security that happens when you have cash on the premises. If you have employees, cash also makes it much (much) easier for theft, fraud, tax evasion, and so on. It's pretty easy for employees to skim cash if it's coming and going. If the "cash" part of the business is small compared to the rest then it makes (business) sense to simply eliminate that. I agree with you though that it has an unequal effect on different groups of people. And yes, the un-banked (and that typically means the poorer segment of society) tend to be the most affected.
    - reaperducer 3y ago
      And yet millions of businesses have figured out how to make it work for the last thousand years. Cashless advocates are always talking about how "expensive" cash is, but never quantify it. Is handling cash more expensive than credit card fees, for example? If it were, businesses like supermarkets that operate on 1-2% margins wouldn't take cash. But they do. Some near me take cash freely, but charge extra to use debit cards. (For some reason, credit cards incur no fee.) It's like the banks have used fear to institutionalize extortion. "Think of all these horrible things that might possibly happen to your business. Damed shame if one of these exceedingly unlikely things was to happen. Now if you give us 3% off your sales, we can make all that disappear..."
mike_hock 3y ago
[flagged]
- tjr225 3y ago
  [dead]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  It's not. The guy is an incompetent right wing a-hole who babblers populist ideas like this to get the people riled up like he's standing up for them with their best interest at heart, instead of focusing on the real issues that people face (housing, cost of living, healthcare, education, immigration, the economy, etc) He's basically the Donald Trump equivalent of Austria but instead of raising border walls to "stop Mexicans" he's, "crusading for cash, and stopping Romanians" instead of the actual issues. Calling him based is like calling Trump based.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    A good idea is a good idea, even when uttered by terrible people. If Hitler said german should eat more fruits and vegetables, that doesn't make it false.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >A good idea is a good idea Everyone has good ideas, hell, I just had 3 good ideas this morning, the point is the intentions of political ideas, and he's intentions are purely for gathering populist support and votes from those doing tax fraud (a large sizable percentage in Austria) as going cashless was never an option in Austria anyway so it was a non-issue to begin with, a nothing burger if you will.
      - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
        Yes, but it did bring the concept to be debated to HN. I'm now thinking we should do it in my country.
throwawa14223 3y ago
Surprised to see someone I associate with the right wing standing up for privacy, but a win is a win.
- thestevesie 3y ago
  Me too, those large Tech companies in California harvesting all of your data are known for their support and donations to Right Wing candidates
  - culi 3y ago
    You're being sarcastic, but I think you have a pretty warped perception here. Take a look at OpenSecrets' data on Google Inc in 2012 or 2014[0] for example. (hint: They have pretty graphs if you scroll down a bit). Notice that it's pretty much neck and neck for total contributions to dems/republican candidates? Facebook, who set a lobbyist spending record, has historically donated more to Republicans than democrats[1] [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/google-inc/summary?id=D000022008 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/google-inc/summary?id=D0000... [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/facebook-inc/C00502906/summary/2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...
    - Acrobatic_Road 3y ago
      I wouldn't call a 60-40 split "neck and neck". And I don't think this counts donations by employees, which I suspect are overwhelmingly to Democrats (because what isn't?)
    - jlawson 3y ago
      You're misinterpreting or misunderstanding the data. The reality is that large tech companies are overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning. In 2020, Meta's contributions (90% from employees) were 91.59% to Democrats [0]. This article [1] explains how their employees make 87% of contributions to Democrats. This article has more good info (Netflix donates 98% Democrat! Google comes in at 88%) [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/totals?id=D000033563 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/totals?id=D000033563 [1] https://www.ft.com/content/2fa73048-db90-11e8-9f04-38d397e6661c https://www.ft.com/content/2fa73048-db90-11e8-9f04-38d397e66... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-...
TekMol 3y ago
What makes cash special is that compared to other assets, it puts a bit more power into the hands of the individual and a bit less power in the hands of the government. To count or seize the individuals cash, the government has to make some fuzz. Aka send men with guns. There seems to be some divide in our world between people who consider individual power a good thing and people who consider it unnecessary. Here in Europe, I have the feeling the vast majority of people consider it unnecessary. The vibe I get is "The system works, so why not let the government handle and control everything.". I wouldn't be surprised if that is a global phenomena and holds steady throughout time. For example, even when the US government seized their citizens gold in 1933, there was no resistance. That people consider "cash" something they "own" is already a sign that people don't understand and don't care how they are gamed by the government. The government can take the value out of that cash however it pleases by printing more of it. And no matter how much the government does that, nobody complains: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE Governments on the other hand understand very well that money is a sham. Thats why they hold hundreds of billions of dollars in gold: https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/which-world-countries-have-the-most-gold/ https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/which-world-... Way more than they hold foreign currency. Gold is hard to pay with though. When Russia had their Dollars frozen last year, it was not like they said "No prob, we'll use gold then". Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if countries will shift their reserves to Bitcoin in the coming decades. As it combines the durability of gold with the usability of money.
- boredhedgehog 3y ago
  > As it combines the durability of gold with the usability of money. But these two things are mutually exclusive. If it's durable, you don't want to use it, because it might be worth more in the future.
  - tmn 3y ago
    What a solution for consumerism. Imagine we only bought what we need. I’m being half tongue and cheek
- throwaway60707 3y ago
nonameiguess 3y ago
Seems a little short-sighted. Constitutions are meant to last for centuries, right? What's the payment landscape going to look like in 2400? Even now, the enforcement detail is too much to put into a Constitution. There would need to be statute dictating exactly what vendors of what size selling what goods in what way have to actually accept cash. There's no sane way to require this of remote transactions. Nobody is mailing envelopes of cash before receiving anything. At best, a Constitutional provision could say something like "the government can't ban cash," which is great, but in a hundred years when nobody at all accepts it and banks don't carry it, you have a pointless, toothless provision in your Constitution.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > Constitutions are meant to last for centuries, right? Apparently, according to a study[0], the average life expectancy of a constitution (I presume it means a written, codified one) since 1789 is around 19 years. So while I'm sure the writers of constitutions envision them to last for centuries, in appears that they don't in practice. The world's oldest written, codified constitution still in operation is the one in the US. [0]: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511817595.004 https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511817595.004
  - noah_buddy 3y ago
    Even the founders of the US did not expect the constitution to be used so long.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Yeah, their successors saw the "an update is required for your constitution, would you like to apply it?" pop-up and they keep clicking "remind me later" button for the last ~100 years.
      - pessimizer 3y ago
        We still have a "Fugitive Slave" clause.
aa_is_op 3y ago
For context here: This guy is a right-wing nutjob who spews Russian propaganda. Ensuring cash is mandated in the constitution ensures that there is always a good money laundering and bribing method available, especially for the Russian mob and spy agencies, which Vienna is crawling with for years: https://www.businessinsider.com/vienna-crawling-russian-spies-does-not-want-to-ban-them-2023-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/vienna-crawling-russian-spie...
- gottorf 3y ago
  The fact that bad people commit crimes with cash doesn't mean that there isn't a public interest in keeping cash widely available as a means of transaction. I don't suppose many HN readers would be in favor of banning encryption just because the internet is crawling with criminals and child pornographers using encrypted communication.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  law and order will fix everything in Austria !
- thestevesie 3y ago
  Mom, there's a Russian under my bed! Lol, the article you just posted is literally an example of bribing someone without using cash. Did you even read it? Do you get your information from just reading headlines without any critical thought? Was this post generated by ChatGPT? Using a very basic and simple understanding of how votee politics and Austria works it's pretty obvious what the simplest reason this policy is being proposed: Cash is popular in Austria and this guy wants to get votes.
raincom 3y ago
Banks hide behind their machine learning/AI algorithms to debank people and small businesses they don't like (reputational risk). Banks also use such tools to debank people and businesses in the name of derisking, because their tools flag so. That's why cash is important in the society; otherwise, you would be forced out of the society by going cashless. Governments (worst offenders being the Western ones) across the world have forced private parties to do the dirty work for them without any due process.
motohagiography 3y ago
This cash provision in the constitution is a nice alternative to the US 2nd amendment about firearms, where you want something that will serve as a check on the state exigencies of the day for the forseeable future. You don't need to arm everyone, but guaranteeing the freedom to associate and transact with each other in an unmediated way is pretty close.
axus 3y ago
While at the grocery store this week, they happily announced that the credit-card processing system had just come back online. It had been down for a few hours for the entire store. Having the option to pay in cash was important even if it meant a trip to the ATM.
- wolfi1 3y ago
  that's the catch in Austria, the number of ATMs goes down as we speak, there are certain places where you have to drive half an hour to the next ATM, so this cash thing is a bit pointless
  - landemva 3y ago
    Maybe there could be a way to put aside some cash and coin at home as an emergecy fund. I keep a box of 500 half dollars, along with paper money.
ur-whale 3y ago
Every once in a while, HN publishes good news. This is one of them.
spandrew 3y ago
Cash has a real implication accessibility as well — particularly those who may not have enough income to even hold a bank account (that may be a NA thing?). It also helps those who aren't digitally literate or may have cognitive disabilities that a screen can make worse. In addition to some level of security — there are a lot of reasons to keep cash around.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  The EU has a formal right to a basic bank account that the US lacks (there've been some proposals to have the USPS provide a similar system). https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...
nmstoker 3y ago
I recall a trip to Austria as a boy in the early nineties and having it related by an Austrian (who dealt with international types/tourists a lot) that the opening of a McDonald's Drive-Thru located somewhat up towards the mountains near Innsbruck had not gone smoothly! It seems that the locals, being from long established farming stock, were aghast at handing over money before they got their meals from a different window! Credit cards were barely accepted anywhere either. Whilst I'm sure the credit card situation has improved markedly since then, maybe a good amount of the spirit behind the drive thru reaction remains?!
- wolfi1 3y ago
  it wouldn't necessarily be farmers alone, there is a saying "Geld gegen Ware", meaning I give you the money you give me simultaneously the goods, it's simply not usual to give the money beforehand
tpoacher 3y ago
Cash would have been a lot more useful if they didn't mandate "renewal" every 5-10 years. (which necessarily needs to happen via a bank, obviously).
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > if they didn't mandate "renewal" every 5-10 years Where?
  - laurencerowe 3y ago
    I’m fine with electronic money but bank notes do get replaced periodically. Last time I went back to England I tried to pay with cash in the pub and was refused since the notes had been changed. Covid meant it was the first time I’d been back for several years. I paid on card like everyone else (not usual in the US.) Went to the post office the next day to exchange them, no ID required.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Ive got a bunch of Swiss currency that can only be exchanged at the Swiss national bank. Annoying. My Indian money is also obviously worthless now, I wonder if my euros are still useful? Cash is a pain, I wish I didn’t keep any foreign currency now since a lot of it is worthless or needs to be converted in special locations.
      - laurencerowe 3y ago
        In small amounts I enjoy how pretty it is. As a kid I found it fascinating how different it all looked. Growing up we only had a few. French Francs, German Marks, Belgian Francs, Danish Krone.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Yes. But I collected too much, this was when I was living in China and had a fear of not having enough hard convertible cash. I didn’t realize, as an American, that cash can expire.
rurban 3y ago
It's a purely populistic political move, as their far right party is campaigning against digital money, e-cards, EU. We had the very same campaign a few decades ago, when the EU demanded some overview over tax evasion accounts.
- deepspace 3y ago
  Tax evasion is my biggest gripe against the existence of cash. As a professional working for a company, I have little or no means of avoiding tax. Rich people can and do pay expensive lawyers and accountants to exploit loopholes in tax law, to minimize their tax liability. People in cash-friendly occupations, like contracting, likewise have the ability to hide income through under-the-table cash transactions. Which leaves poor saps like me to carry an unfair percentage of the tax burden, just so that a few people can feel like they are evading government supervision. (Hint: they are not).
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > just so that a few people can feel like they are evading government supervision. (Hint: they are not). It seems like you're conceding your own point here. If you live in a mansion and drive a Ferrari and claim you only make $15,000/year to the IRS, you're going to jail like Al Capone. Whereas what cash allows you to do is keep anyone from knowing every little thing you buy, which is irrelevant to income tax which by then you've already paid and also irrelevant to sales tax which is collected by the seller even if they don't know who you are.
    - deepspace 3y ago
      The only time I would be worried about authorities knowing what I am buying would be if I were buying an axe, a rope and a shovel. The people cheating taxes through cash transactions are not driving Ferraris, but they are buying groceries with un-taxed wads of money at Costco.
tzs 3y ago
For people who are OK with keeping their money in banks but want to take it out as cash so they can spend it anonymously (as opposed to those who want cash because they don't want to have anything to do with the banking system at all) it is possible to design a system that retains the anonymity of cash but has the convenience of digital currency. And no, this does not require a blockchain. Long before Bitcoin, back in the days before cryptographic currency meant you were probably dealing with geeks bearing grifts, cryptography researchers developed digital cash systems. One I remember worked like this. Banks could issue digital dollars in multiple denominations. To spend a digital dollar D you would do a transformation on it to produced an altered digital dollar D' that you could give to someone. They could verify that D' came from a legitimate digital dollar, but got no information about which digital dollar it came from. When they deposit D' the bank could tell that it was generated from a digital dollar they issue and the denomination but they could not tell which digital dollar it came from. So even if the bank kept a record of every digital dollar you withdrew they could not figure out that D' came from one issue to you, let alone which particular one it was or when it was issues. If you tried to double spend by transforming D to produce D' and then did that again to produce D'' you would get two seemingly different altered digital dollars because the transformation includes a random factor. However if you spend both D' and D'' when they get deposited the bank is able to combine them to recover the original D and can look up who they issued it to and then you've got a lot explaining to do.
- Canada 3y ago
  Where is the technical description of this?
  - tzs 3y ago
    There have been a few such systems. One of the earliest was David Chaum's Ecash [1]. The first three references on that page link to papers covering technical details. Here's a paper analyzing several digital cash protocols [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash [2] https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/inst-of-info-security-dam/documents/secrypt2015.pdf https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-...

189 points by justin66 3y ago

DarkNova6 3y ago

[flagged]

kavalg 3y ago
Do you have a source for the 50.000 € limit? At least where I live, even as of now it is more 5000 € for a single deal/sale. If the sale amount is above that, it must go through a cashless payment.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > 50.000 € limit That is meant to be a roof for all ("No country shall exceed etc.") - a roof for further decision national administrations may make.
gottorf 3y ago
> it is a little surprising to see such political news on HN In my experience, currencies have been of consistent interest in HN. At least, if you consider cryptocurrencies as such ;-) > But this is a none-issue > is meant to be a step against organised crime Perhaps recent developments around the world would change your mind? The Canadian trucker protests of 2022 saw political protestors get bank accounts frozen, and more recently a famous politician in the UK got de-banked partly out of his political views. And these are democratic countries with rule of law. The situation in places like China are a lot more dire, where the government can easily make you cease to be able to function in society, simply by freezing your WePay account.
- delfinom 3y ago
  >In my experience, currencies have been of consistent interest in HN. At least, if you consider cryptocurrencies as such ;-) Not to mention stories like this are due to the changing impacts of fintech and schemes being used in tech to replace cash payments
- alborzb 3y ago
  >> recently a famous politician in the UK got de-banked partly out of his political views As a person in the UK, who is fairly in touch with the media industry. This is such a non-story. I just want to do my bit to fight disinformation with the real information here : That FORMER (not current) politician is a TV personality, who works for a TV channel called GB News [1] GB News is directly managed by Paul Marshall, in a personal capacity (who also operates a hedge fund). [2] That hedge fund took out short positions against the bank (which means they made bets that the banks share price would fall). In fact they had the largest bet ever against the bank, since records began of short positions. [3] Coutts is a private bank that is exclusively for high net worth individuals [4] The TV personality withdraw money from his Coutts account and fell below the minimum balance requirements needed for an account with this private bank (which is £1million or $1.3million in dollars) [5] The TV channel then made a big splash by announcing that this man's account got closed due to his political positons, rather than the reality of his financial withdrawals. Which cause the banks share price to drop due to the negative media attention. This made a large profit for the hedge fund that had bet against the bank and was managed by the person who owns the TV channel that ran this story [6] [1] https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-government-and-politics-europe-tv-news-82c8f1b0d593cd5dfa1b0f88f5c4f2fe https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-government-... [2] https://www.gbnews.com/about-us/our-investors https://www.gbnews.com/about-us/our-investors [3] https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4111886/hedge-fund-marshall-wace-ups-short-bet-natwest https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4111886/hedge-fund-mar... [4] https://www.coutts.com/private-banking.html https://www.coutts.com/private-banking.html [5] https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/revealed-the-real-reason-farages-bank-account-was-closed-352051/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/revealed-the-real... [6] https://www.thenational.scot/news/23683277.nigel-farage-row-sees-gb-news-owner-profit-shorting-natwest/ https://www.thenational.scot/news/23683277.nigel-farage-row-...
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    The TV personality withdraw money from his Coutts account and fell below the minimum balance requirements needed for an account with this private bank From what I've seen on the news, the account balance issue was an excuse that Coutts came up with later, after it was revealed that he had his account closed because "his views do not align with ours" or something similar. There was a leaked email or memo or something with that information. Edit: According to what the Telegraph says are minutes of a meeting of Coutts' wealth reputational risk committee held on November 17 2022, they read: "The committee did not think continuing to bank NF [Nigel Farage] was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation. "This was not a political decision but one centred around inclusivity and purpose." He also said there was a perception that he was regarded as "racist and xenophobic", which he called an "appalling slur". https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66240298 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66240298
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  > The Canadian trucker protests of 2022 saw political protestors get bank accounts frozen I get it, but given that the protest was funded by right-wing groups in the USA, is it really valid to call it just a Canadian trucker protest? I thought the reason for freezing the accounts was that Canada had laws against undeclared foreign funded political activities (like the USA does as well)? And if it was cash, most countries already require you to declare, at the border, if you have more than $10k in cash (or untracked instruments of trade) when you pass through customs. I don't see a "right to cash" changing that, and the Canadian truck protest still wouldn't have been able to be funded by the Americans even if cash was used.
- em-bee 3y ago
  in china recently businesses have been warned against refusing to accept cash. most online services also accept other payment options besides wechat. not having wechat pay is an inconvenience but not a tragedy.
23B1 3y ago
Assuming you're Austrian and have a better grasp of this issue than I. That said, I think this is an interesting news story despite the Austrian politics; privacy & surveillance, fiat currency & inflation, economic access and freedoms... these are all issues that many countries and peoples will have to tackle in the coming years...
account42 3y ago
> They claim that the EU wants to ban all cash payments. But this is a none-issue, as the proposed EU law sets a limit to 50.000 € and is meant to be a step against organised crime. How does that make it a non-issue?
ekianjo 3y ago
Yeah and online censorship in the EU is only about going after child pornography. Do you believe in a lot of fairy tales too?
benreesman 3y ago
I think there's a general consensus that finance is squarely on topic for HN. Not to mention we end up talking about politics all the time too because hackers are people (for now! :P).
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > because hackers are people > finance It "only pays the equipment". > politics It "only affects the operating environment". "Little things".
  - benreesman 3y ago
    From a novel? A film? If so please share because it sounds interesting.
tasogare 3y ago
[dead]

gottorf 3y ago

I certainly would not mind similar provisions in law in the US.

reaperducer 3y ago
I certainly would not mind similar provisions in law in the US. I agree. Every time I see a sign that says "We're cashless!" I read it as "We're racist!" If the very minimal burden of handling cash is going to ruin your business, you're not a business. You're a hobby.
- bruce511 3y ago
  It'll vary from place to place, but dealing with cash can be quite an expensive exercise. There are costs to depositing it for example. Plus there's a whole layer of security that happens when you have cash on the premises. If you have employees, cash also makes it much (much) easier for theft, fraud, tax evasion, and so on. It's pretty easy for employees to skim cash if it's coming and going. If the "cash" part of the business is small compared to the rest then it makes (business) sense to simply eliminate that. I agree with you though that it has an unequal effect on different groups of people. And yes, the un-banked (and that typically means the poorer segment of society) tend to be the most affected.
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    And yet millions of businesses have figured out how to make it work for the last thousand years. Cashless advocates are always talking about how "expensive" cash is, but never quantify it. Is handling cash more expensive than credit card fees, for example? If it were, businesses like supermarkets that operate on 1-2% margins wouldn't take cash. But they do. Some near me take cash freely, but charge extra to use debit cards. (For some reason, credit cards incur no fee.) It's like the banks have used fear to institutionalize extortion. "Think of all these horrible things that might possibly happen to your business. Damed shame if one of these exceedingly unlikely things was to happen. Now if you give us 3% off your sales, we can make all that disappear..."

mike_hock 3y ago

[flagged]

tjr225 3y ago
[dead]
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
It's not. The guy is an incompetent right wing a-hole who babblers populist ideas like this to get the people riled up like he's standing up for them with their best interest at heart, instead of focusing on the real issues that people face (housing, cost of living, healthcare, education, immigration, the economy, etc) He's basically the Donald Trump equivalent of Austria but instead of raising border walls to "stop Mexicans" he's, "crusading for cash, and stopping Romanians" instead of the actual issues. Calling him based is like calling Trump based.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  A good idea is a good idea, even when uttered by terrible people. If Hitler said german should eat more fruits and vegetables, that doesn't make it false.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >A good idea is a good idea Everyone has good ideas, hell, I just had 3 good ideas this morning, the point is the intentions of political ideas, and he's intentions are purely for gathering populist support and votes from those doing tax fraud (a large sizable percentage in Austria) as going cashless was never an option in Austria anyway so it was a non-issue to begin with, a nothing burger if you will.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Yes, but it did bring the concept to be debated to HN. I'm now thinking we should do it in my country.

throwawa14223 3y ago

Surprised to see someone I associate with the right wing standing up for privacy, but a win is a win.

thestevesie 3y ago
Me too, those large Tech companies in California harvesting all of your data are known for their support and donations to Right Wing candidates
- culi 3y ago
  You're being sarcastic, but I think you have a pretty warped perception here. Take a look at OpenSecrets' data on Google Inc in 2012 or 2014[0] for example. (hint: They have pretty graphs if you scroll down a bit). Notice that it's pretty much neck and neck for total contributions to dems/republican candidates? Facebook, who set a lobbyist spending record, has historically donated more to Republicans than democrats[1] [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/google-inc/summary?id=D000022008 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/google-inc/summary?id=D0000... [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/facebook-inc/C00502906/summary/2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...
  - Acrobatic_Road 3y ago
    I wouldn't call a 60-40 split "neck and neck". And I don't think this counts donations by employees, which I suspect are overwhelmingly to Democrats (because what isn't?)
  - jlawson 3y ago
    You're misinterpreting or misunderstanding the data. The reality is that large tech companies are overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning. In 2020, Meta's contributions (90% from employees) were 91.59% to Democrats [0]. This article [1] explains how their employees make 87% of contributions to Democrats. This article has more good info (Netflix donates 98% Democrat! Google comes in at 88%) [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/totals?id=D000033563 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/totals?id=D000033563 [1] https://www.ft.com/content/2fa73048-db90-11e8-9f04-38d397e6661c https://www.ft.com/content/2fa73048-db90-11e8-9f04-38d397e66... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-...

TekMol 3y ago

What makes cash special is that compared to other assets, it puts a bit more power into the hands of the individual and a bit less power in the hands of the government. To count or seize the individuals cash, the government has to make some fuzz. Aka send men with guns. There seems to be some divide in our world between people who consider individual power a good thing and people who consider it unnecessary. Here in Europe, I have the feeling the vast majority of people consider it unnecessary. The vibe I get is "The system works, so why not let the government handle and control everything.". I wouldn't be surprised if that is a global phenomena and holds steady throughout time. For example, even when the US government seized their citizens gold in 1933, there was no resistance. That people consider "cash" something they "own" is already a sign that people don't understand and don't care how they are gamed by the government. The government can take the value out of that cash however it pleases by printing more of it. And no matter how much the government does that, nobody complains: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE Governments on the other hand understand very well that money is a sham. Thats why they hold hundreds of billions of dollars in gold: https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/which-world-countries-have-the-most-gold/ https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/which-world-... Way more than they hold foreign currency. Gold is hard to pay with though. When Russia had their Dollars frozen last year, it was not like they said "No prob, we'll use gold then". Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if countries will shift their reserves to Bitcoin in the coming decades. As it combines the durability of gold with the usability of money.

boredhedgehog 3y ago
> As it combines the durability of gold with the usability of money. But these two things are mutually exclusive. If it's durable, you don't want to use it, because it might be worth more in the future.
- tmn 3y ago
  What a solution for consumerism. Imagine we only bought what we need. I’m being half tongue and cheek
throwaway60707 3y ago

nonameiguess 3y ago

Seems a little short-sighted. Constitutions are meant to last for centuries, right? What's the payment landscape going to look like in 2400? Even now, the enforcement detail is too much to put into a Constitution. There would need to be statute dictating exactly what vendors of what size selling what goods in what way have to actually accept cash. There's no sane way to require this of remote transactions. Nobody is mailing envelopes of cash before receiving anything. At best, a Constitutional provision could say something like "the government can't ban cash," which is great, but in a hundred years when nobody at all accepts it and banks don't carry it, you have a pointless, toothless provision in your Constitution.

gottorf 3y ago
> Constitutions are meant to last for centuries, right? Apparently, according to a study[0], the average life expectancy of a constitution (I presume it means a written, codified one) since 1789 is around 19 years. So while I'm sure the writers of constitutions envision them to last for centuries, in appears that they don't in practice. The world's oldest written, codified constitution still in operation is the one in the US. [0]: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511817595.004 https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511817595.004
- noah_buddy 3y ago
  Even the founders of the US did not expect the constitution to be used so long.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Yeah, their successors saw the "an update is required for your constitution, would you like to apply it?" pop-up and they keep clicking "remind me later" button for the last ~100 years.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      We still have a "Fugitive Slave" clause.

aa_is_op 3y ago

For context here: This guy is a right-wing nutjob who spews Russian propaganda. Ensuring cash is mandated in the constitution ensures that there is always a good money laundering and bribing method available, especially for the Russian mob and spy agencies, which Vienna is crawling with for years: https://www.businessinsider.com/vienna-crawling-russian-spies-does-not-want-to-ban-them-2023-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/vienna-crawling-russian-spie...

gottorf 3y ago
The fact that bad people commit crimes with cash doesn't mean that there isn't a public interest in keeping cash widely available as a means of transaction. I don't suppose many HN readers would be in favor of banning encryption just because the internet is crawling with criminals and child pornographers using encrypted communication.
mistrial9 3y ago
law and order will fix everything in Austria !
thestevesie 3y ago
Mom, there's a Russian under my bed! Lol, the article you just posted is literally an example of bribing someone without using cash. Did you even read it? Do you get your information from just reading headlines without any critical thought? Was this post generated by ChatGPT? Using a very basic and simple understanding of how votee politics and Austria works it's pretty obvious what the simplest reason this policy is being proposed: Cash is popular in Austria and this guy wants to get votes.

raincom 3y ago

Banks hide behind their machine learning/AI algorithms to debank people and small businesses they don't like (reputational risk). Banks also use such tools to debank people and businesses in the name of derisking, because their tools flag so. That's why cash is important in the society; otherwise, you would be forced out of the society by going cashless. Governments (worst offenders being the Western ones) across the world have forced private parties to do the dirty work for them without any due process.

motohagiography 3y ago

This cash provision in the constitution is a nice alternative to the US 2nd amendment about firearms, where you want something that will serve as a check on the state exigencies of the day for the forseeable future. You don't need to arm everyone, but guaranteeing the freedom to associate and transact with each other in an unmediated way is pretty close.

axus 3y ago

While at the grocery store this week, they happily announced that the credit-card processing system had just come back online. It had been down for a few hours for the entire store. Having the option to pay in cash was important even if it meant a trip to the ATM.

wolfi1 3y ago
that's the catch in Austria, the number of ATMs goes down as we speak, there are certain places where you have to drive half an hour to the next ATM, so this cash thing is a bit pointless
- landemva 3y ago
  Maybe there could be a way to put aside some cash and coin at home as an emergecy fund. I keep a box of 500 half dollars, along with paper money.

ur-whale 3y ago

Every once in a while, HN publishes good news. This is one of them.

spandrew 3y ago

Cash has a real implication accessibility as well — particularly those who may not have enough income to even hold a bank account (that may be a NA thing?). It also helps those who aren't digitally literate or may have cognitive disabilities that a screen can make worse. In addition to some level of security — there are a lot of reasons to keep cash around.

ceejayoz 3y ago
The EU has a formal right to a basic bank account that the US lacks (there've been some proposals to have the USPS provide a similar system). https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...

nmstoker 3y ago

I recall a trip to Austria as a boy in the early nineties and having it related by an Austrian (who dealt with international types/tourists a lot) that the opening of a McDonald's Drive-Thru located somewhat up towards the mountains near Innsbruck had not gone smoothly! It seems that the locals, being from long established farming stock, were aghast at handing over money before they got their meals from a different window! Credit cards were barely accepted anywhere either. Whilst I'm sure the credit card situation has improved markedly since then, maybe a good amount of the spirit behind the drive thru reaction remains?!

wolfi1 3y ago
it wouldn't necessarily be farmers alone, there is a saying "Geld gegen Ware", meaning I give you the money you give me simultaneously the goods, it's simply not usual to give the money beforehand

tpoacher 3y ago

Cash would have been a lot more useful if they didn't mandate "renewal" every 5-10 years. (which necessarily needs to happen via a bank, obviously).

mdp2021 3y ago
> if they didn't mandate "renewal" every 5-10 years Where?
- laurencerowe 3y ago
  I’m fine with electronic money but bank notes do get replaced periodically. Last time I went back to England I tried to pay with cash in the pub and was refused since the notes had been changed. Covid meant it was the first time I’d been back for several years. I paid on card like everyone else (not usual in the US.) Went to the post office the next day to exchange them, no ID required.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Ive got a bunch of Swiss currency that can only be exchanged at the Swiss national bank. Annoying. My Indian money is also obviously worthless now, I wonder if my euros are still useful? Cash is a pain, I wish I didn’t keep any foreign currency now since a lot of it is worthless or needs to be converted in special locations.
    - laurencerowe 3y ago
      In small amounts I enjoy how pretty it is. As a kid I found it fascinating how different it all looked. Growing up we only had a few. French Francs, German Marks, Belgian Francs, Danish Krone.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Yes. But I collected too much, this was when I was living in China and had a fear of not having enough hard convertible cash. I didn’t realize, as an American, that cash can expire.

rurban 3y ago

It's a purely populistic political move, as their far right party is campaigning against digital money, e-cards, EU. We had the very same campaign a few decades ago, when the EU demanded some overview over tax evasion accounts.

deepspace 3y ago
Tax evasion is my biggest gripe against the existence of cash. As a professional working for a company, I have little or no means of avoiding tax. Rich people can and do pay expensive lawyers and accountants to exploit loopholes in tax law, to minimize their tax liability. People in cash-friendly occupations, like contracting, likewise have the ability to hide income through under-the-table cash transactions. Which leaves poor saps like me to carry an unfair percentage of the tax burden, just so that a few people can feel like they are evading government supervision. (Hint: they are not).
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > just so that a few people can feel like they are evading government supervision. (Hint: they are not). It seems like you're conceding your own point here. If you live in a mansion and drive a Ferrari and claim you only make $15,000/year to the IRS, you're going to jail like Al Capone. Whereas what cash allows you to do is keep anyone from knowing every little thing you buy, which is irrelevant to income tax which by then you've already paid and also irrelevant to sales tax which is collected by the seller even if they don't know who you are.
  - deepspace 3y ago
    The only time I would be worried about authorities knowing what I am buying would be if I were buying an axe, a rope and a shovel. The people cheating taxes through cash transactions are not driving Ferraris, but they are buying groceries with un-taxed wads of money at Costco.

tzs 3y ago

For people who are OK with keeping their money in banks but want to take it out as cash so they can spend it anonymously (as opposed to those who want cash because they don't want to have anything to do with the banking system at all) it is possible to design a system that retains the anonymity of cash but has the convenience of digital currency. And no, this does not require a blockchain. Long before Bitcoin, back in the days before cryptographic currency meant you were probably dealing with geeks bearing grifts, cryptography researchers developed digital cash systems. One I remember worked like this. Banks could issue digital dollars in multiple denominations. To spend a digital dollar D you would do a transformation on it to produced an altered digital dollar D' that you could give to someone. They could verify that D' came from a legitimate digital dollar, but got no information about which digital dollar it came from. When they deposit D' the bank could tell that it was generated from a digital dollar they issue and the denomination but they could not tell which digital dollar it came from. So even if the bank kept a record of every digital dollar you withdrew they could not figure out that D' came from one issue to you, let alone which particular one it was or when it was issues. If you tried to double spend by transforming D to produce D' and then did that again to produce D'' you would get two seemingly different altered digital dollars because the transformation includes a random factor. However if you spend both D' and D'' when they get deposited the bank is able to combine them to recover the original D and can look up who they issued it to and then you've got a lot explaining to do.

Canada 3y ago
Where is the technical description of this?
- tzs 3y ago
  There have been a few such systems. One of the earliest was David Chaum's Ecash [1]. The first three references on that page link to papers covering technical details. Here's a paper analyzing several digital cash protocols [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash [2] https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/inst-of-info-security-dam/documents/secrypt2015.pdf https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-...