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> How many legitimate transactions are made more expensive, or never begun at all, because of AML regulations? Vanishingly few, I'd say? You're asking that in
by ajross 3y ago
> How many legitimate transactions are made more expensive, or never begun at all, because of AML regulations?
Vanishingly few, I'd say? You're asking that in a rhetorical sense: "Ah, but you didn't think about this did you? That invalidates your point."
But your question is a real one with a quantitative answer. And in fact AML statutes exist (or don't) in lots of different markets in the real world, and were introduced at different times. You can look at the macroeconomics if you want and try to puzzle out the effect.
And really there is none. Western capitalism was going gangbusters through the whole period in the 20th century where cash flow tracking was being introduced. And contemporary regimes that resisted AML introduction (c.f the famous swiss bank account) really didn't grow any faster or slower.
- h2odragon 3y ago> really there is none I personally know businesses owners who ceased operations because the laws around dealing with cash in quantity became too troublesome.
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- superkuh 3y agoNone? I think you might need to acknowledge you're speaking about something you don't have any experience with. Everyone who's touched that end of the money transfer elephant has come away stinking and with a great distaste for it. Myself included. I've definitely not done many (completely legal and above board) things simply because AML prevents it.
- arpinum 3y agoMost financial institutions in my country of residence will not have me as a customer because I hold a certain foreign passport. I'm too expensive to service because of these AML / KYC laws. And we know it is because of these laws as they stopped accepting me as a customer when these laws went into effect. There is exactly 1 financial institution in the country that will have me as a customer, but even then I am restricted from buying most of their products.
- viknesh 3y agoIs there a passport other than USA which has these properties?
- roenxi 3y agoOurworldindata claims that the 20th century saw the relative wealth of the western powers continuously decline from ~70% of the world economy to ~40% today [0]. We can't be sure why, it is a very political question. The idea that western powers should control 70% of the world economy is certainly questionable. But something that the west has been doing has killed off growth and put it in a relatively weak position. Corruption of the banking industry away from making good investments and towards supporting government policy objectives is a candidate for contributing to that. It's gotten to the point where as far as I can tell the US has capital controls in place because foreign banks won't take US customers. Not an American so I might just be wrong on that point I suppose. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-world-regions-stacked-area?stackMode=relative https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-world-regions-stacked...
- joshuaissac 3y agoFrom that graph, it seems to just be about other parts of the world catching up, rather than an actual decline in the West. It is clearer after switching the graph from relative to absolute mode.
- ajross 3y agoYeah, that argument was taking data that says essentially "global trade driven by western rule of law regimes lifts all boats" and tries to say "western rule of law is bad because the other boats were lifted". The ideological bent on HN threads really has gotten a little out of control in recent years. We're literally in a topic where the bulk of the posting volume is from the "money laundering is good, actually" camp.
- roenxi 3y agoIf you are ahead and then everyone else catches up, what does that say about your running performance? It says achieving average speed, but recent performance was a bit sedentary. And it isn't KYC/AML laws doing that in isolation because it is too big a trend and too much happens over a century. But "Western capitalism was going gangbusters through the whole period in the 20th century where cash flow tracking was being introduced." - no it wasn't. Western capitalism has been slowly mean-reverting to fall in line with all the authoritarian states and tinpot dictatorships. The economic strategy that the west has been using does not seem to be creating vast amounts of wealth in the west. Most of the wealth is being created in Asia. And big investments take 20-30 years to pay off, so we're probably seeing the results of policies from 1940 through to around 2000 in that chart.
- hyperman1 3y agoI was talking with a bank teller in a tourist area. She told a lot of local restaurants are opening 4 or 5 bank accounts and depositing every evening, because no individual bank wants to accept the whole amount, because of AML. This in a country where most paymentscare digital. What's the cost of all these restaurant owners doing all banks every day?