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> Why would someone need to pay for 10k in cash? The answer to this is very simple: none of your business. I take strong issue with the word "need." Why do yo

> Why would someone need to pay for 10k in cash? The answer to this is very simple: none of your business. I take strong issue with the word "need." Why do you need that car? That television? That four bedroom house? Why do you need that bow and arrow? For sport, you say? Why not play some ball game instead? Why do you need a chess set when you can play digitally online without killing a tree? Why do you need those fancy clothes? Why does your family need that Disney World vacation? Let's limit your life choices to what someone else decides that you "need" and then ask if life is still worth living. The fact is that freedom and liberty comes with it the ability to not have to explain or justify our life choices to others. Will bad people abuse it and do things you don't like? Yeah. That's the risk that comes with it and we have a legal system to identify and deal with those bad actors. A legal system that ought to exist to serve and promote liberty for the innocent, rather than eliminating it and destroying it for everyone out of fear and suspicion that some people might be up to no good some of the time. So unless there is evidence of wrong-doing, it really is no one's business who they associate with, who they trade with, what they trade, how much they trade and why. And "need" has absolutely no relevance. "Because I want to" ought to be good enough.

mdrzn 3y ago
Nothing wrong with this point of view, except that it's not shared by Europeans as far as I know (and feel). The "none of your business" doesn't work in the long run.
- jaywalk 3y ago
  > The "none of your business" doesn't work in the long run. Well, it should.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  I am European and the feeling "that's none of your business" is shared by many people. An anecdote: The 500 euro bank note was originally created because Germans had the habit of paying in cash, even for large purchases like cars, and they had a DM1,000 bank note (which is about EUR500).
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
It is not my business but the government creates the money and it is their business. It always has been.
- anononaut 3y ago
  Not money, fiat currency. Something without intrinsic value adding nothing of value and resulting ultimately in the ability to control and monitor its usage for inevitably nefarious purposes. It always has been.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    It's a medium of exchange, it doesn't need intrinsic value to add value.
Scarblac 3y ago
Yeah, and your income is also none of our business, we just have to blindly trust what you fill in on the tax form? There's way too much fraud around, government unfortunately cannot blindly trust everybody.
thiht 3y ago
> The answer to this is very simple: none of your business. It kinda is. Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally). That the only argument you can find is « it’s none of your business » doesn’t exactly play against this ruling.
- tomrod 3y ago
  > Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally). Since when? Maybe I just want to buy a handsome dog that won a show?
  - thiht 3y ago
    What does it have to do with cash? Ever heard of bank transfers? Spending $10,000 cash sounds ridiculously unsafe for both parties. > Since when? Drug deals, money laundering schemes, theft, ransoms, etc. I fail to see non illegal way to obtain $10,000 cash. And if you can get it legally, just do bank transfers instead
    - tomrod 3y ago
      It's a very small universe to assume that only illegal activity is conducted with 10k in currency.
      - thiht 3y ago
        I keep asking for legitimate uses of 10k in cash but the only answer I get is that it’s none of my business. It raises questions.
        tomrod 3y ago
        Because it _is_ none of your business. But feel free to review the thread, there are plenty of examples why having large cash reserves and transaction may be helpful for a given situation. The argument for reporting is equivalent to "you have nothing to hide" and privacy. This is another aspect of privacy.
cooper_ganglia 3y ago
It’s absolutely wild to see people making comments like the one you replied to. Are people so eager to have Daddy Government monitoring their every move, deciding how they’re allowed to spend their money? Europeans seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, a fetish for authoritarianism of their preferred flavor. It feels like the entire continent is one big HOA, deciding what color you can paint your house, or what flowers you can plant outside, to “preserve congruency in the neighborhood”. It’s honestly a bit concerning seeing how pacified and apathetic people become about government overreach when it doesn’t affect them directly (yet).
- Radim 3y ago
  > Europeans seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, a fetish for authoritarianism of their preferred flavor. Not all of us! Please trim your paintbrush. Europe comprises dozens of countries, with hundreds of millions of people. My personal divorce from "banking with will-you-think-of-the-children-and-oh-all-the-nasty-criminals" here in CZ happened when I went to withdraw ~14k USD in cash. My Fio bank, that I've been with for 10+ years, asked me, "what do you need the money for?" After collecting my jaw from the floor my answer was of course "none of your business". But the clerk claimed to be "just following the law" (maybe true, I wouldn't know on the spot), that they cannot give me my money without a valid reason. So I said "I want to withdraw it in order to keep it in cash" (doh!). They made a face and said that's not a valid reason. So I asked what is a valid reason then? Is there a list that I can see and choose from? They made a face again and said no, but suggested – trying to be helpful – that most people say "I want to buy a car". Yet I wasn't buying a car and having to lie about this – being advised to lie so a bureaucrat can tick some children-saved-criminals-thwarted checkbox – felt quite surreal. A Kafka-esque exchange. Especially when everybody knows the real money laundering is done by government officials & government-adjacent crooks – in CZ and in every other country under the sun. In the end I got angry and said I'm about to buy a lot of dog food and refused to budge. They backed down, and I learned a very important lesson about "my" money that day.
- nikanj 3y ago
  And Americans have the opposite problem, where they’d rather have an incredible list of social issues than a government. I guess it comes down to perspective: is it fair to force everyone to pay their taxes?
LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
> Will bad people abuse it and do things you don't like? Yeah. That's the risk that comes with it and we have a legal system to identify and deal with those bad actors. The problem is that things like cryptocurrency are largely designed to circumvent the financial and legal system entirely, which becomes a threat to regulated markets once fraudulent actors become large enough to inevitably become a burden to the legal system (see FTX). The government is spending a lot of money cleaning up the FTX mess and they have an interest in ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.

mdrzn 3y ago

Nothing wrong with this point of view, except that it's not shared by Europeans as far as I know (and feel). The "none of your business" doesn't work in the long run.

jaywalk 3y ago
> The "none of your business" doesn't work in the long run. Well, it should.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
I am European and the feeling "that's none of your business" is shared by many people. An anecdote: The 500 euro bank note was originally created because Germans had the habit of paying in cash, even for large purchases like cars, and they had a DM1,000 bank note (which is about EUR500).

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

It is not my business but the government creates the money and it is their business. It always has been.

anononaut 3y ago
Not money, fiat currency. Something without intrinsic value adding nothing of value and resulting ultimately in the ability to control and monitor its usage for inevitably nefarious purposes. It always has been.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  It's a medium of exchange, it doesn't need intrinsic value to add value.

Scarblac 3y ago

Yeah, and your income is also none of our business, we just have to blindly trust what you fill in on the tax form? There's way too much fraud around, government unfortunately cannot blindly trust everybody.

thiht 3y ago

> The answer to this is very simple: none of your business. It kinda is. Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally). That the only argument you can find is « it’s none of your business » doesn’t exactly play against this ruling.

tomrod 3y ago
> Paying something $10,000 cash strongly suggests you’re buying something illegal, or you got this money illegally (not necessarily unethically, but still illegally). Since when? Maybe I just want to buy a handsome dog that won a show?
- thiht 3y ago
  What does it have to do with cash? Ever heard of bank transfers? Spending $10,000 cash sounds ridiculously unsafe for both parties. > Since when? Drug deals, money laundering schemes, theft, ransoms, etc. I fail to see non illegal way to obtain $10,000 cash. And if you can get it legally, just do bank transfers instead
  - tomrod 3y ago
    It's a very small universe to assume that only illegal activity is conducted with 10k in currency.
    - thiht 3y ago
      I keep asking for legitimate uses of 10k in cash but the only answer I get is that it’s none of my business. It raises questions.
      - tomrod 3y ago
        Because it _is_ none of your business. But feel free to review the thread, there are plenty of examples why having large cash reserves and transaction may be helpful for a given situation. The argument for reporting is equivalent to "you have nothing to hide" and privacy. This is another aspect of privacy.

cooper_ganglia 3y ago

It’s absolutely wild to see people making comments like the one you replied to. Are people so eager to have Daddy Government monitoring their every move, deciding how they’re allowed to spend their money? Europeans seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, a fetish for authoritarianism of their preferred flavor. It feels like the entire continent is one big HOA, deciding what color you can paint your house, or what flowers you can plant outside, to “preserve congruency in the neighborhood”. It’s honestly a bit concerning seeing how pacified and apathetic people become about government overreach when it doesn’t affect them directly (yet).

Radim 3y ago
> Europeans seem to have Stockholm Syndrome, a fetish for authoritarianism of their preferred flavor. Not all of us! Please trim your paintbrush. Europe comprises dozens of countries, with hundreds of millions of people. My personal divorce from "banking with will-you-think-of-the-children-and-oh-all-the-nasty-criminals" here in CZ happened when I went to withdraw ~14k USD in cash. My Fio bank, that I've been with for 10+ years, asked me, "what do you need the money for?" After collecting my jaw from the floor my answer was of course "none of your business". But the clerk claimed to be "just following the law" (maybe true, I wouldn't know on the spot), that they cannot give me my money without a valid reason. So I said "I want to withdraw it in order to keep it in cash" (doh!). They made a face and said that's not a valid reason. So I asked what is a valid reason then? Is there a list that I can see and choose from? They made a face again and said no, but suggested – trying to be helpful – that most people say "I want to buy a car". Yet I wasn't buying a car and having to lie about this – being advised to lie so a bureaucrat can tick some children-saved-criminals-thwarted checkbox – felt quite surreal. A Kafka-esque exchange. Especially when everybody knows the real money laundering is done by government officials & government-adjacent crooks – in CZ and in every other country under the sun. In the end I got angry and said I'm about to buy a lot of dog food and refused to budge. They backed down, and I learned a very important lesson about "my" money that day.
nikanj 3y ago
And Americans have the opposite problem, where they’d rather have an incredible list of social issues than a government. I guess it comes down to perspective: is it fair to force everyone to pay their taxes?

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago

> Will bad people abuse it and do things you don't like? Yeah. That's the risk that comes with it and we have a legal system to identify and deal with those bad actors. The problem is that things like cryptocurrency are largely designed to circumvent the financial and legal system entirely, which becomes a threat to regulated markets once fraudulent actors become large enough to inevitably become a burden to the legal system (see FTX). The government is spending a lot of money cleaning up the FTX mess and they have an interest in ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.