4 ms·

As always, he moves the cup so flashily for so long that you forget that you never saw him put the ball under it in the first place. If you take it as read that

by lmm 2y ago

As always, he moves the cup so flashily for so long that you forget that you never saw him put the ball under it in the first place. If you take it as read that Binance (the largest threat to his business interests) really are evil, then of course destroying any bank willing to serve them is perfectly justified. I also love the impersonal gloss over the actions of all the bank employees, as though all the Operation Choke Point crimes were carried out by machines directed by the politicians and regulators, and not humans making the choice to be Quislings. Look at the quote from Zuckerberg where he expresses regret for the poor choices he and his company made, and note the conspicuous absence of anyone doing the same from the banking/finance industry. Those of us who've been paying attention are not hearing about debanking for the first time now, we've been banging this drum for years. In a country with the US' asset forfeiture laws, denial of banking service is de facto denial of the human right to own property. The current situation in the US is shameful, and while part of that shame should fall on the politicians and regulators, much of it rightly falls on the banks themselves. (Nor is it that an alternative is impractical. The UK made it legally obligatory for banks to offer "basic bank accounts" to everyone in 2016, and the sky has not fallen). I have no love for the crypto people, but they're fighting for the right thing here (whether they're doing so out of good motives or bad) and I hope they succeed.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dalemhurley 2y ago
So you are saying that a private company, i.e. the bank must service the crypto industry even though it is going to mean they will suffer massive losses in doing so? See my explanation of why it is an extremely costly venture for banks.
- lmm 2y ago
  My position is that banks (which are not "private companies" as normally understood, but heavily regulated entities whose status already involves a complex bundle of special rights and special obligations) should be obliged to provide basic banking to any legally operating individual or business, just as they are already obliged to offer various services that they probably would not if they had a free choice. If they are unable to figure out a way to provide basic banking without extending credit in the way patio11 describes then this will of course be extremely costly for them, but I suspect they would figure out a way to not have to extend credit rather quickly (hint: look at what banks in virtually any other country do) if they actually tried. If not - i.e. if the current price of banking is only sustainable when banks are permitted to arbitrarily refuse service - then I guess prices will have to rise to something similar to what they are in countries where banks already have those kind of service obligations. Again, that doesn't sound like such a terrible fate.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    I completely agree when it comes to personal accounts, but the restrictions required to avoid extending credit make such accounts impractical for any realistic business purpose. You can’t, for example, allow the customer to write checks.
    - dvdkon 2y ago
      I know this debate is about the US banking system, but I feel the need to point out that in most of the EU, cheques basically aren't used, and business purchases are generally made by wire transfers. Without a chequebook or credit card, you could offer a bank account without any risk that the bank would ever have to pay out more than its nominal balance. Bank runs could still be a problem, but I feel an appropriate pricing structure could solve that.
      - wmf 2y ago
        Wire transfers can be reversed. It's rare, but when it rains it pours. Maybe this could be "solved" by holding all incoming funds for, say, 60 days but that would be extremely hard on most businesses.
        dalemhurley 2y ago
        60 day call accounts are a great solution for managing the risk not meeting the desires of the crypto community.
      - dalemhurley 2y ago
        SVB has entered the chat. Liquidity in crypto is extremely difficult due to the volatility.
  - dalemhurley 2y ago
    Okay, now I understand, you know very little about banking. I started a bank so I will try to help. Banks are mostly private companies (most are listed on stock exchanges) so public companies in that meaning, but in most cases they are not government owned. I was meaning private in the sense they are not public owned entities by the government. Banks are highly regulated. Regulations require banks to manage their risks mainly liquidity and capital risks plus operational risks. There is no laws mandating banks must bank everyone and every business. There are laws that mandate banks must not take on excessive risks. Banking is a principle based regulation. This means the governments set laws based on guidelines of how banks meet the obligations. Banks are managing their customers constantly and any customer that represents unmanageable risks mainly liquidity they must remove them from their balance sheets. It is the crypto industry fault that they refuse to take the actions and accountability to work with the banks. This doesn’t only happen in crypto. Crypto is highly volatile and liquidity is unmanageable for banks. When I spoke to the regulators, we were told we had to hold 100% liquidity for deposits intended for crypto. There is zero ability to recover the losses of the liquidity obligations. Like all businesses, banks have the right to refuse to service customers they don’t want to serve because the costs exceed the income. On the flip side the crypto industry is refusing to accept the additional costs and refusing to derisk their platforms.
- fabian2k 2y ago
  Not familiar with the UK version, but these kinds of regulations usually apply to personal bank accounts and do not require extending any credit. So you'd only get a basic bank account that cannot be overdrawn, nothing more.
  - throw_a_grenade 2y ago
    Not familiar with UK either, but in PL, you're mostly right, with the addition that you can also use this account for simple business, aka "one person company" for which you don't need to have a separate account.
- zajio1am 2y ago
  The cost is here due to AML regulation. If government wants to outsource its duties (crime intercepting) to banks, then perhaps it should be government to pay for it (in the similar manner it pays telecoms for wiretapping).
  - dalemhurley 2y ago
    I fully agree that the cost of the AML/CTF should be on the government. However a bank still needs to work out if they will risk accept customers. For example my CRO presented to me the cost of enhanced due diligence for Delaware companies. It was cost prohibitive so I argued that we should not bank customers who are too complex for the next 12 months.
k__ 2y ago
Like everything related to politics it's about plausible deniability. The founding fathers sold their ideas as freedom from the tyranny of the crown. While this was true, they probably didn't care as much for the freedom of the average Joe, but their own freedom and that of their rich friends. They just needed the freedom of the average Joe to get the masses on board without blatantly lying about their actual goals. The rich people of crypto see themselves similarly, selling their ideas as freedom from the tyranny of traditional finance; and they have a point: There are millions of average people out there who suffer by the hand of financial institutions. However, the goal of the crypto "elite" is mainly the freedom of their own and their rich friends, they just need the freedom of the average Joe to get the masses on board. Now, the only thing left to argue is if the rich people from back in the days had a better case against the crown as the rich people from today have against traditional finance.
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>denial of banking service is de facto denial of the human right to own property. Is property ownership a 'human right', or a 'human privilege' (nod to George Carlin)?
- lmm 2y ago
  It's literally in the UN declaration, and widely accepted as a basic right. If some philosopher thinks there is some sense in which it isn't a right, so much the worse for their philosophy.
  - barry-cotter 2y ago
    The UN is not a moral authority and utterances endorsed by it have no more moral weight than any other political organisation.
    - anticorporate 2y ago
      Imagine being a newcomer coming to this discussion and the two sides are "debanking is bad and hurts people" and "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is garbage."
      - barry-cotter 2y ago
        That the UN General Assembly endorses a document is no more valuable a signal than BRICS, the OIC or the Arab League doing so. If you want to point to a document for its moral weight better not to point to one from an organisation that has Saudi Arabia chairing its women’s rights committee.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  All rights are unnatural. Therefore “we” get to collectively agree on what rights all people ought to be granted. I believe almost anywhere you go you’ll find that most people agree to consider property ownership to be a basic right.
PhasmaFelis 2y ago
> Look at the quote from Zuckerberg where he expresses regret for the poor choices he and his company made I'm sure Zuckerberg does have regrets, but I think it's a mistake to assume they align with actual human interest except by coincidence. The state of Facebook today, and for many years before, has nothing to do with any honest concern for human welfare, however misguided.
pjc50 2y ago
> The UK made it legally obligatory for banks to offer "basic bank accounts" to everyone in 2016, and the sky has not fallen). This did not avoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage_Coutts_bank_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage_Coutts_bank_scand... However there's a vital layer of ambiguity in that story which made it more confusing for everyone involved: Coutts is a long standing "private bank" which makes a point of not serving everyone, only HNWIs, and Farage fell into both the "not rich enough" and "too politically exposed" categories. > The current situation in the US is shameful, and while part of that shame should fall on the politicians and regulators, much of it rightly falls on the banks themselves Like the lack of consumer protection and public safety in the US, at some point you have to accept that the public are also ultimately responsible through the ballot box. US financial control systems are driven firstly by the catch-all "war on terror", which since 9/11 has been used to justify any and all authoritarianism with public support, war on drugs ditto (despite state level legalization!), and thirdly evangelical support for Operation Choke Point.
- MonkeyClub 2y ago
  The Farage situation hardly applies as an example, if at all. From the linked Wikipedia page: > NatWest, the owner of Coutts, initially claimed that he failed to meet the Coutts eligibility criteria of holding £1,000,000 or more in his account, following the expiry of his mortgage. NatWest instead offered him an account with the retail side of the bank. So it's hardly a case of debanking a random Joe. It was only a higher-end account that was closed for not keeping the requirements for keeping it, and Farage was offered a normal account.
  - ahakki 2y ago
    From the same Wikipedia article: > It was later revealed that Farage's account was closed in part as Coutts felt that his beliefs and values did not align with theirs. In an internal dossier, Coutts wrote that he "is at best seen as xenophobic and pandering to racists" and considered a "disingenuous grifter".
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    > initially claimed
robertlagrant 2y ago
> and not humans making the choice to be Quislings What is with the obsession with calling people quislings? Have all the nationalists transferred their hyper-patriotism to more socially acceptable targets, instead of just learning not to be like that?
- pessimizer 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that businesses shouldn't be regulated.
- empath75 2y ago
  It's dehumanizing language that encourages violence.
  - adolph 2y ago
    Maybe this is a minor quibble, but Quisling was a person. Thus, drawing parallels between Quisling’s actions and those being characterized is not dehumanizing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling
  - ConspiracyFact 2y ago
    How so?
- lmm 2y ago
  If it's a current trend then, much like with complaining about debanking, it's one that I was years ahead of the curve on. Humans should not blindly follow orders, and that you were following orders from the legitimate authorities does not absolve you of responsibility for your choices.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by lmm 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dalemhurley 2y ago

So you are saying that a private company, i.e. the bank must service the crypto industry even though it is going to mean they will suffer massive losses in doing so? See my explanation of why it is an extremely costly venture for banks.

lmm 2y ago
My position is that banks (which are not "private companies" as normally understood, but heavily regulated entities whose status already involves a complex bundle of special rights and special obligations) should be obliged to provide basic banking to any legally operating individual or business, just as they are already obliged to offer various services that they probably would not if they had a free choice. If they are unable to figure out a way to provide basic banking without extending credit in the way patio11 describes then this will of course be extremely costly for them, but I suspect they would figure out a way to not have to extend credit rather quickly (hint: look at what banks in virtually any other country do) if they actually tried. If not - i.e. if the current price of banking is only sustainable when banks are permitted to arbitrarily refuse service - then I guess prices will have to rise to something similar to what they are in countries where banks already have those kind of service obligations. Again, that doesn't sound like such a terrible fate.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  I completely agree when it comes to personal accounts, but the restrictions required to avoid extending credit make such accounts impractical for any realistic business purpose. You can’t, for example, allow the customer to write checks.
  - dvdkon 2y ago
    I know this debate is about the US banking system, but I feel the need to point out that in most of the EU, cheques basically aren't used, and business purchases are generally made by wire transfers. Without a chequebook or credit card, you could offer a bank account without any risk that the bank would ever have to pay out more than its nominal balance. Bank runs could still be a problem, but I feel an appropriate pricing structure could solve that.
    - wmf 2y ago
      Wire transfers can be reversed. It's rare, but when it rains it pours. Maybe this could be "solved" by holding all incoming funds for, say, 60 days but that would be extremely hard on most businesses.
      - dalemhurley 2y ago
        60 day call accounts are a great solution for managing the risk not meeting the desires of the crypto community.
    - dalemhurley 2y ago
      SVB has entered the chat. Liquidity in crypto is extremely difficult due to the volatility.
- dalemhurley 2y ago
  Okay, now I understand, you know very little about banking. I started a bank so I will try to help. Banks are mostly private companies (most are listed on stock exchanges) so public companies in that meaning, but in most cases they are not government owned. I was meaning private in the sense they are not public owned entities by the government. Banks are highly regulated. Regulations require banks to manage their risks mainly liquidity and capital risks plus operational risks. There is no laws mandating banks must bank everyone and every business. There are laws that mandate banks must not take on excessive risks. Banking is a principle based regulation. This means the governments set laws based on guidelines of how banks meet the obligations. Banks are managing their customers constantly and any customer that represents unmanageable risks mainly liquidity they must remove them from their balance sheets. It is the crypto industry fault that they refuse to take the actions and accountability to work with the banks. This doesn’t only happen in crypto. Crypto is highly volatile and liquidity is unmanageable for banks. When I spoke to the regulators, we were told we had to hold 100% liquidity for deposits intended for crypto. There is zero ability to recover the losses of the liquidity obligations. Like all businesses, banks have the right to refuse to service customers they don’t want to serve because the costs exceed the income. On the flip side the crypto industry is refusing to accept the additional costs and refusing to derisk their platforms.
fabian2k 2y ago
Not familiar with the UK version, but these kinds of regulations usually apply to personal bank accounts and do not require extending any credit. So you'd only get a basic bank account that cannot be overdrawn, nothing more.
- throw_a_grenade 2y ago
  Not familiar with UK either, but in PL, you're mostly right, with the addition that you can also use this account for simple business, aka "one person company" for which you don't need to have a separate account.
zajio1am 2y ago
The cost is here due to AML regulation. If government wants to outsource its duties (crime intercepting) to banks, then perhaps it should be government to pay for it (in the similar manner it pays telecoms for wiretapping).
- dalemhurley 2y ago
  I fully agree that the cost of the AML/CTF should be on the government. However a bank still needs to work out if they will risk accept customers. For example my CRO presented to me the cost of enhanced due diligence for Delaware companies. It was cost prohibitive so I argued that we should not bank customers who are too complex for the next 12 months.

k__ 2y ago

Like everything related to politics it's about plausible deniability. The founding fathers sold their ideas as freedom from the tyranny of the crown. While this was true, they probably didn't care as much for the freedom of the average Joe, but their own freedom and that of their rich friends. They just needed the freedom of the average Joe to get the masses on board without blatantly lying about their actual goals. The rich people of crypto see themselves similarly, selling their ideas as freedom from the tyranny of traditional finance; and they have a point: There are millions of average people out there who suffer by the hand of financial institutions. However, the goal of the crypto "elite" is mainly the freedom of their own and their rich friends, they just need the freedom of the average Joe to get the masses on board. Now, the only thing left to argue is if the rich people from back in the days had a better case against the crown as the rich people from today have against traditional finance.

Ylpertnodi 2y ago

>denial of banking service is de facto denial of the human right to own property. Is property ownership a 'human right', or a 'human privilege' (nod to George Carlin)?

lmm 2y ago
It's literally in the UN declaration, and widely accepted as a basic right. If some philosopher thinks there is some sense in which it isn't a right, so much the worse for their philosophy.
- barry-cotter 2y ago
  The UN is not a moral authority and utterances endorsed by it have no more moral weight than any other political organisation.
  - anticorporate 2y ago
    Imagine being a newcomer coming to this discussion and the two sides are "debanking is bad and hurts people" and "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is garbage."
    - barry-cotter 2y ago
      That the UN General Assembly endorses a document is no more valuable a signal than BRICS, the OIC or the Arab League doing so. If you want to point to a document for its moral weight better not to point to one from an organisation that has Saudi Arabia chairing its women’s rights committee.
nkrisc 2y ago
All rights are unnatural. Therefore “we” get to collectively agree on what rights all people ought to be granted. I believe almost anywhere you go you’ll find that most people agree to consider property ownership to be a basic right.

PhasmaFelis 2y ago

> Look at the quote from Zuckerberg where he expresses regret for the poor choices he and his company made I'm sure Zuckerberg does have regrets, but I think it's a mistake to assume they align with actual human interest except by coincidence. The state of Facebook today, and for many years before, has nothing to do with any honest concern for human welfare, however misguided.

pjc50 2y ago

> The UK made it legally obligatory for banks to offer "basic bank accounts" to everyone in 2016, and the sky has not fallen). This did not avoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage_Coutts_bank_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage_Coutts_bank_scand... However there's a vital layer of ambiguity in that story which made it more confusing for everyone involved: Coutts is a long standing "private bank" which makes a point of not serving everyone, only HNWIs, and Farage fell into both the "not rich enough" and "too politically exposed" categories. > The current situation in the US is shameful, and while part of that shame should fall on the politicians and regulators, much of it rightly falls on the banks themselves Like the lack of consumer protection and public safety in the US, at some point you have to accept that the public are also ultimately responsible through the ballot box. US financial control systems are driven firstly by the catch-all "war on terror", which since 9/11 has been used to justify any and all authoritarianism with public support, war on drugs ditto (despite state level legalization!), and thirdly evangelical support for Operation Choke Point.

MonkeyClub 2y ago
The Farage situation hardly applies as an example, if at all. From the linked Wikipedia page: > NatWest, the owner of Coutts, initially claimed that he failed to meet the Coutts eligibility criteria of holding £1,000,000 or more in his account, following the expiry of his mortgage. NatWest instead offered him an account with the retail side of the bank. So it's hardly a case of debanking a random Joe. It was only a higher-end account that was closed for not keeping the requirements for keeping it, and Farage was offered a normal account.
- ahakki 2y ago
  From the same Wikipedia article: > It was later revealed that Farage's account was closed in part as Coutts felt that his beliefs and values did not align with theirs. In an internal dossier, Coutts wrote that he "is at best seen as xenophobic and pandering to racists" and considered a "disingenuous grifter".
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > initially claimed

robertlagrant 2y ago

> and not humans making the choice to be Quislings What is with the obsession with calling people quislings? Have all the nationalists transferred their hyper-patriotism to more socially acceptable targets, instead of just learning not to be like that?

pessimizer 2y ago
[flagged]
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that businesses shouldn't be regulated.
empath75 2y ago
It's dehumanizing language that encourages violence.
- adolph 2y ago
  Maybe this is a minor quibble, but Quisling was a person. Thus, drawing parallels between Quisling’s actions and those being characterized is not dehumanizing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling
- ConspiracyFact 2y ago
  How so?
lmm 2y ago
If it's a current trend then, much like with complaining about debanking, it's one that I was years ahead of the curve on. Humans should not blindly follow orders, and that you were following orders from the legitimate authorities does not absolve you of responsibility for your choices.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]