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Ending anonymous banking like in Switzerland was a major objective for the US. They said it was because it allowed money laundering for terrorists. People will
by onetimeusename 1y ago
Ending anonymous banking like in Switzerland was a major objective for the US. They said it was because it allowed money laundering for terrorists. People will get upset when the government talks about ending encryption in order to stop terrorism but the same concept applied to money apparently doesn't matter.
In practice we have a system where money laundering has not ended and we have much more financial surveillance for average citizens. That was probably the purpose all along and it never had anything to do with finding tax evaders or stopping terrorism.
- deepsun 1y agoTo be fair Switzerland really did (does?) help to launder a lot of money for terrorism.
- jajko 1y agovery strong claims, any facts to back them up?
- Henchman21 1y agoThey funded the Nazis with the help of the Catholic Church, did they not? Isn’t that a widely known fact? Or am I simply wrong?
- ljlolel 1y agoCatholics were targeted by the Nazis so seems unlikely
- sincerely 1y agoThe catholic church also helped Nazis escape germany after WWII: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II)
- ljlolel 1y agoThat says it was some individuals of a giant organization not policy of any subset of it
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deepsun 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland#Connection_to_illegal_activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland#Connect... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland#Banking_secrecy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland#Banking... https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/tax-timeline-credit-suisse-scandals https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/tax-timeline-cr...
- alexey-salmin 1y agoI checked your links and the word "terrorism" isn't mentioned once. There a single mention of some Al Qaeda members having accounts but it's pretty far from "proof of financing terrorism".
- bawolff 1y agoI mean, they talk about arms dealers. Who exactly do you think is buying arms on the black market?
- alexey-salmin 1y agoThe very same link sheds some light on that question too: "Time magazine reported that throughout 1981 and 1982, the Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the annual multi-million dollars arms deals between Iran and Israel during the Iran–Iraq War." The vast majority of arms dealing is state-controlled, all terrorist groups combined aren't big enough to make a dent. And in any case, the original claim was "money laundering for terrorism" not the other way round.
- yreew 1y agoHow about terrorist states?
- alexey-salmin 1y agoNotice how original claim was "launder a lot of money for terrorism" as if it was something well-known, widespread and repeated. However the evidence so far is "how about this" and "how about that". I would appreciate something more specific like "the investigation found X billions laundered for Hezbollah". Regarding your question: the whole concept of "terrorist states" is made up if you ask me, and UN agrees. States wage wars and commit war crimes (or "collateral damage" if you win the war), other states retaliate. This has little to do with the asymmetric confrontation with terrorist groups which inflict violence but then evade retaliation due to their secretive and decentralized nature. States can't do that: they are centralized and not secretive, you can find them on the map.
- nine_k 1y agoWhat's the point of surveilling the movements of average citizens' money? They usually don't hide anyway. I suppose tax evaders were the target all along, with a smattering of criminal operators, e.g. drug dealers. Terrorists were but a pretext to produce moral panic.
- LocalH 1y agoControl
- nine_k 1y agoMy point that authorities already exercised enough control over normal citizens anyway. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and never cared to have a bank account in Switzerland, let alone an anonymous bank account. But the few certain Americans, and especially non-Americans, who did apparently bothered the US administration enough.
- kelnos 1y agoI think you're missing the point. I honestly don't think the rich people with hidden bank accounts really bothered those in power that much. Why would they; those people are their friends, in many cases. People in power want more power. They want more control, even over average, law-abiding people. They want to moralize and tell you what you should be buying and consuming. Power over others is the goal; it's not incidental. The random Swiss bank account holder is the pretext, not the reason.
- alexey-salmin 1y agoNah, it's always the middle class that gets screwed. Poor can't be squeezed for more, rich have resources to fight back, the middle class ends up paying for everyone.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y agoExactly! This is so so true that words can't explain it. The middle class gets extracted as much as they can. I think we middle class are treated as cash cows.
- pjc50 1y ago> much more financial surveillance for average citizens As with the TSA, any system designed to filter "bad guys" ends up being a huge imposition on average citizens, because there's a lot more of them.
- tzs 1y agoI can see how TSA is an imposition on a large number of average citizens. The Internet is telling me that in recent years (except during COVID) about half of Americans flew in the past year [1], which would mean each year about half of Americans have to deal with the TSA. But with money laundering and KYC I'm having trouble remembering ever having to deal with them. What are situations where the average citizen finds them an imposition? I vaguely remember being asked what the sources were for the money in my IRAs, but don't remember who asked or what I was doing with them. Maybe it was during an application for a home equity line of credit? Anyway, whatever it was I just told them (rollover from a 401k, money from my salary, and earnings from investments held in the IRAs) and they didn't ask for any proof or anything. [1] https://www.airlines.org/dataset/air-travelers-in-america-annual-survey/ https://www.airlines.org/dataset/air-travelers-in-america-an...
- tastyfreeze 1y ago> I vaguely remember being asked what the sources were for the money in my IRAs That is the issue. Its none of their business where your money came from. The collected information will eventually be abused as evidenced most recently by Canada's trucker bank freezes.
- jgilias 1y agoNot in the states, but. Just yesterday I went to a Toyota dealership to take a look at a Yaris with my retiree mom. During the usual sales talk, the rep casually dropped that there’s an AML form that needs filling in if the sales go through. For a fucking Toyota Yaris. Bought by a retiree. Who’s going to be paying it through the banking system where they already have KYC, AML, and all of her financial history. If that’s not overreach, I don’t know what is. And… who elected the people who came up with this? (That’s a rhetorical question)
- sleepybrett 1y agoDon't forget tax cheats.
- jurking_hoff 1y ago[dead]