4 ms·

But doing things like purposely obfuscating money flowing between the US and Iran as a middle man to get around sanctions?

by pyre 14y ago

jacquesm 14y ago
Banks are not in charge of policing the world. If the US wants to stop funds/goods from leaving/ending up in Iran they should stop those funds/goods from entering/leaving the US in the first place.
- pyre 14y ago
  | Banks are not in charge of policing the world. I never claimed that they were. If HSBC wants to transfer money between (e.g.) Turkey and Iran, then the US has no say, even if they don't like it. | If the US wants to stop funds/goods from | leaving/ending up in Iran they should stop those | funds/goods from entering/leaving the US in the | first place. This is a straw-man. I'm not talking about attempting to prevent every possible thing that ever leaves the US from ever entering Iran under all possible circumstances. That's obviously impossible. The article paints a picture that HSBC provided the service of routing money around so that people in Iran could transfer money to the US and vice versa. The entire purpose of this service would be to obfuscate the origin or destination of the transfer from the US government. I wouldn't say that requiring HSBC to not do this would be requiring them to 'police the world,' but if they want to be chartered as a bank in the US, it certainly makes sense that they should 'play by the rules.' If they were specifically offering/advertising a service to clients where-by they would actively skirt those rules, it doesn't seem like there is an issue with (at the least) revoking their charter.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > if they want to be chartered as a bank in the US, it certainly makes sense that they should 'play by the rules.' It appears they are not doing that and it appears their charter won't be revoked. The point I tried to make was that no matter what you do to restrict such transactions from happening, they will happen. The only people that suffer from sanctions are the poor, the rest will continue underground. If you want to play global policeman and if you want to limit access to goods/funds for some country you have but one option, to close your borders. Once stuff leaves your sphere of influence anything can happen, and making it illegal to do something typically has only one effect, it will drive up prices. HSBC saw an opportunity to make money, and being a bank they acted on it and did not care about the consequences. If you want to make a principled stand then yes, by all means have their US banking charter revoked and jail their execs. But if you don't do that then this will simply repeat, different names, different labels same principle. Having principles costs, sometimes it costs a lot.
    - pyre 14y ago
      W.R.T. HSBC not being punished, you're preaching to the choir here.

But doing things like purposely obfuscating money flowing between the US and Iran as a middle man to get around sanctions?

by pyre 14y ago

But doing things like purposely obfuscating money flowing between the US and Iran as a middle man to get around sanctions?

jacquesm 14y ago

Banks are not in charge of policing the world. If the US wants to stop funds/goods from leaving/ending up in Iran they should stop those funds/goods from entering/leaving the US in the first place.

pyre 14y ago
| Banks are not in charge of policing the world. I never claimed that they were. If HSBC wants to transfer money between (e.g.) Turkey and Iran, then the US has no say, even if they don't like it. | If the US wants to stop funds/goods from | leaving/ending up in Iran they should stop those | funds/goods from entering/leaving the US in the | first place. This is a straw-man. I'm not talking about attempting to prevent every possible thing that ever leaves the US from ever entering Iran under all possible circumstances. That's obviously impossible. The article paints a picture that HSBC provided the service of routing money around so that people in Iran could transfer money to the US and vice versa. The entire purpose of this service would be to obfuscate the origin or destination of the transfer from the US government. I wouldn't say that requiring HSBC to not do this would be requiring them to 'police the world,' but if they want to be chartered as a bank in the US, it certainly makes sense that they should 'play by the rules.' If they were specifically offering/advertising a service to clients where-by they would actively skirt those rules, it doesn't seem like there is an issue with (at the least) revoking their charter.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > if they want to be chartered as a bank in the US, it certainly makes sense that they should 'play by the rules.' It appears they are not doing that and it appears their charter won't be revoked. The point I tried to make was that no matter what you do to restrict such transactions from happening, they will happen. The only people that suffer from sanctions are the poor, the rest will continue underground. If you want to play global policeman and if you want to limit access to goods/funds for some country you have but one option, to close your borders. Once stuff leaves your sphere of influence anything can happen, and making it illegal to do something typically has only one effect, it will drive up prices. HSBC saw an opportunity to make money, and being a bank they acted on it and did not care about the consequences. If you want to make a principled stand then yes, by all means have their US banking charter revoked and jail their execs. But if you don't do that then this will simply repeat, different names, different labels same principle. Having principles costs, sometimes it costs a lot.
  - pyre 14y ago
    W.R.T. HSBC not being punished, you're preaching to the choir here.