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Comment by anthony_barker | Hacker News Reader

My issue with removing cash is that in a way you are moving from public money (printed by the government) which you are free to use as you want to a private money issued by banks who generally have lots of ability to charge you money for payments and block your account.

Banks in Canada have been fighting for removal of cash and cheques (which are regulated in terms of fees).

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At least the Swedish central bank is starting to develop “e-krona”, i.e. giving residents checking accounts for central bank money without private bank intermediaries.

How do they deal with inflation/investment to counteract said inflationary depreciation?

I don’t know but their draft spec for the procurement mentioned interest rates especially mentioning the need for negative interest...

Per the article, it's a $10k AU limit. That's... not really removing cash. It looks more like a money laundering statute to me.

They're just dipping a toe in the water with a $10k limit. It will necessarily drop as time goes on. Getting the ceiling in place is the hard part. Ratcheting down the cap is easy.

It doesn't need to drop, inflation will rise to meet it.

As can often be seen on this very site, a common excuse for increasing government intrusion is "Why shouldn't we do X? We already do Y..."

Okay, so what number differentiates between a money laundering statute and removing cash for you? Is there a minimum number for you where it is okay to force people to pay bank fees and give up their privacy?

> In the United States, the Bank Secrecy Act requires currency transaction reports (CTRs) to be filed for transactions valued at more than $10,000;

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring

So it seems to be pretty settled law that $10,000 USD is a reasonable starting point.

This is not a limit on transactions, it is threshold beyond which additional bookkeeping needs to be done. Five-dollar deposit: only bookkeeping as is needed to satisfy the bank and yourself that the $5 will be available to yourself in the future. Five million dollar deposit: extra bookkeeping, and if it's in stacks of twenties, warn the branch manager a few days in advance due to the physical requirements for handling all those twenties.

If the new AU bill would say, "Don't deposit 5 million AUD in physical cash" then that's a problem. If it would say, "Don't deposit 20 AUD in physical cash then that's an absurd problem (IMHO).

In the USA the bank branch manager has to achieve some level of non-surprise that the transaction is taking place (Know your customer) but it seems like that wouldn't necessarily block a transaction.

I know people whose cautious banking habits are still influenced by the banking problems of the 1930's. I think this constrains the politically possible banking changes in the USA, maybe. Does such caution have any impact in Australia?

So you're arguing that it's okay to force people to pay bank fees and give up their privacy if the US has been doing it for a while?

> it's okay to force people to pay bank fees

If it forces you to pay bank fees than that's the issue that needs to be fixed. I agree though that until this is fixed, that bill is wrong.

> give up their privacy

I have personally no trouble over anyone privacy for payment over 10 000$. There's not much either that is given (amount and people implicated) and is given to a specific small subset of persons that you should already trust (your bank and the government).

Why should we trust our bank and Government? Given that they nature and compositions of banks and Governments change often, and historically have had periods of complete untrustworthiness, why shouldn't it be assumed that you should not implicitly trust your bank or Government? Especially in Australia - see Royal Banking Commission, illegal metadata retention accesses (and accompanying laws).

Beat me to it. Yeah, this is nothing new. Obviously the US regulation is about reporting and not payment mechanism as in AU, but the justification and thresholding for the for the laws are very comparable.

American libertarians are fine living with a $10k limit, Aussie ones will be too.

> American libertarians are fine living with a $10k limit, Aussie ones will be too.

Are they? I'm not even a libertarian and I'm not pleased with the $10k limit.

Out of genuine curiosity, on which $10k+ transactions is the government reporting requirement (which strictly is of your bank and not you) a hardship or privacy concern of yours?

I mean, people make embarassing transactions all the time, and it virtually never leaks. Even Trump's Daniels payoff (as juicy a story as you could possibly imagine) didn't show up as a leak from a bank or the government. In practice, this just hasn't been the privacy concern everyone thinks it is.

Knowledge is power. The more knowledge a government has about individuals, the more power it has over them.

I believe that the right to privacy is a prerequisite to protecting many of the other rights guaranteed by the bill of rights, and indeed to protecting many unalienable human rights.

This is not hypothetical. The US government seizes or freezes people's assets all the time through civil forfeiture[1], injunction[2], or prejudgment writ of attachment[3]. In other countries, asset freezing[4] can have even more severe scope. Not only can these tools be used to violate someone's right to freedom from unwarranted search and seizure (4th Amendment), but it can have implications for their right to due process and counsel (5th and 6th Amendment), as it impacts their ability to pay for their defense. And in a direct way, it may be construed as a violation of the right to freedom from excessive bail (8th Amendment) as it acts as a form of bail. Broadly interpreted, religion, speech and press (1st Amendment) and arms (2nd Amendment) all cost money, so seizing assets can affect these as well, and seizing assets can be used as an intimidation tactic to prevent free exercise of these rights.

Privacy with regards to personal finances is a fundamental protection against improper seizure of assets. The government can't seize assets they don't know you have.

[1] https://priceonomics.com/how-police-officers-seize-cash-from...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunction

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudgment_writ_of_attachment

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_freezing

You lack privacy from the bank.

I am not a poor man. I use cash regularly. I have never in my life even seen $10,000 in cash, let alone had it in my possession, still less tried to use it in one place. That's anecdote, not data, but it suggests that $10,000 is indeed in the "money laundering" territory.

You may have seen ten thousand dollars in cash and not even realized it. If you stack $100 bills, it's less than half an inch before you hit ten thousand dollars. It's pretty unobtrusive.

Addition: if you've ever seen them get a new stack of $100 bills at a bank, with the yellow band, you've seen a $10 k strap.

It may be common but it happens. My anecdata differs. I consider myself a working poor and I saw and handled 20k in cash. Granted, death in family and stuff but labelling it money laindering territory is a little much.

I was handling more cash than that as a teenager. I worked in retail and it was pretty common that the morning deposit would be more than that.

Also, if you ever make secondhand equipment purchases from a private seller (not a used-whatever dealer) you get comfortable with large amounts of cash.

Hell, I had that much money stack up in my sock drawer after a months of collecting rent from my roomates.

Just because it's unusual to you doesn't mean you have any perspective to comment on if the law should view it with suspicion.

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