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Comment by mistrial9 | Hacker News Reader

> insane slowness

slowness is a feature, not a bug, in some social situations. Most modern Americans have not experienced that kind of situation. One of the elements missing here is control - who has control over the transaction, and what are the practical methods to resolve dispute.

Cash is not great at scale perhaps, but it is great for the individual in times when trust is gone, where there is unequal power relationship, and where there is real corruption inserted into ordinary transactions.

As an American with some knowledge of history, I support cash, paper checks, and electronic transfer. without a doubt.

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A thing about cash, though, is that another problem with precisely those occasions when "trust is gone, where there is unequal power relationship" is that cash can be forcibly taken away from you.

At every scale from muggings to home robbery to retail store robberies up to bank robbery and knocking over armored cars, cash handling imposes a security and risk management burden, with a particular component of risk of physical violence that is much less of a factor in electronic security risk models..

of course this is true - physical security is already something I take responsibility for.. it seems strange that this is really an issue in a civilized place. Is this more like a feeling of fear?

I may be missing your point but it seems to me that cash and paper checks are at opposite ends of the spectrum wrt who has most control over the outcome in case of disputes: with cash, the payer has to go to court to get their money back; with checks, the payer can just refuse to pay and the payee would have to go to court to get their money.

Or perhaps you're saying which one to use depends on what you want? But if there's an unequal power relationship, the person with more power (probably the payer) will usually choose. So to fix that, it's not enough for cash to be an option, checks need to not be an option. (Electronic transfers can be an option, as long as they're set up so that the payer can't unilaterally take the money back.)

this is a very old topic and also a very current, present day one.. Solutions exist that may not seem obvious in the modern context, because the world you and I live in, is so different than the past.

In my own experience I have negotiated sales or contracts with others for non-trivial sums. It feels like most modern people are just going along with systems that require an intermediary and working devices. I feel it is not only important, but crucial, to have the ability to negotiate directly with a peer or others. That means without electricity or cell phone coverage, too. YMMV

Oh, right, I agree. I guess my further point is that I'd prefer that after you close the sale and finish the transaction, you're sure you have the money. Cash and some electronic transfers give you that, while checks don't.

a semi-informed guess is that paper checks are uniquely useful for entering some kinds of contracts between ordinary people or small business. A check here has only five or so parts, but by controlling those well, checks can and are used in somewhat unexpected ways, and they can be formed to fit various ordinary contract clauses, too.

one surprising use of a check is that one could write five checks, each with an amount and further away date.. e.g. dated the first of the month for the next four months. Those checks are now a reliable source for a loan in cash, since you signed each one. there are many other examples..

There is no law that states postdated check can only be cashed after the specified date. Some banks will happily cash your check immediately and simply ignore the future date on the check. There is no guarantee that you can always cache a check either. A check can be cancelled by the issuer at any time by making so called 'stop payment order'.

> There is no law that states postdated check can only be cashed after the specified date.

that is absolutely false IANAL

https://www.helpwithmybank.gov/help-topics/bank-accounts/che....

> Please note: The terms "bank" and "banks" used in these answers generally refer to national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches or agencies of foreign banking organizations that are regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

they say a Federal Bank can do that. I was talking about contracts between private parties (see above)

Any bank can do it and in fact you can google like a dozen different articles stating so. Seems you just don't like being proven wrong

> > There is no law that states postdated check can only be cashed after the specified date.

you neglected to say "bank" .. you said it as if anyone can do it. Look at what you wrote

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