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Comment by the-dude | Hacker News Reader

> At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality.

Although we don't have civil forfeiture, this is already true in The Netherlands.

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Are you sure the "any amount" generalization is true? I know in Switzerland of money confiscated at border control for simple suspicion, but we are talking (tens of) thousands. Although there's a certain obligation of declaration those people always "forget", that situation stays shitty, but in any case it's a very very far cry from "any amount".

If it were really 'any' in the philosophical sense, cash would be outlawed. So no, it is not 'any', it is anywhere between more than a couple of hundred to a couple of thousands, depending on what the police or prosecutor feels is reasonable.

What is wrong with a (couple of) thousand euros?

> I know in Switzerland of money confiscated at border control

You are describing smuggling, I was talking about normal domestic use.

> You are describing smuggling

There's a thin line between smuggling and wanting personal money to be somewhere else.

I get why most states want to track cash coming across their border, but it's really none of their business if they can't prove theres a crime.

The absence of a crime does not constitute a crime.

And now the funny part: even after they failed to prove there's a crime, the Swiss police still often refuses to release the money.

> If it were really 'any' in the philosophical sense, cash would be outlawed.

The state doesn't have unlimited power, so no. What you expect to see where cash is being banned outright is a slow erosion of less common uses, larger amounts, and an addition of inconveniences and risks in order to drive people off it so that an eventual ban is less unpopular or is even popular. ("screw those bank distrusting weirdos!")

To ban outright risks backlash and failure.

One Dutch party in the previous government tried to outlaw carrying more than €2000 in the street. As far as I know, that law didn't pass. Plus you can keep as many cash reserves at home as you want (but good luck getting any back if that gets stolen).

However, there are rules that make cash less useful for large payments. Cash payments over €10000 (€3000 starting in March) are outright banned without involving the government.

There are more practical problems than "I just really want to buy a car without giving out my bank account", though: more and more Dutch stores have stopped taking cash to reduce the risk and losses of robberies. You can still carry cash, but spending it may require some research ahead of time, and not every business is interested in the overhead of going through the money laundering prevention system when normal people usually just buy >€3000 stuff through their bank accounts.

If anything, the Dutch government has been telling people to have cash available in case of emergencies after "geopolitical tension" (read: the Russian invasion into Ukraine). Not that anyone seems to listen, but they encourage having cash reserves. They're still working out an exact amount to recommend, but a couple hundred euros seems to be most likely.

Can we note the absurdity of one part of the government banning too much cash, while another part of the government notes that some cash is essential?

Also, prepper realism: a week's worth of cash at hand goes a long way towards handling the most likely disaster scenarios (which are all well short of Road Warrior).

Let's not omit that a large reserve of cash will be very unlikely spent all at once, so we are talking different use cases here. You won't buy a car (probably) in a disaster scenario, but water and food from here and there.

Is that absurd? It's not inconsistent.

1. Having spare cash around is important to be able to acquire necessities in case of a temporary failure of electronic banking.

2. Making a 3000 euro cash transaction in this day and age is suspicious and we'd like to know about it if it happens to ensure everything is above-board.

I don't see the absurdity. They're not saying don't have cash, they're saying don't use cash for large purchases but keep some around for necessities. Even if you have 10k stashed under your bed in case of ~situation~, you're unlikely to be making a 3000 euro purchase in an emergency situation.

Electronic banking also has preferences which cards it handles.

> If anything, the Dutch government has been telling people to have cash available in case of emergencies after "geopolitical tension" (read: the Russian invasion into Ukraine). Not that anyone seems to listen, but they encourage having cash reserves. They're still working out an exact amount to recommend, but a couple hundred euros seems to be most likely.

In that scenario, it seems like that would be an insufficient amount to really do anything except handle very basic needs for a week or two.

My assumption is that this is being recommended for a situation where Russia might hack the banking system, and the Dutch probably expect they'd be able to get the banks/ATMs working again within a week.

Which is exactly what’s been going on in Ukraine. Russian hacking efforts have had negligible effects.

There is a very strong case for people keeping cash because of its resilience.

People will not do it until something happens to make them realise the problems - maybe cyberwar or natural disaster bringing electronic payment systems to halt.

While I don't disagree with the general statement, I do want to add the nuance that this isn't true for small amounts of cash money. Recently, the government even recommended people to keep more cash on hand in case of emergency / large scale disruptions to the financial system.

Even with large amounts of money, it's not like they're knocking on doors, looking under yer bed.

What is small and what is large is a matter of opinion.

If they are out to get you and can't find anything incriminating, cash will do. The press will happily report on this too : 'There was a police raid so and so, nothing was found but they found a (large) amount of cash'.

Furthermore, our government is planning legislation to make cash transactions > € 3000 illegal.

> What is small and what is large is a matter of opinion.

There's certainly there's some vagueness in the middle, for me a few hundred isn't large, but a grand is, and I don't know that everyone would agree, but I think most everyone would agree that $5 is small and $10,000 is large.

$10,000 doesn't seem particularly large. Just a few years ago, I bought an old truck for $12,000 in one hundred dollar bills.

If you're worried about large drug transactions, a kilogram of cocaine would cost around $20,000-40,000 in the USA, and significantly more in Europe (actual wholesale price for bulk purchase, not inflated police figures that price it at $150/gram).

Personally I think one month of apartment rent should not be considered a suspiciously large amount of cash, and it should be fine to buy a car from a friend using actual cash. I really don't see the downside of leaving those things legal without a threat of civil asset forfeiture.

$12,000 is an out of the ordinary large amount of money - that's why you can note it as a special instance. It's certainly not something you keep on yourself every day, right? I'm not arguing that people should be limited in what money they carry, I'm saying there is a normal range of cash, it's not as nebulous as argued.

I might not carry that much every day, or ever, but somebody somewhere in the country (probably dozens or hundreds) will have a legal reason to do so on any given day. IMO this is similar to the laws that allow prosecutors to charge (and win!) drug offenders for "distribution" for just having a large amount of a drug. There's a presumption that if you have a brick of weed, you're a drug dealer. Well, maybe, but shouldn't that have to be proven in court?

That person might note it as a special instance, but 'normal' varies wildly from person to person, and 4.5% of America is unbanked entirely. Setting any limit on the amount of money someone is allowed to carry essentially criminalizes poverty.

The effect of 25% inflation over the last five years is that what used to be definitely acceptable ($8000) is now an amount to be reported and questioned ($10000).

The media will sensationalize anything. Another favorite is claiming someone had "hundreds of rounds of ammunition" when even someone who just shoots recreationally, let alone competitively, would burn through that in an afternoon. It's like accusing a golfer of going through hundreds of balls at the driving range . . . yeah, that's the point of going.

What constitutes a large sum depends a bit based on the situation (or what kind of person you are!).

A 2020 study found the average seized was $1300: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

In some states, the average seized amount is in the hundreds, or even less: https://thewhyaxis.substack.com/p/cops-still-take-more-stuff...

In Chicago, they are taking amounts less than $100: https://reason.com/2017/06/13/poor-neighborhoods-hit-hardest...

"You are too poor to fairly have $100, so we're taking it" seems insane to me.

Non-sovereign subjects can't be allowed to do whatever they want with their own money...

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