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Why the Swiss Still Love Cash (bbc.com)
gollum123 shares a report from the BBC: Last month, the Swiss unveiled a smart new banknote to stash in their wallets. The purple 1,000 franc bill was the latest in the Swiss National Bank (SNB) series to undergo a revamp. But this revamp comes as other nations are phasing out their high-value notes and as cash usage declines in European nations, albeit at greatly differing rates. In Switzerland, cash remains the dominant payment method. Here, there's an assumption everyone carries cash, even in an increasingly digital economy. Most don't get caught out buying a sandwich or paying for a haircut when the card payment machine is out of order. If you have to pay for a coffee with a 100 franc note, no need to apologize -- no one will ask if you have something smaller. And for those big-ticket items, some banks even allow you to withdraw up to 5,000 francs per day (or 10,000 a month) at the cash machine without advance notice. Buying a car that costs tens of thousands with cash is also not that unusual.
Why then do the Swiss prefer cash? Two simple reasons are that cash is widely considered to be part of their culture and people believe that using it allows them to track their spending more easily. In Basel, 53-year-old Chris Troiani confirmed this, saying many people she knows still prefer the reassurance of carrying big bills in their wallet. There's also the identity factor: the Swiss identify with cash in part because of how they see themselves. This is a nation which values privacy and doesn't like being told what to do. They see themselves as different to their European neighbors and closely guard those traditions which set them apart, such as languages, political system and currency.
Why then do the Swiss prefer cash? Two simple reasons are that cash is widely considered to be part of their culture and people believe that using it allows them to track their spending more easily. In Basel, 53-year-old Chris Troiani confirmed this, saying many people she knows still prefer the reassurance of carrying big bills in their wallet. There's also the identity factor: the Swiss identify with cash in part because of how they see themselves. This is a nation which values privacy and doesn't like being told what to do. They see themselves as different to their European neighbors and closely guard those traditions which set them apart, such as languages, political system and currency.
Better that you only lose 5000 rather than all your money if you get hacked. Besides, I think you can withdraw more if you speak to the teller insidem this is just for ATMs, where the risk of someone stealing your card and using it along with your birthday pin number is quite real.
Privacy is great, but it also allows corrupt billionaire's from China and USA to store money secretly to avoid corruption and taxies. Positives and negatives of everything.
Because despite being known for banking, Switzerland hasn't been infected with the viruses of monetization and "big pig data," pushed by Wall Street filth. The Swiss actually know to mind their own fucking business, whether it's by maintaining neutrality or by not prying into the private affairs of their own citizens too much. A lesson that nations around the world would do good to follow.
The USA? Please. I'll believe it when the USA stops murdering people in the Middle East and Central Asia to prop up the interests of corrupt dictatorships like Saudi Arabia. Also, when the USA stops stigmatizing cash in the name of the moral panic of the week. ("War on Drugs/Terror/Crime/BlahBlahBlah")
A digital number in bank can be blocked by a US "investigation" looking for decades of US people using international banking services.
With Swiss banks open to any and all US searches having cash is a wise move.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Not being able to withdraw all money from banks is the cornerstone of Western society's pro-growth financial system and is protected by law.
I'm confused -- I thought you were FOR mass surveillance in other threads on Slashdot. Why the sudden change of heart?
You can recognize mass surveillance is inevitable, and even support it to some degree - while still wanting to support things that help maintain anonymity.
After all, mass surveillance only potentially gives information about where you were - but not for instance hat you did there in private.
Personally I am neither for nor against mass surveillance, I just recognize the inevitability of more and more cameras being everywhere. So then it makes sense to balance that out with anonymizing features the populace can make use of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Growth" and "Consumption" were old names for mortal diseases: tumors and TB. "Growth" is a disease that threatens to kill Mother Gaia.
Not one of the things mentioned are about support for foreign governments.
- values privacy - nope
- doesn't like being told what to do - nope
- sees themselves as different - nope - or it's ok to have a national identity
- guard those traditions with set them apart, such as languages, political system and currency - nope
The point is the BBC is reporting on the Swiss and not negatively labeling them for wanting those things and that the USA would be derided for wanting the same things.
It's OK for the Swiss, and presumably for other countries - French ministry of the French language, then it's OK for the USA.
National pride works for most countries and is acceptable for even the USA.
It's acceptable to have this opinion and discuss it as civilized persons and not 12 year olds.
For those wondering, since it didn't appear in TFS anywhere. The exact rate today is 1 SFr = $0.99, it's been sliding a bit over the past month.
By comparison, the US $1000 bill hasn't been printed since 1945, and although technically still legal tender, was officially withdrawn in 1969 (which means the Fed started destroying such bills turned in by banks). They're worth more than face value to collectors.
-- Alastair
EU (and Swiss via EEA) handed all the banking data over to the USA for "investigating terrorim". The USA in turn promised it would only be used under supervision by the US Treasury.
Look at Steven Mnuchin. He won't hand over the tax returns of Trump's companies to Congress IN DIRECT DEFIANCE OF US LAW, and yet a political player like that is supposed to a gatekeeper for European banking data.
You see the problem here? You let a bad actor have all that private data!
You think the Swiss are significantly worried about being "investigated" by the US, like that's a big segment of Swiss society and why they use cash. On that basis, and hundreds of others, you are a fucking moron.
What the sheeple are told, and what the truth is are two different things. The Deep State wants an end to cash (for sheeple)- but anonymous 'bearer bonds' allowing the most powerful to ANONYMOUSLY move billions of dollars at a time will, of course, continue.
Switzerland, being at the heart of Deep State money laundering, comprehend the system properly, so would rather keep using cash- thank you very much. Slashdot, our neoliberal warmongering outlet, will misrepresent the reasons, of course.
Slashdot wants Orwellian cashless methods for sheeple cos its controllers are well aware this allows the state to switch on and off the 'right' of any given drone to spend or be paid. While the usual statist scum here will claim such control would never be abused (just as they told you that Assange's fear of extradition to the USA was a paranoid joke- up until the very moment it was announced, when they piled here on this site to celebrate the same extradition demand), the 100% reason for the 'cashless society' is to be able to hold this sword above the head of everyone.
Statist scum are winessed screaming their happiness as big NSA linked tech giants deplatform enemies of the state. But the same statist scum (soon to be upvoted to 5 in this forum) know that while the deplatformed still have access to financial activity, their depersoning is imperfect.
Orwell was decent socialist left. But he got to witness the pure evil of the alt-left, and so wrote 1984. Which is why that book resonates as powerfully today as it does. Once Orwell had realised what the fabians were really about (Tony Blair is current lord of the fabians), his innocence and naive optimism died.
Neoliberal and alt-left are but other names for the fabian fake left control system that controls the politics in America, Britain, Canada, Australia and NZ. In reality it is a right-wing ultra authoritarian system, which is why the alt-left is so close to wahhabi Saudi Arabia.
In the near future the fabians have various agendas to perfect.
-children are the property of the state
-death of cash for the sheeple
-death of the personal automobile
-death of free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience
In other words, converting ordinary Humanity into actual cattle. The fabians believe the computer age will finally make their dreams fully possible. The trad right is way to dumb to oppose the fabian agenda- and will spend most of its effort assisting it.
"some banks even allow you to withdraw up to 5,000 francs per day (or 10,000 a month) at the cash machine without advance notice."
I should be able to withdraw 100% of my money immediately, no matter the amount, or else it's not my money.
Why is he modded as troll? What is wrong with that statement?
Swiss citizen here. Haven't been carrying cash for 10 years now. Every store accepts contactless payment either by card or phone at least in the larger cities.
I should be able to withdraw 100% of my money immediately, no matter the amount, or else it's not my money.
In fact you can. Just not at the cash machine.
Like Japan, Swiss is a safe country of very disciplined people, who tend to be more conservative, i.e. repeat the pattern of their elders. And both countries do love cash.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Get paid on friday, get $100 cash. Come Wednesday, when you're out of cash you quit spending.
or
Get paid on friday, put it in the bank. Buy everything with your credit card. Come end of the month, you can't cover your bills, end up paying 27% interest on your Starbucks double cappuccino mocha mint grande.
In Zürich one can pay contactless nearly everywhere. However, parking machines, vending machines and a small few shops still require cash.
Cash isn't convenient, but for obvious reasons will continue to be catered for here
In America, Cash is King.
Swiss here. I typically carry cash for small purchases - why mess with anything else to buy your lunch? Cash is simpler. Second choice is a debit card from my bank (directly from the bank, not branded MasterCard or Visa), because this is free to me, and the transaction fee to the merchant is very small.
Apparently loved in the US, but not used quite so much here are credit cards. Credit cards are, factually, expensive. Those great point systems, cash-back, or whatever? Ultimately, you pay for those through higher prices, because the merchants have to pay whopping fees on the transactions. Why do that to yourself? Why do that to a merchant whom you actually like? I only use credit cards in cases where the fraud protection is important, mainly online purchases with vendors I've never dealt with before, or else with vendors silly enough to insist on payment by credit card.
Speaking of online purchases: most vendors here are happy to send you an invoice along with your purchase, rather than insisting on up-front payment. Just add it to the pile of other invoices you pay at the end of the month (via online banking). Cheaper for them (no credit card fees), simpler to order since you don't have to mess with a payment portal, and psychologically it's really nice gesture of trust. Of course, this only works in a society where most people really are that trustworthy, and will pay the invoice for goods they received.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
They aren't broke and debt ridden.
I think their counterparts in the US, Canada, Aus, UK, etc... Use plastic more since they are living paycheck to paycheck and need to use their credit card since they don't even have money
Wow, I had no idea there were two people so laughably ignorant they'd never realised that: (A) they entered into an agreement when depositing money at a bank, and the agreement covers access, and if the terms were unacceptable, other banks are available, and you can also just put the money under a mattress or in a safe; and (B) that runs on banks are a bad thing, and banks take measures to limit them.
Steven Mnuchin is head of the US treasury, the man charged with securing European banking data with respect to US law, so him refusing to obey the law regarding Trump and his tax returns is a BIG deal.
Bank fraud is still a crime, even if Trump was the man committing it. Mnuchin can't be a political player prepared to ignore US law, and be somehow an angle prepared to protect Swiss bank data.
You are obviously a Trumpette, but Trump is already revealed to be "Unindicted co-conspirator #1" in a bunch of prosecuted felonies, including the ones relating to Konstantine Kiliminik, so he's certainly not innocent here. So what Barr and Mnuchin are doing is a crime in itself. Covering for fraud is a crime. Even if its Trump, even if its Trump tower Moscow, or Trump paying off hookers, or Trump paying off his Moscow bodyguard with money from his PAC, or the bank fraud, or the rest of it.
Loving your country is fine. The problem as I perceive it is that for Americans this seems to take the form "We're number 1 and everyone else is crap" whereas other people seem to be able to love their countries without being giant douchebags about it and putting everyone else down.
Not to mention the US's love of violence, both to their own people by the so-called justice system, and to other countries by its military thugs. The Swiss have a military for defense (other than the Swiss Guard) and incarcerate 1/20th as many people per unit of population as the USA, land of the "free."
In Switzerland you can walk around safely with cash because they do not have an underclass of violent hateful Negroes and Mexicans preying on them. Negroes are scourage upon every nation which hosts them.
20 years ago I always had a $100 note tucked away for emergencies. It is laughable just how much less that would do today than back then. While normally I use the credit card a lot, in the places cash is king the small notes start to get painful. Countries where the largest note is $30 can make it painful for big bills
No, Delaware cover corporations allow that much better. At the end of the day, the money needs to be where you can spend it, so it ends up in US$ in the US economy.
Don't believe me?.... Can I remind you that unindicted co-conspirator #1, Trump, used Delaware a lot, e.g. "Essential Consultants LLC" the conduit for Stormy Daniels payoff.
Or this:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/russian-billionaire-aras-agalarov-company-trump-tower-meeting
"A Russian billionaire who orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with an accountant who has had clients accused of money laundering and embezzlement."
"The billionaire, Aras Agalarov, created the US company anonymously while preparing to move almost $20m into the country during the time of the presidential election campaign, according to interviews and corporate filings."
"The company was set up for him in May 2016 by his Russian-born accountant, who has also managed the US finances of compatriots accused of mishandling millions of dollars. One of those clients has its own connection to the Trump Tower meeting."
"In June 2016, Agalarov allegedly offered Trump’s team damaging information from the Kremlin about Hillary Clinton, their Democratic opponent. The offer led Trump’s eldest son to hold a meeting at their Manhattan offices that is now a focus of the inquiry into Moscow’s election interference by Robert Mueller, the special counsel."
QUICK! Get those Barr -ve mod points out on this comment. It's not treason if you conceal it.
Exposing the truth is worst kind of trolling imagineable.
Swiss here and I do both. I always pay with my contactless debit card wherever possibly, even for a cheap orange juice. I find this to be way more convenient and much quicker. I'm not worried about privacy issues at all.
Yet I still always carry between 100 and 200 CHF in my wallet. I feel naked if I don't have cash on me. And it comes in handy when something's wrong with the card or other emergencies.
Cash isn't convenient, but for obvious reasons will continue to be catered for here
I think cash is much more convenient and less risky than waving a contactless card around even.
Which just goes to show: "Convenience" really means "perception". It's no coincidence that over here (Northwestern Europe) the introduction of card+PIN, chip+PIN, and RFID/NFC, (as well as two competing but ultimately failed PINless contact card systems) all were accompanied by nationwide campaigns emphasising the supposed easiness and convenience. And once that idea was lodged in their thinkings, the sheep meekly followed.
Me, I refuse to be easily swayed by propaganda, so I do my own thinking. I continue to be amazed an appalled how poorly the various "better than cash"-designs treat the end-users, to the point they clearly and obviously are not the customer, and how nobody calls the schemes' introducers on that. For my purposes, cash is king even when everyone else insists it is now somehow part of the past and we must all go cashless. I say "no thanks" to that, for my own reasons. You came to a different conclusion. That changes nothing about my reasons, and so I disagree with you that cash isn't convenient. To me, it is.
but they all have the same contract. So it's hardly relevant, is it, you moron.
You HATE the unions because you claim they can shut down the country for their purposes and this is a very bad thing, yet you will insist that the rich will shut down the country for THEIR purposes FOR THEM, ensuring that the rich NEVER have to threaten the country because YOU are busy doing it for them. AND insisting that this is not only right and proper, but that this should be accepted.
Here's a small fly in that ointment: most of their wealth is not in cash, but in assets, and those assets are in the country they don't bother paying taxes, yet they still get the protection of those assets that taxes pay for. So if they decide to not pay and leave the country, they have to sell off those assets and move to either their tax haven (which doesn't have space for all the tax cheats to live) or some taxless hellhole where they will pay millions to protect their stuff with private armies. And they will then no longer be a burden on the country that needs taxes to protect their shit, reducing the need for their taxes that they never were paying in the first place.
You can at any moment but not at the ATM. Go to any human teller, ask to close your account and withdraw all the money.
If you really don't want to write about your own nation's problem of accepting pretty much ANY note nowdays, then you just come up with a story on some other nation's habits and belief systems. It really is time for a change at the BBC.
As someone who lived in Zurich I prefer the swiss way of life. At 6 am you hand in a 1000 chf note to your local newsagent for a pack of cigarettes and he doesn't so much as blink. He even reckognises that your german is not up to snuff that early in the morning and switches to english, to make it easier for you. As someone who lives in London, I regret not staying in Zurich.
The ultimate nation if you ask me.
BBC really needs a reform, now.
In the last year, I made a couple local purchases of over $1000 and offered to pay the vendors cash. (I had done business with them many times before)
They immediately offered me a non-posted reduced price because they now didn't pay the VISA/MasterCard tax. I saved a few hundred.
Smile.
So I'm on board with the Swiss.
Folks, this article grossly overstates things. We Swiss feel very European and take pride in more substantial things than currency: we are proud to be neutral, honest, pragmatic and tolerant.
Sure, each canton has its own folklore and we keep that for the tourists. Those who carry stashes of cash in their wallet are just waiting to become victims of pickpockets.
A Swiss dude
If you go to an ATM, there is a limit for security reasons and because the machine has limited stock. The quoted limits are the defaults for ATM machines, you can raise or lower them, but within limits.
If you order the money in advance a day before or so, you can withdraw any amount you like from a branch office, although you pay a fee for withdrawing more than CHF 50'000 per month from a regular account. If you are a high-value customer, you can probably withdraw any amount they have on stock within half an hour or so at major branch offices and they will likely send an armored car with the cash for small ones, which may take a bit to arrive though. Your "immediately", is just uninformed here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Because people withdrawing such a large amount must be a trrst or deal drugz or needs money to go around tearing the tags off of mattresses.
Never mind that one of the aformentioned baddies are most likely than not to be smart enough to move their money and make withdrawls in a way that does not set off any alarms.
and people believe that using it allows them to track their spending more easily [emphasis mine]
Uh, that's a really weird thing to say. Unless you don't know how to use a computer/phone or your bank's website is absolute shit or something.
That's rich! (pun intended)
We just recently voted in a new law that allows middle management at social security insurances like welfare, medical and invalid pension to have people receiving money put under surveillance by a private investigater. No judge necessary.
And this all for small and unrealistic hope that the services will become a few bucks cheaper.
No, no, no... we're not about privacy... we just do it because that's how it's always been done. Nothing more to it.
this just in : Fractional-reserve banking means your bank, and the wider system, does not have enugh cash to for-fill demand if a significant portion of costumers do that, so instead of a few people draining the reserves they have limits. Another reason for limits is that today no one need that large an ammount of cash onléss the want to do large transaction below the radar (for whtever reason, that raises som flags). Your milage may wary, but the last tim i used cash was.. 3 years ago i think, my debit card on the other hand gets almost daly (often multiple times a day) use, I find it way more convinient than fddeleing around with cash) but then again my bank charges me 0 for card tranactions (ok 1,75% on top of the exchange rate when I use it abroad but that is actually visa so i can not fault them for that)
...in switzerland the main busines it's money laundering and to provide a safe haven for criminal's money. That is true since WWII.
What the actual heck??? That's insane. How on earth it is easier to track spending with cash? Electronic transactions are _recorded_, thus allowing automatically track the spending.
Every year I download huge, 1000s likes Excel document detailing where I spent my money. I have to do almost nothing to track my finances nowadays.
The article is written by a brainless libnut imbecile.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
It is not your money. Your bank statement is a statement of debt, an IOU from the bank to you, and conditions apply to the way you can collect that debt.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I should be able to withdraw 100% of my money immediately, no matter the amount, or else it's not my money.
Because that is nonsense. One steals your card, all your money is gone.
You are rich and want to withdraw 2,000,000 from an ATM, that is ridiculous ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
People in Germany will usually pay for their groceries either with debit card ("EC card") or in cash. Anything small, take-awayish is almost always paid with cash and people look at you funny if you ask if you can pay with credit card or other similar new fangled stuff. I don't know about the Swiss, but we Germany sure do love our cash way too much. I went on several business trips to Sweden and the difference in culture when it comes to paying for stuff is huge. A Swedish business contact related a story of how she ended up holding a weird piece of metal at the end of a business transaction and it took her a while of research to find out that was normal Swedish coinage that had been in circulation for years - and she'd never seen it because she and her coworkers never use cash for anything. It was as hard for them to understand our love of cash as it was for us to understand their love for cashless payment. I think the reason we love cash so much is two fold: for one we love us our privacy and hate if people keep track of our spendings (or anything else in fact) and also there's this sense that if civilization ends tomorrow, then cash is probably more use than phone-based micropayment systems. It's the bird in the hand, so to speak.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
thanks for that clarification, I never thought about that detail before-
Ultimately, you pay for those through higher prices, because the merchants have to pay whopping fees on the transactions. Why do that to yourself? Why do that to a merchant whom you actually like?
Yes, merchants do pay a fee to process credit cards. But there's a reason why restaurants were the first industry where credit cards really took off: people spend more when they pay with credit. The 2.7% fee is a negligible cost compared to the high-margin drinks and desserts a customer will add to their order.
The reason the Swiss National Bank introduced the negative interest rate is well known and very clear: in a time of weak economy when many look at the Swiss Frank to store value, countermeasures have to be put in place to avoid it's excessive appreciation and to ensure money gets invested instead of held in account.
An excessive appreciation of the Swiss Frank would be a problem since it would negatively affects exports. Furthermore, money held in SNB accounts is effectively not being invested as it could, which is not a good thing if you want the economy to ramp up again.
Basically, the Swiss are not being screwed: without that measure the Swiss Frank's value would get far too high. It's a controversial measure, but an effective one for the stated goal.
Gun ownership there is very similar to the US. And they have a shitload of high-tech fighter jet bases in those moutains.
So much so, that 20 years ago any kid who got into conscription, was trained to fly a F-19 or similar.
No surprise, given that they are the home of all those banks and the Mont Perelin Society. (A huge lobby group, consisting of more than 500(!!) think tanks, operating "since" 1945, with three goals: To turn the world into a fascist libertarian "utopia", by replacing the people's government with corporations, removing any and all taxation on corporations (while still leeching on society), and removing anything resembling any form of social safety net. ... I wish that was a conspiracy theory. But they aren't even ashamed enough to be secretive enough to give blackeyers an argument. So you can easily research their entire structure.)
It means companies make more money.
That logically means they take higher prices and pay lower salaries. Includig via inflation.
Which, again, logically means people will be poorer!
So whenever somebody stated "The economy is doing well." ... Like Merkel did, but adding insult equating "Germany" with "the economy" ... remember that it means people have become poorer.
Also, any healthy system in this universe by definition is a *stable* system. Resources go in circles, nothing is amassed, nothing runs dry or is sucked dry, nothing suffocates in its own waste.
Which literally means that by definition, only *stagnation* is a healthy state of the economy!
Infinite gowth is just as harmful and obviously ultimately fatal as an infinite depression. And at that expected *exponential* rate, infinity is not that far away.
First of all, the amount of actual value they produce, is in the picocents. Any modern instant messenger message is bigger and actually better secured! Also, it is a fixed cost, no matter if that integer is at 5 cent or 5 billion cent. Taking a percentage, as they do, is completely unjustified. Having it be up to several percent, is just batshit insane usury, and hence flat-out criminal in an non-retarded/non-criminal person's book!
And all that is assuming, their service would have a point or added value in the first place! Over just having all the money in you pocket and at home.
Which it doesn't.
Instead, it comes with the disadavntage that you never can be even remotely certain, how much money you have left; that even that wrong current value is hard to obtain (compared to just looking into your wallet or into you safe); and the money is *proven* to not be kept safe, given that there is a *negative* interest rate, and given how insecure the whole payment system, online banking, and even at their servers, is set up.
No, nobody needs them. All they do is leech off massive amouts of money, and adding zero value to any product. It's not surprising that the inflation rate (aka the rate at which your salary lowers in value) is usually close to the rate that credit card companies take.
They see themselves as different to their European neighbors and closely guard those traditions which set them apart, such as languages, political system and currency.
Which is OK if the Swiss do it, but eeeeevil if Americans do it.
You could be right, but I don't get this whole 'everything bad is because of money laundering' argument.
That's because you probably are a nice person who doesn't really spend much time thinking about how to screw your fellow human beings for monetary gain. Unfortunately enough people do spend time doing this that it's a VERY serious problem.
I have no doubt money laundering is widespread, but has it become any more widespread now compared to the days when drug dealers were hiding suitcases of cash around the place?
Accountant speaking here. TLDR version is yes it has become more common because technology has made it easier that ever. Why do you think technology like bitcoin is so popular for illegal goods transactions? Money laundering is nothing more than any series of transactions that makes it difficult to trace the origin of the cash. Think of it a bit like encryption - you can often crack it with enough time and resources but the point is to make it so much work that it isn't worth the bother in most cases. Cryptocurrencies are almost a wet dream for people wanting to launder money. You don't have to have untraceable transactions to launder money - you just need enough transactions of the right type to make tracing cash flows challenging.
The world did not fall apart then, as it will apparently do now if we don't crack down on all these money launderers.
I think you don't really understand the scope of the problems money laundering facilitates. Money laundering is critical to financing, among other things drug dealers, terrorist organizations, dictatorships, illegal trade, circumvention of sanctions, human trafficking (slavery), theft, fraud, extortion, racketeering, and the list goes on for some time. The drug dealers you use as an example are merely one case among many. It's quite clear that lack of controls for money laundering would result in substantially worse world to live in.
If they have made the money from a legitimate business trade, then since when did the west care about enforcing domestic CCP capital control laws?
Those statements have nothing to do with each other. First, there is a LOT of trade that looks like legitimate honest trade on the surface but really isn't. Ever heard of a front organization? Those are super common and they rarely exist for reasons positive to society as a whole. No the west doesn't care about Chinese capital controls except insofar as they affect the west but they don't need to to have a legitimate interest in combating money laundering. You can't stop money laundering completely but like many things it's not a good idea to just sit back and ignore it altogether either.
It has become ridiculously hard to deal with even smallish (10's thousand) sums of money internationally these days. I run an international business and have to regularly justify to my bank what I'm doing. Every time I deal with a professional or financial service I have to prove where my funds have come from.
Assuming for the sake of argument that that is true, then you are probably doing it wrong. Yes banks are required by law under know your customers laws to understand the nature of the transactions banking customers are conducting and this is entirely reasonable. That said, I'm among other things a certified accountant and I do a lot of international trade for the manufacturing company I work for today. It's not nearly as challenging as you are making it out to be. If you are being asked a lot about your business then you need to get a better relationship with your bank and learn how to actually do things properly. When I hear people complaining about it, it's almost always because they don't understand what they are doing adequately.
That's good, and I use mostly cash here in the United States. But unfortunately the Swiss have been over tolerant of muslims entering their country.
And when you started coughing out blood at the people around you on the tramway, it was called "conspicuous consumption".
Ezekiel 23:20
Not to mention the US's love of violence, both to their own people by the so-called justice system, and to other countries by its military thugs. The Swiss have a military for defense (other than the Swiss Guard) and incarcerate 1/20th as many people per unit of population as the USA, land of the "free."
And if the US was populated by almost 100% Swiss, we'd be about the same.
True, but if the US was as expensive as Switzerland it might still have a $1,000 note.
"some banks even allow you to withdraw up to 5,000 francs per day (or 10,000 a month) at the cash machine without advance notice."
I should be able to withdraw 100% of my money immediately, no matter the amount, or else it's not my money.
That's at a cash machine, dipshit. They have a limited amount of cash in them at any given time. Plus, the daily ATM withdrawal limit is a safeguard to mitigate loss if someone compromises your card. If you go into the bank and talk to a teller, you can take out as much as you want, and even liquidate your account and close it, if you wish.
It's still your money. Technically, it is owed back to the Federal Reserve, if you are dealing in American dollars. But in everyday practice it is your money.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
They have seen some shit and unlike the rest of the world; they remember it.
Some humans are so stupid.
There is a 3-4.5% fee added to every purchase you make with a credit card. At places that don't charge different amounts for credit vs cash, the cash customers are being ripped off.
With the instance transactions for debit/credit cards, people freak out when the power or internet connection is down. Cashiers can't sell anything because they are to stupid to "count up" for the change.
Cash works when the power/internet don't. If you live were natural disasters happen and take out power and internet, always have $500 in cash on-hand for emergencies. I can't walk around with that much - usually just $20-$100 in cash, but back at the house in a hidden, but easy to access spot, is the emergency cash. I also keep 2 $50s in each vehicle. Should you hydroplane, but not want any record of the toe truck pulling you out of the ditch, a $50 makes that happen. It is also handy for negotiating personal services on a whim.
Kids are spoiled with always (almost) on power and connections. Half the world doesn't have power.
If you aren't paying cash for a vehicle, then you are buying too much vehicle, BTW.
"This is a nation which values privacy and doesn't like being told what to do. They see themselves as different to their European neighbors and closely guard those traditions which set them apart, such as languages, political system and currency"
Agree 110%. My country should not be shamed for wanting such things by internal and external critics.
The Visa/MasterCard "Tax" is something like 30cents
Credit card fees are 3%
You're both half right. The credit card processing fee is 30 cents per transaction plus 3 percent of the total. For a $1 transaction, this totals 33 cents, which is why some shops that deal in mostly small transactions don't take plastic. By contrast, debit card processing fees on the ATM networks (Cirrus/Maestro for Debit MasterCard or Interlink for Visa Debit) are on the order of 30 cents.
The US withdrew $1000 bills because drug dealers were able to more easily conceal their money when making large deals.
Okay but ignorant statements are by definition not trolls. It isn't whether he is right or wrong, the issue is moderation abuse.
'"some banks even allow you to withdraw up to 5,000 francs per day (or 10,000 a month) at the cash machine without advance notice."
I should be able to withdraw 100% of my money immediately, no matter the amount, or else it's not my money.'
Whether you agree or not is beside the point. This is not a troll and highlights moderation abuse. Mod points aren't for silencing those you disagree with.
That's an interesting viewpoint, and matches well with the FDIC account insurance limits. That's $250,000 per person per bank--anything over that is subject to loss if the bank fails completely and no buyer will take it over. That was one of the administrative wonders of the Great Recession, that the Fed managed to get so many failing banks to get bought by others with little (and I think actually no) loss of account value instead of failing outright and accounts being subject to FDIC coverage. I'm not sure if the Fed or FDIC buffered it at all with any form of direct cash infusion to offset asset differences of failed banks (ignoring quantitative easing, which was a related goal but different mechanism).
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The 1000 Frank note has some geographical info in silvery micro font. Yes, I have one, got it from a regular ATM last week.
The 10 Frank note has swiss tunnels with their length.
The 20 has distance in light seconds to heavenly bodies, Luna, mercury, venus, Sol, etc, ending with CMB at 430 000 000 000 000 000 s.
The 50 has Swiss mountains, just listing them.
Coolest/nerdiest is the micro writing on the 200 Frank note, it has the events after the big bang in scientific time notation. Planck epoch from t=0 until ~10^-43s, then inflationary epoch until "?", then Electroweak Symmetry Breaking until 10^-11s, then the quark epoch until 10^-6s,... It ends with 13.8x10^9 y Now.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any link that shows it.
aRTee
BOTH Government and Big Business want the ability to track people at all times. Tracking how and where they spend their money is the holy grail for such folks; even better would be a cashless society so no transaction would ever truly be anonymous again. Cash is wonderfully difficult to trace, which obviously makes it nearly ideal for money laundering, but also for maintaining some semblance of privacy. I realize the latter concept appears dead to virtually anyone under 40.
Why choose between ignorance and malice when you can have both in one fine AC?
Oh you're one of *those*. Okeydokey. Now we know where we stand. Knee deep in bigoted bullshit conspiracies.
Outages are a reason but they haven't been taken in by lazy attitudes towards security.
Even the article points out the every day problems of government control over your life. Limiting how much you can Withdrawal at any one time. Pre-notification of large amounts, large defined by your ever increasing socialist control.
I use cash for for anything under $100 as it easier to keep track how much I have and how much I no longer have.
But I suppose poorer poorer who don't have $500 to $1000 in hand can't relate.
This is a nation which values privacy and doesn't like being told what to do.
Unlike those who crow endlessly about digital payments, etc, who love being told what to do.
And how to do it.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
A negative interest rate does not make it harder to hoard money. You just store your bills in some vault, instead of a bank account. A vault is not interest-bearing, so no negative interest. Profit if the storage fee is lower than the negative interest on your fortune.
And of course, the vault may very well be operated by a bank, having the level of security you expect.
we all know they're doing it. It's not hard to follow the money. Sure, it might not be 100% sure it's in a Swiss bank instead of the Cayman Islands, but does it really matter?
I guess what I'm saying is, all this corruption is right out in the open and we pretend it's not. We're not trading privacy for billionaires being able to stash cash overseas. We could have both any time we want. We just don't seem to want to. We've got other priorities.
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Yes, but if you walk into a local bank and demand to walk out with $250,000 of your own money it will be highly unlikely that they have that much lying around.
I go for weeks at a time without using a card (except the bank ATM or -regrettably- online). If I have a choice I will always pay cash. "If you can't pay cash, don't buy it" is not an absolute rule but is a good default.
As for "convenience"... "What's the total? OK here it is (pays cash);Takes receipt. Done!
One of life's little displeasures is getting stuck at the supermarket when somebody's card won't work in the reader.
Naturally, they have four or five cards (1) declined; (2) forgot pin;(3) doesn't work; (4) we don't take that one.....
Some ask "what if you lose cash or get robbed?!?!?" ... well I lose a couple of hundred bucks.
What if You get skimmed? you might not know for a month.
For some people cards are "virtual money" which is much easier to overspend. Cash is "real money". You can only spend what you have at hand.
Finally, cash IS more private. Even granting the points made above by sjbe , it is nobody's business what I do with my money. Privacy may be a dying concept but I will not willingly participate in its decline.
If plastic money works for you, great! Other things work for other people. Deal with it.
Like America does with their currency?
"...people believe that using it allows them to track their spending more easily."
Not for me, it's so much easier to keep an eye on your spendings when you use your card. A quick look at the app or website and you have a nice list of what you were spending your money on. My bank even allows to link accounts to a type, so i can see in an instant how much this day/week/month i spend on bills, food, hobbies, etc.
Try that with cash, sure it is possible, keep the receipts (ugh) and note it all down in a spreadsheet in the evening or instantly on your phone. just extra hassle i just don't have the time for. Not to mention that you can never pay the exact amount of money, so you end up with a pocket full of coins, which you'll dump in the coin-jar at home. That money is basically lost because you don't really use it, except on some rare occasions you know you'll need to pay 'little money'. But all those coins add up, you'd be amazed how much money actually is in that jar (which would otherwise just be readily available on your bank account for you to pay with your card).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Which is why you still cling to cheques when the rest of the world went digital.
If you own [a mobile phone in the first place]
We do.
Even children?
Why would I carry around a flat phone?
Because it wasn't flat when you removed it from your apartment.
What's a flipphone, are you talking about the Galaxy Fold?
No. I'm talking about cheap, basic phones with a comparatively tiny flip-up screen and a physical numeric keypad that can only make calls, receive calls, send texts, receive texts, and edit contacts. You may have heard them referred to as "burner phones." Parents buy these for children because service on a flip phone is cheaper per month than service on a smartphone, or because parents don't want children installing and running apps that could get them in trouble.
Well just use a normal debit card.
How would a child go about getting one of these? I thought a debit card required a bank account, and a bank account had to have a grown-up's name on it.