That medication-level imagination, pal. If “some banker” has that much power over you that he can ban you from all digital payments for posting on your favorite nerd board, he can also deny you access to modern banking. This would be a kiss of death for most middle income individuals today as they would find themselves in a world where the institutionalized method of receiving the said income is unavailable to them.
No payment method is an inalienable right. However, the above situation would almost certainly violate your rights to pursue happiness within the society, which would be a violation of your inalienable rights both today and in a digital payments-only world.
I am terribly sorry, but you are completely wrong on multiple levels. The likelihood that their opportunity costs were lower than purchasing the services through the market is almost infinitesimally low.
I have some doubt about the transaction cost argument, because this would be something that would br very difficult to measure and leaves a lot of wiggle room, but it is almost certain that one of them was overpaid and the other one was underpaid. Not being aware of opportunity costs does not remove opportunity costs. A large and efficient market helps us assess those costs, but “I’ll fix your sink if you fix my PC” almost guarantees that someone is getting a better deal than they should, even if the loser isn’t aware of it.
As for the whole researching providers, that argument is downright nonsensical. Entering “Plummer” into Google Maps and taking the first hit with four stars would have provided for better service research than what happened in the situation above. This is exasperated by the fact that the individuals engaged were almost certainly not performing the tasks they specialize in. Let’s assume that OP fixed a Windows install and his neighbor fixed his sink and his AC. What exactly are the odds that those were the two exact specialization of the two actors? Almost zero. A Linux server admin is not using his time efficiently deleting malware from a ten-year-old Windows Vista computer and a guy who fixes ACs all day is not using his time efficiently fixing sinks. He is probably also not as good at fixing sinks as a professional plummer and would almost certainly have much higher overhead—I.e. transaction costs—getting the materials.
I appreciate a reply that isn’t completely idiotic for a change, but what you are saying economically sound.
Jesus Christ None of this—literally not a single bit—has anything to do with Keynesianism. It is not a catch all term for all things you don’t like about the government, Einstein. If anything, not performing transactions in kind but participating in the market is a very Friedmanian idea. Stating blatantly obvious facts that undeclared labor is tax evasion—under certain circumstances—is economic school agnostic. It’s the world we live in. Maybe you should take some classes too before you go out looking like a bloody fool.
At least link to the comment when you are referring to another thread. I don’t need to know what the performance and the counter-performance was to make the statement that a transaction took place. Any lawyer will tell you that. It’s in the very nature of what took place, which is somehow confusing to you. OP advocated doing so frequently, which given a certain volume of such transactions would put him in the territory where he has to report those to his tax office. If he doesn’t, he indeed should be in prison for tax evasion. I am not entirely certain what you find so challenging about this simple fact.
Frankly, I doubt he is anywhere close to that threshold as he probably just fixed someone’s computer recently and wanted to brad about it on/.
I don’t think it is a very productive exercise to ask “why” in most cases involving stupidy relating to use of electronics. I am certain anyone who has ever been in corporate cyber security will eagerly confirm this statement. Mind you, we are talking about people with degrees that attended security policy orientations and still manage to send confidential data over unsecured channels. Now imagine the guy whose main skill is selling meth in a night club. I would not be surprised if he kept a log of his transactions on his Facebook wall or something.
Right, the German comedian issue. Didn’t go to court, elected officials abided by the voice of the electorate, all good, no harm done.
I am sorry, I am not a criminologist, but last I checked the “customer” transactions are still made using dollars. It is very difficult to sell drugs when you have to run the transaction through a monitored payment system. I am genuinely surprised that it actually worked for as long as it did with Venmo. If you remove the easy means of exchange, the whole system suffers a major crisis. This is a very good thing for the law abiding citizen. Then, of course, Monero came out.
It does not hurt people living paycheck to paycheck or small businesses. Many prepaid solutions (non-US) don’t charge participating businesses any transaction fees and greatly decrease their overhead. I also don’t know what kind of job you need to have not to have a bank account. Minimum wage part timers working at restaurants have their wages wired to them in most developed countries. The situation is even more starling in the developing, where mobile banking has led to significant improvements in quality of life. These are all non-issues and will become even less of an issue as times move on.
Neither am I modded up, nor is it an inalienable right to pay anonymously, nor did I ever argue against free speech, self-defence and co. What are you on about? We are on/. If I wanted to be voted up I would write some incoherent nonsense about privacy completely disregarding any consequences of my proposition, because, let’s face it, the society by and large does not share this community’s attitude towards these issues.
We have real problems associated with cash as a society and these are issues that need to be addressed. I think Bitcoin is a horrible invention, but sovereign crypto that may result from it is actually a pretty good thing. We don’t want the practices of money laundering and tax evasion to be going on as they are now. It incentivizes criminal behavior of all collars and creates a tremendous cost for hard-working members of the society such as those visiting this very website.
Nothing to “oh please” here, buddy. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. The reason you don’t need to report your children’s chores is because 1.) many jurisdictions are more lenient on familiar relations and 2.) because the sums involved are very small. Most countries I am familiar with place the limit somewhere between $5000-$10,000 for unreported work. From there on, it’s tax evasion.
What AC is describing there may well fall outside of that buffer depending on how much he lives by his own advice. You can cite Rousseau all you like, but the IRS or equivalent really won’t care much. If you don’t believe me, please, pay your child $50,000-$100,000 a year for their chores in monthly installments and see what happens the next tax season.
You believe that homeless people will die if we went cashless—as opposed to finding some other means of getting by? Is this really the best argument you can come up with, dude? (I hope you are not feeling harassed at the moment. Please tell me if you are; milk and cookies are in the back office.)
I think you should get in touch with Amnesty International if it’s that bad. They might get you a nice asylum in the Democractic Republic of Congo for some perspective.
That’s fantastic and I always have a few hundered bucks on me as well in case I need them, but that’s literally only because we don’t have complete coverage yet. It probably depends on where you live, but I saw a terminal fail ONCE in my entire life. Compared to how much time I save daily by not having to deal with cash, that one time isn’t even worth speaking about.
I am pretty sure first responders do not ask you for your credit card number when you approach them for food and water.
Are you being harassed? Maybe you should file a police report.
No, you know, let’s actively work against elected officials and towards making all our transactions absolutely anonymous and untraceable for the sole purpose of giving some privacy fetishist a hard-on. That’s totally reasonable and good for the society.
It is not a harsh statement. People selling things that aren’t allowed to be sold are criminals. Extremely smart people can make a killing without living under a constant fear of having to spend several decades of their life in prison.
I honestly couldn’t care less. Famous person (who is coincidentally famous for lying to his customers) getting death threads is about as newsworthy as water being wet.
I disagree with your first premise, since in my view something that is illegal is generally agreed on by the society as bad, even if certain groups don’t think so. Legislative lag aside, it would not be illegal otherwise. But that is beside the point.
Yes, they would, but it would also make their transaction costs much higher and the whole enterprise considerably less profitable. Imagine roadside drug dealers switching to gold or baseball cards or something as currency? That puts a considerable overhead on the whole business AND reduces transactions to several channels of goods that are then at some point converted into legal tender to allow criminals to buy groceries. Those channels are much easier to regular and snuff out that bank notes circulating back and forth.
There is a very good reason why economists agree almost unanimously that exchange in kinds is a really bad monetary system.
Of course there is A transaction. Depending on the jurisdiction, there could actually be several transactions there. There is a verbal contract with performance and counter-performance. The only difference between what AC is doing and you buying coffee is that the counter-performance was labor as opposed to legal tender.
This is no different from any other undeclared labor. Any expert could give you a very good estimate as to how much the labor performed by the two participants is worth at which point you have nothing standing in the way of taxation. It is no different from you housing an illegal immigrant for free in your base in exchange for him or her being your maid during the daytime.
There is probably some clause that allows a certain amount of undeclared labor per year, but beyond that, AC should either be paying taxes or spending time in prison.
Slashdot Mirror
That medication-level imagination, pal. If “some banker” has that much power over you that he can ban you from all digital payments for posting on your favorite nerd board, he can also deny you access to modern banking. This would be a kiss of death for most middle income individuals today as they would find themselves in a world where the institutionalized method of receiving the said income is unavailable to them.
No payment method is an inalienable right. However, the above situation would almost certainly violate your rights to pursue happiness within the society, which would be a violation of your inalienable rights both today and in a digital payments-only world.
If it is a liability that the money is per definition not “theirs”. That’s what a liability means.
I am terribly sorry, but you are completely wrong on multiple levels. The likelihood that their opportunity costs were lower than purchasing the services through the market is almost infinitesimally low.
I have some doubt about the transaction cost argument, because this would be something that would br very difficult to measure and leaves a lot of wiggle room, but it is almost certain that one of them was overpaid and the other one was underpaid. Not being aware of opportunity costs does not remove opportunity costs. A large and efficient market helps us assess those costs, but “I’ll fix your sink if you fix my PC” almost guarantees that someone is getting a better deal than they should, even if the loser isn’t aware of it.
As for the whole researching providers, that argument is downright nonsensical. Entering “Plummer” into Google Maps and taking the first hit with four stars would have provided for better service research than what happened in the situation above. This is exasperated by the fact that the individuals engaged were almost certainly not performing the tasks they specialize in. Let’s assume that OP fixed a Windows install and his neighbor fixed his sink and his AC. What exactly are the odds that those were the two exact specialization of the two actors? Almost zero. A Linux server admin is not using his time efficiently deleting malware from a ten-year-old Windows Vista computer and a guy who fixes ACs all day is not using his time efficiently fixing sinks. He is probably also not as good at fixing sinks as a professional plummer and would almost certainly have much higher overhead—I.e. transaction costs—getting the materials.
I appreciate a reply that isn’t completely idiotic for a change, but what you are saying economically sound.
Jesus Christ None of this—literally not a single bit—has anything to do with Keynesianism. It is not a catch all term for all things you don’t like about the government, Einstein. If anything, not performing transactions in kind but participating in the market is a very Friedmanian idea. Stating blatantly obvious facts that undeclared labor is tax evasion—under certain circumstances—is economic school agnostic. It’s the world we live in. Maybe you should take some classes too before you go out looking like a bloody fool.
At least link to the comment when you are referring to another thread. I don’t need to know what the performance and the counter-performance was to make the statement that a transaction took place. Any lawyer will tell you that. It’s in the very nature of what took place, which is somehow confusing to you. OP advocated doing so frequently, which given a certain volume of such transactions would put him in the territory where he has to report those to his tax office. If he doesn’t, he indeed should be in prison for tax evasion. I am not entirely certain what you find so challenging about this simple fact.
/.
Frankly, I doubt he is anywhere close to that threshold as he probably just fixed someone’s computer recently and wanted to brad about it on
My thoughts are that this is bad design and will hopefully be fixed in some future revision.
*euphorically tips fedora*
I don’t think it is a very productive exercise to ask “why” in most cases involving stupidy relating to use of electronics. I am certain anyone who has ever been in corporate cyber security will eagerly confirm this statement. Mind you, we are talking about people with degrees that attended security policy orientations and still manage to send confidential data over unsecured channels. Now imagine the guy whose main skill is selling meth in a night club. I would not be surprised if he kept a log of his transactions on his Facebook wall or something.
Right, the German comedian issue. Didn’t go to court, elected officials abided by the voice of the electorate, all good, no harm done.
I am sorry, I am not a criminologist, but last I checked the “customer” transactions are still made using dollars. It is very difficult to sell drugs when you have to run the transaction through a monitored payment system. I am genuinely surprised that it actually worked for as long as it did with Venmo. If you remove the easy means of exchange, the whole system suffers a major crisis. This is a very good thing for the law abiding citizen. Then, of course, Monero came out.
It does not hurt people living paycheck to paycheck or small businesses. Many prepaid solutions (non-US) don’t charge participating businesses any transaction fees and greatly decrease their overhead. I also don’t know what kind of job you need to have not to have a bank account. Minimum wage part timers working at restaurants have their wages wired to them in most developed countries. The situation is even more starling in the developing, where mobile banking has led to significant improvements in quality of life. These are all non-issues and will become even less of an issue as times move on.
Don’t worry. The stalking will be very gentle and you won’t even notice it happening. ###youtoo
Neither am I modded up, nor is it an inalienable right to pay anonymously, nor did I ever argue against free speech, self-defence and co. What are you on about? We are on /. If I wanted to be voted up I would write some incoherent nonsense about privacy completely disregarding any consequences of my proposition, because, let’s face it, the society by and large does not share this community’s attitude towards these issues.
We have real problems associated with cash as a society and these are issues that need to be addressed. I think Bitcoin is a horrible invention, but sovereign crypto that may result from it is actually a pretty good thing. We don’t want the practices of money laundering and tax evasion to be going on as they are now. It incentivizes criminal behavior of all collars and creates a tremendous cost for hard-working members of the society such as those visiting this very website.
No, it’s not like the old days anymore. Got to buy everything yourself. Very disappointing.
Nothing to “oh please” here, buddy. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. The reason you don’t need to report your children’s chores is because 1.) many jurisdictions are more lenient on familiar relations and 2.) because the sums involved are very small. Most countries I am familiar with place the limit somewhere between $5000-$10,000 for unreported work. From there on, it’s tax evasion.
What AC is describing there may well fall outside of that buffer depending on how much he lives by his own advice. You can cite Rousseau all you like, but the IRS or equivalent really won’t care much. If you don’t believe me, please, pay your child $50,000-$100,000 a year for their chores in monthly installments and see what happens the next tax season.
You believe that homeless people will die if we went cashless—as opposed to finding some other means of getting by? Is this really the best argument you can come up with, dude? (I hope you are not feeling harassed at the moment. Please tell me if you are; milk and cookies are in the back office.)
Prove it.
I think you should get in touch with Amnesty International if it’s that bad. They might get you a nice asylum in the Democractic Republic of Congo for some perspective.
Right, let’s keep cash around to preserve the wonderful institution of people with mental illnesses engaging in roadside begging for money.
That’s fantastic and I always have a few hundered bucks on me as well in case I need them, but that’s literally only because we don’t have complete coverage yet. It probably depends on where you live, but I saw a terminal fail ONCE in my entire life. Compared to how much time I save daily by not having to deal with cash, that one time isn’t even worth speaking about.
I am pretty sure first responders do not ask you for your credit card number when you approach them for food and water.
Are you being harassed? Maybe you should file a police report.
No, you know, let’s actively work against elected officials and towards making all our transactions absolutely anonymous and untraceable for the sole purpose of giving some privacy fetishist a hard-on. That’s totally reasonable and good for the society.
It is not a harsh statement. People selling things that aren’t allowed to be sold are criminals. Extremely smart people can make a killing without living under a constant fear of having to spend several decades of their life in prison.
TL;DR: Criminals are by and large compete and utter idiots. So are many of their customers.
This bot post has just saved you a minute of reading. Praise Jobs.
I honestly couldn’t care less. Famous person (who is coincidentally famous for lying to his customers) getting death threads is about as newsworthy as water being wet.
So what? I might lose my wallet too. Stop being an idiot.
I disagree with your first premise, since in my view something that is illegal is generally agreed on by the society as bad, even if certain groups don’t think so. Legislative lag aside, it would not be illegal otherwise. But that is beside the point.
Yes, they would, but it would also make their transaction costs much higher and the whole enterprise considerably less profitable. Imagine roadside drug dealers switching to gold or baseball cards or something as currency? That puts a considerable overhead on the whole business AND reduces transactions to several channels of goods that are then at some point converted into legal tender to allow criminals to buy groceries. Those channels are much easier to regular and snuff out that bank notes circulating back and forth.
There is a very good reason why economists agree almost unanimously that exchange in kinds is a really bad monetary system.
Of course there is A transaction. Depending on the jurisdiction, there could actually be several transactions there. There is a verbal contract with performance and counter-performance. The only difference between what AC is doing and you buying coffee is that the counter-performance was labor as opposed to legal tender.
This is no different from any other undeclared labor. Any expert could give you a very good estimate as to how much the labor performed by the two participants is worth at which point you have nothing standing in the way of taxation. It is no different from you housing an illegal immigrant for free in your base in exchange for him or her being your maid during the daytime.
There is probably some clause that allows a certain amount of undeclared labor per year, but beyond that, AC should either be paying taxes or spending time in prison.