Anyway, this always occured to me as the "safe" way to counterfeit. The level of money generated stays below everyone's radar screen, the denominations are small enough and involve enough machines that they might not even be found to be counterfeit until they were so far removed from the transaction as to be impossible to trace without a level of effort that wouldn't pay off.
Interesting theory, give it a try and let us know how it worked out when you're released from custody.
The problem with this thinking is that enforcement is prioritized according to:
(1) the per-incident economic impact (e.g. a suitcase of $50 bills vs. a single bogus $10 bill)
(2) a discernible pattern to the incidence of counterfeit-bill complaints, particularly if the aggregate impact of the fake bills is significant
(3) the likelihood of an incident investigation leading to a source of counterfeit currency
That said, even if one were to optimize for each of the above, you run the very real risk of coming to the attention of an agent with time to pursue a lower-priority investigation.
Counterfeiting US currency, particularly in these times of heightened security awareness, is about one of the highest-risk paths to ill-gotten gains I can think of. Based on comments made to me by FBI agents with relevant experience, the risk/reward ratio for a single well-planned bank robbery is significantly better than any appreciably lucrative counterfeiting scheme anyone has come up with yet.
Entertainingly enough, most bank robbers are sufficiently deluded by their first success that they try to parlay that into a series of successes. This character weakness is generally how non-violent bank robbers get caught.
Actually, I'm rather impressed that they put that into their license agreement. You see, this practice is already prevalent amongst companies with any degree of outsourcing for customer service -- Sun just differentiates themselves by actually disclosing the risk.
I'm increasingly convinced that certain word misspellings are capable of achieving critical mass and turning into full-fledged memes. This is Not A Good Thing(tm).
imagine those little scrubbing bubbles on the side of that can being real....
Man, I can still feel the bitter sting of disappointment from that fateful day that I, as a young sprout, shot that crap into a bathtub and those little bastards didn't show up. Damn those misleading commercials!
How exactly would such a voting system work? I think the problem isn't the Electoral College, but rather the "Winner Takes All" system which effectively makes my vote (being a liberal in Alabama) worthless.
I'm sure there are all sorts of esoteric political science arguments against my idea of a good system for presidential elections, because it's simple and straightforward.
I'd like to see a simplified system whereby the presidential candidate with the greatest number of votes, nationwide, wins the election. I believe that the electoral college system is an artifact of pre-Information Age technological limitations on the gathering and analysis of voting data from a widely distributed population.
I fail to understand how a system which enables the candidate with fewer total votes to win an election has been allowed to stand -- the only possible explanation is that the political parties all recognize it as a corruption of the will of the voters, but they all share the conceit that they are such masterful gamesmen that they can manipulate such an unbalanced system in their candidate's favor.
> Someone I know made his opinion known in a very emotional way. "Evil #$*&% stupid $&@#
> Republicans!", he said. Then ten minutes later in the conversation, "I can't understand why my
> mom voted for Bush." Did he realize he just called his mother "Evil #$*&% stupid $&@#"? I
> somehow doubt it.
Having voted for Bush does not necessarily make someone a Republican. A significant portion of the voting population is either unaffiliated with a political party, or is willing to vote across party lines. Ever hear of the 'swing vote'?
On a related topic... While representative democracy works well in many cases (particularly at the state level), I have my suspicions that it's outlived its usefulness at the presidential-election level. My disillusionment with the voting process would be reduced considerably if we could just get rid of the damned electoral college system and elect our next president by simple plurality.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting theory, give it a try and let us know how it worked out when you're released from custody. The problem with this thinking is that enforcement is prioritized according to:
(1) the per-incident economic impact (e.g. a suitcase of $50 bills vs. a single bogus $10 bill)
(2) a discernible pattern to the incidence of counterfeit-bill complaints, particularly if the aggregate impact of the fake bills is significant
(3) the likelihood of an incident investigation leading to a source of counterfeit currency
That said, even if one were to optimize for each of the above, you run the very real risk of coming to the attention of an agent with time to pursue a lower-priority investigation.
Counterfeiting US currency, particularly in these times of heightened security awareness, is about one of the highest-risk paths to ill-gotten gains I can think of. Based on comments made to me by FBI agents with relevant experience, the risk/reward ratio for a single well-planned bank robbery is significantly better than any appreciably lucrative counterfeiting scheme anyone has come up with yet.
Entertainingly enough, most bank robbers are sufficiently deluded by their first success that they try to parlay that into a series of successes. This character weakness is generally how non-violent bank robbers get caught.
-Trevor
Right on. That's one of the most level-headed and reasonable approaches to this issue that I've seen yet.
You go, Shihar.
-T.
-T.
The word is deity, goofball.
I'm increasingly convinced that certain word misspellings are capable of achieving critical mass and turning into full-fledged memes. This is Not A Good Thing(tm).
-T.
Man, I can still feel the bitter sting of disappointment from that fateful day that I, as a young sprout, shot that crap into a bathtub and those little bastards didn't show up. Damn those misleading commercials!
T.
I'm sure there are all sorts of esoteric political science arguments against my idea of a good system for presidential elections, because it's simple and straightforward.
I'd like to see a simplified system whereby the presidential candidate with the greatest number of votes, nationwide, wins the election. I believe that the electoral college system is an artifact of pre-Information Age technological limitations on the gathering and analysis of voting data from a widely distributed population.
I fail to understand how a system which enables the candidate with fewer total votes to win an election has been allowed to stand -- the only possible explanation is that the political parties all recognize it as a corruption of the will of the voters, but they all share the conceit that they are such masterful gamesmen that they can manipulate such an unbalanced system in their candidate's favor.
-Trevor
> Republicans!", he said. Then ten minutes later in the conversation, "I can't understand why my
> mom voted for Bush." Did he realize he just called his mother "Evil #$*&% stupid $&@#"? I
> somehow doubt it.
Having voted for Bush does not necessarily make someone a Republican. A significant portion of the voting population is either unaffiliated with a political party, or is willing to vote across party lines. Ever hear of the 'swing vote'?
On a related topic... While representative democracy works well in many cases (particularly at the state level), I have my suspicions that it's outlived its usefulness at the presidential-election level. My disillusionment with the voting process would be reduced considerably if we could just get rid of the damned electoral college system and elect our next president by simple plurality.
-T.