[habinero]

> Central/commercial banks, Treasuries, etc. cannot abide any fire-exit that is not chained shut

Ok, then call it what it actually is: tax evasion, fraud, and laundering money.

You're getting caught up in an anti-government agenda and forgetting that's not a good thing to most people.

[pjkundert]

I think most reasonable people would agree that desiring the freedom to invest your personal wealth in non-government approved investments isn't "tax evasion, fraud and laundering money".

Isn't such a claim a bit ... bizarre?

[habinero]

No? "Non-government approved" either means "unregulated" or "illegal".

Unregulated financial speculation has a lot of issues. See: FTX and NFTs

[pjkundert]

So, no:

- savings in gold/silver bullion

- your sister's small business, back in the home country

I'm sorry; if your position basically makes ever free person a criminal, then perhaps it isn't them that are the problem?

[habinero]

Owning gold/silver is legal. It's also regulated - it's not legal tender.

Investing in a business is legal. It also means sending money, which is regulated by KYC/AML and you're still responsible for taxes.

[TimJRobinson]

Investing in small businesses isn't legal because you need to be an accredited investor which only the top 1% of the wealth pyramid qualify for.

It's these kinds of rules to "save people from themselves" that have the bonus effect of the rich gatekeeping the best investments that make a lot of people mad and see the current system as corrupt.

Being able to spend and invest my money how I want should not be a crime.

[habinero]

What? I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings here.

Buying a stake in a small biz is perfectly legal and people do it all the time.

That's entirely separate from the requirement to be an accredited investor to buy unregistered securities.

[oblio]

> Investing in small businesses isn't legal because you need to be an accredited investor which only the top 1% of the wealth pyramid qualify for.

Whaaaaat? Sorry, but that comment makes no sense. You can buy a share in any small business you want.

You're mistaking this for some types of stock market investments[1], which are made to "save people from themselves", from back in the day before 1929 when access was free for all and hawkers peddling crappy stock brought the entire world economy to a halt by getting the general population to join the stock market casino (slight exaggeration, but not by much).

[1] And guess what, your sister's lemonade stand isn't listed on the NYSE or even on the Romanian BVB :-p

[markdestouches]

It's not investment when there is no industry behind it. It's called speculation. Or gambling - for some people.

[RestlessMind]

> and forgetting that's not a good thing to most people.

you are living in a bubble to assume that governments are always good and anyone bucking their government is a bad actor. Try to learn more about Venezuela, Iran, Russia, North Korea or Syria. Or even truckers in Canada whose accounts were frozen because of peaceful protests.

At this point, the best thing for crypto would be for someone like Trump to freeze all the finances for some people like BLM protestors. Then perhaps people will get out of "ye subvert yer gubmint? ye traitor..." mindset.

[habinero]

This ridiculous straw man comes up all the time. Stop it. Nobody said "governments are always good" or denied that dictatorships exist.

The rest of this is pure irrational FUD. Democracies are not dictatorships.

A president doesn't have the legal authority to freeze finances like that. They are not a king.

[RestlessMind]

> The rest of this is pure irrational FUD. Democracies are not dictatorships.

Please get your facts straight. This happened in Canada, one of the supposedly best democracies out there

"The Attorney General of Ontario sought and was granted an Ontario Superior Court of Justice court order under Section 490.8 of the Criminal Code of Canada against GiveSendGo,[69] to freeze the funds collected from two campaigns, "Freedom Convoy 2022"—US$8.4 million and "Adopt-a-Trucker"—over $686,000,[73][74] and prohibit their distribution.[72][69] The court order binds "any and all parties with possession or control over these donations".[73] The Mareva injunction was issued on February 17 by Justice Calum MacLeod.[75] GiveSendGo funds go directly to campaign recipients such as The Freedom Convoy campaign, so Canadian banks cannot interfere. The largest donation, which was anonymous, as were six of the other top ten, was US$215,000.[74] The Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) members, who are investigating Freedom Convoy's fundraising, voted on February 10 to include a study of the "rise of ideologically motivated extremism".[74] The FINA Committee invited GiveSendGo to testify.[74]

By February 19, at least 76 bank accounts linked to the protests totalling CA$3.2 million were frozen under the Emergencies Act.[76] Most accounts had been unfrozen by February 23.[77]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest

[habinero]

You're letting your conspiracy politics cloud your thinking. This entire screed is entirely irrational FUD. Stop.

Canadian banks and regulators looking into potential money laundering is entirely reasonable and appropriate behavior.

[helloworld11]

And you're letting your simplistic take on democratic government being "nice" color your own thinking.

Canadian banks and regulators looking into money laundering might be reasonable when carefully permitted by tried legal procedure. A bunch of freely donated money for a peaceful protest of a type with lots of basic precedent being suddenly frozen for blatantly political reasons by pressure from the country's leader is not the same thing. Quite the opposite, it's a small bit of third world tinpot, would-be authoritarianism that has no place in the legal proceedings of a highly developed country like Canada.

[habinero]

Take your conspiracy screeds elsewhere, please. This is a technology site, not Reddit.

[RestlessMind]

Looking into? Totally fine. Blocking accounts? That crosses the line, which happened in Feb for 4 days. So yeah, if you don't have any reasonable arguments, don't just yell "conspiracy". I am giving you facts with evidence. Please respond with facts.