[Teandw]

I very much doubt there are money people that walk into an apple store with 10k in their back pocket to pay for some computers.

Same with farmers. How many farmers living in this modern age are walking around with 10k in their back pockets? In the vast majority of cases, I would argue that people just use their bank account for such large payments these days.

[dahfizz]

> I would argue that people just use their bank account for such large payments these days.

Yup, and now they are _forced_ to. Its a single point of failure. One which the government conveniently has control over.

I'm surprised the HN crowd isn't grasping this more clearly. Backups are important.

[c4ptnjack]

For most businesses, cash is a far more likely point of failure.

Taking in large amounts of cash is ripe for robbery. It's also why a lot of places don't accept $100's after a certain time and etc because it gets really risky for the employees.

[mrfumier]

Government has control of your cash just as well. If the central bank decides your bills are not recognized anymore, or that they want to print 1000% more of it, your cash value changes.

[edzillion]

Which is Mutually Assured Destruction. I can't think of many occasions in which financial elites would destroy their own wealth in pursuit of political (?) goals.

The one incident I can think of didn't end well.

[senko]

> Its a single point of failure

You can have more than one bank account.

[matt123456789]

The point is that you cannot do any meaningful amount of business if “the system” prevents you from banking, or malfunctions in some way that locks you out. Or more insidiously, if someone in power prevents you from banking because they do not like what you have to say. There is no longer a gray market relief valve. All unbanked business activity is illegal.

[b112]

The recent trucker protest in Canada, had just this happen.

People locked out of their accounts. For protesting!

[Zircom]

Blocking domestic and international commerce, and more importantly access for emergency services, goes a little beyond just "protesting" as most people see it, and it also probably isn't protected by whatever right to assemble/protest people have in Canada, if any(?).

[b112]

Blocking domestic and international commerce, and more importantly access for emergency services, goes a little beyond just "protesting" as most people see it,

Blocking emergency services is a very, very weird thing. Loads of protests do so. Parades do so.

That said, the problem isn't "was it a protest or not", the problem is judicial oversight was suspended, by employing what used to be called The War Measures Act.

Yes, only some of the powers were used. Yet those powers were used to bypass all legal and constitutional protections, and snoop into bank accounts, and freeze bank accounts, again... all without judicial oversight.

None of these people had been charged. To this day, most of those who had their bank accounts snooped in, and frozen (and later thawed), were never charged with a crime.

This is not possible in Canada, legally, without using one of the most powerful laws at our disposal. And regardless of the protest length, or type, it wasn't an emergency.

Blockades at the borders, and in Alberta were cleared without issue, before the act was declared.

Lastly, compared to protests in some other democratic countries? It was nothing. Meaningless. Tiny. Trivial.

But again, most importantly -- agree or not, like or not, even if you hated those truckers, having the government declare an emergency, for something that was not? Then having that government use those powers to bypass the judicial branch?

Insane. Wrong. Horrifying.

Such laws should absolutely not be used to punish your political rivals!

[Beaver117]

>Of course you have the right to protest against the government >Nooooo not like that!!

Which is it?

[llanowarelves]

Bank accounts as we know them may not exist in the world of CBDCs because they can just be held by the fed directly, which is their design.

[lordnacho]

The government has control over that in any case. For instance a judge can force a liability on you.

[csdigi]

It depends on how they got their income in the first place. My family are dairy farmers and frequently trade cattle at local auctions. This is still a cash based society (rural Ireland), it does not take many heads of cattle to make up 10k, many other deals are done informally (e.g. my grandfather buying cows from a neighbor without auction) with a value that is of that order. The money may hit a bank account if something more formal needs to be bought (insurance, new machinery etc) but those are not all that common.

As a child I would always remember my grandfather carrying (at least in the house) large rolls of bills.

[Teandw]

This is one of those edge cases where you have a way of doing business that hasn't moved forward and 'with the times'.

Unfortunately when you don't move with the times, it ultimately catches up with you and forces your hand eventually. No matter how hard you try.

[lilsoso]

A new Macbook Pros can easily be over $6k (16", upgraded ram, upgraded hard drive, etc). $10k is not that much money. People do pay for these laptops in cash.

A phone has cost over $1k for years. Think of the present rate of inflation. $10k is nothing, particularly a decade from now. Then think of two decades from now and this silly law still on the books.

[1337biz]

I did exactly this at the Apple store for a 5k+ purchase. I do these things out of principle to make it harder to create profiles and support cash. It is the same why I prefer https over http.

[Teandw]

No matter how hard you try, cash is dying. If it's a good thing or not is another debate but you're not supporting anything by paying in cash.

You're simply prolonging the death with no benefit of doing so other than to pat yourself on the back.

[0cVlTeIATBs]

We just need to prolong it enough until we can prolong it a bit further, ad infinitum.

[themitigating]

The ones that commit tax fraud