Time for Europe to repeal the US-backed AML crap.

Sunday, 31 March, Year 5 d.Tr. | Author: Mircea Popescu


You've probably seen the image above yesterday or the day before, it went viral all over the Internet (or at least the part thereof that has a modicum of financial competence). I happen to know the source, it's the Bitcoin forum.

The discussion around it is sort-of interesting, but unfortunately it follows the very obvious yet also useless line of "it was the Nazi Germans' fault" "No it's the Gypsies that are lazy!". This is for all practical purposes nonsense, and debating it a waste of anyone's time.

On one hand there's absolutely no reason to expect random German accountant or carpenter pay as much as five marks for other people's problems. Sure, he may if he wishes to, if he choses to, but outside of that there shall be no charity on the public treasury - charity can strictly be private, and no "representative" is authorised to vote largesse out of the tax chest.

On the other hand there's absolutely no reason to suspect random Cypriot IT firm or services business with a little (and 100k IS a little) money in the bank of being lazy or financially irresponsible. They obviously were both industrious and responsible - they have the money to prove it.

There's however a much more important, if somewhat subtler point that the discussion should be revolving around. At the behest of the US and for the classical reason of "won't you think of the children" a vast swath of counter-productive, burdensome and outright immoral regulation has been adopted in the past decade or so, collectively known as "AML", which stands for anti money-laundering.

At the basis of it stands the dual presumption that there are allowed and disallowed uses of money, and that the state is in a position to distinguish between these two. Obviously as to the latter the state would imagine this sort of nonsense, this has been discussed to death, I won't rehash. The former is also outrageously stupid.

There are no allowed, disallowed, or in any way particular uses of money. This is part of the very definition of money, it being a neutral medium of exchange is a fundamental property of fungibility. In the words of our Latin ancestors, "pecunia non olet". You can't have "kinds" of money decreed administratively, there's no such thing as "black" money or "white" money or "jasmin" money or anything else. There's just money. And if there's not just money then there's not in fact money and society sees itself forced to put up with trying to get an economy working without money which is pretty much impossible and soon enough everything collapses and government officials start meeting their underlyings socially at the Alpaca socks queue, or cheese queue, or whatever other queue.

This isn't some sort of speculative fiction, incidentally. This is experimental, empyrical, cold-as-steel reality. We've seen it during the soviet times, we've seen it each and every time a herd of idiots promoted a bunch of socialists as their leadership and ended up with the currency amputated out of the marketplace. Famine soon follows, and unavoidably so. It's just not possible to have a working economy without a working currency, and it's just not possible to have a working currency that's not fungible. Sure, our barely literate (but unaware) friends across the pond imagine they have found a way to do it "just enough", a way to get away with doing it. This simply shows just how unskilled and unaware of it they are, nothing more.

We're a little smarter here in Europe. If nothing else we've survived about three thousand years or so, during which we've seen about eight or nine or eleventy hundred cycles such as these. To quote from a relatively recent one,

"Ihr verfluchten Kerls," sprach Seine Majestaet,
"Dass ein jeder in der Bataille seinen Mann mir steht!
Sie goonnen mir nicht Schlesien und die Grafschaft Glatz
Und die hundert Millionen in meinem Schatz."

"Die Kais'rin hat sich mit den Franzosen alliiert
Und das roomische Reich gegen mich revoltiert;
Die Russen seind gefallen in Preussen ein;
Auf, lasst uns sie zeigen, dass wir brave Landeskinder sein!"

And before Friedrich's problemsi there was that amusing time when the HRE kept moving from Italy to Germany and back because the barons kept revolting on either side just as soon as he left. And before that, and after that, we've seen it to death.

So let's stop and think for a minute. On one hand, bank depositors are unsecured creditors of the bank. This is nice and proper and historically correct, it's so for very good and unavoidable reasons. You wish to safeguard your deposits, do your research and sink the Holy Due Diligence in. Do your part culling the bankherd, rewarding the prudent and sinking the weak handed or strong headedii.

On the other hand however businesses, large and small alike, are legally required to keep their money in the bank. Apparently it's "dangerous" not to, for whatever unspecified and unspecifiable reasons. Somehow magically most of the world is presently and the entire world has been historically cash driven, yet "it's unsafe" suddenly. Citation needed, boys and girls, seriously now.

The end result of such asinine regulation is that banks know that no matter what they do you still have to use them, which means that their only care in the world is not to be more irresponsible with your money than the other banks. They don't care whether you'll ever see another cent of your savings or not. Thanks to the intervention of socialist legislators that's not their problem anymore : whether you do or whether you don't you will still have to bring them your savings. It's the law.

Well... it happens to be a law that can't stand. AML/KYC/USBSiii has to be repealed, wholesale, and right now.

Do it!

This is not a request. This is not a proposal. This is not some sort of petition. This is a direct order. The penalty for disobedience is economic death.

  1. Incidentally : this song is somewhat older than "the original thirteen colonies". Incredible, huh. []
  2. Both capital sins for the banker, by the way. []
  3. US Bullshit, obviously. []

28 Responses

  1. "This is European Union and banks here can't just grab your money and go" I was told.

  2. Vexare, Cyprus isn't part of the EU?

  3. Eine Unverschämheit was hier alles geschehen ist!

  4. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    Mircea Popescu 
    Sunday, 31 March 2013

    schamtheit mei drace.

  5. Vexare, Cyprus isn’t part of the EU?

    It is and I was quoting from the forum topic, I found that funny.

  6. Eu aveam impresia ca taxarea era pentru Depardieu, le-a dat muie francezilor Putin la taxa de 75% pe milionu' euro. Dar n-au fost afectati rusii.

    Cipriotii au fost pur si simplu testbed?

    Din opinia populara, cam toata lumea s-a "bucurat" ca omfg omfg muie Rusia. De unde, o suge cetateanul de rand.

    Probabil reactie la asta o sa fie ca futui in gura de bogati, oricum mancatias, cine are banii aia?

    Pai d-asta nu-i mai are nimeni...

  7. cipslim`s avatar
    cipsliminsigna pentru 1000 de comentarii 
    Monday, 1 April 2013

    i see a big nosed, capped bearded fellow smirking about in the background

  8. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    Mircea Popescu 
    Monday, 1 April 2013

    That's antisemitism.

  9. You have an opinion on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RTSZH2xDV4 ?

  10. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    Mircea Popescu 
    Saturday, 6 July 2013

    Video content is for tits, not for talking.

  11. Vexare`s avatar
    Saturday, 6 July 2013

    I'm rather stunned Monica Tatoiu replicated herself.

  12. subSTRATA`s avatar
    Tuesday, 9 July 2013

    There is nothing to worry about, folks. You are right now inside advanced space trading video game, much like Civilization meats Elite.


    Due to game having just hardcore deathmatch mode, once you die you will not be able to respawn in nearest town or something and lose just some experience. You will lose everything instead but get a chance to play some other role. Isn't that cool?

  13. Mircea Popescu`s avatar
    Mircea Popescu 
    Tuesday, 9 July 2013

    This is pretty incredible a coincidence, as I was just writing an article about EVE, which is basically Elite all grown up. Now what are the odds of someone mentioning the exact obscure Z80 game from 20 years ago ?!

  14. subSTRATA`s avatar
    Tuesday, 9 July 2013



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