[Editor's Note: The following piece is by TDV Guest Contributor, Joe Johnson]
One of the great freedoms in any society is the ability to carry out personal, and even anonymous, transactions with cash. You walk into a store or up to a merchant, buy something and walk away. You’re walking down the street, stop at a garage sale, pick up a few things, and continue on. Both parties are satisfied with the exchange, though it’s possible that you never learn each other’s names, and might even forget the location.
Sharing information is optional and sometimes preferable as we enjoy each other’s company. But we hardly feel obligated to report these transactions, and certainly feel no need to have someone track them for us.
While it’s difficult to keep tabs on our private commerce, that doesn’t mean there aren’t efforts to try. Today’s currencies are printed/manufactured with ever more technology embedded each year. The amount of technology is hard to tell at this point, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to find out that each US empty promise (greenback) can now be individually tracked.
For years, law enforcement has been striving to keep tabs on the movement of cash as it relates to drug trafficking. Of course, this would be a good place to point out that if there were no laws criminalizing plants, then there would be no drug criminals. But, rather than trusting a free people to do what they want with their own lives, the statists claim sovereignty over their subjects, demanding that they submit to arbitrary and sometimes outright silly laws.
Okay, back from our rabbit trail – One of the ways law enforcement attempts to track the movement of cash is through various money laundering laws. Now, I’ll be honest, I don’t really understand money laundering. I know it has something to do with attempting to legitimize cash that’s been used in the drug trade. Supposedly, if it moves through a bank it becomes “clean.” But I don’t really understand it, and actually don’t even care.
Now, with the little I do know, I would think that such laundering would be in large amounts of cash. It would seem that a successful drug dealer would have hundreds of thousands of dollars that needed to be cleaned. But maybe tens of thousands still need to be monitored. Is that why we have to fill out a report whenever we take more than $10,000 out of the bank? I suppose I could Google it but, again, I don’t really care.
For the record; I don’t do drugs, touch drugs, advise the use of drugs or even see drugs. I still don’t think they should be regulated, but I have no use for them personally. Very little of this matters to me, so I just don’t pay attention.
But I do pay attention to freedom and the ability to pursue gainful activities. And it appears that more and more of us are going to need to start paying attention. As an example, for some reason, Chase bank is now restricting cash deposits on personal accounts to only those whose names are on the account.
What’s the logic? … Seriously? You want logic? These are banks – an extension of our overlords. You can count on one thing – they’ll do whatever it takes to maximize their consolidation of wealth and protect their monopoly on statist fiat.
As of November 17, 2013, some new capital controls put forward have been by banking behemoth, JP Morgan Chase. They announced that small business accounts would no longer be able to wire funds outside of the country. Why? Umm…
The limit on $50,000 in total transactions on small business accounts is no big deal, really. All the business owner has to do is upgrade the business account. The upgrade allows for international wires too.
But this new policy is very strange. Why can’t mom go to the bank and make a cash deposit into my Chase account? Are they afraid it’s going to bounce? There’s a bitter irony in that question….
This is where it gets even stranger – she could go deposit a check into my account, whether it’s good, rubber or even fraudulent. But, as of March 1st, 2014, she would have to be a signer on the account to deposit cash.
While personal accounts were affected in March, a manager at a Chase branch shared with me that as of July 1st, 2014, business accounts will also not be able to receive cash deposits from anyone that’s not on the account. I was in the bank just the other day and asked one of the tellers if they were still going through with this. As of now, they haven’t and she didn’t know what the plan was.
This sort of draconian control can crush a small business. For instance, if Ben’s Coin Shop (fictitious name) sells coins online, but doesn’t have very deep pockets, he really needs to secure and turn over his cash and coins quickly. The more quickly he can move both, the more profits he can enjoy.
Ben has some great customers around the country that he loves to do business with. And he knows what kinds of coins they’re looking for. Because he shares a mutual trust with his customers (and they know where to find him) and he has to roll his cash into the next batch of coins, whenever he does business with these people he asks them to make a cash deposit for the coins.
This is not unheard of. In fact, it’s more common than you might think. All Ben has to do is check his account online or call the bank. They can tell him whether or not the funds are actually available. And he can ask the customer to take an image of the deposit receipt, which has indications of what kind of deposit was made.
Why doesn’t Ben just take credit cards or checks? Many reasons: One of the main ones is that both can be reversed or canceled. Remember, Ben needs to roll his cash over quickly in order to build his inventory. Sitting on a check until it clears eats up valuable time that his cash could be working for him. Unless he has some reserves to work with, it’s simply not an option (or a costly one). And he absolutely cannot leave himself exposed to the possibility of not getting paid. It would be financially devastating.
Another reason is that fraudulent checks deposited to an account actually penalize the account holder. Even after losing the check amount and having to pay a returned check fee, the bank will keep a record of the transaction and may close an account when this happens more than once. In fact, I was told by a Chase bank manager that new accounts are usually closed immediately if this happens. Apparently,
Chase has made some enemies with their customer service.
Our friend Ben is careful to make sure he has the cash before sending out the coin to his valued customer. He is conscientious and very concerned about taking losses. However, once he has the cash, he’s just as careful to quickly get the coin out the door and shipped so that his customer will be satisfied. Violá, everyone’s happy.
Well, apparently Chase isn’t, because these policies may be just the tip of the iceberg. If this goes into effect for business accounts, you will no longer be able to send your runner to deposit the register cash on their way to pick up inventory. Instead, you either have to do it yourself, or put your runner on the account as a signer.
Now, when I was initially told about this, it was while performing such a transaction. At that time, the teller looked me in the eye and with a straight face said, “This is for your protection.” I just stood there slack-jawed. Huh?
This idea has spun around in my head ever since. What exactly am I being protected from? Is it possible that some criminal, maybe a drug dealer, might attack my account with a cash deposit? Or maybe someone who is making a cash deposit will deposit the wrong amount and ruin my business? Somehow, I don’t feel protected …
In fact, this has cost me personally. I do a little business that relies on cash deposits just like Ben’s does. But I can no longer get cash to my suppliers as quickly as I once could because of Chase’s actions. So this is very real and personal for me, costing me thousands of dollars already. What’s my business? Heh, none of yours. J And certainly none of NSA’s, so I won’t make it any easier than I have to.
Hint here.
Now, I realize I might not be the sharpest tack in the box. But this time, I don’t think it’s me. This is one of those cases where I’m fairly convinced that you can’t get there from here … at least not without some seriously brain-straining cognitive gymnastics. Of course, that’s what bureaucrats are good at … maybe it’s all they’re good at. And, somehow, it makes sense to some of them. Others simply read the canned comments handed to them by their bosses. The rest of them are just lying.
Unfortunately, Bank of America made a statement to a colleague recently stating that they’re going to be following Chase’s lead. Apparently, whatever Chase has is contagious. Either that or whatever account holders have that requires so much protection is. And another guy I do business with was denied opening a BoA account because because he GASP! Was identified as being involved in cryptocurrency. Yes, you are being profiled by banks if you’re involved in crypto.
So what’s really at the bottom of this? It’s hard to know for sure, since we don’t get to sit in on central banker meetings. But it all appears to be capital controls – i.e. a war on cash. Stop the transference of cash. Minimize the ability to trade privately. And do all you can to control and track the flow of cash when it does leave the bank’s vaults. According to
FOX Business, Chase has made this statement on it;
“We are making this policy change for cash deposits only to combat misuse of accounts, including money laundering”
In addition, Chase has recently shut down a lot of business accounts. Why? Good question. Longtime customers have been given notice that their accounts are frozen and that they should receive a check within 10 days. So they get shut down and can’t even use their own cash to continue to try to do business, open another account, trading in cash or anything.
Never mind the fact that folks like Ben are put out of business by such destruction of freedom. Would our make-believe friend feel protected? Would his wife, when he gets home to tell her that his ability to provide for the family was just taken away, or reduced by 80%, or whatever?
This is real. While I’ve used fake names, I’m personally aware of at least three businesses negatively impacted by this in our little town.
Are these precursors to the US being Cyprussed? Could be. What are you doing to protect yourself?
Joe Johnson, a longtime vigilante who’s taken awhile to rise from the statist indoctrination of his youth to embrace the virtues of a stateless society and Austrian economics, now strives to help others pursue their dreams and greater freedom in Chile. You can read more on EscapeArtist Chile (Chile.EscapeArtist.com)
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