Cash and happy

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The articles of Cassandra Crossing I'm under license CC BY-SA 4.0 | Cassandra Crossing is a column created by Marco Calamari with the “nom de plume” of Cassandra, born in 2005.

We have brought together three old articles by Cassandra that we find decidedly current on a topic as interesting as it is thorny, namely that of fight against cash.

This article was written on May 10, 2013 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 283/ Cash and happily ever after

Transactions traced in the name of fighting tax evasion, boundless databases exposed to risks of violation. And what about private “economic” life?

Newspaper headlines, announcements by rulers of various types and colours, banking and Revenue Agency rules rarely agree on important issues: one of the few is having identified the new villain of the third millennium, a new kind of paedoterrosatanist that is, who uses cash (Pedocontantista?).

Cassandra's fingers have been itching to discuss this topic for some time, given that the press, television and politics have applauded all the limitations repeatedly proposed, and unfortunately often also implemented, on the use of cash. We are not talking about the cash that fills the drug traffickers' suitcases, the cash in the ransom payment bags, which is used in bribes passed to politicians or used by total tax evaders: we are talking about cash for payments made by private individuals for the necessities of life. daily.

The current justification for all this is a hateful crime against which a real battle has been waged, tax evasion, and its "larger" counterpart, that is, the illicit circulation of capital. Of course, in Italy the fight against tax evasion is an evergreen of any government and era, the application of which does not seem to have led to significant results, particularly towards total tax evaders and large tax evaders.

Evidently no one deems it appropriate to explain how tax havens, periodic amnesties, the return of "shielded" capital and boats flying strictly non-tricolor flags are the ordinary and much more powerful means to achieve the circulation and illicit or elusive use of capital : these are matters whose details are little or not known to the general public but very well understood by large and small tax evaders.

It is of little use to point out the numerous cars circulating in Italy registered to Swiss companies that exist only to own the car itself: driving them we find a varied humanity made up of viveur, professionals, traders and industrialists of whom everyone knows some example.

These are not secrets: most of those who use these tricks know that they are not doing anything formally illegal, and are often very willing to explain to you in detail how to do it, who to go to, which cards are needed and how much you spend. And the list of little-known but widely practiced Italian tricks, or more technically "evasions", could continue.

But let's stop here and go back to the common people, those who pay IRAP, car tax, school taxes, parking and other taxes reserved for normal people. Let's think about how Cassandra, if she lived in Italy as a metalworker, a teacher or a direct software farmer, could spend her hard-earned money. In particular situations he would use credit cards, credits and bank transfers, and what he had left over could be left in a current account or invested in a securities deposit.

All these transactions, some always (credit cards) others recently (bank transfers, deposits and withdrawals of any size) are transmitted, among others, to the Revenue Agency and other authorized entities

What gives Cassandra shivers is that the indiscriminate collection of data on everyone and the creation of databases regarding the entire population is an operation that involves risks, or rather certainties of misuse and abuse: these situations should be limited to the bare minimum and carried out under very strict supervision.

And yet, as is the case with GSM cell data or social community accounts, these databases are currently disseminated without people in general caring or considering it a threat.

Furthermore, having a mobile phone or a social community account is optional, while using banks or various forms of electronic money is in many cases mandatory. It will be said: “it is a weapon against tax evaders, if you are honest you have nothing to hide”.

The translation into real terms is rather than those who are honest no longer have a private "economic" life. The IRS, which is said to be the much feared American Revenue Agency, obviously uses the tracking of some types of banking and electronic money operations to track down tax evaders, but in this fight it obtains the best results with work, paid as a percentage of the actual money recovered, from detective agents who are more feared there than Delta Force or Freddy Krueger.

From the point of view of privacy, fortunately there are cash, the use of which, at least in the most banal economic transactions, completely shields the privacy of the payer: of course, withdrawing cash from a bank or ATM still leaves a trace, but it only provides a idea of the standard of living.

It doesn't say if I buy a political newspaper, it doesn't allow us to count if and how many condoms are purchased each month, if you buy medicines for diabetes, give alms in church, or throw a coin to the poor violinist who plays a waltz.

Cash, to put it simply, allows an honest citizen to make a good part of his affairs private.

And cash, as it was once written on many banknotes, represents a debt of the issuing State towards the citizen who owns it, a debt that the State must honor upon simple request.

But let's go back to the Bel Paese. What need is there to issue edicts against the use of cash? What need is there to criminalize it on the news or make it unusable to pay a professional? It is bizarre to say the least, given that the majority of important transactions now travel via bank transfers, credit and debit cards, non-transferable checks or other perfectly traceable means. It is certainly a typical case of intentional and negligent use of a tool against tax evaders, but without the slightest concern for its effect on honest citizens.

A pinch of healthy paranoia could even suggest that the "filing of honest people" is not an overlooked side effect, but a convenient result that cannot be declared as an end, but which is useful to pursue wherever possible.

Making people live in glass houses would also be useful in preventing many types of crimes.

Anyone who has crossed the Italian borders knows that the use of electronic money, mainly debit cards, is incredibly widespread: in France in the local markets it is common to see the old lady who, after having taken the bag with two euros of tomatoes, hands the card at the stall holder, enters the PIN and receives the receipt. But withdrawing a large sum in cash, for those lucky enough to have it, and using it to pay for anything, from tomatoes to the professional's (regular and always issued) invoice, is equally legitimate and not demonized. And those who realize that greater privacy is made up not only of profiles never built, of registrations for free services never made, of payments at the toll booth, of dumbphones perhaps even turned off from time to time, of very legal payments in very legal cash.

A look at the world of blogs allows you to find information from other cash-happy people (here, here And here).

To paraphrase the previous saying, “Anyone who is honest has the right to be left alone”.

And paying in cash is one of the ways of exercising this right, according to will and freedom.

This article was written on January 8, 2016 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 364/ Cash and Happy II

Glorifying cashless transactions and forcing citizens to use technologies for electronic exchanges is not the solution to tax evasion. It's plutocontrol.

A piece of news continues to surface in the news and in financial laws: the limitation of the use of cash for certain transactions and/or above certain amounts. Cassandra has already written one reflection on the topic, but it is urgent to update it due to the recent news that Europe intends to move towards the progressive abolition of the use of cash and towards the use of electronic transactions.

In addition to the general convenience of this way of carrying out economic transactions, also in this case a mantra very similar to the one abused in other contexts dominated by paedo-terrorists, i.e. the fight against tax evasion, favored by "tax evaders".

And exactly like the latter, it is a substantial lie, used to hide the same ulterior motive: the strengthening of technocontrol. But let's go back to the news for a moment, to try to understand how this is happening.

There Sweden has hit the headlines, with great praise, for being the European country most advanced on this path: 80 percent of private transactions take place electronically, and a new law now allows shops and other businesses to declare themselves " cashless” i.e. to refuse payment in cash.

The insidiousness of this move can be overlooked, so it is necessary to open a parenthesis. Since the gold convertibility which made it a surrogate for a precious metal widely used in exchanges was abolished, cash money is a declaration of debt by the State which it issues it to the bearer of the security, in this case the "evadocontantista" who has his hard-earned banknote in his pocket.

Furthermore, state law REQUIRES anyone to accept cash for the settlement of debts and payments, both between private individuals and public administrations. Anyone who has seen the old thousand lira notes will probably remember that this phrase was printed directly on the note itself. The banknote was a security in itself, and therefore made the transaction “anonymous” (what a beautiful word!). And this was recognized as a natural right of the bearer of money.

Now there is the Euro, and this writing, like the gold convertibility before it, has long since disappeared. The obligation to accept cash, however, at least in theory, remained.

But for years, laws and regulations have begun to introduce snares and snares to limit this freedom of not being tracked. Limits on the amount that can be paid in cash in a public establishment or to a company, or to a professional with a VAT number. The justification? The ruthless hunt for the tax evader, who only allows his sinful life with cash. Will it be true? Let's see. Let's start by saying that tax evaders, in countries like the United States, where cash circulates freely, are few and have a very hard and miserable life.

Their Revenue Agency, the IRS, persecutes them in a continuous and ruthless manner, also regularly making use of private and independent investigators, real bounty killer completely autonomous, who are paid as a percentage of the sums recovered (actually recovered, not trumpeted on the news) and are more feared by criminals than the FBI or SWAT.

It is therefore not clear why in Europe there is this pressing need to abolish cash to fight against tax evasion.

In Sweden evasion is very low despite very high taxes, also because the citizen sees the money returned in the form of services, and is able to perceive the fairness and advantages.

In most of Europe, not paying taxes is considered a social negative, like writing on walls, vandalizing telephone booths or stealing pensions from old people (both retail in front of post offices and wholesale in parliament).

In Italian. It may be a coincidence but in a country where tax evasion is a value and sometimes a reference to write on one's CV, and where public money is often wasted in the most unspeakable ways, this civil conscience does not exist, indeed, in the rare cases someone who reports a blatant escape is judged to be an informer, if not a scoundrel. Yet these two countries in diametrically opposed situations like Sweden and Italy are united in the fight against cash.

Where is the common interest? It is easy to say, in the desire for ever greater social control, obviously to be exercised for the good of the people, which surprisingly unifies complete and civilized democracies, joke states and rogue countries. They all silently agree on this. Let's close this parenthesis.

From these pages Cassandra has several times thundered against the extreme damage that social communities cause to people's privacy and on the uses (not the "dangers of using") of technology as a tool of economic power and social control.

On Facebook (to give just one example of the worst) you can abdicate your privacy, betray that of your Friends (the real ones) by tagging them or giving away your entire social network, and finally commit self-harming sins in a thousand other ways against yourself and others .

What if there was no more cash? What if everything, truly everything, had to be done electronically?

Again, it's easy to say. All, truly all, your actions in the material world, which in the majority of cases have an economic aspect, would be systematically tracked with tools already well spread on a global scale, and could not be controlled or corrected by citizens in the slightest.

So it is not once private facts that are exchanged, not opinions from the reasonable to the pathological about kittens, ISIS, sports or the Holocaust.

Economic transactions are atoms of absolute truth.

How many condoms do you use, what kind of food do you eat, what newspapers do you read, what medicines do you take, where are you with your car, how much do you play, who do you relate to. Worse, much worse than social communities.

Economic transactions allow simple and economical mass filings, carried out in an absolutely opaque manner with very powerful and therefore very dangerous data.

They are collected not so much for the fight against tax evasion (which is normally done with other means including social discredit) but for the explicit desire or irresistible temptation to use them for social control.

Tax evasion is seriously fought on banking IT networks and by acting on tax havens, not by abolishing the wallets of honest citizens.

And to summarize, yes, it is worth doing everything possible to defend the perfect legality of the use of cash.

Paraphrasing a title already used by Cassandra (watch out for the accent) “Cash is contentthe".

This article was written on December 2, 2016 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 384/ Cash and Current

Making coins and banknotes disappear from circulation as an excuse for the pursuit of tax evasion seems like another way to techno-control honest citizens. And the new Budget Law also puts an 11 on it.

Cassandra has already dealt with the problem related to cash several times, which is increasingly frowned upon by governments and economic authorities, here And here, supporting the practical utility and the good right of citizens (honest until proven otherwise) to use it, wherever they wish.

Cash, on the other hand, is now considered alone an instrument of lawlessness and an aid for the dishonest. It is no wonder that in the world of total techno-control even the responsible bodies, which are unable to make large categories of clever and dishonest people pay taxes, see the dematerialisation of payments, achieved by discouraging the use of cash by any means , a main road to fight tax evasion. But at what price?

Let's consider that a large part of the great tax evasion is already "dematerialized" today, and travels easily electronically to and from tax havens, using not suitcases of cash or the (infamous) Bitcoin, but the normal banking telematic networks.

Although not convertible (into gold), the cash that circulated in Italy before the 1970s bore writings of extreme economic importance, such as "Payable on demand to the bearer" or "This is legal currency for the payment of any public or private debt ”.

It lost them even before the advent of the euro, more or less at the same time as the US dollar, the last world currency to possess it, lost its convertibility into gold.

Since 2002 the euro has replaced the lira, and euro banknotes have never been convertible into gold, nor have they ever carried the aforementioned terms. On the other hand, the euro was already born in 1999 as a "virtual currency"... but that's another story.

In this way, like other currencies, the euro has become a currency substantially detached from any "material" value, be it a gold ingot, or (very important) an infinitesimal fraction of the GDP of a nation-state, which through banknote declares itself as your “debtor”. In fact, the value of the euro and modern currencies is the result of a market equilibrium decided between its holders, like any other non-monetary asset, virtual or real.

So the difference between these modern currencies such as the euro and synthetic cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has become minimal: it practically consists only of paper (and obviously the "calibre" of its owners).

At the same time, restrictions on the circulation of cash began, in favor of banking or electronic transactions. The not unreasonable motivation was, in addition to the usual "fight against tax evasion", the fight against money laundering of criminal origin. But in this arena, where the greatest issues are faced, the right of an honest citizen not to be traced in Are you missing your daily expenses? Or maybe there never was?

It might seem like a more or less sterile question of principle, but the loss of privacy even when purchasing a magazine, a medicine or a condom is still a reduction of spaces of freedom for the citizens of a democratic state.

The fight against money laundering ends up being very similar to the application of classic "paedo-terro-Satanicism" as a "catch of 11" (as Montalbano would say) to drive public opinion's acceptance of rules that are actually aimed at other ends.

Therefore "honest" citizens (according to this new definition) should always keep their money in the bank and pay only with bank transfers, cards and debit cards. Everything OK? What if a bank, your own, fails? Or maybe more than one? The 24 well-informed readers will respond that small savers under 100,000 euros will be protected by the State through the Interbank Guarantee Fund and they will not lose anything.

Now, apart from the fact that in a banking crash, account holders would not be able to withdraw even a penny for a period of time that can be estimated at several months (think about what would happen to you in this case), there is a "small" problem: how much is real the Guarantee Fund? How broad are his shoulders?

Some sources report that in 2014, against refundable deposits of 508 billion euros, the fund consisted of 1.66 "measly" billion euros, which corresponds to just 0.30 percent of those entitled to it. Cassandra is willing to bet that the situation hasn't changed much in the last two years.

This money is only enough if a small bank "fails"; already with a medium or large one (and let alone with multiple banks) the Guarantee Fund would be less than a "hot blanket". Add to this that in the meanders of the work in the commission on the Budget Law, recently approved in the House and on its way to the Senate, a amendment which proposed exemption from bail-in for bank deposits attributable to the State and local authorities (regions, provinces, municipalities and other territorial public bodies), taking on the risks on all other depositors, obviously private individuals and businesses.

Therefore, not being able to use cash, but having to keep one's money in current accounts, one is in practice forced to also take on the risks to which the accounts of the State and local administrations would be exposed. Fair, don't you think?

Last but not least, the text of the Budget Law (which this year also includes the tax decree) contains a rule, obviously with the captivating title in English of Voluntary Disclosure, That equates the possession of cash with proven tax evasion, with reversal of the burden of proof. Yes, you read it right, “established”: it is those who have the cash who must justify themselves.

But let's go back to the bail-in amendment for public current accounts: Cassandra was unable to understand whether or not the amendment was included in the text submitted to the Senate, as it consists of the addition of a sentence to a pre-existing law. Anyone who manages to explore the elephantine text of almost a thousand pages on this subject would be doing a good thing, or rather an excellent one, if they could let us know.

Meanwhile, the complex situation described seems, to put it mildly, to bring ethics to new and higher levels”of two weights, two measures”, where the smallest weight and smallest size always fall to the usual ones.

Marco Calamari

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