--
> > People don't actually have to understand it as long as they
> > get paid, of course. People who are getting paid want to get
> > paid as cheaply as possible, ceterus parabus, and so any
> > payment mechanism's
On 12 May 2002 at 1:31, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> At which point do you fail to understand that people who *need*
> anon, untraceable transactions and use paper cash these days
> (not checks, not money orders, not wire transfers) would not
> touch a networked computer-like thingie with a 10' pole ?
They do use money orders -- though not with the official
government cartel banking system.
> The value-bearing vehicle has to be 100% comprenhensible and
> verifiable by the end user in these cases, not by some faraway
> programer and a web of hype, I mean trust. Or the end user does
> not need cash in the first place.
>
> This is the prime reason why digital cash didn't happen - users
> don't really care to replace *one* middlemen (government with a
> printing press and shitloads of armed men protecting the
> reputation of cash) with another *few*.
Your last paragraph is provably false:
There already exists a large and effective network of middlemen,
the hawalas network, with numerous headquarters in Somalia, the
Jebel Ali Free Zone, and similar places, which transfers money
from one place where such transfers are likely to mean death on
charges of profiteering and speculation, to another place where
such transfers are likely to mean confiscation on charges of money
laundering and supporting terrorists.
People depend for their lives on these few middlemen.
--digsig
James A. Donald
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