Chinese millionaire sues himself through an offshore shell company to beat currency export controls

boing
41

Well aware of the issues you pointed out here but even though it may be old fashioned or at least unfashionable I go wil innocent until proven guilty

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42

I usually consider this sort of thing in the light of how much benefit the looted cash would do.

Schools, hospitals, sanitation etc. Really not that complex.

This is actually a pretty sordid way to save cash. Clever, yes, but awful.

It’s just incoherent enough that the average Joe won’t quite understand. But a leader will arise, who will explain it, and then there will be problems.

43

Or an unnecessary megaproject that ends up as a deserted dead city. Or some military gear to kill people.

Government spending is not just rainbows and ponies.

Why awful? It’s his money. $50k/year is insanely low limit, no wonder people are finding ways through it. Bitcoin is the usual way. This one is a clever hack.

Governments, and by extension banks, tend to be capricious when it comes to people’s money. See the Cyprus Event when they decided to seize a good portion of the money saved in the banks there (and the following huge spike in Bitcoin price). Or the attempts of some banks to rob the customers by negative interest - and the probably related attempts to put limits on cash use.

Let’s watch how these arbitrary restrictions are being worked around. Sooner or later we’ll need the methods too.

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44

That’s not BoingBoing, that’s Piketty. And decency.

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45

Here you go, eager beaver: http://www.newyorker.com/rational-irrationality/pikettys-inequality-story-in-six-charts

And don’t go trying to characterise the most important work of economics in our time as ‘leftovers’, lest you paint yourself a fool.

2 Likes
46

Heh. No kidding!

47

Indeed. World Turned Upside Down, much?

48

Yeah, me too. But it’s true, of course, Marxism isn’t the only game in town, it’s just that criticisms of the wealthy are now called Marxist to make it seem “bad” (which,of course, it’s not, but it’s understood as “bad”).

Much like Marx, she’s not the only one, though.

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49

In all fairness negative interest rates doesn’t benefit retail or commercial banks & doesn’t generate revenue for government either.

50

True, but I still don’t feel good about getting yet another mechanism to destroy the value of my money, without asking me nicely and without ability to opt out. Inflation is bad enough already.

51

Nope, inflation is good, in small doses. Without it, or worse, with deflation, people have an incentive to hoard.

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52

The point @Schmorgluck made is exactly why negative rates are an interesting tool of monetary policy. “Hoarding” cash as opposed to reinvesting, hiring, raises, etc. Japan being a case in point, putting aside labor law issues, etc.

53

There used to be times when banks offered interests higher than the inflation rates were. Back then they were making money on honest usury.

So the negative interest is a punishment for unwillingness to gamble in the investments casino?

54

I’m not sure how upgrading production lines, IT systems, etc. or bringing on new staff is like a casino.

Over in a he anti-tipping thread someone mentioned Japan as a non tipping culture and others talked about paying service staff better wages. Waitstaff here get average 800-1000 Yen per hour. Across the board pay increases are also a goal of negative interest rates as a policy tool here. Again not similar to a casino.

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