From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 18:21:52 -0700 (PDT)
To: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Subject: Re: Blinded Identities [was Re: exporting signatures only/CAPI]
In-Reply-To: <199610150402.XAA31611@mailhub.amaranth.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94.961015211026.16787C-100000@polaris>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Mon, 14 Oct 1996, William H. Geiger III wrote:

> In <Pine.SUN.3.94.961014035114.28315K-100000@polaris>, on 10/14/96 at 04:01 AM,
>    Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li> said:

> >Banking is as much about confidence as any business can be.  Anonymous or not, the
> >presence of funds which
> >infringe on regulations in one area or another are frightening to normal banking
> >customers.
> 
> BULL!!!!
> 
> There are only two things the banking customers care about:
> 
> 1. Will my money be there in the morning?
> 
> 2. What is my rate of return?

Both of these are affected by large scandals at banks.

In the case of the first example, runs on banks are hardly unheard of in
relation to major and even somewhat minor revelations about the source of
deposit funds where that source is criminal.  (Again, I cite Union Bank of
Switzerland which saw a three day run of almost $200 million after
disclosures about UBS accounts which were used for kidnapping randsom.
DeBeers was one depositor which explicitly attributed their account
closures to the news).

The rate of return is directly affected by costs to the bank.  Legal costs
(even in Switzerland) of defending against government and private party
discovery and compelled disclosure are severe.  Need I even discuss the
cost to the "legitimate" BCCI account holder?

And if customers are unconcerned about elements ther than #1 and #2,
why are such pains taken to invest in offshore institutions where the
costs (in sweat alone) can be higher?

> The rest of it is a bunch of Govenment & Media hype & bull shit!!

The above incidents are easily found with a quick trip to the library.

The bottom line is that until anonyminity is not seen as some kind of
invariably criminal act with respect to banking, legitimate and
illegitimate money will be as like charged particles.

Next time, stick to web consulting.

> 
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
> Geiger Consulting    WebExplorer & Java Enhanced!!!
> Cooking With Warp 4.0
> 

--
I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist
unicorn@schloss.li