Money laundering is about legitimizing the source of money and isn't facilitated by the unit of exchange: dollar, yen, rupee, peso or bitcoin.
Post-2001 and the Patriot Act, bank tellers, stock brokers and insurance agents have all become lay intelligence officers under "Know your customer" compliance requirements. Informal value transfer systems, barter/black-market, are only a problem in terms of taxation.
Mt. Gox and money exchanges were functionally brought under these KYC compliance regulations and it is only a question of time until bitcoin users will have to speak about the source of the money. Sources are important because that's how taxes are levied.
If you can show you have paid taxes on your money, it's rare to have a problem.
We have systemic trillion dollar annual deficits, so tax collection efforts are being ramped up. It's why you get 10,000 IRS officers hired instead of 10,000 doctors for a national health care system reorganization.
> We have systemic trillion dollar annual deficits, so tax collection efforts are being ramped up.
Funny. In renewable energy circles, the first, and most efficient, optimization is "conservation". Converting the 50 incandescent bulbs in your home to their LED or CFL counterparts yield more long-term value than spending the money on the ability to produce the power those original bulbs consumed.
Likewise, our government needs to quit pretending it actually needs money and cut spending. The TSA and middle-east war machines are the first places I'd start with.
"Likewise, our government needs to quit pretending it actually needs money and cut spending. The TSA and middle-east war machines are the first places I'd start with."
Absolutely, but those things are a drop in the bucket relatively speaking and aren't systemic budget problems. By far the biggest culprits are Medicare/Medicaid and the Bush tax cuts, but neither party has the collective will to do anything about them. It's not totally their fault, either- it's the nature of the political system and the level of voter awareness. Anyone who started seriously gunning for any of those things would get voted out at the earliest opportunity, or at least that's their perception. It's a profoundly messed up situation.
It is a bigger problem than just votes, but votes do drive the initial policy formation and corresponding political discussion.
What happens when you retire a light bulb? Contrast that with what happens when you retire a person. The light bulb goes in the trash bin, but the person begins an escalting battle for survival as he or she's financial reserves approach depletion.
Post-2001 and the Patriot Act, bank tellers, stock brokers and insurance agents have all become lay intelligence officers under "Know your customer" compliance requirements. Informal value transfer systems, barter/black-market, are only a problem in terms of taxation.
Mt. Gox and money exchanges were functionally brought under these KYC compliance regulations and it is only a question of time until bitcoin users will have to speak about the source of the money. Sources are important because that's how taxes are levied.
If you can show you have paid taxes on your money, it's rare to have a problem.
We have systemic trillion dollar annual deficits, so tax collection efforts are being ramped up. It's why you get 10,000 IRS officers hired instead of 10,000 doctors for a national health care system reorganization.