Systeme D - Anarcho Capitalism in action

guerilla

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Aug 18, 2007
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The Shadow Superpower - By Robert Neuwirth | Foreign Policy

System D is a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. The French have a word that they often use to describe particularly effective and motivated people. They call them débrouillards. To say a man is a débrouillard is to tell people how resourceful and ingenious he is. The former French colonies have sculpted this word to their own social and economic reality. They say that inventive, self-starting, entrepreneurial merchants who are doing business on their own, without registering or being regulated by the bureaucracy and, for the most part, without paying taxes, are part of "l'economie de la débrouillardise." Or, sweetened for street use, "Systeme D."

In many countries -- particularly in the developing world -- System D is growing faster than any other part of the economy, and it is an increasing force in world trade. But even in developed countries, after the financial crisis of 2008-09, System D was revealed to be an important financial coping mechanism. A 2009 study by Deutsche Bank, the huge German commercial lender, suggested that people in the European countries with the largest portions of their economies that were unlicensed and unregulated -- in other words, citizens of the countries with the most robust System D -- fared better in the economic meltdown of 2008 than folks living in centrally planned and tightly regulated nations.

Read the whole thing. It's quite good.

While people are wanking off over BTC and Ron Paul, market actors are pursuing their own agenda, regardless of the roadblocks and rules everyone else wants to waste their time fighting through politics.
 


Try that in America and you'll end up arrested with all your assets taken.
 
Try that in America and you'll end up arrested with all your assets taken.

Uh, no. Over generalization. Perhaps if you run something big enough to show up on the radar, most do not.

Good read: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Off-Books-Underground-Economy-Urban/dp/0674030710]Amazon.com: Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor (9780674030718): Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh: Books[/ame]

Quicker read, still good: Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to the World Economy | Wired Magazine | Wired.com short overview
 
The Shadow Superpower - By Robert Neuwirth | Foreign Policy

Read the whole thing. It's quite good.

While people are wanking off over BTC and Ron Paul, market actors are pursuing their own agenda, regardless of the roadblocks and rules everyone else wants to waste their time fighting through politics.
Just finished it.

Inspiring, I gotta admit. But at the same time, this country I live in down here right now is not going to be an ideal place for such ventures... In fact I think I hear a drone flying by now...

Maybe once I get to BKK? Wait a minute... Is that why you posted this, to wean me away from my patriotic streak I've been on lately? ;)
 
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From the point of view of tax, punishments, regulations etc I have to admit that the USA sounds awful. I read somewhere that you are chased for tax even if you move abroad and work there - if that's true then WTF.

Anyway, handy tip for you: incorporate in Gibraltar.
 
I've never registered any of my companies up here in Canada and don't pay any taxes and have never been bothered by the government.
 
I've never registered any of my companies up here in Canada and don't pay any taxes and have never been bothered by the government.

You have to actually generate a significant income to be bothered by the government.

If you're talking less than a few k a month you'll go unnoticed.

More than a few k then you can deal in cash and still slip under the radar.

If you're working on the web though, all your payments go into a bank account - large transactions set off flags, and make you more likely to be investigated.

Of course you can go off shore, and try to do a load of random crap to keep it unnoticed, but it gets harder every year.
 
From the point of view of tax, punishments, regulations etc I have to admit that the USA sounds awful. I read somewhere that you are chased for tax even if you move abroad and work there - if that's true then WTF.

Anyway, handy tip for you: incorporate in Gibraltar.

Indeed true, and more. If a U.S. citizen has a foreign bank account they have to report it or face huge fines. Beginning next year the U.S. is forcing banks around the world to report on any accounts held by U.S. citizens. Then you have the accidental U.S. citizens who were born and lived their entire lives in another country, have never been to the U.S. or have any connection to it, but one of their parents is a U.S. citizen so they are subject to the same thievery and the IRS is coming after them for years of unreported bank accounts.
 
This is precisely why the governments are so desperate to get rid of cash and move everyone to electronic payments.

No, it's banks that want everyone to move to electronic payments because they get paid for each retail transaction. Fuckin' debit transactions at my shop cost me 25cents each, credit card transactions cost me 2% or something. Cash costs me nothing.

I'm gonna go on a rant now. I'm not sure how it is in the US, but in Australia we have Visa\mastercard debit cards. These cards basically act like a credit card but use the actual money in your account instead of racking up credit like a real credit card. Most banks issue them for free with a standard bank account. They're useful because you can use them to buy shit online without having to have an actual credit card.

These cards can operate in 2 ways when making a purchase at a store, you can either push the credit button and it goes through as a credit card purchase. In that case the store pays a percentage merchant fee which is usually around 2%. The other way they can operate is as a debit card by pushing the 'savings' or 'cheque' button on the checkout terminal. These types of transactions cost the retailer about 20c.

Here's the fucking dodgy thing banks do.. they coax people into pushing the credit button instead of the savings button under the guise of it being more 'secure' because they obviously make more money per transaction.

ANZ Everyday Visa Debit
Press 'credit' for the added security of ANZ Falcon™ fraud monitoring. When using your ANZ Access Visa Debit card for ATM or EFTPOS transactions, select the 'credit' button to activate ANZ Falcon™ which monitors your transactions for unusual or suspicious activity.
Complete bullshit.
 
I read the article. It's kind of amusing that it is talked about as if it is news when markets worked that way before governments became so overreaching. Lots of examples throughout history of societies collapsing when overregulated and overtaxed and then the underground market moved to a hot new center of commerce.

The article says this informal or underground economy they call System D is growing - I think the opposite is happening. With government's becoming more overreaching through the use of more and more surveillance and passage of ever more restrictive laws I think we are witnessing the noose tightening on the entire world and fewer and fewer places where System D can thrive.
 
No, it's banks that want everyone to move to electronic payments because they get paid for each retail transaction. Fuckin' debit transactions at my shop cost me 25cents each, credit card transactions cost me 2% or something. Cash costs me nothing.

I'm gonna go on a rant now. I'm not sure how it is in the US, but in Australia we have Visa\mastercard debit cards. These cards basically act like a credit card but use the actual money in your account instead of racking up credit like a real credit card. Most banks issue them for free with a standard bank account. They're useful because you can use them to buy shit online without having to have an actual credit card.

These cards can operate in 2 ways when making a purchase at a store, you can either push the credit button and it goes through as a credit card purchase. In that case the store pays a percentage merchant fee which is usually around 2%. The other way they can operate is as a debit card by pushing the 'savings' or 'cheque' button on the checkout terminal. These types of transactions cost the retailer about 20c.

Here's the fucking dodgy thing banks do.. they coax people into pushing the credit button instead of the savings button under the guise of it being more 'secure' because they obviously make more money per transaction.

ANZ Everyday Visa Debit

Complete bullshit.

How much does it cost you in employee / your time and actual costs to manage cash? (making sure you have change on hand, depositing it etc) Non-zero I'm sure, but maybe less than debit / credit?
 
No, it's banks that want everyone to move to electronic payments because they get paid for each retail transaction. Fuckin' debit transactions at my shop cost me 25cents each, credit card transactions cost me 2% or something. Cash costs me nothing.
That's part of it too; just remember tho; Banks own Governments.

It's really all the same plan.

Here's the fucking dodgy thing banks do.. they coax people into pushing the credit button instead of the savings button under the guise of it being more 'secure' because they obviously make more money per transaction.
Just for reference, yes, this is everywhere in the USA too... You can tell the difference between smart ppl and stupid people when they use their Debit cards here, every single time... The stupid people swipe their debit card and are presented with a signature blank immediately, so they sign and just assume they used debit.

The smart folks know that everywhere you go, after you swipe you must hit "Cancel" to proceed using debit.

Highway fucking robbers.
 
The smart folks know that everywhere you go, after you swipe you must hit "Cancel" to proceed using debit.

Highway fucking robbers.

From what I understand processing a debit card ad credit also gives you more protection than if you enter you PIN in debit.