It is the same with all regulated companies. They are required by law to check the money is legally the property of their clents.
The bad part is that the laws we talk about are whimsical because they depend on what the rulers want any day. The regulators themselves deviate from the already whimsical laws and try to extort more from people because they can, and because they have power to do so without consequences.
Welcome to hell.
It seems to me that they are not interested in protecting your money. They are interested in taking a portion of your money. It is a conflict of interest. Expecting people who want to take your money to protect your money won’t work in the long run. Don’t trust any broker with too much money.
A fundamental basis of a true democracy is that the government is held to the same laws as anyone else, that although they make the laws, the judiciary must enforce them against the government. Which actually has happened in some democratic countries, such as the UK etc.
Any company wants to take some of your money in exchange for a service they offer. That is capitalism.
The regulators force them to take care of clients’ money, not so much to protect the individual clients, but more to protect their nation’s financial services industry.
Regulated brokers must protect clients’ money. Clients who send money to unregulated brokers or brokers with very weak powers are risking 100% of their money.
I don’t really care whether it’s democracy, monarchy, kingship, communism, socialism, or dictatorship. They all elevate certain classes of people above everyone else through their own laws.
Governments want to take your money. They may want to protect you from other entities that want to take money from you, but they won’t protect you from them. The protection you get is not protection from them.
So, there is no real safety. There is only illusion of safety. In the physical universe, there is no such thing as total safety. Good luck chasing safety. I’m not saying you should be wreckless or not careful, but you won’t get real safety while on earth.
The lesson is don’t trust any government. Don’t trust any broker too much.
Any government may decide to change its rules any time. Any broker can go out of business.
In true democracies, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Members of Parliament, Senators, Congressmen, and the rest are all subject to the laws they actually made. In true democracies these people have been and are being prosecuted by the judiciary under the laws they made.
To suggest that a democracy is as bad as a dictatorship is an attack on democracy and offers support to dictators. Wherever you live, I suggest you consider moving to live under a dictatorshp in order to expand your experience of the world, perhaps North Korea.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t support kingship or dictatorship. I also don’t support democracy.
Why do I have to choose between kingship, dictatorship, or democracy? I don’t choose any, but those choices are forced upon me. Practically speaking, I just don’t trust any government. They aren’t the only options.
Does it matter whether I trust this government more than any other government when I have to make money? Just make money, and don’t trust any government and any broker with your money. Don’t do bad things.
In a democracy the people get the choice to appoint the government. If the government don’t respect the law and follow the will of the people, there will be another group or party you can elect who will do better.
If you 100% don’t trust 100% of the governments in the world, the I assume you are not trading? You will obviously be unable to trade since you will believe that all brokers everywhere will be helping all their governments to steal your money. So on a website for traders this becomes a poinless discussion.
Give our regards to North Korea. I don’t expect we’ll get a postcard though, they don’t allow things like that.
In practical terms, I don’t trust any government and any broker. That means I try to achieve platform agnosticism with regard to my money. I know any government or any broker may try to freeze my fund, but I have to still make money despite knowing that. That’s why I try to achieve platform agnosticism.
Knowing that I can be attacked doesn’t prevent me from trying to make money.
I certainly won’t keep my money in more tyrannical regions if that’s what you wonder. I value my money enough to not keep it in regions that are more likely to freeze it.
There are certainly freer regions, but no place on earth is truly free.
I also said there is no such thing as total safety.
I know that my money cannot be totally safe, but I still have to make money. The fact that I don’t trust governments doesn’t prevent me from trying to make money. I still take risks in seemingly freer places.
The practical lesson for the original postor is to keep your money on multiple platforms, and choose platforms that are more likely to respect your rights, but don’t expect total safety.
Spread your risks across platforms.
It was until money laundering became such a huge international issue.
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Rather, media and governments made it an issue to get more money. They just want money and power.
Money laundering is not really an issue for people who are not in governments.
Only a few corporations own 95% of big media outlets, those few corporations are owned and controlled by fewer corporations. The small group of people behind those few corporations can make up any scripts for big media and get more money.
Hey, we want more money for this. Let’s make noise about money laundering. Let’s label it as money laundering, so we can get more money.
The real power is not in government. People are controlled by the biggest voices which are owned by big media outlets. If big media outlets bash the concept of governments, all governments will banish in a year because big media made billions of people demand abolition of government. It’s big media that gives power to government in the first place. The small groups that control big media have the real power.
I think in the long run it’s an issue for everyone that terrorist groups are increasingly funded by laundered money and by crypto.
Anyway, I don’t want to discuss it with you, because you seem to me to be an alt-right conspiracy theorist and I think that’s all terribly out of place in a trading forum.
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Terrorists are funded by intelligence agencies and governments and military. That’s a well-known fact that you can look up yourself. They are funded through black-ops bank accounts.
When governments fund terrorists, it’s not laundering because they are not really trying to hide their funding.
Here’s just a small example. Israel and state-sponsored terrorism - Wikipedia
Terrorism is very much a part of government-driven warfare. Terrorism is not a valid excuse for attacking people with money laundering accusations. Terrorists don’t need to be funded through any form of money laundering.
Paris terrorism attack was blamed on encryption. However, the terrorists didn’t use any encryption. They just used code words through plain text SMS messages. Governments tend to blame everyday privacy measures that really weren’t used to commit immoral violent acts. Money laundering wasn’t used to fund terrorists. Encryption wasn’t used for co-operation between terrorists. Terrorists aren’t trying to hide their activities with encryption and money laundering.
Why do you think courageous people who are about to die soon care too much about privacy? They are going to die very soon. They don’t care too much about hiding because they will die very quickly. Cowards try to hide, and terrorists are not cowards.
I’m not alt right. I am neither left or right. I keep my distance from all political spectrums. My claims are based on facts, not theories. I’m not a theorist.
Anyway, I won’t go too deep here since this kind of thing should be a separate thread in the lobby.
You may be a better trader than I am, but that doesn’t mean you know more outside the realm of trading.
Trading beginners may freak out at the advices given by professional traders because professional trading is unintuitive. It is similar in other realms of knowledge. Beginners freak out at what more advanced people say. In any domain of knowledge, advanced knowledge is very often unintuitive and seems foolish.
Therefore, we should learn to handle our own animal brain that freaks out easily. I would at least be open-minded enough to delay judgments and entertain new ideas until I understand them more intimately. A common beginner mistake is to judge things prematurely and not look at them again from new perspectives.
If you want to go off-topic, we can discuss elsewhere.
Let’s forget about terrorism or money laundering for now.
Any government or any broker can become worse or better over time. You don’t control them.
It’s a bad idea to rely on the goodwill of any single entity you don’t control. They are not your friends. They are not your family.
Who knew german democracy could give birth to nazis? Did anyone notice USA is in danger of becoming communist? Many more americans are becoming communist. If you feel totally safe with your money in a proper communist regime, you deserve to be screwed over. I’m not saying USA is fully communist now, but it can be in the future. Upon inspection of history and the current trend, democracy is not a guarantee of anything. It can give birth to anything.
Alex Becker, a very successful american entrepreneur, already mentioned that he is ready to leave USA if things become bad enough in USA. He bought multiple passports. He doesn’t trust any single entity too much.
The lesson is to grow personal power so that you are not reliant on the goodwill of a single entity. You need to put your eggs in multiple baskets. Don’t trust any single entity too much.
This translates into spreading your money across multiple brokers so that any single broker or any single government cannot screw you over totally.