Quote from: tequilamockingbird on January 13, 2017, 08:35:29 AM

Quote from: osmotic on January 13, 2017, 12:35:23 AM

Quote from: spiderbrain on January 13, 2017, 12:32:09 AM

Quote from: jbreher on January 12, 2017, 10:44:31 PM

Quote from: osmotic on January 12, 2017, 10:35:11 PM

The Indian government is also ~~confiscating gold~~ taxing holdings of black money, which is making bitcoin more and more popular in India. Any gold that hasn't been taxed gets ~~confiscated~~ taxed if their government can find it.

FTFY

By "black money" do you mean money tainted by contact with our evil banking overlords?

Probably gold that's had no tax paid on it. If they have an inheritance tax in India I doubt anyone admits they inherited a shit load of gold to the government. They probably also use it to buy and sell things and don't bother declaring the transactions for tax.

Can India's currency ban really curb the black economy?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-37933231

"Black money is essentially money that has been earned - either through legal activities or through corruption - without any tax being paid on it. There are several estimates of the total amount of black money going around in the Indian economy. A World Bank estimate puts the size of the black economy at 23.2% of India's total economy in 2007.

By making high denomination bank notes worthless overnight, the government hoped that those who had black money in this form would not be able to convert it into physical assets like gold.

Those who have black money will try exchanging it for new notes. But they cannot simply go to a bank and deposit all their old cash, given that it is likely to lead to questions from the income tax department. Any other way of exchanging notes will take some doing, given that the old denomination notes form more than 86% of notes in circulation by value.

As the former central bank governor Raghuram Rajan said: "I think there are ways around demonetisation. It is not that easy to flush out the black money. Of course, a fair amount may be in the form of gold, therefore even harder to catch. Further, the government needs to quickly introduce electoral financing reform in the country. Most elections in India are fought using black money."

OK, here's the funny thing. The central bank can bloviate all it wants. In the end the people have the power. (OK, it wasn't exercised in this recent India demonitization, but we should be ready for the next ((hint: it's coming to you)) ).

What do I mean? India was about 80% cash. Why would the people not just reply with 'fuck you - we'll just keep using these notes the same way we have been'. Nothing changes. 80% of all transactions continue being done in cash -- not recognized by the gubmint, but who the fuck gives a shit -- and Modi ( and his wall street financiers) get to stew over in the corner. I mean really -- for the people, what is the downside?