S.401 - Fair Access to Banking Act

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XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG said:
One more thing: If your goal is to shift the terms of the debate, rather than merely inform, I'd make it clear that the same political system that helped build this financial chokehold is now pretending to regular it. You can't fix cartel behavior by protecting the cartel and punishing no one
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At the end of the day it's all about money and control and they would have less of it with this, that's going to hurt them more than anything he could say to them.

For the purpose of this bill it feels kinda irrelevant. You're 100% right though.
 
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purged hundreds mature video games
hundreds OF mature...
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if you want you could add the steamdb point of games was not selling that much.
you could check see if they had acesss to the *trading card system*. ( i think they did not)
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delete the Rothschild quote.
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agree on this point due people think your rothschild rightwing Skitso
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Article is fine beyond that.
 
XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG said:
That means there's even more value in spelling out the core contradiction: The same political system that built this chokehold is now pretending to regulate it. And if your goal is putting on real pressure, that fact needs to be front and center, otherwise it will be nothing but one of many appeals to the very structure that made the problem possible
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two paragraphs in gordian knot:

Card networks have enjoyed no new competition since 1985. As far as consumers are concerned, there is no difference between an American Express and a Visa card, because the fees and penalties are offloaded to the merchants who have to let the gratutious 3%+ fees eat directly into their profits, while consumers are blissfully unaware of how their payment method hurts the stores they buy from. Since merchants can't choose which card networks to accept, new competition does not even factor into how one network's censorship impacts them. Consumers already have their wallets full of debit and credit cards that are functionally the same: they have no reason to switch to a new or more fair network.

In this way, card networks and payment processors enjoy all the powers of a state-sanctioned monopoly with none of the downsides of a public-private utility. They can choose who they do business with, their customers and merchants have no real alternatives, and (unlike public utilities) they are not required to provide equitible access. They can block transactions for any reason, they can do so with impunity, and they have been doing so for decades.
 
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Baked Al-Aqsa said:
If you want to have a chance with any normies or politicians who actually are relevant and that actually might be swayed by some of your more salient points in the article, delete the Rothschild quote.
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Terrifik said:
agree on this point due people think your rothschild rightwing Skitso
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it's already antisemitic enough as it is :)
 
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Null said:
two paragraphs in gordian knot:

Card networks have enjoyed no new competition since 1985. As far as consumers are concerned, there is no difference between an American Express and a Visa card, because the fees and penalties are offloaded to the merchants who have to let the gratutious 3%+ fees eat directly into their profits, while consumers are blissfully unaware of how their payment method hurts the stores they buy from. Since merchants can't choose which card networks to accept, new competition does not even factor into how one network's censorship impacts them. Consumers already have their wallets full of debit and credit cards that are functionally the same: they have no reason to switch to a new or more fair network.

In this way, card networks and payment processors enjoy all the powers of a state-sanctioned monopoly with none of the downsides of a public-private utility. They can choose who they do business with, their customers and merchants have no real alternatives, and (unlike public utilities) they are not required to provide equitible access. They can block transactions for any reason, they can do so with impunity, and they have been doing so for decades.
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I think the new sections are a major upgrade and I appreciate you taking my feedback seriously
Maybe it's worth going one small step further, because it looks to me like you stop just short of stating outright that the state created this structure and now pretends to regulate it. Like, the same system that constructed that financial chokepoint is now making a big show pretending that they're gonna fix it. The current version still assumes that stronger laws will fix this, without acknowledging the possibility that the system is functioning as intended. Saying that representatives want to keep their jobs still reinforces the idea that political feedback loops can reform cartel&state collusion.
I think calling it out directly would help readers see that it's not just a failure of political will, rather it's a structural arrangement that's built to deceive people into thinking it's reformable while actually locking out the public
 
XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG said:
Maybe it's worth going one small step further, because it looks to me like you stop just short of stating outright that the state created this structure and now pretends to regulate it. Like, the same system that constructed that financial chokepoint is now making a big show pretending that they're gonna fix it. The current version still assumes that stronger laws will fix this, without acknowledging the possibility that the system is functioning as intended. Saying that representatives want to keep their jobs still reinforces the idea that political feedback loops can reform cartel&state collusion.
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look he just wants to help push a slightly stronger version of this bill, maybe shitting on this government enforced monopoly bullshit could come in a later blogpost
 
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Null said:
i don't think that helps and is too libertarian-coded. the people who roll their eyes at this and then reply with "BITCOIN SOLVES THIS!!!!!!!!!" are never, ever going to be useful, they will never contact their representatives, because they are INDIAN and cannot vote.
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Understood, I see you're working in a very narrow Overton window here
Nevertheless, I hope the feedback was still useful in making it sharper
xoxo
 
Null said:

Accepting input on this blog entry before I shill it.
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I like the quote in the beginning. I don't think you have to replace it but I thought I'd suggest another one that I liked:
“With a gun a man can rob a bank, with a bank a man can rob the world”. - Senator Carter Glass, a former US Secretary of the Treasury
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My only other feedback would be that for the list of payment processors, gateways etc. it would be nice to have more examples of companies that act as a processor or gateway so normal people get an idea of who's involved. Like I don't even really know where PayPal or Stripe fits in that list. Seeing a familiar company name mentioned apart from Visa and Mastercard might help emphasize the problem. Also I think Louis Rossmann said that calling instead of writing representatives is sometimes more effective so maybe also mention that.
 
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here's some more shitty grammatical tweaking:
Credit card transactions are difficult to understand by their design. There are many layers of abstraction, up to six different companies between each card swipe and the seller receiving money.
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Credit card transactions are difficult to understand by their design. There are many layers of abstraction, with up to six different companies between each card swipe and the seller receiving money.
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Null said:

Accepting input on this blog entry before I shill it.
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Useful. I used it in a follow up call to action email to my senator. As mentioned earlier, he is a cosponsor of S 401 AND explicitly mentioned OCC-2020-0042-000 out of the blue in his rather significant reply to me.

(Senator, if you're a Kiwi reading this -- or someone on your staff is -- give me a TMI sticker.)
 
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