Amir,

Don't discount these kind of instruments out of hand.

Today, the paper/plastic/tyvek banknote is almost the last vestige of an
older system which provided substantially greater privacy and autonomy
protections than the prevailing digitalized financial system.

In the past, there was a huge diversity of what are called bearer
instruments. These are physical pieces of paper that represent contracts
for debt, title to property, share ownership in corporate structures and
a variety of other things. Possession of the actual piece of paper
itself was both de facto and de jure entitlement to exercise rights of
dominion over the underlying assets.

This system has been largely destroyed by the global
financial/state/power elite, acting via the OECD's Financial Action Task
Force (FATF) and their treats against "sovereign" nations to impose
varying types of sanctions.

As recently as 1997, for example, you could walk into a bank in Austria
and have an exchange like this:

"Hi, I'd like a sparbuch." (A sparbuch ["Savings book"] was essentially
an anonymous, numbered account with the only method of access control
being the presentation of the bank-issued booklet itself.)

"Certainly, sir, and how much would you like to deposit on your account?"

"Well, I've got fifty thousand Deutschmarks in banknotes with me here,
and another six million out in the car. That's all in coins, though."

"Very good, sir, will you need any assistance bringing your funds inside?"

No identification request. No fingerprinting. No nothing, essentially,
other than the contract between bank and client represented physically
in the form of the sparbuch itself.

So, yeah, you could say that "paper is reality" systems like those were
insecure in terms of what we can do digitally (and could do then, as
well), but they provided vastly greater financial privacy than is
available from anything in the banking system almost anywhere today.

Another example: Millionaires who got into the boat racing and yachting
circuit worldwide would often register title to their vessels in places
like the Bahamas or some other BVI protectorates, assigning ownership to
joint-stock corporations that were incorporated using bearer shares --
physical certificates representing stock ownership in a given
corporation, and thereby in a given boat. If, say, one of them bet their
boat on and hand of poker, or just wanted to sell one of their fleet to
someone else, the only thing needed to transfer legally binding title to
someone else was to hand over the bearer share stock certificates.

The financial ecosystem for these types of instruments prior to around
the early 1990s was *fucking* *wild*.

On 05/21/2014 07:31 PM, Amir Taaki wrote:
> why were they storing $500 million in one place?
> how come they weren't inside computers?
> is the university stupid? or is the story misleading?
>
> On 05/21/2014 05:41 PM, Enric Duran Giralt wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I want to share an interesting countereconomics direct action,
>> in Chile:
>>
>> "The Chilean artist Francisco Papas, Tapia confesses and self-denounce
>> as the perpetrator of the burning of debt instalment contracts,
>> proyected in US$500 million dollars, to release from debt to all
>> students of Del Mar University in Chile.
>>
>> The fact, as recounted by Francis himself, was made without the
>> knowledge of students when presented in the occupation of Del Mar
>> University in the V region, noting that he wanted to make a work of art
>> that contemplate the case, was in that moment when this artist hatched a
>> plan to steal bank drafts and then proceed to burn to thereby release
>> the debt that afflicts thousands of students from that house of studies"
>>
>> Video Confession with english subtitles
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NazXo1WWcCg
>>
>> attached. First news and bigger statement translated to english
>>
>> washington post
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/19/chilean-artist-steals-and-destroys-500-million-worth-of-student-debt-papers/
>>
>> the author is facing a criminal complain, and is in hidding at the moment
>>
>> Sources and updates in spanish here: http://www.radiovillafrancia.cl/
>>
>> cheers
>> Enric
>>
>>
>>
>>
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