Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Pity former Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert. He is now the defendant in a lawsuit brought by one of the anonymous individuals who were apparently extorting money from him. The extortionist wants $1.8 million. Lest we forget, Hastert has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for having been too sneaky about withdrawing the funds he was using to pay this guy off. From an NBC report: When the FBI questioned Hastert about the money, he lied and said he just wanted to keep it in a safe place, prosecutors said. His lawyers later contacted agents and told them he was actually being extorted by an ex-student with a false claim of sexual abuse from decades ago. With recorders running, the agents had Hastert speak with Individual A and claim he was having trouble coming up with the next payment. They said the other man's tone and remarks were not consistent with an extortion plot. So the key legal distinction here is between "extortion" on...

So Hastert has pleaded guilty to one of the two counts in front of him. I'm not at all an expert in the federal criminal laws designed to protect the banking system but I'll say this, I find certain aspects of this case odd. They won't be clarified by the sort of investigation now under way by various media outlets, because what those outlets seem to be interested in is: what did Hastert do that made him the extortion target? They want to uncover precisely the res that Hastert has worked so hard to hide all these years, and ideally give a name and face to the blackmailer and victim (everyone is assuming arguendo that they are the same person, or at least that they are kin). That's just gossip at this point. Hastert has pleaded guilty to structuring his withdrawals in such a way as to avoid reporting requirements. But isn't it generally lawful to act in such a way as to avoid breaking the law? This seems an odd sort of offense. I am reminded somewhat of Rob...

I’m an anarcho-capitalist, so I’m not the right person to ask about the particulars of money laundering policy by a nation state, though I do sometimes try to think “within the box” of statist assumptions. In the Hastert matter, there are different layers of operating assumptions behind this indictment. As Mrs Falbo said, “When you ‘assume’ something, you make an ass out of u and me.” Forewarned, I proceed. One might, at the outmost layer of our box,  question why there are banks in the modern (post-Renaissance) sense in the first place, and whether they’re a blessing or a curse. Socialists of many varieties think banks are evil, many Moslems think any institution that charges interest on loans is evil, but I’ll set them both aside. What I’m somewhat more interested in is the argument about the “fractional reserve” nature of banking. Modern banks hold customer deposits and promise to give the customers this money back on demand.  But of course they aren’t holding it...