News and notes from around the interweb:
- US Customs seizes over US$53,000 in undeclared cash from Jamaica-bound passenger at Fort Lauderdale airport. The passenger was arrested. A reminder that, while many people realize that they have to declare more than $10,000 in cash on arrival in the United States, they also have to declare it when departing the U.S.
This can be done online within 72 hours prior to travel, and then you take the confirmation number/receipt to the CBP office at the airport from which you actually leave the United States, before departure. This will often be inconveniently located. (You can also just show up at CBO and complete a paper form 105.)If you’re connecting in the U.S. prior to your international departure, make sure to leave enough time to do this at your connecting airport! If you were flying Kansas City – Newark – Frankfurt you’d need to submit your declaration at Newark.
- 20% bonus transfering Citi ThankYou points to Air France KLM through August 22, 2026.
- American Airlines needs to clean its B-C Admirals Club in Filthadelphia.
- List of suites that Intercontinental Royal Ambassador members are not entitled to as upgrades
- Southwest dance party.
- Paging Nate Gatten to the white courtesy phone. American Airlines makes the cynical choice…
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- This is an upgrade compared to the usual catering tbh
Ahh, yeah… ‘civil asset forfeiture’… John Oliver had a whole episode on that.
(Now, where are the ‘usuals’ on here to make this all about ‘Somali Americans’… *sigh*)
Düsseldorf Intercon is no longer IHG property.
Two thoughts.
(1) This isn’t typical bad civil asset forfeiture. He was specifically asked if he had money and said “No.” That looks suspicious – this ain’t dad taking $30K so his daughter could by a used truck. And I say that as someone who thinks civil asset forfeiture should be stopped.
(2) Crypto, baby. That’s why crypto is here to stay. Whether you just want to honestly move large sums of your own cash from point A to point B with no paper trail, or if you’re leaving an authoritarian regime or lawless chaos, crypto is your friend.
Off topic, when I was young, I had a friend who’s girlfriend’s family got out of Vietnam via carefully hidden gold strips in their clothing.
@Thing 1 — On your second point, I’d argue it shouldn’t be ‘here to stay,’ at least not in its current form. Crypto has morphed from an experiment for nerds and libertarians into the primary conduit for bad actors, from cartels and to the sitting President (spare me the ‘TDS,’ you tools). Just saying, it’s been wild (in the worst of ways) to watch a technology marketed as a ‘decentralized’ become the very engine that powers global corruption in real-time. *sigh*
@1990, I agree with you on this one, but does that rule crypto out for use as @Thing suggests? If I wanted to transfer significant money out of the country, I could take $7,500 at a time, I suppose, or I could use crypto, right?
Because of the very kind of dark changes happening in our society – as Thing notes – I think a lot of people would want an escape hatch as Plan A or Plan B.
This not the unconstitutional civil asset forfeiture that we see happening from time to time
@Gary – To what degree does declaring the money protect you from civil forfeiture?
Oh, but we “need” government to protect us. They’re little more than common criminals.
The butt hurt is strong in petrocs
@Christian – it protects you from forfeiture from… not declaring it.
Of course declaring it could itself make you a target for forfeiture.
@Mike P — Welcome to the resistance… /s
@DaveS — I’d think, regardless of which flavor of authoritarianism you prefer to avoid, right or left, the better way to handle this is to not let things get to the point that you need to ‘flee.’ I really don’t have an easy, simple answer here. No one wants to be seeking the last helicopter out of Saigon, with or without the gold.
A quick search found that the $10K limit was created in 1970 by the Bank Secrecy Act. Shouldn’t that be updated to be $100K by now?
@ Tim O’Brien — Thanks, you just saved me the trouble of double-checking that I wasn’t completely losing my mind re: IC DUS!
@1990 Oliver is a foreigner who shouldn’t even be in this country. I don’t need him telling us what to do with our country. Take a hike. I am so sick of immigration and all these Brits coming here getting involved with our business. How many Americans work in British media. Fox has a lot of foreigners working for them too. It’s a disgrace.
@ Gary — These “excluded” suites are listed mostly to avoid paying compensation. We have been upgraded to many of these excluded suites, including during recent stays. Some hotels, however, take this practice to an extreme, particularly the ICs in New York. The Barclay flat out refuses to give RAs suites, but loyalty is a 2-way street and we boycott them now. Too bad, as it is a lovely hotel otherwise.
What outrages me most about the $10k limit is that the amount hasn’t changed since the 1980s. Adjusted for inflation, it ought to be exponentially higher.
@ Mike — I wouldn’t call 4.2x over 45 years “exponential.”
Be careful when travelling to/from/in europe as allowed amount is 9,999 euros…if exact 10k or more you have to declare. be safe and don’t go for the full amount stated as allowable no matter the country
Petrocs is a TDS pu**y boy.
@1924 — Was that all just sarcasm? Oliver is an American citizen, since 2019. Unless you’re literally a native American, we’re all descended from immigrants in the US, lest we forget.
@Rico, @Mike Hunt — Yes, the $10K limit really should be increased to account for inflation; however, WH/CPB/FinCen can’t change it unilaterally. The $10,000 limit is under 31 U.S. Code § 5316, Bank Secrecy Act (1970). Call me silly names, like usual, but… sensible reforms seem wise.
@Gene – 4.2x over 45 years means the amount is compounding on average by a factor of ~1.0325 year after year, fitting the strict mathematical definition of exponential growth. You are a dolt.
@Mike Hunt — 4.2x over 45 years is 3.25% which is standard. Annual rate would need to be at least double for it be exponential. Gene is correct. If we must use insults, it is you who are the ‘dolt.’
@1990 – As usual, you are retarded, just like your buddy Gene. Your rebuttal confuses the size of the growth rate with the form of the growth. A 4.2-fold increase over 45 years works out to an average compounded annual growth rate of about 3.24%, because 1.0324 raised to the 45th power is approximately 4.2. That fits the mathematical definition of exponential growth: growth by a consistent percentage over time. There is no minimum rate that growth must reach before it becomes exponential. Even 0.1% annually is exponential if it compounds. Doubling the annual rate would make the growth faster, not somehow make it “more exponential.” The endpoints do not prove that growth was perfectly consistent every year, but “compounding on average” already accounts for that distinction. Time to go upstairs now – your mom is calling you for breakfast.
@Mike Hunt — Bah, you still can’t just ‘own’ your mistakes. Naw, naw, naw… you need that sweet, sweet ‘triple-down,’ plus some more needless insults. I love it, but I wish you wouldn’t hold back. Dig that hole deeper (all the way to Giiina!) Get spicier! Please continue to go so technical that no one will even read or bother double-check your unnecessary math (1.0324… to the 45th!) How pedantic. Face it, when you originally said ‘exponential’ you meant that the $10K limit ought to be higher than it is. That’s it. No hard-math, no formulas necessary. Since almost all economic metrics (GDP, inflation, wages, population) compound annually, every single economic change in human history is “exponential.” Saying “inflation is exponential” becomes as meaningful as saying “water is wet.” (Uh oh, you gonna ‘explain’ that one next?? Do it.)
@1990 – That is a lot of sarcasm to avoid admitting that your original claim was wrong. You said growth would need to be “at least double” to qualify as exponential. It would not. Exponential describes how something grows, not how rapidly it grows. Now that the math has disproved your argument, you have switched to claiming the correct definition is merely pedantic and meaningless. You can argue that “exponential” sounds more dramatic in ordinary conversation than a 3.24% annual rate warrants, and that would be a fair rhetorical criticism. But it does not rescue your original mathematical claim. A 4.2-fold increase over 45 years is equivalent to compounding at approximately 3.24% annually. Whether the $10,000 limit should be higher is a separate policy question. And no, saying inflation compounds is not meaningless when the entire point is that a fixed-dollar limit loses purchasing power cumulatively over several decades. Run along now Rupert. Brekky’s getting cold up there.
Nobody needs to carry that much cash. They should take all of it and donate it to local charities.
@Mike Hunt — You just said: “exponential” sounds more dramatic in ordinary conversation than a 3.24% rate warrants, and that is a fair rhetorical criticism. That was @Gene’s point!
Meanwhile, I’ve been incredibly consistent that reforms are sorely needed on the $10K limit (both on the amount, relative to inflation since 1970, and also to account for the giant loophole that crypto has created). Of course, I’ve also enjoyed getting you worked up. THAT was better than coffee.
@MIke Hunt — You’re defining exponential down. At that point, it’s purely rhetorical. And I say this as an engineer who used to work wih exponential algorithms.
Learing Centers taught Form 105 classes.
@Jon F — There it is…the coup de grâce. That was a mic…no, a Mike…drop!
Matt plenty of people have reasons to carry that much or more cash. I have travelled with 7 figures a couple of times and regularly fly with between 250-350k USD. I file the FinCEN 105s all the time and never have issues. The only location that is a pain in the butt is Canada as they always want to count every note, which they do slowly. Plenty of people in my and other legit businesses use cash (oil & gas, TV/movie production, raw metals and mining, just to name a few). Just because cash scares you doesn’t mean it scares others or is not legit.
@Jim LeJeune — LOL about Canada. Sounds about right… Also, “Just because cash scares you doesn’t mean it scares others or is not legit.” Wow, that’s a fantastic one-liner.
@1990Just because we had immigration in the past doesn’t mean we need mass immigration now. He is a foreigner. Period. There are plenty of legacy Americans that would like to be in the media.Mass immigration should have stopped in 1924 and ideally before that. There was very little immigration between 1924 and 1970.00
You never answered how many Americans, which is now a dubious title, work in the media in the UK.
@1924a — So, we’re back to blaming immigrants for all our problems, eh? *sigh*