[HN Gopher] Zero-rupee note
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Zero-rupee note
Author : thunderbong
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-02-25 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| bigyikes wrote:
| Here in the U.S. we have our own zero-value currency called the
| "penny". Strangely, our own government mints these things - no
| NGO required.
| Teknomancer wrote:
| Not quite, they're actually a NEGATIVE value currency.
|
| U.S. currency production is funded by the federal budget,
| supported by taxpayer dollars, and offset by seigniorage
| revenue.
|
| The cost of producing the U.S. penny, exceeds its face value.
|
| The GOVT. explain that this loss is recovered through the
| concept of seigniorage.
|
| Seigniorage is the difference between the face value of money
| and the cost to produce it.
|
| For the U.S. Mint, which produces the penny, the overall profit
| comes from the entire spectrum of coin production, not just the
| penny. Since our penny results in a loss, other denominations
| like dimes, and quarters, are produced at a cost lower than
| their face value, generating profit. So this profit helps
| offset the losses from penny production. So the overall
| seigniorage generated from the other denominations
| theoretically covers the cost of producing a negative value
| coin.
| gedy wrote:
| Maybe they should mint them in China
| aristus wrote:
| The US stopped minting pennies last year.
| jezzamon wrote:
| That's not true.
|
| As someone who is slightly invested just because I hope to
| see governments make logical decisions, I would like that to
| be the case but no the US is still making pennies
| aristus wrote:
| Ah, you're right. They announced they would but Congress
| didn't act.
|
| https://catalog.usmint.gov/proof-
| set-2024-24RG.html?cgid=ann...
| omoikane wrote:
| Maybe you are thinking of Canada, which stopped in 2012.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(Canadian_coin)
| ipython wrote:
| Even 30+ years ago when I lived overseas on military bases,
| change was not given in pennies on the base exchange as it was
| too expensive to ship them (as I was told). Instead your change
| was rounded to the nearest nickel.
| sneak wrote:
| If only we could use these here in the US to pay speeding tickets
| issued on the 29th of the month.
| op00to wrote:
| Explain how committing an offense and having to pay the legally
| established fine is similar to the corruption mentioned in the
| article.
|
| Slow down and you won't get fined.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_quota
| jrockway wrote:
| I mean, the ticket quota doesn't involve giving speeding
| tickets to people driving under the speed limit. If the
| sign says 35, drive 35, and you're good.
| op00to wrote:
| Do you believe you are somehow above the law, and immune
| from punishment later in the month? I'm confused by your
| response.
| pcai wrote:
| Have you considered not speeding
| beej71 wrote:
| Sometimes this is not enough.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Unironically just show up to court. I've had to pay less than
| 30% of parking tickets acquired as a result of showing up each
| and every time. When they do show up, I usually pay a small
| fraction of the initial fine after being polite to the cop.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Where I live, you get a discount if you just mail them a
| check, so if you go to court you risk losing significantly
| more.
| c22 wrote:
| I used to do this, but now I lose more money missing work to
| go to court than the cost of the ticket so I just pay for
| parking upfront to avoid the whole hassle.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| In my state the best going to court tends to get you is a
| violation that won't show up on your record.
|
| You can even go in with evidence but the court costs alone to
| defend make it a wash, to say nothing of time off work
| opaquej wrote:
| We cleverly just ensured any amount of our currency is worthless
| here in South Africa
| layer8 wrote:
| It enables using the _reduce_ function to accumulate Rupees.
| riffraff wrote:
| In context of bank notes, probably "fold" would be better than
| "reduce"
| progbits wrote:
| The note clearly says "please do not fold this note" though
| :)
| durag wrote:
| I read the article twice but I'm having a hard time imagining how
| these are supposed to work. How does showing the note to the
| person that is trying to get bribed differ from just telling them
| it's wrong and that you won't do it? Usually in those situation
| you don't really have a choice, like when a cop stops you in the
| middle of the night. Is it meant to be given in a discrete way,
| so that the false note is discovered after the supposed bribe?
| MontagFTB wrote:
| As a giver of one of these notes, I would imagine you have
| decided to stand against bribery no matter the outcome of the
| scenario where it is given. Hopefully reason wins out and the
| situation ends amicably. To address the bribery problem,
| though, there's a sense where you have to be okay with things
| getting worse before they get better.
|
| It seems to me the note is a socially well known form of
| protest, which may go down better than a direct interaction.
| sonofhans wrote:
| This is describing a different culture, so your expectations
| are being confounded. In places bribery is truly pervasive,
| paying bribes is a habit. You see your parents do it, you see
| how everyone around you accepts it. Indian (very broadly --
| this is a stereotype) culture can be less individualistic than
| the USA, and this makes it even harder to say no to things like
| this.
|
| It's like tipping, in the USA -- so pervasive that it's
| invisible. And these days with digital point-of-sale systems,
| you have to take affirmative action _not_ to tip, and people in
| line around you can see, so the social pressure is enormous.
|
| So the note is proof that the person not paying the bribe is
| not alone, that they are part of a movement, that their actions
| are acceptable to at least some portion of their society. This
| makes is feel safer, and puts the onus on the briber to either
| escalate or to back down.
|
| It also relies on the sense of shame of the briber. Since
| bribes are commonplace, some civil servants depend on them for
| their livelihood, or at least their lifestyle. Confronted with
| the evidence of a social movement saying that their actions are
| not ok, they're more likely to feel some shame, versus just
| feeling anger at a random citizen confronting them.
| _nalply wrote:
| > It also relies on the sense of shame of the briber.
|
| You meant the sense of shame of the person being bribed? I
| ask to avoid a misunderstanding.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| I think they meant the person requesting the bribe payment
| would be ashamed? Why would the person being pressured to
| pay a bribe feel shame?
| Semaphor wrote:
| > you have to take affirmative action _not_ to tip, and
| people in line around you can see, so the social pressure is
| enormous.
|
| A foodtruck I watch on twitch has everyone choose an option.
| No tip, some pre-set amounts, or custom. So no social
| pressure there, as no one else will know. They are using the
| square register.
| ginko wrote:
| >It's like tipping, in the USA -- so pervasive that it's
| invisible.
|
| Incidentally giving out fake dollar bills as tip is or was a
| thing. At least enough for a handful articles:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/20-tip-bible-
| pamphlet-2015-1...
| mike_hock wrote:
| Just like the zero rupee bills, these should be widespread.
| Not with a bible pamphlet inside, but an explanation why
| tipping culture is detrimental in the long run.
| sterlind wrote:
| Please don't be the jerk who leaves fake bills that say
| tipping is detrimental. I promise you that servers don't
| have power over management to change the tipping system,
| you'll just come off as an asshole.
|
| The difference is that wait staff effectively get paid
| 20% _less_ than they would otherwise, on the expectation
| of getting a 20% tip. According to US labor law you can
| even pay servers less than minimum wage, as long as their
| tips make up for the difference. So by not tipping you
| 're shorting workers of their wages.
|
| If you want to end tipping culture, call the restaurant
| owners and tell them to bake tips into the menu prices.
| StockHuman wrote:
| In addition to other responses, know that the zero-note makes
| its way to the corrupt official's hands before they can inspect
| it. From their perspective, they've just completed an illegal
| act with someone willing to challenge their authority out of a
| sense of justice. What would you even do after receiving a zero
| note instead of a bribe as requested? So goes the example: of a
| smile and nothing more.
| alwa wrote:
| But in cases where the bribe is to expedite an official act--
| they give the example of getting a driver license issued--why
| wouldn't the official just give the smile then shuffle your
| application to the bottom of the pile?
| araes wrote:
| Frankly, when I started reading the article, I was actually
| expecting far more direct, practical applications, rather than
| pseudo-shame that I don't trust corrupt officials to have.
|
| Stuff like:
|
| If you have to pay, then paying a portion in Zero Notes so the
| total money is reduced.
|
| Hiding fake money in the real money, so it will be obvious it
| was bribe money.
|
| Allow you to tip off police, while mostly looking innocent if
| you're caught "I thought it was a real ruppee!"
|
| Filling suitcases full of fake money, because they can't check
| before you leave (if you meet in public).
|
| Making them with electronics, so the bribers can be followed
| (has other creepy issues though).
|
| Making them with ink, that ruins other bribe money.
|
| I dunno, like every con movie trick that Hollywood's used in
| money capers.
| op00to wrote:
| Why not simply bash the person over the head when they give you
| one of these notes?
| StockHuman wrote:
| Because they're presently employed, and a missed bribe is not
| worth their career.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| A District Magistrate used to basically have the power of
| life and death.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| There is also the zero euro note
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/0-Euro-Schein
| przemub wrote:
| Though it's not anticorruption but for souvenir purposes. I
| have quite a few of them from various tourist attractions.
| alwa wrote:
| So have I! I'm puzzled but delighted by how widespread they
| are-and in fact I'm personally aware of vending locations in
| several places not reflected on the official map [0].
|
| [0] http://www.euro-souvenirscheine.de/map.php
| amelius wrote:
| Now we only need an infinite euro note.
|
| It will be fun paying with it and getting change back.
| bombcar wrote:
| You'd just get the same note back.
| layer8 wrote:
| We need at least two, for countable and uncountable
| infinities.
| hcs wrote:
| There's also the Greater Japan Zero Yen Note
| https://www.moma.org/collection/works/136620
|
| (The background to these is a complex of art projects and a
| court case, but it came to mind)
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Having lived in India all my life, I've never seen one of these
| notes, or known anyone who used these. They are not part of the
| cultural zeitgeist - no films or shows that have them for eg.
|
| The only time I've seen them mentioned is in news reports about
| their existence as a campaign, never actual usage.
|
| Another interesting campaign around corruption is ipaidabribe.com
| to gain some data around this. Unfortunately, both giving and
| taking bribes is illegal, thus you need anonymity for reports
| resulting in a lower data quality.
|
| To fix that, there's proposals to make it legal to pay
| "harassment bribes" (the ones where the bribe giver does not gain
| undue advantage).
|
| > Giving complete immunity to the bribe-giver would ensure higher
| reporting and co-operation of the giver in bringing to justice
| the bribe taker. The present law acts as a deterrent to reporting
| of bribery.
|
| https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/should-bribe-giving-be-legal...
| darkflame91 wrote:
| In a nutshell, the government does not differentiate between
| bribery and blackmail. "Harassment bribes" is blackmail, plain
| and simple.
| vinay_ys wrote:
| Looks like a bogus PR propaganda wikipedia link.
| amai wrote:
| India should use these notes to pay for Russian oil and gas
| nowadays.
| teitoklien wrote:
| They use the same notes that the united states[2] and europe[1]
| uses right now to pay for russian gas instead.
|
| [1](https://youtu.be/bJusZyN-yn8?si=Yq3jPFo7Pq2xF_Yd.)
|
| [2](https://youtu.be/bMTEBoapjbY?si=fo5ZrtETxLociDES)
| viewtransform wrote:
| Or they could just use dollars like the U.S. is doing.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/climate/enriched-uranium-...
| instagraham wrote:
| This is quite old and outdated but just to engage with it :
|
| It defeats the whole purpose of a bribe, doesn't it? If officials
| were gonna be intimidated by a note, there are probably other
| recourses that would've done the job.
|
| Except none of them have. Officials are obviously aware that
| bribery is illegal. It's the idea that they "can get away with
| it" that needs challenging. If it's true, then the agency of the
| citizen is minimal; it's the agency of the relevant watchdog that
| needs strengthening.
|
| > Satindar Mohan Bhagat, an Indian expatriate who is a physics
| professor at the University of Maryland and the director of
| Association for India's Development, Inc. US, is credited with
| originating the concept of the zero-rupee note in 2001
|
| I appreciate the sentiment, but it really reflects the disconnect
| between people who don't live in India and people who do. There
| is hardly a single bribery situation where this would be useful.
| The only cure to bribery is knowing more powerful people than the
| corrupt official - ie, bribery won't work on the elite and well-
| connected, unless the official is a fairly significant fellow.
|
| In an era where arbitrary income tax raids, "anti-national"
| accusations or just plain old Kafkaesque "punish them with more
| process" recourse are what meets people who challenge the
| regime...hard to see a valueless note gaining traction. If
| anything, it's a free pass for the official to get you accused of
| counterfeiting notes. Will it pass it court? no. but you'll be in
| jail for months before you see a judge. perhaps forever.
| darkest_ruby wrote:
| I wonder if '5th pillar' is an allusion to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column
| anandchowdhary wrote:
| Growing up in India, we learned that the four pillars of
| democracy are the Legislature, the Executive, the Judiciary and
| the Media. The nonprofit presumably is saying that
| they/nonprofits are the fifth pillar.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| This is leftist western media focusing on totally irrelevant
| things to push their propagandist agenda. Pretty much every sane
| Indian I know of is a huge fan of the current administration and
| its measures to crack down on corruption, terrorism, and measures
| to reclaim religious freedom stolen by historical oppressors and
| colonialists
| pimlottc wrote:
| This was introduced in 2007 under a previous administration. It
| has nothing to do with any specific leader.
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