IANAL, not a US citizen and I have no intention to dig into how the US defines money laundering.
That said, when I hear "money laundering", I exclusively interpret this as the act of whitewashing money aquired by illegal means (e.g. drug sales, extortion, fencing stolen goods etc.) in order to make it appear legitimate. In that regard, there is nothing that is not bad about money laundering (IMHO).
Of course you could argue that it should be possible to hide the source of your money or even the money itself from the government, but as a consequence, you would have to accept that at the very least, your country would have no longer any means to fight crime.
>Of course you could argue that it should be possible to hide the source of your money or even the money itself from the government, but as a consequence, you would have to accept that at the very least, your country would have no longer any means to fight crime.
Conflating having one less specific statute to prosecute people for violating with "no longer having any means to fight crime" brings to mind a famous Churchill quote about the electorate.
That said, when I hear "money laundering", I exclusively interpret this as the act of whitewashing money aquired by illegal means (e.g. drug sales, extortion, fencing stolen goods etc.) in order to make it appear legitimate. In that regard, there is nothing that is not bad about money laundering (IMHO).
Of course you could argue that it should be possible to hide the source of your money or even the money itself from the government, but as a consequence, you would have to accept that at the very least, your country would have no longer any means to fight crime.