After two years living in PA we finally got something done we were supposed to do over a year ago. My brother loaned me his trailer for the move across the country. My roommate even bought a truck to tow it from California to Pennsylvania. Over 2000 miles and half a week later we had a new place to call home.
The plan was to sell the trailer (and the truck) when we got here. That didn't happen. Not only was it a bit of a struggle to settle in, making it a low priority, but also there was another technical problem in the way. We didn't have the Title.
Half a dozen people even asked us if we were selling the thing during the first year, but every time we mentioned the title was MIA they didn't want to touch it with a ten foot pool. Apparently the rules in PA are a bit more strict than CA when transferring ownership of something like this, and the proper paperwork is a requirement.
Our adventures across the country were not without incident.
So my brother was getting a bit annoyed that we never sold the damn thing.
But we kept telling him we needed the title and he seemed to ignore that request. Going to the DMV to transfer ownership is never a fun experience, especially in CA. Fortunately the DMV in PA is pretty good (I assume because of lower population) and there are a bunch of things that can't even be done at the DMV. Titles and tags are a separate institution, which is nice because it's easier to avoid the insane lines that way.
In any case we finally got the damn thing sold.
My brother got laid off from his job and I guess that was the kick required to actually transfer the title into our names so we could sell the damn thing. We got a more than fair price for it as well. Apparently product like this from California is a little better quality because it's not all rusted out from the humidity and salted winter roads.
The guy that bought the trailer reminded me of my brother... which was weird. Like selling it for my brother to a clone of himself. Odd to say the least. I even signed the title in the wrong place so that's fun (but apparently easily fixed with an extra form that we had to print out). Funny how no one owns a printer anymore and you have to go to Staples for the photocopier.
In any case we finally got the mythical Cashiers Check from the buyer, and I realized that I wasn't entirely sure what a Cashier's Check was. Like what are the ways in which this can all go wrong? Because I had a bad feeling about all of it.
I know that people say that a Cashiers Check is "as good as cash"... but is it? If you mail cash through the postal service and lose it... the cash is gone. Is the same true for a Cashier's Check? I was actually kind of shocked that I didn't know the answers to these questions considering how much research I've done on the banking sector and such.
Turns out with a basic bitch Google search I found out the answer pretty damn fast. A cashier's check is just a check backed by the bank itself, rather than a user of the bank. In theory this makes it not as good as cash because if the bank failed the check would be no good. Then again it's better than cash because if it gets lost in the mail there is a form you can fill out to get the money back. Takes like 90 days though. So it's not better or worse than cash it's just completely different. A check is a check and cash is cash. A check from the bank itself is not suddenly cash as many people seem to assume.
I was happy to get this kind of clarity because of how people act like a Cashier's Check and cash are the same thing. The bank cannot create money out of thin air, so they absolutely are not the same thing. It's just all part of the legacy ledger system they employ.
Conclusion
A cashier's check is backed by the reserves of the bank in question. What we have to ask ourselves is if that actually even holds any weight anymore. Isn't it now legal for banks to hold 0% in reserves? Fractional reserve banking do be like that sometimes.
Compare this to something like crypto... and crypto is in fact actually like cash. You make a transfer with crypto and the money is gone, just like cash. If you lose crypto "in the mail" it's gone forever. Such is not the case with a cashier's check or other legacy KYC ledger systems. Is one better than the other? Depends on the needs of the user. However we all know where the trend is headed. Banks cannot be trusted. Or rather they can be trusted... until they can't.
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