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Predicting a Future Free of Dollar Bills
An anonymous reader writes with this story about how a cashless society might work and how far-off in the future it is. "...We're not there yet, but a cashless society is not as fanciful as it seems. Recent research suggests that many believe we will stop using notes and coins altogether in the not-too-distant future. New payments technologies are rapidly transforming our lives. Today in the U.S., 66 percent of all point-of-sale transactions are done with plastic, while in the U.K. it's just under half. But while a truly cashless society is some time away yet, there is raft of groundbreaking technologies that will make cash a mere supporting act in the near future."
...that they know about.....are done with plastic.
There are a full range of benefits of paying with cash. Limiting the number of credit card transactions to make it easier to track proper and improper ones. Discounts that are available when purchasing with cash. The trades prefer to be paid cash and discount accordingly somewhat fair as their payment can not be tax deducted unless you can hide you home behind a business. It works when the power is out. It keeps perverse privacy invasive government agencies and corporations from tracking every single thing you do.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Last week I swiped my card at a gas station pump before noticing the tamper proof seals had been broken. I have replaced the card, but while waiting for the new card I used cash. You tend to conserve more money when it is cold, hard cash instead of of just swiping a card. Less surface area for compromise as well.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
"Cashless" is also a giant vacuum sucking service fees back to the banks and so on. Retailers pay a certain amount per transaction to a payment processor, even if you the customer don't pay directly. Think that doesn't come out of your pocket in the end through higher prices?
Just imagine how much money you would have if you got a penny for every transaction conducted in every North American Wal-mart for just one day -- you could retire several times over and still afford fuel for your yachts!
Are we really in that much of a hurry to keep giving more money to the banks?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
One of my clients made me get it to get paid, their accounting department was paying net 90 days and required all kinds of crazy insurance to get me paid through them. So paying with the department credit card was just easier. So when I setup the credit card account, they told me it would cost me 4.0%. Every month new and mysterious (to my account rep.) charges would show up: a fraction of a percent here, fixed fees there. He could never give me an explanation of what they all were, and they weren't consistent from what I could tell. I told them that those charges were ok with me as I was passing that along to my client, but it was hard to do that when I didn't know what I would expect (I was running around $10K a month through it for some other part time contractors and equipment). When the project was over, I couldn't cancel that account fast enough.
So I perfectly understand why some stores have a minimum charge or won't take credit at all, it's a big hassle and cost.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
In theory electronic cash, such as bitcoins, could still allow anonymous transactions.
Wrong, they're made for circulation, they're just making sets with all the presidents, like they did with all the states and Washington DC on quarters.
No, sorry, but you are wrong here. The US mint is sitting on roughly a billion of these coins, minted in previous years, which may never see circulation because there is no demand. Thus, the mint is NOT minting any new coins for the purpose of circulation. Unlike quarters (which circulate and wear out and needed to be replaced, new designs or not), at current demand levels, the mint has enough dollar coins in storage to last for decades.
Thankfully, the mint was able to stop this idiocy of minting new coins just to shove into vaults a few years ago, so now they are only producing new coins to sell as uncirculated coins for collectors (which they can actually make some money off of). Sure, the new coins CAN be put in circulation, but their primary purpose is to be sold for premium prices to collectors.
I'm fighting the government right now. They decided...
Who? A court issuing a judgement, or the IRS seeking unpaid taxes? There is no Department of Government that simply decides anything. It's always the result of some bureaucracy, with a defined process for dispute resolution.
I owed them 37,000$. No explanations.
No explanations, or none that you understood? I've had the IRS come looking for money a few times, and each time it included an enumerated list of what parts of my paperwork they disagreed with. In typical government form, there was no colloquial interpretation, but to an accountant and tax preparer, though, all of the necessary information was there.
The only thing I was told was I'm supposed to have received everything by mail. Of course, I never received anything.
How did you get notice that you owed the money, then? Have you checked that the suitable department has your address correct?
I lost count how many time I called or went to talk to someone.
That's a mistake. Keep records of every time you talk to someone about the matter, and take notes on what they say.
Sometimes the guy I talk to says...
Which guy? Record names, ID numbers, or any other identifier. Those are important to track down exactly who has said what, and on what authority. I've had some matters resolved just by pointing different bureaucrats at each other, and letting them work out the disagreement internally.
Last year, the government froze all my accounts and stole my money.
"Froze" and "stole" are not the same things. Either way, get a good lawyer.
After talking to a lawyer, I was told this kind of cases could go on for a very long time and could cost me a lot of money.
...as can any lawsuit.
The advice was that I should forget about my money.
...I said to get a good lawyer.
The bottom line is that either your story doesn't add up, or you're rather incompetent with governmental matters. Find a suitable advocate for this matter (either a different lawyer for a judgement, or a tax specialist for an IRS dispute, etc.) and give them absolutely every piece of information you have. Record absolutely everything that transpires. Yes, it will cost you a significant amount of money now, because you've sat on this for three years, but I'd be surprised if it totaled more than $37,000.
The most important thing is to make sure that someone fighting on your side is an expert in the relevant process. If you work within the established process, the various governmental entities are actually very forgiving and understanding. You must realize that the actual humans involved don't really care about taking your money, finding guilt, or screwing you over in any other way. They're interested in following the process and closing disputes, so if you show that you're interested in doing things the right way, they'll often be happy to explain exactly what that is. You don't need to waste their time professing your innocence, or telling them how horribly wrong the Big Bad Government is for attacking you. Just find out what you need to do to resolve the dispute, have an expert on hand to verify the information and ask questions, then do whatever's appropriate.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Cash isn't anonymous. Every time you spend cash it eventually gets scanned and the numbers sent to the government. You take cash from the bank, scan. The gas station deposits that money, scan. You might have paid a hooker with it, and then she bought cash- but if they can trace all the other money from the gas station to tourists then it's more likely it was you buying gas.
Uh, you take the hundred dollar bill from the bank teller, then you buy something with it and get change with smaller bills and so on. Notice how your original withdrawal gets lost in the noise?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Its already happening. See Operation Chokepoint. If the government doesn't like your line of work, you won't have a bank account.