Swedes Turn Against Cashlessness (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: It is hard to argue that you cannot trust the government when the government isn't really all that bad. This is the problem facing the small but growing number of Swedes anxious about their country's rush to embrace a cash-free society. Most consumers already say they manage without cash altogether, while shops and cafes increasingly refuse to accept notes and coins because of the costs and risk involved. Until recently, however, it has been hard for critics to find a hearing. "The Swedish government is a rather nice one, we have been lucky enough to have mostly nice ones for the past 100 years," says Christian Engstrom, a former MEP for the Pirate Party and an early opponent of the cashless economy. "In other countries there is much more awareness that you cannot trust the government all the time. In Sweden it is hard to get people mobilized."

There are signs this might be changing. In February, the head of Sweden's central bank warned that Sweden could soon face a situation where all payments were controlled by private sector banks. The Riksbank governor, Stefan Ingves, called for new legislation to secure public control over the payments system, arguing that being able to make and receive payments is a "collective good" like defense, the courts, or public statistics. "Most citizens would feel uncomfortable to surrender these social functions to private companies," he said. "It should be obvious that Sweden's preparedness would be weakened if, in a serious crisis or war, we had not decided in advance how households and companies would pay for fuel, supplies and other necessities." The report mentions a recently-released opinion poll, which found that seven out of 10 Swedes wanted to keep the option to use cash, while just 25% wanted a completely cashless society.

Comments

Why would you want cashless?

[alvinrod]

Why would you want a cashless society? Having the ability to pay in cash doesn't require you to do so yourself. I can't wrap my head around the fact that there are some people who actively want fewer choices even when the alternative options require nothing from them in terms of action or cost. Even from a business owner's perspective, there's nothing that says your business has to accept cash payments, unless there's some obscure Swedish laws of which I'm unaware.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[ShanghaiBill]

Even from a business owner's perspective, there's nothing that says your business has to accept cash payments

But if few businesses accept cash, and you can't actually use cash to buy groceries, then you have a de facto cashless society.

For businesses, cash means crime. Both employee theft and robberies. Cash transactions are also slower than just waving your phone, which raises costs. Cashless self-checkout kiosks are cheaper and less error prone than those that handle cash.

I spent two months working in Shanghai last fall. I ate hundreds of meals, visited dozens of shops, and exchanged money with co-workers. Of all those transactions, this many involved cash: 0.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Cash transactions are also slower than just waving your phone

I can just wave my phone? Do I have to flip it open, or can I leave it shut? And how do I pay to refill the phone with the phone?

I spent two months working in Shanghai last fall.

Of course the Chinese are going to have a system in place to track everything you do.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[lucm]

It's a bank scam. They want to avoid a situation like Japan or Iceland where people started to buy safes to keep cash at home because negative interest rates meant that banks were charging fees for cash deposits.

The whole banking system in Europe is corrupt. From Ambrosiano to Libor scandals, from the Swiss hoarding nazi gold to HSBC laundering drug money, from Latvian banksters to Maltese murderers, it's a huge network of thieves and common criminals. Even Wells Fargo and their fake accounts don't come close to the level of European crooks.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[Khyber]

"Cash transactions are also slower than just waving your phone, which raises costs."

Every place I go where they need me to use a fucking chipped card, it takes about 15 seconds for the transaction. As a former cashier, I could've done the entire transaction in my head and had the change in the customer's hands in less than ten seconds.

Might be slower for you now because of all the clueless millennials in retail positions.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[ShanghaiBill]

I can just wave my phone? Do I have to flip it open, or can I leave it shut?

I have no idea how it works in Sweden, but in China you use an app to scan the merchants QR-code, and then enter a 6 digit PIN and/or use finger/face ID to confirm the transaction. It typically takes about two seconds. I set up my phone to use fingerprint only for transactions under 100CNY ($15 USD) and require both PIN and fingerprint for larger amounts.

And how do I pay to refill the phone with the phone?

You can top-up your balance by linking your WeChat or AliPay app to your bank account. This requires an additional bank PIN. Or, if you don't have a Chinese bank account, you can ask a friend to send you a "hong bao" peer-to-peer transfer.

Of course the Chinese are going to have a system in place to track everything you do.

They already have that and there is no secret about it. I was just there to get my job done, so I go along with the system, obey the law, and keep out of trouble. They certainly aren't going to change their policies because I object. As an American, it is not my job to "fix" China.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[Archfeld]

Cash if FAR cheaper. Having to accept credit cards entails a hefty surcharge by the credit card company, as well as a delay in getting paid, and the additional risk of credit card fraud. While a debit card is faster and cheaper it still involves network fees and equipment rental and service.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want a cashless society? Having the ability to pay in cash doesn't require you to do so yourself. I can't wrap my head around the fact that there are some people who actively want fewer choices even when the alternative options require nothing from them in terms of action or cost.

As an individual, no, you don't want that. Cash-in-hand carries some obvious risks like loss or theft, and a few less obvious ones, like (hyper)inflation and devaluation. Money-in-the-bank comes with a "we won't steal from you, honest"-promise that is usually a national scandal if it gets broken, but it does happen like when a bank goes AWOL or bust overnight. Then there's the loss of control ("Cyprus template"). The obvious problems and their mitigations are well-known and well-understood. The other stuff, much less so.

For businesses, especially those sitting on the interface between numbers in bank accounts and cash-in-hand, it's easy to pretend that cash is nothing but a business expense that one had best dispense with. This isn't necessarily true, but it's the fashionable pretence.

For governments, cashless means unprecedented control. You know, civil forfeiture with less smell of "the government is stealing from me!" Which is exactly why economists are creaming their pants at the idea. Bank problem? Just steal everybody's bank balances and done. Bank runs? Impossible because without cash nobody can get their money out. Monetary policy, no matter how onerous, becomes much easier to just force onto the population. And so on.

So cash vs. cashless is an indicator how much the people is beholden to the local government. Which in turn might well be beholden to some other organisation (ECB, FRB).

Even from a business owner's perspective, there's nothing that says your business has to accept cash payments

But if few businesses accept cash, and you can't actually use cash to buy groceries, then you have a de facto cashless society.

Yes. Which is not very good for ordinary citizens. As a business, you're more or less beholden to the banks and the tax man anyway.

For businesses, cash means crime. Both employee theft and robberies.

These are well-understood risks. Much moreso than "digital bank robberies", but hey, if the bank promises they'll replace all losses then we can pretend there's no risk at all, right? RIght up until you want to hold them to that promise, of course. Just like insurance companies, only worse.

Cash transactions are also slower than just waving your phone, which raises costs.

Right up until the bloody thing runs out of power, throws a hissy fit, you name it. Besides, "waving your phone" is one of many cashless payment methods, all different, and a relatively new one at that.

I pay everything cash, complete with adding a few coins to minimise total item exchange where possible, and I'm not slower than someone using chip-and-pin. A little practice goes a long way here. Plus it gives me a keen insight in just how much cash I have available. I don't have to risk my entire bank account's balance every time I stick that card in a reader. Do you know the balances on all your ready payment methods by heart? How do you check? How do you account, how do you control your expenses?

Cashless self-checkout kiosks are cheaper and less error prone than those that handle cash.

If you choose to pretend fraud suddenly ceases to exist.

I haven't checked but I really wonder what happens if suddenly a bunch of unknown-to-the-system unbanked illegal aliens barge in and take your entire inventory with them. Over here in Europe we have a lot of those coming in by the boatload, and our politicians are entirely too weak to do diddly squat about it.

I spent two months working in Shanghai last fall. I ate hundreds of meals, visi

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[ShanghaiBill]

That all sounds like it takes more than two second.

It only takes more than 2 secs if you don't already have the WeChat app open. But that is rare in China. WeChat is like SMS, voice mail, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Skype, Facetime, PayPal, plus a lot more, all rolled into one app. If you see a pedestrian in America, there is maybe a 50% chance that they aren't watching where they are going because their eyes and attention are on their phone. In China, it is at least 90%.

Even if you don't already have WeChat open, you can open it while you wait in the checkout line, so by the time you get to front, all you have to do is scan and tap.

Do they not take cash in China?

Most merchants still take cash, but more and more do not. As cash users dwindle, it just isn't worth the hassle and risk for businesses to keep cash on hand. Any merchant can accept e-payments, even informal unregistered businesses. A farmer was selling apples out of a wagon on the street in front of my apartment ... with a WeChat QR-code sticker on his scale. Just weigh, scan, and go.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[Pfhorrest]

It sounds like the motive for this "cashless" system is to keep the increasingly-widespread use of electronic payments from being completely controlled by private parties like banks. What doesn't make any sense to me is why the government can't just roll out a public electronic payment system, to compete with the private ones (with the advantage of not having to turn a profit doing so), which it can leave just as they are without shutting them down... and also continue having the public cash system as well. The problem they're concerned about doesn't require the solution they're naming. By all means, make a public electronic payment system to protect the public from private ones. Doesn't mean you have to shut down cash at the same time.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[PopeRatzo]

you can ask a friend to send you a "hong bao"

Is that with chicken, pork or beef?

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[LunaticTippy]

I'll bet few places in human history have changed more then China in the past 20 years.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[LunaticTippy]

Are you sure? I was talking to some cannabis shop owners who claim that handling cash is about the same cost as handling plastic. You have to account for shrinkage, time spent counting, employees making deposits, etc.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[ShanghaiBill]

Cash if FAR cheaper. Having to accept credit cards entails a hefty surcharge by the credit card company

I was in China for two months last fall, witnessed thousands of cashless transactions, and this is how many times I saw anyone use a credit card: 0.

Cashless payments ARE NOT BASED ON CREDIT CARDS.

as well as a delay in getting paid,

WeChat and AliPay are instant transfers.

... and the additional risk of credit card fraud.

Credit card fraud is an AMERICAN problem. In other countries I can't spend your money just by providing semi-public information. Only Americans believe that is "the way it is supposed to be".

While a debit card is faster and cheaper it still involves network fees and equipment rental and service.

Equipment needed to accept cashless payments in China: A sticker with a QR-code. Cost: 2 cents.

Re: Why would you want cashless?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Swedish. We use chipped cards a lot. But here, they work properly.

What moved us towards cashlessness though was "Swish", an app for instant money transfer between any two users, regardless of which banks they have. iZettle is also pretty common in small businesses; it's a chip card reader that connects to an ordinary smartphone or tablet.

This shift was rapid. Three years ago I had 55000 sek (about 6500 us$) in cash to deposit after the annual skydiving boogie our club arranges. Last year there wasn't enough cash to pay back account balances.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[jpaine619]

Cash payments made "under the table" take away from tax revenue resulting in increased tax rates for those who pay their taxes.

Do you really think that's why tax rates increase? Really?

You don't think that if the government got 100% of all the tax it was due, that it wouldn't raise rates now and then to get more?

Governments ALWAYS expand and become corrupt. There is exactly ZERO moral obligation to pay taxes to a government that is going to waste them.

Nobody can deny that the US Federal Government is one of the most corrupt and wasteful organizations on the planet. Only the California State Government even comes close. (maybe New York too)

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Cash if FAR cheaper. Having to accept credit cards entails a hefty surcharge by the credit card company, as well as a delay in getting paid, and the additional risk of credit card fraud. While a debit card is faster and cheaper it still involves network fees and equipment rental and service.

AFAIK cash is now more expensive to handle. Surcharges have decreased, chips has driven fraud close to zero (in over the counter retail), interest rates are practically nothing and terminals and network are cheap even for very small businesses. The cost of handling/storing/transporting cash is way up due to decreased volumes and higher safety standards (it's no longer socially acceptable that someone gets robbed due to their proffession). That's why in places like Sweden cash is disappearing fast. If you don't want a cashless society you'll have to go the legislative way.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[someoneOtherThanMe]

Equipment needed to accept cashless payments in China: A sticker with a QR-code. Cost: 2 cents.

How does the phone/bank/whoever know the amount I want to pay? I guess the shop needs a networked computer of some sorts after all, right?

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[AHuxley]

Governments get to know what your buying.
Governments get to stop tax avoidance on every transaction.

On some type of pension?
Governments get to set up no buy lists. No alcoholic beverages. No smoking. Buying magazines and publications gets totally restricted. No gambling on a pension. No holidays to other nations.
Spending on education gets more support. Stop attending approved education and the gov support stops.
The obligations to keep getting support on an allowance card start to become a long list.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[thegarbz]

As a former cashier, I could've done the entire transaction in my head and had the change in the customer's hands in less than ten seconds.

As a former cashier you're not normal. What happens in the real world is a person spends some 15 seconds fucking around with their wallet and counting out before handing it to a cashier who as a professional math whizz will have it counted and change returned in mere seconds.

Cashiers aren't the holdup.

By the way what the hell takes you 15 seconds? For transactions under €25 it takes me less than 3 seconds to pay including the delay it takes to authorise. For over €25 it takes maybe 6 seconds. The only time I've waited 15 seconds behind anyone cashless is if they managed type in the incorrect pin or their card was declined, and even then the former only on a system where the incorrect pin ends the transaction (i.e. not any supermarket lane).

There's a reason supermarkets introduced "cashless" lanes. They move MUCH faster.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[ShanghaiBill]

How does the phone/bank/whoever know the amount I want to pay?

At many shops, the price is embedded in a QR-code that appears on a LCD screen. You just scan it and tap to confirm. At low end shops, such as street stalls without electricity, there is a fixed QR-code sticker and the vendor just tells you the price. You key it in and tap your fingerprint to authorize.

I guess the shop needs a networked computer of some sorts after all, right?

No. In theory, the merchant can just look at your phone to see that the transaction completed. In practice, they will usually also have their cell phone which will display the completed transaction. Everything is cell phone based, and there is no wired network, nor even a need for electricity other than your cell battery.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[JaredOfEuropa]

You wouldn't even have the money in your hand by the time I am done with my purchase.

Isn't that called shoplifting?

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[TheRaven64]

I can just wave my phone? Do I have to flip it open, or can I leave it shut? And how do I pay to refill the phone with the phone?

Not sure about Sweden, but in the UK most places now do contactless EMV transactions with either a phone or a card. If you use a card, you just put it on the terminal and about a second later it beeps and it's done. If you use a phone, it's the same thing but you have to touch the fingerprint sensor as well (for Apple Pay, I've never seen anyone use Google Pay). I prefer to have a separate physical token that doesn't have the ability to run malware, so I don't use the phone, but with the card it takes less time than for cash:

• Both need me to get my wallet out of my pocket.
• Both need me to get something out of my wallet.
• Only cash requires me to get out a quantity that differs depending on my final amount (so I can't get it out until that's calculated).
• Both require me to hand something over, but in the case of the card I just tap it on the reader for a second, for cash I hand it across the counter or feed it into a machine.
• Only cash requires someone to calculate change and give it to me.

My local convenience has self-service checkouts and it takes their UI a couple of seconds to step through the payment screen. I pop my card on the card reader before I tap the last step of the UI and it's done by the time I reach over to pick it up again.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I don't trust contactless EMV cards' security, both with the ability to protect my cash and the ability of people to track my presence from afar with specialty readers. I do like chip cards over the magnetic stripe.

And certainly, securing a phone with a fingerprint, giving my fingerprints to Apple/Google, and having a phone capable of running malware (as opposed to being a phone) all seem stupid. To say nothing of making part of my day an unpaid minimum wage worker at a self-service checkout, as opposed to doing anything else, e.g. reading.

Re: Why would you want cashless?

[Malc]

This is all great... once weâ(TM)re cashless youâ(TM)ll love the convenience of negative interest rates or addition transaction taxes or fees.

Iâ(TM)ve gone back to using cash. Itâ(TM)s really not that inconvenient. And if you choose human interaction instead of the checkout machines, not only will you be annoyed less by the irritating machine, youâ(TM)ll have time to pack your bag whilst somebody faster and more efficient scans it and have some fun calculating the perfect amount to get fewer coins back in your change. Oh, and a moment of human interaction.

Re: Why would you want cashless?

[stabiesoft]

And everything about your transaction was tracked. Who bought, what you bought, what time, what location, and now that has been connected with everything else you have bought and where it was bought for your entire life with non-cash. At least with cash, they need to use some form of facial recognition system. Don't believe this info is valuable? Then why did/do so many companies have loyalty cards? I do not look forward to this 1984 everyone is so anxious to achieve.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[wyHunter]

And, why do you want to give banks some percentage of every transaction you make? And why do you want your personal info of what you've purchased to be data mine-able?

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[jwhyche]

I do the same thing with my bank balance open in a web browser and a spreadsheet. Doing a budget with cash doesn't make this any easier.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[jwhyche]

Countries currently going "cashless" are not doing it with chipped cards. You pay with your phone. Scan, tap, go.

I've been practically cashless for the last 10 years. I paid for everything with my debit card up until lately. I got the samsung pay app on my phone. I set it up just to try it out to see if it is more convenient. It is and now I pay for practically everything with a tap of my phone. It is faster and it is better.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[jwhyche]

By the way what the hell takes you 15 seconds? For transactions under â25 it takes me less than 3 seconds to pay including the delay it takes to authorise

That is been my experience. Most of the time when i pay for something with my phone. If it takes more than 10 seconds its because the cashier is staring at me wondering if I just paid for something with my phone.

Re:Why would you want cashless?

[jwhyche]

Cash requires time and money as well. If

But you can't stuff your mattress with cashless transactions and lay on it like old dragon. Also burying cashless transactions in old mason jars in the back yard is a pain in the ass. If you use a card then you have dig them all up every 2 or 3 years when they expire.

There is something to be said about a mattress stuffed with 100 dollar bills. Oddly, I can't think of any good ones at the moment.

Re: Why would you want cashless?

[Darinbob]

But you have to trust these odd startup companies with your cash. I don't trust them. Everyone's spying on everyone, and since they're startups the security is abysmally bad. Too many people are just far too trusting with new technology. A little bit of Luddite paranoia is a good thing.

Re: Crypto is one solution

[Reverend Green]

If by "obvious" you mean "obviously stupid".

Cash is king

[Khyber]

No matter what anyone says, when power goes out and communications infrastructure goes to shit or gets attacked, regular hard currency will still work until the human race forgets how to add and subtract.

There is also the possibility of electronic 'cash'

[master_p]

Cash doesn't have to be paper. An electronic unit with a battery that can hold an electronic counter can function perfectly as an electronic version of cash, without involving banks and going through bank transactions each time.

It seems this option is totally ignored by everyone though.

Re:Why would you want any other way ?

[Archfeld]

So who is going to buy me a smart phone, and pay for a data plan ? I don't have one and I don't want one. My simple dumb Trac phone with just text and phone service is cheap easy and my choice. I have a visa/debit card that I keep for emergency use only, and I have to remind myself to use it for an inquiry once every 90 days or the damn credit union suspends it. As a contractor I am paid by certified check thru my contracting office rather than by the current employer. I use and cash for almost everything except monthly bills which are paid out of my checking account via automatic withdrawal. Does my dope dealer have to pay square or some vendor to stay in business ? How do I give the 'vet' hanging out on the corner a couple of bucks for hamburger evey now and then. Uncle Sam is up in my grill enough with having every dollar I choose to spend analyzed by them.

Re:Those levying the tax are the thieves

[Anonymous Coward]

No, tax is something that we (society) agreed upon in exchange for other services. That is, we pooled some of our assets together to be able to build roads, hospitals and schools. Sure, some like this agreement more than others, and some, like you, don't like it at all. The mystery is why nutjobs like you don't move to some uninhabited corner of the world and live off the grid, only interacting with other nutjobs. Now let us, the rest of society, to be in peace, not needing to hear your tinfoil, paranoia-filled rants.

Re:Those levying the tax are the thieves

[Pfhorrest]

People don't go live off-grid because they're even more likely to get robbed there and even less likely to get anything in return for what's taken from them.

Giving someone something they didn't ask for after forcibly taking their money doesn't make it not theft. Even if it's something that they would have given money for voluntarily. The lack of choice is what makes it theft. By that standard, taxes are theft, because you don't get to decide that you would rather not have the services, and then get out of paying for them.

But that doesn't mean that we should immediately abolish all taxes and the government that depends on them, because in the absence of a government, another government would immediately spring up out of the power vacuum, and those are the worse kinds of governments: the kind made up of whoever is most powerful, who don't ask the governed for their opinion on anything and doesn't think they need to do anything to appease those governed.

But governments that want to stick around for a long time eventually figure out that giving the governed some say in things, and giving them some things in return, will help that government stay in power longer. It's still ultimately a group of people exercising violence to control other people. It's still not in and of itself good. But if that moderate evil is the only thing keeping a much worse evil from springing up out of the power vacuum, then far better to play along with the moderate evil.

And if that moderate evil can slowly be made less and less evil while still keeping the greater evils at bay, eventually you get a stable anarchy. Anarchy is the limit (in the mathematical sense) of good governance: what better and better governance converges toward. Part of figuring out how to achieve that will involve figuring out how to fund it without demanding the funds from people on threat of violence, i.e. without taxes. But until we can figure that out, paying taxes to support a somewhat decent government is a better compromise than going out where the figurative wolves will figuratively eat you alive.

How can businesses refuse cash?

[93 Escort Wagon]

That part of the submission confused me - if payment is offered and If it’s the coin of the realm, how can they legally decline it? It’s not like “cashless” transactions aren’t using the same currency.

Re:How can businesses refuse cash?

[DrTJ]

There are plenty of shops and restaurants in Swden that have signs with "we are cash free".

They have the right to accept or decline anyone as a customer, so they just think they can live without the customers who insist on using cash.

Re:How can businesses refuse cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does a tourist pay for anything?

But wait....my phone was stolen, lost, or broken...now what? Go get another phone, but how do I pay for THAT?

Or I'm only there for 2 days and a night, I don't need a phone to do what I need. Is there something else that can do the electronic transfer that isn't a phone (and should be super cheap)?

I forget my wallet with cash and stuff all the time...or leave it behind for safety)...no problem, stop by a bank branch and get some cash for a day or two (or at least dinner).

Having only 1 way to do anything is a recipe for disaster.

Re:How can businesses refuse cash?

[hankwang]

And on many currencies it doesn't say "good for debts public and private". I checked the law for the Netherlands (Euro zone, unlike Sweden) some time ago. Here: "legal tender" mostly means means that you're not allowed to copy it. There is no rule that someone has to accept banknotes or coins even for settling a debt. Try paying your phone bill using one-cent coins... many smaller (MVNO) providers don't even have a physical store.

Sweden has gone off the deep end of late.

[AbRASiON]

A country once to envy, now, I'd be inclined to avoid most things they say and do. Total head in the sand people over there.

Re:Sweden has gone off the deep end of late.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Swede living in Sweden.
His perception hasn't even scratched the surface of the real change.
The coming 10-30 years in Sweden will be a cautionary tale for everyone.

Tourists...

[Bert64]

The problem with the various cashless options is that a lot of them are country or region specific, so when you have tourists visiting it's often difficult for them to make use of the local payment systems,especially since many such systems disallow registration from users outside of the country.

Re:There is also the possibility of electronic 'ca

[dromgodis]

We tried that in Sweden. It was even called "Cash", and was an added function on your credit/debit card. The banks forced all shops etc to replace their card terminals at great expense. Nobody understood what the point was, so it was completely ignored. Now it is gone and the embarrassment forgotten.

Re:Why would you want any other way ?

[ShanghaiBill]

How do I give the 'vet' hanging out on the corner a couple of bucks for hamburger evey now and then.

You use your phone to scan the QR-code on his phone, or if he doesn't have a phone, you scan the QR-code sticker on the corner of his "Please Help" sign.

You really have no idea. Most bums in China accept both WeChat and AliPay. Likewise, most Swedish bums likely take Swish (never been to Sweden (not into blondes)). Peer-to-peer payments are trivial.

US Governemt does not control USD

[hlavac]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Crypto is one solution

[TheRaven64]

It's important to differentiate the form of coinage from the backing medium. Coinage often has little or no intrinsic value. This is especially true of paper promissory notes, which cost a tiny fraction of their face value to produce and have few other possible uses (uncomfortable toilet paper, really tacky wallpaper, or a convenient object for arranging your cocaine in lines). Currencies are typically backed by some promise from an organisation to exchange them for something else. For example, the one Pound Sterling could originally be redeemed for one pound of sterling silver. Most modern currencies are established by fiat: a law requires that they can be used to settle any debt, including taxes, so their value is based on the number of people who have debts that can be settled by the currency.

A crypto currency simply provides an implementation mechanism that allows you to maintain a ledger recording transactions without a single central point of failure. This would address the concerns in TFA, where people are worried that if, for example, the Russians invaded they'd be able to shut down all commerce in a region by flipping a few config options in a computer.

Most crypto currencies have difficulties replacing real-world currency uses because they are entirely decoupled from any store of value in the real world. Ideally (gross oversimplifications follow), the monetary supply should reflect the economy. When more value is created in the economy, more money should be created to represent it. When value is removed from the economy, the money supply should contract by a corresponding amount. The money supply should expand slightly faster than the economy so that holding money is discouraged as a means of holding value (you want people to invest in things that improve productivity, not keep piles of cash under their bed).

Re: Crypto is one solution

[vakuona]

The US could literally print $20 trillion dollars in $100 bills and pay off their bond holders as they fall due. Of course, this would cause inflation to shoot up, but the debt would be paid.

7/10 Swedes want to keep cash; 25% want cashless

[AdamStarks]

The remaining half a Swede could not be reached for comment.

Re:Crypto is one solution

[Agronomist Cowherd]

Paper currency is for delivering the cocaine to your nose; it's plastic cards that arrange it into convenient lines.

Off topic nitpick

[jwhyche]

This is all great... once weÃ(TM)re cashless youÃ(TM)ll love the convenience of negative interest rates or addition transaction taxes or fees.

I respect the fact that some of you like to run your posts through word or librewrite before you post. I do the same thing on some of my longer posts. But when you do post, please make sure you copy and paste as pure ascii text. Slashdot isn't smart enough to figure out smart quotes and other shit word and writer will stick in there.

Thank you, drive through.....

Re:Those levying the tax are the thieves

[david_thornley]

"Theft" is not a useful word here. In a democracy, taxes are voluntarily imposed by the people of the country, so it's us enforcing our own rules on ourselves. If you don't like them, you're free to campaign against them. You don't actually have to pay taxes, but apparently you think it worthwhile to live in something like mainstream society and accept the benefits thereof.

Re:Those levying the tax are the thieves

[Pfhorrest]

It's not "voluntary" when some people make decisions for other people. The People collectively are not a person who can makes unitary decisions about only himself that can rightly be called voluntary.

As for moving somewhere else to not pay taxes, you seem to have missed the whole point of my post, which was that you can't. States tend to spring up wherever there are no states, and those states tend to tax. Even somewhere you might say has "no government" like Somalia, has a lot of small governments: every warlord was established his own little state, because warlords are the primitive form of states, and you bet your ass they tax their subjects, because that's what warlords do. The only choice anyone has is whether to live under that kind of state and accept the taxes they impose in exchange for nothing, or to live under this kind of state and accept the taxes that they at least use to buy gifts for their subjects (and even ask them what they want, how nice!) to appease them. The latter is clearly better than the former, but a choice between a brutal thief and a gentle thief still leaves no option but to get robbed.