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'The Cashless Society is a Con -- and Big Finance is Behind It' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes this opinion piece by former derivatives broker Brett Scott:
Banks are closing ATMs and branches in an attempt to 'nudge' users towards digital services -- and it's all for their own benefit... I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because "customers are turning to digital", and they are thus "responding to changing customer preferences". I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches... I am much more likely to "choose" a digital option if the banks deliberately make it harder for me to choose a non-digital option. In behavioural economics this is referred to as "nudging". If a powerful institution wants to make people choose a certain thing, the best strategy is to make it difficult to choose the alternative...
Digital systems may be "convenient", but they often come with central points of failure. Cash, on the other hand, does not crash. It does not rely on external data centres, and is not subject to remote control or remote monitoring. The cash system allows for an unmonitored "off the grid" space. This is also the reason why financial institutions and financial technology companies want to get rid of it. Cash transactions are outside the net that such institutions cast to harvest fees and data.
A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised, disenfranchised from the cash infrastructure that previously supported them. There are also poorly understood psychological implications about cash encouraging self-control while paying by card or a mobile phone can encourage spending. And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.
While a cashless society might make it cheaper to run a bank, "A cashless society is not in your interest..." argues the author.
"We must recognise every cash machine that is shut down as another step in financial institutions' campaign to nudge you into their digital enclosures."
Digital systems may be "convenient", but they often come with central points of failure. Cash, on the other hand, does not crash. It does not rely on external data centres, and is not subject to remote control or remote monitoring. The cash system allows for an unmonitored "off the grid" space. This is also the reason why financial institutions and financial technology companies want to get rid of it. Cash transactions are outside the net that such institutions cast to harvest fees and data.
A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised, disenfranchised from the cash infrastructure that previously supported them. There are also poorly understood psychological implications about cash encouraging self-control while paying by card or a mobile phone can encourage spending. And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.
While a cashless society might make it cheaper to run a bank, "A cashless society is not in your interest..." argues the author.
"We must recognise every cash machine that is shut down as another step in financial institutions' campaign to nudge you into their digital enclosures."
It's not only banks/financial institutions, but also governments that like cashless societies, because it gives them better surveillance and more control.
The good thing is: they'll likely overplay their hand and lose control: if governments get rid of cash, people will find alternative payment means completely outside the control of banks and governments. Bitcoin didn't quite get it right technically, but systems like that will catch on.
It's not because technology allows it that it must be the preferred option (electronic voting is a poster child of the idea). I don't mind if my neighbor prefers being tracked with his credit card and iPay and Air Miles, but at this point, global customer insouciance seems to pave the road to forced global surveillance in every aspect of our lives; we don't need this crap, wake up people, thank you very much.
If they're so insistent on taking cash away, take it one step further in the opposite direction and remember, in your neighborhood, you are surrounded by a ton of people with a ton of valuable skill sets. Barter where you can and cut both the bank and the government out of the equation entirely. I just traded some of my IT time and knowledge for a neighbors expertise in electrical and plumbing. We both came out ahead all the happier, with no bills, taxes, invoices etc. to tally up once the taxman arrives. Not every interaction has to revolve around money, and I managed to make a couple good friends as an added bonus.
Banks hate cash. It requires physical handling. It can be stolen. It wears out. It "isn't working for us" as it sits in a vault, an ATM, or an armored car. Electronic money can be working all the time - earning interest, being leveraged, being arbitraged, whatever. Cash is so "static" compared to electronic funds.
The Brave New World is almost here. Add an implant and the process will be complete. Can you imagine being arrested on suspicion of a serious crime because 30 minutes prior to the crime, in the "walking distance" proximity, you bought a pack of gum with your implant (or your debit card, or your smartphone)?
I'm rather old, my friends, and as you revel in your youth (assuming you are there), marvel at how anyone could be happy to be older. This world is yours. I'll be in it for a little longer, but not nearly as long as so many of you. I suppose cashless is your future - not so much mine.
I love cash, but electronic money is more convenient, more versatile and great.
Just ask a non-bancarized guy in Kenya or Tanzania using M-Pesa about it... And trust me when I tell you that Safaricom and Vodafone did not implement this from the goodness of their hears, but for pure profit, and yet, it ended up raising the living standards of the people at large, and specialy of those non-bancarized.
Sources:
The economist Sept 26-oct 2, 2009
And IEEE Spectrum here:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/stat...
Yes, if we look at electronic money and a cashless society from the optic of a westener who has enough diposable income to aford a computer and knows what this "internet" thing is, is all doom and gloom.
But once we try to get ourselves in the whorn -out shoes of less fortunate people that make less than $1 a day (and for me, being in Venezuela, this is easier, as is not a tought experiemnt, but a reality I see everyday) we see that electronic money can be beneficial for everyone, warts and all...
So, I for one, welcome our e-money overlords... Yes, I wish there would still be cash, but... whatever benefits the many is ok by me...
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
By design 'late payment' is never an issue on debit cards.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Well, they do seem hell bent on it. I can't think of a piece of legislation I've agreed with any time in the past 5 years...
because people stopped showing up. I stopped going to banks when I could take a picture of checks and have it deposit to my account. I don't miss waiting in line at banks. And no, the long waits weren't because they were closing branches. They understaffed like everybody else did post 2000 when companies realized they could just make us wait since there was little or no competition left for essential services.
Now, if you want to see the banks take a real hit do Post Office banking.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I currently live in Hong Kong and find that cash can largely be replaced with two notable exceptions. /mastercard/apple pay cash quick payments in many shops as well.
Most popular is the use of the octopus card - it is the public transport card that many, so very many shops accept as well. And then there is visa
Frankly, I love that.
The exceptions: infuriatingly (not just me thinks that), local taxis demand cash. Also the smallest street stalls or wet market stalls are cash only.
I think they (banks, Visa, etc.) Want to skim every transaction.
That is true in America, but not everywhere. In China, WeChat and AliPay have zero transaction costs for either buyer or seller. The value of the data collected is enough, and competition keeps them from charging fees.
Look forward a few years, and the situation could easily be reversed. You know those cameras that are pointing at every cash register in your average store? Soon (if not already) they'll be high-res enough to read the serial numbers on every dollar bill you hand over or flash in your wallet/money roll. Just like automated facial recognition, this'll be done automatically; suddenly, cash can be followed from one transaction to another, and connected to people thanks to said facial recognition. Expect the ATM to record serials, and the cameras at your bank. This'll be done in the name of 'tracking money stolen in robberies' but will be used for other purposes. Expect a 'serial number blacklist' that causes a flag to be raised if you use flagged cash, too many flags and the cops are shown the tapes or the facial recognition blacklists you. You also get blacklisted if the facial recognition determines you're a known retail thief/robber. Expect Walmart greeters to be notified not to allow someone in because the facial recognition recognized someone who was blacklisted. With facial recognition, your cash purchases can still be correlated into a profile and shared/sold, like supposedly happens with credit cards.
Now look at open-source end-to-end encrypted communication software like Signal. And the cryptocurrencies that happen to be defacto decentralized. One can easily imagine (in the unlikely event it doesn't already exist) a situation where digital exchanges of currency are anonymous, unblacklistable, and decentralized. Also, since it's decentralized you don't have to worry about a single point of failure... failing. As opposed to a computerized cash register that crashes and is unable to accept cash, and the employees are forbidden from selling items not sold through the register.
I've seen people who are reticent to break a large bill because once they break it, they'll spend it because they treat small bills as worthless. Others treat cash as 'free money' that they blow whereas numbers in an account are 'important money' that they don't touch. If these people went full cash, they wouldn't save enough to pay their bills. Also, is your annoying relative or whatever hitting you up for money regularly? "Sorry, no cash on me", problem solved. If you always carry cash on you then it's an ongoing problem. Credit cards often have points or other rewards/cash back programs, with cash you get nothing like that.
Institutions want to get rid of cash because handling cash is difficult to automate, and cash has higher marginal cost to guard, particularly from the handlers. Cash also tends to get stolen, despite all the money spent on guarding it. It also gets counterfeited, lost, destroyed, and requires quite a lot of money to produce (for the treasury). Forget ATMs, if society goes cashless, banks can get rid of many of their branches. Loan applications can be done via Skype video calls or whatever. Kill checks and money orders and branches wouldn't really be needed for much.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Where I live, NW-Europe, the driving force for going cashless are people like me who prefer the convenience.
I hate having to carry British Pounds, Euro's, Swiss Francs, Danish and Norwegian Kroner.
We've very recently seen an hours-long failure in the Maestro/Mastercard system here in Europe, lucky were those that also carried cash or a Visa based card.
Years ago I ran into a similar an issue when I wanted to use my debit card to pay fuel, the filling station was prepared and had IOU's to fill out that included a copy of the driving licence and the failing card, it just worked albeit slower than usual.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I don't profess to know how it works
Well at least you got one thing right.
The joke is on us for handing over the reigns to corporations whenever that happened.
It was a slow drip over the course of 100 or so years, but dam broke with Buckley v. Valeo (1976).
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I have seen the banks closing up shop in Europe and the Middle East and making it hard for the general public, with the result that 'Exchange Services' are popping up everywhere, doing exactly what the bank branches used to do. So, it will backfire in the US, same as in the rest of the world.
Just because something is beneficial for someone doesn't make it a con. It's not like people are dying to use cash and are tricked into using cards or other digital means. What the banks say is true: people have largely moved out of cash simply because it's less convenient. Most people buy online these days, where cash is impractical, and if they can use the same means of payment in brick and mortar, why wouldn't they?
So sure, banks do get something from this too, but likely not nearly as much as users, most of whom would lose a lot of money and convenience if they couldn't buy online. And sure, there are drawbacks to digital money, but in practice they're rather small.
While I personally am 95% cashless as my entire expenses consists of Grocery Store, Gas Station, Repeat throughout the month with all my major bills either on direct withdraw or I pay over the phone. I still will not do this.
I pay one of my bills in cash every month for convenience as it is easier than writing the person a check and should I ever want to do stuff I don't want tracked, I plan on using cash.
If I ever decide to go to a porn show with all the sex toys and stuff, I intend on cash, if I ever go do stuff I don't want my family or friends to know, I do it in cash as I have family who works at the bank and the last thing I want is them being able to see absolutely everything I do even if it is completely safe, legal and harmless.
And also, just because those in power have no issues with it, doesn't mean the next people will. Or if I ever get into power, they can scour those records for dirt on me.
The old adage, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear is reversed, it is actually, "Only when you have nothing to fear, that you have nothing to hide".
Do I personally have something to hide? Hell yes I do depending on who I am dealing with and who is in charge. My sexual preference, my sexual activities, my religious preference, my religious activities, my political affiliation, my political activities, my views on any number of issues, my favorite sports team and so on.
Just because Obama had no issues with certain things, doesn't mean Trump/Sessions doesn't either and won't overstep their authority at every chance to attack me as much as possible while trying to avoid push back. Or the next Authoritarian coming in, or potentially Trump trying to declare some wartime power to stay in office looking at people with democratic views as threats to their power and limiting them and so on.
And if you don't like my views about Trump, you can imagine it as the next guy who comes in or whoever you want, but the fact remains, so long as you have a reason to ever fear now or future abuse of power, you will always have something to potentially hide.
So let's add a 5% "On-Time Payment Guarantee" fee. See, it sounds more serious by capitalizing each word and using a hyphen.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I'm often fascinated by the hoops Americans are willing to jump through to avoid having to give people basic rights, but this is the first time I've heard it argued that we should keep cash around to avoid having to offer poor people basic banking services.
Cashless allows negative interests and bail-ins, and this time you can't take your savings out of the bank. There's no bank run. Next bail-out will be a bail-in: you will pay the big banks' debts.
I recently pulled up to a drive through of a nationwide bank chain to find that it had closed just a week before; I had to go into the lobby and stand in line.
While in line, a "personal banker" approached and asked if she could help me with anything. I commented about having to get out of my car and walk across the parking lot to come inside while it was raining.She explained that the bank was removing DT tellers at most locations, because so many people use digital payments.with their phones, so no one was using the DTs anymore.
I explained that I know just how secure phones are, and that I would never trust financial stuff to a device that is so easily stolen. "If they get your phone, they can get just about anything else."
She assured me that that was not true, and even if it were, I would only have to use their APP to track what was going on, and to report the bogus transactions.
"You mean the APP on my stolen phone, where your website sends the confirmation text for your two-factor authentication?"
She didn't appreciate the irony...
In Sweden it's hard to find shops that don't take cards or other means of electronic payments like Swish. And a growing number of shops are cashless, often restaurants.
Even taxis, parkings, road tolls and similar services normally takes electronic payments.
It can go months between each time I use cash these days.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The only reason why the authorities haven't put a demand on traceability on blockchains is because they don't understand them.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Here in Australia EFTPOS allows me to go cashless 90% of the time. There are some places that still dont take EFTPOS (e.g. the local kebab shop doesn't take cards and a bunch of food trucks I sometimes buy from also dont take cards) and there are a bunch of other places that do take cards but charge a fee for the privilage of using cards (the worst offender here is the ridiculous 5% fee all the taxis charge if you use a card instead of cash although the movie theaters I go to and some food places I go to also charge a fee for using cards) but otherwise I use EFTPOS (or sometimes Visa Debit) everywhere because its so easy.
And my bank doesn't charge me a cent when I pay with EFTPOS so its cheap too :)
Revelation 13:16-17 (NLT) 16 He required everyone--small and great, rich and poor, free and slave--to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. 17 And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.
I dont know, I have had all manner of plastic cards both credit and debit for 35+ years, and only once have I ever had a fee due to a late payment, and that was because I mailed a check that apparently never arrived.
Anyways, the banks would want you to go full digital because it saves them money. This story is basically about a bank closing up a bunch of branches. They easily removed millions of dollars in payroll in the process. Most branches absolutely are not profitable individually. It is only collectively that the institution makes money off branches. As more people go digital, the value to the institution that is added by most branches likely drops.
The fees from things like "insufficient funds" that people pay... those people are idiots. You cant save them. They are bad with money. Full stop.
"His name was James Damore."
... is, apart from the per-payment-fee they want to profit from, one more obvious reason why every non-central bank wants to get rid of cash - they can create electronic money almost as much as they like in the existing fractional-reserve banking system. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Between cash and online transactions, there is a third option: Digital offline transactions.
How would it work? You have a card, you load it with money, and then each time you want to buy something you pay with this card...no online connection required, the money value on the card is decreased.
For security, not only the communication protocol would be encrypted, but it can also be setup in such a way that it requires entering a pin number for each transaction, with the card's small numeric keyboard.
The state machine of the card's software would be small enough to validate it mathematically 100%.
It's not a "con", "panacea", "revolution", "leap", "sign of the times" or any other journalist garbage term you invent four times a year.
It's a complicated process. Stop generalizing it, instead report actual facts, you know, what you are supposed to do, "journalists".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
That is not entirely true. Services like Betterment, and that one that rounds up payments and invests the charge, that are de facto investment funds make it really easy to save even for people who are really really bad with money. They are still somewhat uncompetitive to regular ETFs, but much better than nothing. One of the many benefits of electronic banking.
ROFL. Yes, the IRS has no money for a blockchain nerd division. That’s precisely how it works.
It's not that hard with a debit card account to go into the bank and tell them to change your account so there is no 'protection' that extends an amount beyond your zero balance. If your debit card does not have a sufficient balance in the account, it is denied at the cash register.
If you have an idiot spouse who refuses to track the account balance whatsoever this is not a bad option, because it stops $30 fees from showing up. The alternative can be a nightmare, where somebody bottoms out an account and then continues on to make 3 or 4 more debit card purchases (maybe fotr amounts of $6-10 each) for which the bank slaps on additional $30 fees for each.
The negative implications are already covered enough :-) Simply state that I don't disagree, but would like to point out the positive possibilities. A true cashless society would...
Be less susceptible to theft. Both from the petty level and the corruption level. Bribing somebody would become suddenly more difficult. Other crimes would also become harder to profit from, as money-laundering becomes a nightmare.
Be easier to tax fairly. Of course that is not a given, as incompetence runs wild in officialdom, but it at least opens the possibility.
Even the Government should be forced to be more open, as anybody (possibly armed with a judicial mandate) could follow the trails of money back to their sources, even if the sources (or the sinkholes) are official entities.
I am undecided on the issue, really, but not particularly fearing it. Like mostly everything, a lot depends on implementation.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Without citations, you're just engaging in more of the same. So basically, you're saying you love to pile on more spam in public discussion forums.
I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches...
Did you go into your branch every day to justify its rent and the payment of staff? Correlation does not imply causation. Branches have been getting smaller and emptier for a long time now and the only evil nefarious reason is that people don't use them very much.
My bank also sent me a letter telling me they were shutting down my closest branch, a branch I genuinely never knew existed because I haven't walked into a branch since opening the first account with the bank 4 years ago.
People without bank accounts
WTF? Homeless people have bank accounts. Who are these people who still don't have one?
And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.
No, *your* society has major surveillance implications. In many places of the world what can be seen and done with data is well regulated for consumer protection. Fix the root cause rather than the symptom.
So, we should go back to gold coins?
Do remember that once upon a time (less than a century ago), paper money wasn't considered "cash". Paper money was "banknotes", and the only real "cash" was gold and silver coins.
Yeah, I'm sure that everyone will be really happy to haul one hundred pounds (45 kg) of gold to the dealer to buy a car. Or five hundred pounds (225 kg) of gold to buy a house....
The only way you're going to get back to even your limited understanding of cash is if you stop using banks (no credit cards, no checks, no savings) and keep big piles of banknotes (yes, the Federal Reserve is a bank, technically) in your house. That'll go over real well right up till the time someone breaks in and steals your big pile of banknotes, and you suddenly have no way to buy food till payday....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Cute, but it doesn't change the facts.
I don't know of any (IBAN) bank with such a charge.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
This is why we need to support Bitcoin. Technical hurdles have mostly been leapt at this stage. Time to solve some of the design hurdles, then get everyone moving into the new era.
That's really just hidden merchant fees though. And worse, those hidden fees get paid whether or not you use cash or credit, because the fees have already been priced in.
It takes a lot of work to make bitcoin anonymous. but, it is possible. There are other coins that actually do have anonymity built in.
It doesn't take being bad with money to get hit by insufficent funds fees. If you're poor, you don't have cushion. If anything goes wrong (fraud transaction, runup phone bill, spouse makes purchase same day) and you get overdrafted. Then the bank sees you bought a sticke of gum earlier that day and decides to order transactions high to low so you get hit by another overdraft fee.
This problem is easily solvable; banks don't want to because it's the only way they can make good money on low banances.
You should read the obits first. BEFORE getting out of bed. If you're in there, you don't have to get up
This story is basically about a bank closing up a bunch of branches. They easily removed millions of dollars in payroll in the process. Most branches absolutely are not profitable individually. It is only collectively that the institution makes money off branches. As more people go digital, the value to the institution that is added by most branches likely drops.
The world has changed, and the fearful among us find yet another thing to lament. We bought a car yesterday, and when the wife started to write a check, they told us the transaction needed to be either cash or credit card. So just another example of times changing.
For myself, I'm fine with branch closings, as I never use them. I've used an ATM exactly once. The most stupid thievery attracting idea ever. Only time I go into a bank is for meetings with investment counselors
Time moves on, fearful folks.
The fees from things like "insufficient funds" that people pay... those people are idiots. You cant save them. They are bad with money. Full stop.
Our school systems here in America need to start implementing an updated version of home-ec. At least exposing the kids to the idea of responsible financial acumen. There are some folks who are worthless as you note. But altogether too many people are graduating high school with no idea of what money is, and think that a credit card is a gift card. Then in college, they manage to demonstrate that they have no concept of money.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yup. Beggars in India have swipe digital POS/swipe machines. See article https://indianexpress.com/arti...
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
... but WeChat is losing money on the free electronic payments, so they're not free any more... http://www.businessinsider.com...
I don't respond to AC's.
The credit unions I use are opening branches near me. Banks are for suckers.
I don't respond to AC's.
Banks love the "cashless society" because they get a profit from every transaction everywhere. The government loves it because it provides a trail of breadcrumbs through every place you visit, complete with time stamps. Does the government really need to know which fast food outlet you prefer or where you go to buy groceries? I don't think so, but the data is being collected nevertheless.
The original post indicates that cashless societies are dangerous. Well, it is a different danger. There are reasons why low-infrastructure, high violence locations (Afghanistan) turn to digital money. Cash invites criminals to commit violence for cash in cash societies. Businesses hate handling cash when it gets to be enough to be a security concern.
While the digital can have broader theft, it has less violence. That is a point in its favor.
You still have cheques ???
How quaint ! What a charming style of yesteryear you have.
What's the name of your country ? Did the UN dig you a well for your village ?
Yeah, we still have a checking account. My better half still uses it, and we have a line of credit that we use that is accessed via check.
And yes Sparky, in the grownup world with large dollar amount transactions, checks are still used. You need to try charging a half million dollars or more on your credit card some time.
Funny snark though.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
In the grownup world between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Everybody in the very Near East (read: Europe) uses SWIFT. That you have to haul around a scrap of paper with a sum written on it, only to sit on pins and needles nervous as to when they'll finally withsraw the money is, frankly, so Victorian. Grow up, North American banking system!
Try living for a few days or weeks without power and see how well your cards work.
You also have the issue of child support. While cash is necessary for privacy, its far, far, far bigger effects are (1) avoiding the obligation to pay child support by getting paid in cash, (2) underreporting taxes to commit tax fraud, and (3) money laundering / the purchase of illegal goods.
The big effect on the other side is the issue of how you're going to help people who can't get bank accounts, which is a real problem among poor and homeless people.
Real lawyers write in C++
... you would have each been better off performing the transaction through a market.
I assume you're being sarcastic. If the transaction was satisfactory to both of them, there's no difference between this and another other market transaction - except for lower transaction costs and receiving some extra intangible value.
They're better off with this trade than if they'd spent time researching competing providers, splitting the deal into two pieces with money, paying the government a cut, and spending the extra time to handle the accounting for taxes. Then there's the intangible benefits of friendship reenforcement and satisfaction with mutual sufficiency.
(By the way: They DID perform the transaction through a market. They just happened to find their corresponding market player next door, with a satisfactory .)
The fact that exchange in kind hampers productivity has been known for centuries now.
The way that money beats barter is that it is usually easier to arrange turning a piece of your productivity into needed goods or services provided by someone else if you do it in two steps than trying to find someone who happens to need your stuff and can provide what you need. When the opportunity for a good barter falls in your lap, you win by eliminating the frictions of the middle steps.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
FTFY
Sure, there are points of failure for cash too, for instance, physical theft, fire, etc. But they're a lot fewer.
These breathless cluetards who want a pure cashless society can't think their way out of a paper (or digital) bag.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Or they just end up creating outlaws like the Barker and Karpis gangs of the 1930s. Can't buy food? Steal it.
It's not just banks operating the U.S. financial system in a way that is bad for the nation. There are many areas of poor and insufficient U.S. government management.
The bank or Government can freeze your accounts on a whim if they donâ(TM)t agree with what youâ(TM)re doing. Thus, they can control or influence what you do since you wonâ(TM)t have the option to use cash.
Porn industry and Gun Dealers whoâ(TM)s accounts were closed for no reason other than the industry they represented come to mind for this.
Going full digital will basically add a hidden tax to every purchase. A processing fee or something similar.
Think of major CC vendors transaction fees.
Full digital is also a surveillance States wet dream as every purchase can be tracked, flagged and / or categorized.
Finally, the proliferation of malware and assorted nasty stuff designed to steal digital credentials for purposes of fraud is a real turn off for going cashless.
Fix all the aforementioned problems and weâ(TM)ll talk about it. Until then I will use cash when I wish because I can.
In the grownup world between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Everybody in the very Near East (read: Europe) uses SWIFT. That you have to haul around a scrap of paper with a sum written on it, only to sit on pins and needles nervous as to when they'll finally withsraw the money is, frankly, so Victorian. Grow up, North American banking system!
You have absolutely no idea at all of what I said.. I live electronically, I carry no cash. I do have a checking account that I almost never use - it's just there if for some reason I do need it. It generates interest and makes me money. I also have a line of credit that I simply write out a check to access. Not my rule - the banks. Never did it though - it's just one more option. Might need a fair sum of money, and with the LOC, the money is in place immediately. My whole point, which some of you folks missed, was that a lot of places don't take checks any more. You saw the word "check" or "checking account", and it triggered you and you respond without paying attention. I was most happy to use my Credit card when the lady said they don't take checks. . We pay it off every month and get 2 percent cash back every year. That's thousands in the bank.
I have every single option that you do, plus one, maybe two more, And if for some reason I needed cash - why I can get that as well. Funny when some folks look at more options as being less options.
Really though - spare me the superiority bullshit - it only shows your insecurity.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
legal pot shops are very cash only and banks don't really want to deal with them.
Instead of prohibiting cash, let's prohibit personal checks at merchants where there are checkout lines.
You are correct. It is called interchange. The mechant pays it...so you pay it. It is really just a fee that covers the network but there is some profit there. Several actors profit from interchange. It is a hidden fee...banking is founded on hidden fees as are most things that erode society....healthcare stands out.
Im pretty smart but I have no fucking idea what is going on with healthcare and I have never heard a comprehensive explaination. The greater the amount the more shrouded it becomes.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
They have to be careful though. Fees have to mysterious or people might complain and regulators will likely tell them no if people complain. Regulators generally do not give a hoot about banks and are very sensitive to consumer complaints in the US. It is the only reason they havent crashed the economy more than they normally do.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The cost of maintaining the real estate and the computer systems usually exceeds a banks branch payroll.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
You do realize that our society has changed so much, ignoring what where previuosly conservative ideas, that Democrats are now the conservative party? The republican party was captured by nationalist radicals, proposing that we now change course from what we have been doing. Being conservative does not automatically mean republican.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
By design 'late payment' is never an issue on debit cards.
No, but overdraft fees are when really that should be equally preventable.
Uh, yes he did. He voted with his feet. Every time he used a credit card, ATM, or just got cash back at the grocery store, he voted that those were choices he preferred over a physical branch office. There's no reason for him to be surprised the bank reacted.
Personally, I'm totally down with that. I use a bank branch maybe once every two years. I go to an actual ATM a few times a year, tops. And I'm an old coot, not a millenial.
Again as I have said before this is WHY cryptocurrency is so popular with many people. They do not want to be tracked by the banks and governments. ...And again why banks are freaking out and continually keep blocking it. If the world embraces cryptocurrency then they go out of business or at the very least completely lose control of the money.
It is quite a funny snark, yes. And was similar to my thinking, who uses cheques these days, and why?
Do you have the ability to just type a bank branch & person's account number into your banking app (or bank website) and transfer money, for free, that way? It may take a business day or two to show up in their account, unless you both use the same bank, but it works and has no fee, you transfer $101.01, they get $101.01.
if they're sleeping on the streets downtown it's because YOU are there to give them money
Actually I dont givee homeless people money. Ill give them a water I take with me for work, or maybe one of the snacks I have in my cooler also. Very rarely will I give them cash at all, and only to the ones that seem to be trying to do something to get out of their situation. As i have said in earlier posts. I have had family that was homeless most of my life. It was by choice. Most of the homeless in Las Vegas is by choice. The veteran homeless make more money than I do by far, just from begging. You should see when they find a wheelchair. They will take turns milking the people that feel bad for them with their fake "Vietnam Vet!" signs. It really makes me sick. A Lot of them know me by name because of my family. Don't fool yourself, Its a choice for most.
I think they (banks, Visa, etc.) Want to skim every transaction.
That is true in America, but not everywhere. In China, WeChat and AliPay have zero transaction costs for either buyer or seller. The value of the data collected is enough, and competition keeps them from charging fees.
So it's the same principle... They're just not charging cash.
In the US and other countries banks are already skimming off of every transaction they can. They're called merchant fees or interchange fees and whenever you use a card to pay for something, the merchant has to pay the bank in order to receive your money (this is automatically deducted).
Cash is still a thorn in their side that they want gone.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Duh, as the overdraft fee for not having enough cash on you = no sale.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I have my debit card for well over 20 years and as long as the ATM is in the same currency (euro) there is no charge whatsoever.
I know a lot of banks do charge for using other bank's ATM's but that is only a matter of selecting the right bank.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
At least I have studied blockchain enough to know what I said is true. Too bad all the responses have been ad hominem attacks or misdirection. It's a complex technology to be sure. I've read about it in-depth and still barely understand it.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
It is quite a funny snark, yes. And was similar to my thinking, who uses cheques these days, and why?
While checks are becoming less and less common, there are a number of things going on that still use them. Certainly the bank that we have that line of credit through has a procedure. You apply for the line of credit, and the way it works is that they create a checking account that just sits there. If for some reason you need money quickly - say you are the winning bid on some real estate auction, you write a check out to the auctioneer. The money is transferred into the checking account when he deposits it, and as a line of credit, it is treated as a loan against whatever collateral you provided.
There are a lot of outdated technologies that a person might be called upon to use. As the executor of my father's estate, I used a Fax machine - a lot. Not because I reveled in the past, or needed a new well dig in my village, but because I had the choice of either faxing documents or hand delivering them. That would have been an interesting road trip across the country. A couple times.
Do you have the ability to just type a bank branch & person's account number into your banking app (or bank website) and transfer money, for free, that way? It may take a business day or two to show up in their account, unless you both use the same bank, but it works and has no fee, you transfer $101.01, they get $101.01.
I have a lot of different ways to pay. Credit card, gas card, PayPal, ApplePay, regular checking account, LOC checking account, or even cash. If the seller has online presence, I'll use that.
The determinant of how I pay is not me - it is the person I am paying. If it were me, I'd put everything but fuel on my cashback card. Since I pay the thing off every month, that gives me a 2 percent discount on almost everything I buy.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Maybe it's different with other debit cards, I've never personally had one of my own, but got one from Bank of America for my daughter about ten years ago. I thought it would protect her from spending more than she had in her account, which was basically correct, except every time she attempted to buy something that cost more than she had, BoA would hit her account with a service fee of ~$30. She rang up a few of those before I caught it, and raised hell with them...and her.
Just another day in Paradise
I think you're missing the point of my reply. -__-'
Sure fine, but they had better get on the ball and make some serious changes because all it's going to take is some Silicon Valley startup to make them look remarkably outdated and stupid by offering really excellent banking services with realtime near instantaneous transactions. You see those delays make money for the banks so it is in their interests to slow things down.
That's why we need Monero! try my pool mmmoneropool.com
When a hurricane knocks out power and internet for 100 miles in every direction.
http://www.newser.com/story/18...
> The republican party was captured by nationalist
There was a nationalist president elected with (r) appended to his name.
The most-elected, longest serving democrat, Robert Byrd ( Democrat senator 1959-2010) was first elected to KKK leadership. That doesn't mean the Democrats are controlled by the KKK. Once upon a time, the KKK was an arm of the Democrat party, but that's not true today and it wasn't true when they elected Byrd in 2004. One politician does not a party make. Just because Clinton was a serial sexual harasser doesn't mean the Democrats are the sexual harassment party. That's just Clinton. Trump is Trump, he isn't Republicans, and a LOT of leading Republicans are not at all fond of him.
The Republicans unanimously chose Paul Ryan for speaker, even after he said that he would not do campaign appearances and stuff for them, like house speakers normally do. If you wanted to look at one guy who represents the party, Paul Ryan is the guy the all liked. And of course Ryan didn't like Trump - it took a long time for Ryan to even say he'd hold his nose and vote Trump over Hillary.
So we'll see what happens. Trump got a lot of voters in 2016. That's one election. I hope the party doesn't swing that way much. That would leave us with both major parties driven by emotional rhetoric completely, with no sound reasoning anywhere to be found.
So, you have enough in your bank account at any given time to cover a week of bank errors without any issue...
Not sure you understand the point I was making.