Are There Dangers in a Cashless Society? (slate.com)

Slate asks why more businesses are refusing cash -- and investigates the downside. An anonymous reader quotes their report: Stores are eliminating cash registers and coin rolls in pursuit of what they say is a safer, more streamlined payment process -- and one that most of their customers want to use anyway. At Dos Toros, co-founder Leo Kremer said that more than half of the shop's customers used cash when its first location opened in Manhattan in 2009. By the beginning of this year, that number had fallen to just 15 percent. At that point, the various hassles of dealing with cash -- employee training, banking fees, armored-truck pickups, and the occasional robbery -- outweighed the cost of credit card fees on those transactions. The shift wound up being more or less revenue-neutral, Kremer said, but saved a lot of time and trouble. Dos Toros' New York locations have been fully cash-free since the winter.... "After talking to the team and absorbing the flow at the register, we felt like almost everyone who used cash had a card. It just hasn't been an issue...."

But it would be hard to find anyone more gung-ho about the abolition of cash than credit card companies. Last summer, for example, Visa announced a $10,000 reward to 50 businesses that would give up cash entirely. "What concerns me about a cashless future is how much it benefits Wall Street," Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, wrote to me in an email. "They can charge swipe fees of two to three percent not because that's what the service actually costs, but because they have monopoly power."
Citing services like Square and Apple Pay, the article notes that 4 in 10 purchases used to involve cash, but between 2011 and 2016 it dropped to just 3 in 10 purchases (according to the San Francisco Fed). Yet the article's author also presents this counter-argument. "In Shanghai, the venture capitalist Eric Li told me a story about trying to get his morning coffee the morning after a storm had knocked out the internet on his block.

"No one could buy coffee, because no one was carrying cash."

Comments

Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[drinkypoo]

Someone gets uppity, freeze their ability to spend money. Want to know what someone is buying, where they are going, what their habits are? If they do it all with credit card, you can! Forget wall street, the prime beneficiaries are fascist governments.

Governments hate cash because they make it easy to do business they don't like without them knowing about it. The government you've got today may not be the government you've got tomorrow, so you shouldn't hand them that information.

Use cash whenever possible.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[AHuxley]

CCTV kept for years has mostly given governments that in most city and mall areas.
Every face and what they buy. The transport they used.
People wonder around with a cell phone on while using "cash".
Known and unknown people do a transaction with cash, both with cell phones on.
Every method of transport in and out of a city is collected on.
Moving around the USA to make legal large amount of cash is not going to be as easy as it once was.
Voice prints fill in the rest.
Spend too much cash beyond an average wage and its reported. Deposit cash and the gov gets a record.

The cash movement ability for normal people is already well closed.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Presence Eternal]

And a shotgun.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Anonymous Coward]

Electronic transactions as an option are convenient and useful. As a requirement--a tool of government and corporate control.

Cash should never be done away with, and businesses should be held to the standard that all transactions may be conducted in cash. None of this 'electronic only' bullshit..

People ought to use cash more than they do as well. I've been trying to make a habit of that.

Also, money laundering laws need to be done away with. All of them. Do they prevent crimes? Marginally perhaps, but nothing is worth all the spying and control that they enable.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[dwywit]

And three hard-boiled eggs.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[currently_awake]

You take cash from the bank, transaction (serial numbers) recorded. You pay gas station for gas, they deposit cash in bank, transaction (serial numbers) recorded. Cash is tracked.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[NicknameUnavailable]

Don't forget to go paperless, that way your balance can be modified retroactively with fake trips to Starbucks or whatever else you commonly make. Keeps those fees well hidden and you within the bounds of your class limitations.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Presence Eternal]

Six little eggs on the run
They f*ck each other three goes
Boom dubi doom

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it helps all those unlucky and worthless people who drive on roads back and forth to work, dare to go to libraries, call the fire or police department, visit national and state parks, sleep under the protection provided by military services, and even those unlucky worthless scumbags whose very existence is only perpetuated by the freedoms granted in the Constitution of the United States.

Buncha worthless scumbags...

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Wycliffe]

No it's not. You can easily buy as many gold coins as you want. But using them as a medium of exchange is problematic as they are considered an asset so buying/selling them counts as a taxable transaction just like buying stocks.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

CCTV takes more work for the fucking pigs to match a name to a location. Credit card required zero work for the filth to do so.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Cash may have passed through ten sets of hands between withdrawal and deposit. A bit harder for the filth to track than credit card transactions.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Roads, libraries, etc are a good thing.

But the US government deserves to take a haircut because it massively overspends on mass incarceration and military homicide sprees.

Depriving them of their revenue would force them to re-evaluate their priorities on pain of bankruptcy.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I'm confused. You said "Forget wall street, it benefits fascists". Who do you think is going to freeze the accounts? And do you think they'll only do it when the government asks, or also when it benefits them?

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Ever seen most real-world security camera footage? Crap resolution, crap focus, dirty lense. It takes real WORK to match a name to a face, and serial numbers are hard if not impossible to see. The real world is not "24", it's more like "Keystone Kops."

The phone? You can go to the store without carrying one (leave it at home) and pay cash.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[nnull]

It's not just cash, checks as well. I'm getting more clients and vendors that prefer to deal with credit cards than with checks or bank transfers.

Why? Because it's convenient for them. They don't even care if they have to pay that 1%-3% fee and I'm talking about bills of over $100,000. To them, it's less accounting work and done deal. It's becoming so prevalent it's no surprise these card companies are booming. I still prefer receiving a check or bank transfer, but I've been asked so many times to be able to do credit card payments or receive credit card payments that I've ended up doing it.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Who has $100,000 credit on a card, and who can afford to pay $1000 to $3000 to banksters as a commission? I hope THEY'RE the ones eating the commissions!

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

By "filth", I mean government functionaries and banksters, neither of which describe me.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[phantomfive]

I would love to see federal income tax reduced by 90% and if there are some things that still need to be done, let the local governments do it.

Look at this graph of federal government spending, and say what exactly are you going to cut? Even if you cut military spending to bare bones, you wouldn't succeed in closing the annual deficit. If you cut social security, you will be voted out of office. If you cut Medicare, you will be voted out of office. So what exactly are you planning on doing?

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they will just cut spending on libraries, science, roads, education, while the military continues to receive ever increasing budgets.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[astrofurter]

If Democrats or Republicans are in charge, they're going to double down on mass incarceration and military adventures - and shut down libraries, schools, and fire departments to pay for it.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Let them. That might be a final path to collapse and a righteous revolution.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Incarcerating racist yob trash is definitely worthwhile...

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[nnull]

Many companies do, including mine. It's not unusual.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that you overestimate the quality of CCTV cameras of the sort typically installed in restaurants, shopping areas and other retail establishments. The typical business owner who decides to install cameras buys the cheapest piece of junk made in China cameras that he can find and then mounts them too high on the ceiling and too far away from the doors because he wants to "cover" as much area as possible with as few cameras as possible. The end result is video so grainy and poor that unless other information about a scene is available, from eye witnesses say, it's difficult or impossible to identify anyone based on the video alone. Did I also mention that these cameras really suck in low light conditions? These are the sorts of systems that you see a few hundred dollars at Costco. I suppose it's possible that bigger corporate stores invest in better cameras, but honestly that's not likely because again the video evidence is only there to corroborate other evidence. The chance that an unidentified stranger is going to be unmasked by careful analysis of the video recorded by these crappy cameras is laughable. The resolution is too low, the camera is too far away and the lighting sucks.

One exception to this rule: Casinos. These guys really do have ultra high resolution cameras that see well in low light with full coverage, telephoto zoom, years worth of recording capacity and expert analysis and advice on placement and analysis. Then again, they spent millions of dollars on their security systems whereas most other normal businesses did not because they cannot justify that level of expense.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[AHuxley]

Re 'overestimate the quality of CCTV cameras of the sort typically installed in"
Consider what was done with Domain Awareness System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in the USA AC.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[BlueStrat]

Incarcerating racist yob trash is definitely worthwhile...

Although I agree that the racist language he used and most of the sentiments he expressed are racist and horrid on general principle and that the fault in choosing that belief structure is on him, there are contributing factors to such attitudes & beliefs in places like the UK where the government has up until quite recently mostly ignored refugee Muslim pedo/rape-gangs and child abductions & trafficking while simultaneously suppressing and censoring news and facts relating to those serious criminal activities including jailing those who try to speak out and all sorts of other illegal and quasi-legal bad shenanigans in furtherance of the suppression of the facts including but not limited to the number and scope of these crimes from being widely disseminated especially among UK subjects.

This sort of behavior from the government is a sure way to foment and enable such attitudes and beliefs among the poor and working class. "Clamping down" on such attitudes and beliefs by the government without the government altering it's own behaviors, policies, and attitudes that are exacerbating the problem and angering those who feel their children are in danger serves only to further anger, alienate, and grow the numbers of angry, unreasonable people because they will see themselves, and others will see them, as unjustly censored and unfairly persecuted regardless of the actual truth good or bad as the facts will be so muddled the average person will have no way to check facts (and most will have little inclination to do so).

Strat

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Bruinwar]

Someone gets uppity, freeze their ability to spend money. Want to know what someone is buying, where they are going, what their habits are? If they do it all with credit card, you can! Forget wall street, the prime beneficiaries are fascist governments.

Governments hate cash because they make it easy to do business they don't like without them knowing about it. The government you've got today may not be the government you've got tomorrow, so you shouldn't hand them that information.

Use cash whenever possible.

Bah, governments (at least our's here in the States) are too incompetent to ascribe this much evil to. However, multinational corporations (who own the politicians & write our laws) are the one's currently collecting & using all this data. Their goal is to maximize profits by extracting the most cash out of the populace as possible. They appear to be extremely successful seeing how much the general public is saving for retirement.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Sique]

Fiat currency is nothing else than IOUs. If you ban fiat currency, you ban lending and borrowing.

Currency made out of precious things (may it be gold, cocoa beans or cowrie shells) is just a very expensive and cumbersome method of keeping track of all the IOUs. The value of any money, if printed on paper or made out of generally expensive stuff, lies in the acceptance of your counterpart to take it as payment. Croesus, in the 6th century BC king of ancient Lydia, who often gets hailed as the inventor of coined money, knew this: You can increase the value of your currency if you give a warranty of acceptance by tagging it with your seal, e.g. by minting coins out of the raw metal.

And the story of Musa I. of Mali should serve as a warning example for precious-metal-currencies: When he went on his pilgrimage to Mecca in the early 14th century, he inadvertedly ruined the economies of Cairo, Mecca and Medina due to the big influx of gold into their markets, as he was probably the richest person in history, and the amount of gold he carried with his pilgrimage procession could easily have exceeded US$ 300 billion at today's market value. His spending habits caused galloping inflations in all places he was visiting, and it took decades until the value of gold normalized.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[houghi]

So isn't the problem how easy or hard it is to track, but that you have governements that ARE tracking it?
What are we going to do about that?

In Belgium Credit Card Companies are not allowed to track or analyze the sales they see coming in. They can guess, but have no idea if I bought milk or wiskey in the supermarket.

The issue is not the trackability. The problem is that we LET them track us.

Just like with anything, it can be used for good and for evil. If you do not hold people for the evil part, they will assume it is good. Just cash will not stop them in any way or form tracking you. It just is a bit harder. That is all there is to it.

And even making it as hard as possible will not stop anything in the end. All you are doing is saying: what you do is ok.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[rjr162]

It also tends to be harder for folks to budget and actually realize,e what they're spending until it's too late.

With cash, you have that "balance" right there with your looking you in the face every time you go to use it, with plastic it's "just a card and a swipe" with no up front indication of what you have left.
Not only that, once you hand over cash, it's gone. With plastic, you can swipe and that debit may not show up for a few days, and if you forgot about it.. it could be a nasty surprise

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[gweihir]

That, and the ability to analyze what a person is buying easily and without their consent, is the core of it.
It is a deeply fascist idea.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[voss]

What happened in the UK is people were on trial for precisely what you were talking about and some far right yahoo was trying to film video regarding the case at the courthouse and threatened to contaminate the jury pool and force a retrial which would have cost hundreds of thousands of UK pounds and endanger the convictions of the same dangerous people you seem to be concerned about.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Anonymous Coward]

To start, I would propose an even ratio of tax hikes and spending cuts to achieve our national goals.

First up, medical costs. Good news, bad news situation. All basic care would have a government option, ala Medicare for all. Need xrays and a cast for a broken leg, influenza shot, appendix removed, vasectomy*, baby taken out (at four months if you don't want it or nine if you do), all covered. The bad news is your boner pills and million dollar a year forever cancer treatment isnt going to be covered. Sucks to be you. Sorry Dems, we can't save everyone. Hope they bought into an optional, but as yet to be nationally available platinum care plan at a young age. Teaching hospitals will probably have some options for them, but losing the genetic lottery/smoking is a bad ride either way. Maybe once everything else is under control we can revisit super rare non communicable diseases.

*reversing the vasectomy is a private market process. Save up.

Dropping a big chunk of the Medicare part D Bush giveaway will cover all basic care for everyone. No tax hike needed. Buy your own boner pills. They will be cheaper once the government isn't obligated to not negotiate for them (a position forced by the Repubs, fwiw) anyway.

Social security. Another easy fix. Raise the age by one month per year for the next thirty six years for the early retirement crowd, and by two months per year for the full benefit crowd. That solves 90% of the SS "crisis". Remove the SS tax cap for millionaires (what is it, $150k or so now? I don't pay wage based income taxes anymore, it's all cap gains bc, as Trump says "I'm smart"). Boom. Done.

At the same time, phase in basic income while displacing food stamps, energy assistance and all other programs. Offer partial matching funds for states or high cost of living areas that might want to have teachers or fire fighters able to live within an hour of the rich folk if desired. Emphasis on the partial match. Not everyone gets to live in NYC, the beach, or other high demand areas. In thirty six years, that is enough to provide half a small two bedroom apartment in a small to midsized city, along with internet, basic cable tv and nutritional, if not delicious food. Get married or find a roommate for the other half of rent. Offer to clean the dishes if they cook, or vice versa.

Meanwhile, divert 0.5% per year for twenty years from the military budget to energy security. Incentive private firms to employ people (ex coal miners, etc) to do solar thermal roof installs, PV, etc in the places where it makes sense, and large scale PV and wind where that makes sense.

In twenty years we won't give a frack about what the Mideast does with its oil. We'd mostly use oil for making plastic and fertilizer at that point (sorry Tesla shorts!), and domestic productions is already high enough- we are a net exporter of energy. That gives Europe time to build up their militaries to fend off/compete for the migrants that will doubtless exist from the south and fend off the belligerent neighbors.

Since we won't need to care about that area any more, we can cut our presence there and let Europe manage it. We can focus in the shit shows to lie south. Chiefly the narco states our policies and drug misuse have created. Decriminalize and tax most of that. No one will buy pot/ meth off the scary biker gang guy if the Walmart counter has it for $10/$20/$40 a hit at a consistent, safe dosage. Keep at least 33% of the gross as tax for double blind, clinically proven, drug rehab programs - not that twelve step bullshit. Impose severe penalties for operating a vehicle or otherwise endangering others due to being impaired. Like alcohol times ten penalties.

For base load power, add a few dozen nuke plants based off submarine/carrier setups - scaled up. Submerge the whole thing in abandoned quarries and other water tight areas so flooding isn't a fear, but a natural design factor. In forty years it'll be time to start planning to replace/upgrade the first ones so we have a consistent, predicta

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Often the police and military are the ones that get fed up and join a revolution. See also: Romania, 1989.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[b0s0z0ku]

Or you could exchange a certified bank's check in the bank itself. Or (if you lived in a civilized country), you could wire money within 15 minutes for free or almost free. SWIFT wires in non-US countries put the US system to shame.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Wycliffe]

I would love to see federal income tax reduced by 90% and if there are some things that still need to be done, let the local governments do it.

Look at this graph of federal government spending, and say what exactly are you going to cut? Even if you cut military spending to bare bones, you wouldn't succeed in closing the annual deficit. If you cut social security, you will be voted out of office. If you cut Medicare, you will be voted out of office. So what exactly are you planning on doing?

Neither medicare nor social security are paid with income tax. They are both paid with their own separate payroll tax. Medicaid is already mostly administered by the state and the federal government shouldn't be collecting any money and giving it back to the states. Other than military spending, which could be significantly cut, most of the other stuff that the federal government does could easily be done by the individual states. We currently spend 4 times as much on our military as the next closest country (China). That would be a good place to start. If we cut our military budget in half we would still be spending more money than any other country.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[ChatHuant]

governments (at least our's here in the States) are too incompetent to ascribe this much evil to.

This is not intended to detract from your point re: corporations, which is very very good, but lots of folks from all over the world can tell you that government incompetence and government evil aren't at all mutually exclusive. The USA hasn't yet had a really evil government (though one can argue there are concerted efforts in this direction). If it happens, its incompetence won't be enough mitigation.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[BlueStrat]

What happened in the UK is people were on trial for precisely what you were talking about and some far right yahoo was trying to film video regarding the case at the courthouse and threatened to contaminate the jury pool and force a retrial which would have cost hundreds of thousands of UK pounds and endanger the convictions of the same dangerous people you seem to be concerned about.

Thank you for defending the UK government's official position on Tommy Robinson as the poor UK government is so misunderstood, abused, and in a position of helplessness against the might of their unarmed subjects. I mean, tossing political prisoners to the wolves like placing Robinson into a prison with a majority violent Muslim population intentionally in order to have him killed is the sort of thing every freedom-loving, transparent government does to it's citizens. Right? /s

However, I'm talking about the entire horrid mess the UK government has created, not Robinson in particular. Robinson is only one person and if there's one Tommy Robinson, it's certain there are many, many more that don't get the press attention that's frankly probably the only thing that's saved Robinson from death at the hands of the UK government, a government that is also trying so desperately to censor and suppress news of their actions.

Strat

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Synonymous Homonym]

Bah. In Italy you are legally required to keep your receipt for any purchase. To discourage tax evasion. And as a business you are required to accept cashless payments above a certain amount.

If you are paranoid you can always print out your bank statements. Printers put invisible serial marks on the print-outs, so if something is changed retroacticely you'll have admissable evidence on paper what and when.

Re: Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[MarkH]

Also you don't have to be completely cashless for risk of this happening ( government monitoring and shutdown of accounts ). If cash payments become anomaly they will be tracked or become reason for suspicion.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[mjwx]

I'm confused. You said "Forget wall street, it benefits fascists". Who do you think is going to freeze the accounts? And do you think they'll only do it when the government asks, or also when it benefits them?

Banks are primarily in it to make money, they don't care if your business is legal, grey, black, white, mauve or involves selling the ground hopes and dreams of orphaned children as long as they get a piece of the action. As long as they're getting a cut of your spending, they don't care what you did to get the money. If it were up to the banks, they'd happily hold the money from drug dealers or any other type of crook... In fact many of them do. Banks only restrict accounts when governments force them to and moan about it constantly (even when said restrictions are in place to prevent a self inflicted crisis).

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Timothy2.0]

100%. Cash has a certain anonymity to it, and I think we need to embrace anonymity more, not less, in society.

Of course, you'll have the "if you have nothing to hide..." folks not understanding the fact that *everyone* has something to hide, and that doesn't make them a criminal. If I want to buy a truckload of dildos, I may not want my neighbours, or government prudes, to know. that should be my right. As such, I'd prefer to pay cash.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[rmdingler]

Perhaps cash will simply morph into what it has always been, what Bitcoin strives to be... the currency of choice in peer to peer transactions where closed circuit cameras and tracker cell phones are intentionally left behind.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[AHuxley]

US gov can track some of the crypto currency in use.

Re:Forget wall street, it benefits fascists

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Oh, they'll take a drug dealer's money, sure. But they're going to freeze your account for reason X just long enough for you to default on your mortgage. Or structure your payments/deposits to maximize fees. Or 100 other ways they fuck over random people to make more cash.

betteridges rule

[bugs2squash]

No - everyone can sleep safely, all crime will be a thing of the past

Re:betteridges rule

[Jeremi]

No - everyone can sleep safely, all crime will be a thing of the past

More like, the crime will follow the money. Now instead of getting mugged in an alleyway, you'll have your identity stolen and your bank account drained.

I think that's an improvement?

Re:betteridges rule

[Cyberax]

Ahh.. You are a filthy junkie. That explains it.

Re:betteridges rule

[b0s0z0ku]

Better a filthy junkie than a Puritanical do-gooder asshole.

Re:betteridges rule

[b0s0z0ku]

I'll debate the usefulness of (US) cops.

As far as firemen, EMTs, engineers, and doctors, many aren't all that Puritanical. Look at artists -- art makes live living, and they're generally even less Puritanical...

Power

[thePsychologist]

Human society has never before been linked together so well. We need to guard against unintended consequences, like the unimaginable power that some will have to control dissent by electronically preventing dissenters from buying food at the grocery store.

Re:Power

[plopez]

"Human society has never before been linked together so well."

This brings up a thought I ave about tightly linking economies. For example, a few years ago the concern was if Spain, Italy, or Greece defaulted on their debts, basically economically collapsing, then the cascading consequences would bring down the entire global economy. We were in the absurd position where economies as small as the afore mentioned could cause a global distaster.

The analogy I like to use is mob-culture in agriculture. If fields are smaller and have a host of different crops then a blight affecting one crop, wheat as an example, does not get out of control and is firewalls off from other fields. On the other hand, if there is no diversity the said blight could wipe out huge swaths of wheat crops.

So maybe we should have loosely coupled economies with firewalls. Of course, economists would argue that this is not "efficient".

Re:Power

[nnet]

Don't be shy. WHY do you claim its nonsense?

Re: Power

[Kjella]

Germany could have cashed out Greeceâ(TM)s entire debt just like that. If the EU started the printing press theyâ(TM)d effectively make rich countries and wealthy people pay with only marginal inflation. They just didnâ(TM)t want to do that because itâ(TM)d be a terrible precedent for the future, spend money on credit like crazy and your rich uncle will bail you out. If the dominos had really started falling we would have seen a real intervention. But not until the PIGS were begging on their knees, not whining about austerity measures.

Re:Power

[angel'o'sphere]

Because the debt e.g. of whole Greece is less than the debt of a medium sized city in Germany or any other part of Europe ...
The point is: they could not pay. Hence there was a big fuzz made about it. And of course the problems Greece has are unique greek problems which they have to fix them selves. Our money wont fix it, it makes it only worse. Before the EURO a coffee in Parsi was like 80cents (because Paris would riot if the price would be significant above that) a coffee in Germany was about 150cents. In Athens, Greece, it was 40cents. For some reason Greece decided to "join" or "embrace" the EURO by simply setting every price of every thing to the most highest they could find in the EU, but forgot to adjust wages, pensions etc. Obviously that does not work. Who who was used to make vacations in a cheap country is going to Greece and paying more for coffee, meals, rent, taxi than he pays at home?

If it was for me or most other Germans or West Europe: they had got nothing. The point is: they are a society of tricksters. They cheat each other. Look at the forrest fires now. Everything burning are illegal constructions in areas where there was a reason to forbid it. But if the building stands 10 years it is "suddenly legal". You pay the bribes (to skip the 10 years) and all is fine. Big cash out for everyone. But some people where not smart enough to build like their neighbours did.
So they started forest fires, with hundreds of deaths.
Now there is no reason anymore to declare the areas as forbidden construction zones. I bet it is less than a year until the law is changed, and now they rebuild everything officially and the murderers become rich ...

Danger?

[AHuxley]

Good parts:
Your banking, tax and transactions as a business owner are automatic.
The payment is made for a service, product and the money is ready to use in an account.
Every citizen has to have a bank account. Show ID to get a bank account.

The plus side for that is all illegal migrants have to get another layer of new photo ID and interact with banks and who pays them for work.
Thats a trail that can be used to discover who is not allowed to work in a nation, who is in a nation illegally.

Re:Danger?

[omnichad]

You would need even more financial regulation to enable that. As it stands, it's not just non-citizens who can't open a bank account. There are a large number of poor people who are ineligible for a bank account due to poor credit (which is a side effect of being poor).

Re: Danger?

[nihaopaul]

I can imagine a future where your insurance premiums are tied to your digital finger print. Your risk profile for credit is tied to your activities.

Your social credit (china) because you like to drink alcohol drops so low you cannot buy a flight, stay in a hotel or shop at certain places. Your position in the world is monitored to be able to collect you at any time.

Your price for goods depends on what friends you have (correlation of purchases across locations and times), your targeted advertising profile gets that much more sophisticated that you end up with a lot more crap. And then as market share increases the prices start to rise on transactions.

you can no longer buy anything as a tourist as governments clamp down, your children no longer can freely shop without a digit means.

Re:Danger?

[AHuxley]

That would be a fun change to government banking regulations.
Making a baking service to pay a wage into and that every citizen has a right to use.
Some type of universal "savings" account with a "electronic" card that could accept funds and pay out funds.
It would not be a loan account.
Think of something like an Electronic benefit transfer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... from any US bank, connected to photo ID and US citizenship.
No US citizen would be "ineligible" as the bank would have to register and provide that type of account when asked to do so. The US gov could cover any costs for the very poor citizens.
After the person is working they could get normal banking services. A citizen who is not working would stay on the bank/gov supported account for as long as needed.

A wage when working or gov support would just get moved to a persons bank and to their bank card depending on a citizens needs at any time.

Re: Danger?

[AHuxley]

Yes the USA could go full China with a system like that.
Want a US passport if tax was not paid? No passport will be approved until the tax issue is removed.
Domestic security to get on a bus, train to move around the USA internally. No "holiday" on that profile.
No paying for any domestic flights, hotels, rental cars.
Paying for a long list of products and services not approved by a state and federal government gets blocked and every attempt reported.
No gambling, no alcohol, no magazines, no books, no holidays, limited internet. A person has an improved "profile" when they are working, doing gov approved study.

Re:Danger?

[Anonymous Coward]

As it stands, it's not just non-citizens who can't open a bank account.

Ummm, completely false (at least in the USA). You don't need to be a US citizen, green card holder, or have a visa to work in the USA to open a bank account.

I own a vacation property in Florida, and spend some of the winter months there with my wife (I'm a Canadian).

To make things more convenient, I have a bank account and a credit card from a US bank. The US bank knows that I'm not a US citizen - they accepted my Canadian passport & driver's license as ID without any complaint.

Re:Danger?

[AHuxley]

An illegal migrant would not have the "passport" with the legal ability to stay in the USA AC.
Thats the "illegal" part in illegal migrant AC.

Re:Danger?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The plus side for that is all illegal migrants have to get another layer of new photo ID and interact with banks and who pays them for work.

Illegal immigrants can already (legally) get bank accounts and taxpayer id numbers. In fact, not only will the IRS give them numbers to pay taxes/get a job, but they are forbidden from law to tell any other agency of the government

Re:Danger?

[b0s0z0ku]

Saddling everyone with more mass surveillance is not a worthwhile price to pay for tight border security. East Germany had tight border security and great surveillance in the 80s. Fortunately, they had themselves a nice little revolution.

Re:Danger?

[Cyberax]

This is nonsense. Banks will gladly open a checking account for anybody with a pulse and an SSN. Opening an account without an SSN is trickier, but it’s still possible if you can get an ITIN.

Re:Danger?

[AHuxley]

AC re "'the real economy will have to go unofficia".
The problem with that for an illegal migrant AC is the cost of having to pay extra for a new bank account, new photo ID that works.
The cost of staying illegal soon becomes more than their illegal wage can cover.

Re:Danger?

[AHuxley]

AC thats why a new cashless banking system would help catch up with so many illegal migrants.
Illegal migrants would have to create another type of ID to get a new bank account.
Get entered into the tax system and be approved by for a new account by a bank.
Given thats its a new account the US gov could make that reporting much more stringent federally.
Make the cashless bank understand every new US account they open has to be legal and fully compliant.
Just "living" in the USA would have to be supported by more levels of new documents to show citizenship, approval to work, study in the USA.
More ways to get discovered as an illegal migrant.

Re:Danger?

[b0s0z0ku]

Freedom of speech is debatable. In the US, you're free to speak but unlikely to be listened to unless you're wealthy and/or powerful. In France, mass protests can actually topple governments. Consumer goods shouldn't be seen as a measure of freedom: see also, Singapore.

Re:Danger?

[omnichad]

Once maybe. If you screw up by being poor and having a few overdrafts, reporting agencies like ChexSystems can get you more or less blacklisted. Most banks refer to this agency or another when opening a checking account. You can be denied a simple checking account.

Re: Danger?

[b0s0z0ku]

Same as in the US -- landlord holds the guarantee aka "security deposit."

Re: Danger?

[hawk]

>I\ can imagine a future where your insurance
>premiums are tied to your digital finger print. Your risk
>profile for credit is tied to your activities.

credit score is already a major factor for car insurance.

Texas was going to ban it a couple of years, but in a rare fit of reason (for a legislature) they had a study done first.

The data shows that credit score is far more accurate than driving record in predicting claims.

You can come up with a number of explanations (high credit score people are more careful, or have less distractions, or . . .), but keep in mind that it's claims pad, not accidents, that interest the insurance company. My pet theory is that those with the higher scores are also less likely to submit small claims due to anticipated rate increases, and instead have the cars fixed themselves--but again, that's just an educated guess.

hawk

Re: Danger?

[astrofurter]

How will our progeny look at the ruins of our security/surveillance state? The ubiquitous cameras and sensors - the comically profuse street signs telling us what we're not allowed to do - the centralized & censored communications platforms - Big Brother always watching, always listening - and the vast grim archipelago of the American Gulag.

Will they look at them the same way we look at the Berlin Wall? As ruins of a dark era, when fear trampled freedom underfoot. Will they wonder if we were mad, evil, or just foolish? Will they see a link between our collapsing economic order, the resultant crisis of state & parastate legitimacy, and our unhinged headlong rush to turn the whole country into one giant prison?

Will our grandchildren look at abandoned rotting surveillance cameras, shake their heads, and breathe a sigh of relief - thankful they were born into a period of freedom and prosperity? Will they say to themselves, "never again"?

Re: Danger?

[AHuxley]

Re "How will our progeny look at the ruins of our security/surveillance state?"

Depends on the results.
Police get to clean up the streets. Stop crime. Find criminals, discover illegal aliens.
No more drug use in the streets. No more waste in the streets. No more parked RV and tents.

The Berlin Wall failed as East Germany did not allow its people to speak and could not offer its people anything they wanted.
The US is still flooded with consumer products, freedom of speech, freedom to shop.

The only negative in the USA is the drug use, crime, waste in the streets on the way to enjoy shopping.
In well managed cities that new security/surveillance could really help gentrify an entire city. Slowly change a city back to a really great living standard.

Re: Danger?

[b0s0z0ku]

What do you propose that the cops do with the homeless? We could offer addicts and homeless treatment and/or shelter NOW, but we're too focused on incarceration and punishment. The problem isn't cash -- it's a retarded Puritan worldview.

Re: Danger?

[AHuxley]

Once cites fail and become filled with drug use, waste, tents and parked RV a city is not going to have the needed tax rate to do much.
Tax payers have the ability to move to much better cities.
At least try to keep a city safe?

Re:Always

[Anonymous Coward]

There will always be something to trade if cash goes away.

During German occupation in World War II, folks around here used cigarettes as currency.

In a cashless society all legal tender is controll

[Anonymous Coward]

So there's nothing preventing the government from taxing your savings by declaring a negative interest rate or from bailing out banks using your money (a 'bail-in').

(In a society with cash, there's always the option/risk of people pulling out their savings to cash to prevent negative interest and bail-ins. This won't exist anymore. Your money is their money).

Re:Danger? No.

[WindowsStar]

@Anonymous (Danger? No.) This is what scares the hell out of me. The extreme ignorance of some people. Please take the time to research how money works and that using credit or debit cards only at the very least gives government and the banks all the power over the money. When this happens, banks now can charge a 10% transaction fee and there is nothing you can do about it. Receiving any money is now subject to government taxes. This is something YOU DO NOT WANT!.

And this has happened

[Okian Warrior]

Someone gets uppity, freeze their ability to spend money. Want to know what someone is buying, where they are going, what their habits are? If they do it all with credit card, you can! Forget wall street, the prime beneficiaries are fascist governments.

Governments hate cash because they make it easy to do business they don't like without them knowing about it. The government you've got today may not be the government you've got tomorrow, so you shouldn't hand them that information.

Use cash whenever possible.

And this has actually happened.

Soon after Wikileaks released the gulf war information, including the "collateral murder" video, the credit companies froze their accounts, effectively cutting them off from donations and keeping $11 million in donations already in account.

Say what you will about Wikileaks, its activities are legal and it serves a valuable purpose in keeping certain governments in line.

At the time people kept saying "this isn't censorship, credit card companies are private companies and can choose who they do business with".

Re:And this has happened

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... as apposed to people mailing them cash...

Re:And this has happened

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments hate cash because they make it easy to do business they don't like without them knowing about it.

More to the point, gov't depends on distrust for income. If I fix your sink and you cook me dinner, there's no monetary exchange at all. It's either something between friends or it's bartering. Bartering is technically taxable, but typically not traceable. If we're not friends then I charge to fix your sink and you charge to serve me a meal. Then we both pay perhaps 30% income/SS tax. If we both use plastic then we're also paying a middleman to actually make the payment to each other. A simple relationship has become very expensive for both of us. A relationship has become a business transaction. In that sense, gov't benefits from lack of social cohesion and generalized, personal alienation. In a true community there's very litle "economic" activity.

So there's privacy from gov't to think about. There's also privacy from corporatocracy. And if those are not enough reason to use cash, there's the simple fact that banks have created a lucrative middleman business out of thin air. We're all still essentially using cash. We're just paying a 3% fee to a 3rd party to make the payments for us.

Re: And this has happened

[Wycliffe]

We're just paying a 3% fee to a 3rd party to make the payments for us.

There is an easy fix for this. Require the end user to pay the 3% fee. A few places do it but I believe it's against the rules of most major credit card companies. If more places gave a discount for cash, a lot more people would pay with cash. As it stands now, with credit card rewards, there is effectively a 1% or so discount for using a credit card.

Re:And this has happened

[Jane Q. Public]

This.

While non-cash purchases might be easier in many circumstances, that doesn't reduce the importance of cash.

The downside should be obvious to all: if we were to create a "cashless society", on that very day you could kiss your freedom goodbye.

Period. The end. It might take time to be realized, but it would already be gone.

Re: And this has happened

[tlhIngan]

We're just paying a 3% fee to a 3rd party to make the payments for us.

There is an easy fix for this. Require the end user to pay the 3% fee. A few places do it but I believe it's against the rules of most major credit card companies. If more places gave a discount for cash, a lot more people would pay with cash. As it stands now, with credit card rewards, there is effectively a 1% or so discount for using a credit card.

First of all, cash isn't free to handle. If you're a small business, it might be close to free, but only because you don't have much of it. When you're handling a few thousands of dollars of cash daily, things get MUCH more interesting.

And it's easy to tell who's the "free" department - you can tell if a business simply turns off the register at the end of the day, or if they actually count the takes. If they don't count the takes, then in general they don't make enough cash (because it's not worth counting).

But once you do start raking in cash, you start to have to count it, which means you need to train employees how to handle cash. You need to tell them how to set up the register, how to ensure their takes are accurate, and how to sign off the register. This again is easy to see - when they run out of coins you note they always take a 410 roll of coins, but at the same time, they give the donator a $10 bill to equalize the transaction.(because every dollar has to be accounted for). And yes, when the register and cashbox do not agree, it's a very serious offense, minus some small percentage error (because people do realize short-changes and mistakes happen, but it shouldn't be more than a couple of bucks or so).

But you also have the problem - you have a few thousand dollars in cash now, and you have to deposit it at the bank. So someone has to go to the bank, wait in line, and make the deposit (which has to be counted, verified, etc). So that's someone's hour out of their day going to the bank, parking, lining up, etc., and hopefully not getting mugged or robbed along the way (another cost of handling cash). Or if you're lucky, you've got night depository permission so you can use those outside deposit boxes. But again, prime spot for being mugged (and it's after hours, too).

Hey, if you make enough money, perhaps you can call an armored car to take your cash for you to the bank, but that too is another cost for handling cash.

Oh, and let's not forget the whole robbery aspect - always a problem with cash-only businesses.

And finally, there's the problem of counterfeit bills. You might not think it, but large bills might be common - if you buy $50 worth of stuff, you would expect to get paid with $20 bills, $50 bills, and $100 bills. But $100 bills could be counterfeit, yet another cost (because counterfeit bills are non-redeemable, and it could've been changed with legitimate bills). Sure you can try to avoid taking in $50 or $100 bills, but if someone comes to you with $75 worth of purchase, they may not have $75 in smaller bills.

Now, the laws changed here recently (Canada) where retailers can charge the extra 3%, but it turns out most don't. Not because they can't, but because they realize that most of their transactions are credit and debit (which incur a fixed fee at least), and they fear losing that business. (And yes, businesses that were formerly cash-only have gone into accepting debt and later on, credit cards did see an uptick in business - both in number of customers through, and increases in size of transactions).

And to be honest, the ones that do charge, I tended to shop there less - about the ones that did were computer stores and they always did "cash discounted" pricing. It was always annoying to have to plan a visit to the bank to do a cash withdrawal in order to shop there, and they eventually lost me out to online shopping where the credit prices were included AND I had to pay shipping. (Not having to find parking in some obscure neighbourhood was a bonus, too).

Re:And this has happened

[houghi]

Censorship can and is done by non-government entities. If you tell your kids they can not watch TV for whatever reason, that is censorship. Do not kid yourself that it is only so if a government does it it.

Re:And this has happened

[reboot246]

Thank you, Jane Q. Public! Finally somebody gets it.

Governments love the idea of a cashless economy because of the control it gives them and the financial industry loves a cashless economy because they make money on every transaction. Go ahead and get your wish of going cashless, but don't say you weren't warned. Big government + big banks = no freedom.

Re: And this has happened

[Synonymous Homonym]

I don't see the difference. Whether the medium of exchange is a piece of paper or a number in a database, it's effectively a currency issued and controlled by a central authority that isn't you. The latter is just cheaper and safer to handle.

If you have no freedom with the currency being moved as electrons, the same is true with it being moved on paper.

Re: And this has happened

[sims 2]

I still feel the whole argument that users, businesses should be required to directly pay out 3% is bullshit. Aside from that being at least 10x higher than it should be if you are assuming you now get 98%+ of all transactions.

The biggest arguments against it are that as of right now the gov't itself (through taxes or whatever) entirely funds the replacement of money and coins as they are damaged.

The funds used for that today would easily cover more than than the cost of a computer network capable of managing and tracking all the transactions said country probably even a rather large assortment of supporting staff too.

The gov't wants this to happen as it is extremely in their benefit for the amount of control it gives them so they should be the ones paying for it instead of allowing third parties to be middle men to leach money out of the economy.

Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[Flexagon]

I remember needing a coin cell battery for something some years ago, so I made my usual pilgrimage to Fry's. As it happened, they were in a small area that was suffering a power outage. And yet they were still open. Employees with flashlights led us in individually to pick up what we wanted. At the checkout counters, no power meant that the cash registers didn't work either, and they had no process for creating cash receipts. Instead, they only accepted credit cards, and only the old fashioned way (even for the time): swiping our cards through the little manual impression machines to make multi-layered paper carbon copies of receipts (with the full credit card number recorded). It was probably the smallest credit card purchase I've ever made.

And the point: with an even longer history of computerized cash registers now, that may even immediately track inventory to a back-end server, what significantly sized store is even capable of handling the paper receipts for cash in a power outage? What stores even have the old manual card impression machines? I think it may be a poor assumption that cash is a useful alternative to credit cards / electronic payment in a power failure, in many cases.

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[HatofPig]

At The Beer Store in Ontario we have price lists for all the product. Taxes are included in the shelf-price. When the power goes out it slows us down, but we can still just use a calculator and tabulate everything manually. No debit or credit, just cash. There are no receipts, obviously, but for the most part customers just want their beer.

If there was tax involved and the products were varied as opposed to mostly of the same sort and fairly consistent in price then it might be harder to do.

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[apoc.famine]

Yep. It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis by the business. Does the power go out often enough to make it worth having a backup system, training staff, and practicing it a few times a year? If so, is doing business during the outage worth the cost of the backup system?

I've been in stores which chose different paths, like you and the GP here. I understand why they chose they way they did.

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Fun fact, those old manual impression machines are being phased out. They don't even raise the numbers on (some) credit cards anymore.

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[b0s0z0ku]

Couldn't a cell phone or tablet camera and a signing app do the same thing for a "flat" card?

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[bugs2squash]

I don't see why you couldn't write out a receipt. My local plumbing store hand-writes one out for me even when the power is on.

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Probably not. As part of the chip card push, liability arrangements changed. I doubt many box stores will accept chipless cards or manual impressions for that very reason. At least for big items.

Re: Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[Kjella]

Yep, pretty sure youâ(TM)re required by law if the customer insists. Did get that once in London, I needed reciept for travel expense reimbursement. But 99% wouldnâ(TM)t care for a sandwich...

Re:Cash may not even be a realistic alternative

[JesseMcDonald]

What stores even have the old manual card impression machines?

Would they even work if they had them? While my current card has raised digits, IIRC the last one did not. Prepaid cards are frequently unembossed as well. At the very least it wouldn't work for everyone.

On the other hand, if you have enough local power to keep a smartphone recharged, and intermittent Internet connectivity, you can process credit cards offline using the magnetic stripes. There is a higher risk of fraud, of course, but no more than there would be with the impression machine. I know at least Square allows cards to be scanned offline with their app and uploaded for processing at a later time at no extra charge, though the merchant must accept the risk that delayed transactions may fail. Even without their custom magstripe dongle you can still enter the card numbers manually. It might be worth keeping an account like that active just in case of emergencies.

Re:Danger? No.

[plopez]

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyl...

Re:Always

[plopez]

Plenty of people also sold themselves for sex. Will do *anything* for food for me and my family....

ALWAYS keep cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

My life was ruined by the tax department, during a dispute with them. They froze my bank account, so cheques started bouncing, bills went unpaid, etc. Had to use cash to buy food, etc. So government incompetence, corruption, abuse, etc., will always mean cash for me.

Not to mention, when in China last year, a luxury high end shopping area couldn't use/accept any of the cards I was carrying. Cash worked, cards didn't.

Many smaller vendors, areas, towns, countries are cash based societies/communities.

And then, in a restaurant when the power failed...

Et cetera, etc.

Cash is king.

Re:ALWAYS keep cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowhere takes diners...

Re:ALWAYS keep cash...

[bn-7bc]

You stil use cheques, oh yea the US never mind, here in norway, and i supect in the test of western Europe, as farcas I know, they are noot in wide use any more,due to high prosessing fees, bank to vabk transfers are easy quick an relativlu low cost even cross border, normaly a transfer is creditid the recievers account the nex buisness day (som places it is ibnstant if the payer and the payee have accounts at the same bank. Cross porder (at least for SEPA transfers) 1-3 buisness days. Out of curiosety how long does it takr for a cheques to clear an be deposited?

Cash gives you freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom to be (relatively) anonymous and not reliant on any 3rd party to make good on your transaction. And freedom from giving a cut on every payment to the same thieving, criminal bankers who have already stolen our tax money in bailout after bailout. If you liked what they did for your investments in 2008, wait until you see their plans for a "cashless" future.

Re:Cash gives you freedom

[b0s0z0ku]

Countries like Iceland did right by throwing the banksters in prison after 2008.

Of course

[PopeRatzo]

Are There Dangers in a Cashless Society?

Yes. Spiders. You could still get bitten on the arm by a brown recluse and end up dying.

Oh, and meteors. Most people don't realize it, but there are meteors constantly hitting the Earth. Eventually, they're gonna get around to you and then you're gonna be a grease stain on the sidewalk. Unless you live in the suburbs, where you'll be a grease stain on the driveway.

Also, food-borne disease is always a danger. I'm pretty sure there are lots more, but I started drinking a few hours ago, and I think I'm going to go binge watch Lost in Space.

Cash keeps me on a budget

[Snotnose]

Every friday I get some cash, and I can spend it as I please over the next week. When I'm out of cash I'm out of fun for the week.

Contrast that to a credit card. My CC has a limit of about 50% my annual salary. God hope I don't keep spending that until the card is rejected.

Re:Cash keeps me on a budget

[bn-7bc]

Well if you are afraid of over using credit cards, use debit cards einstrwad, so ypu don’t have that risk. Personaly I use credit card only forvairline tickets due to the exstra travle indcurance included, but hey that us just me, I dont eant any dept unless I can avoid it. Ie my mortage us the only debt I carry and in 15 years that will be gone as well thus as long as I pay my bills and taxes no one can tell me (as long as the product or service i want is legal) what to do with my money or my time.

and when the system goes down? or they don't take

[Joe_Dragon]

and when the system goes down? or they don't take your card for some odd thing?

Re: In a cashless society all legal tender is cont

[Wycliffe]

You could still have a run on the banks in a cashless society. It would look more like a run on the stores where people would buy large amounts of food, jewelry, or whatever else they thought would be useful or easy to sell/barter/trade.

Re: In a cashless society all legal tender is cont

[b0s0z0ku]

Which is actually worse, since it will affect availability of real-world goods faster.

Re:Not legal in the United States

[b0s0z0ku]

Wouldn't hurt to leave bad reviews even if their food is great and maybe report a few roaches to the health department. Cashless == deserves to be driven the hell out of business by means fair or foul.

Re:Not legal in the United States

[b0s0z0ku]

That might be a good idea for a protest against cashlessness.

If it's a store like WalMart, fill your cart, then walk out after they fail to accept cash. If it's a fast-food joint, order as much as possible with "extra" hot sauce, have them start MAKING the orders. Whoops, don't have a card, walk out, leaving them to have done work and with custom orders they can't easily sell.

Spread the word -- if everyone does it, they might have to mend their bankster-lovin' ways.

Re:Power/Internet outages ... need cash

[b0s0z0ku]

I've tried that experiment -- paid cash for an airline ticket the day before. Supposedly, this would subject me to extra screening, but no such thing actually happened. Went through the normal line, no additional questions.

Is this a trick question or something?

[Qbertino]

The answers is "yes, definitely".

Re:Is this a trick question or something?

[houghi]

Next: Are there dangers in a cash only society?

The answer will still be the same: "yes, definitely".

I'm actually not that worried about it

[rsilvergun]

see here. If the gov't has it out for you there's plenty of ways for them to come down on you like a ton of bricks.

This is what's made me a Democratic Socialist. People don't oppress other people for the hell of it. They do it because they're monopolizing all the money to the point where folks lack economic security and when you do crap like that you've got to do all sorts of nasty things to get away with it. The surest fire way to make that a moot point is to guarantee everybody food, shelter, healthcare, education and transportation (the latter needed to access to former). Tyrants lose power when they can't threaten you with starvation, the elements or dying of disease.

Re:I'm actually not that worried about it

[b0s0z0ku]

As long as we don't have democratic socialism, may as well use cash and make it harder for them.

Re: I'm actually not that worried about it

[astrofurter]

Realistic implementations of democratic socialism will make it *easier* to starve dissents.

All a corporate oligarch needs to do is complain to his ivy league dorm buddy at their next golf game, and WHAM - a kangaroo kourt declares the dissident a criminal. No more UBI, no more benefits, no more food, no more shelter.

Kneel and lick the boots of the oligarchy - or die in the street like a dog.

Re: I'm actually not that worried about it

[b0s0z0ku]

As opposed to licking the boots of the insurance companies or begging for money on GoFundMe (G-d help you if you're not seen as religious or pious) today.

Re: I'm actually not that worried about it

[Synonymous Homonym]

You are describing the status quo.

How would democratic socialism make anything about it easier?

Re:I'm actually not that worried about it

[Amanitin]

I know I am late to the party, but I have seen this argument many times and it is wrong. In order to hit anybody in the face with a wrench, you need to find their present location, physically send out physical thugs with a physical wrench and do the face hitting. That is a lot of effort and it doesn't scale well. Plus, when all hell breaks loose, there is the option of resistance via second amendment or flight. When everybody's everything is a mere number in a database somewhere, things like 'freeze assets of everyone present at location X at time Y' (political rally or whatever) can be done in an automated fashion with basically zero effort required and zero order scaling. And there is no straightforward way of resistance or evasion. that is a significant difference. Another aspect of 'cashless' that I never see mentioned is the institution of negative interest imposed on deposits. When there is no cash the government can basically force you to spend your money.

I am self employed

[Archfeld]

I do computer systems work, network install and trouble shooting, security system install, maintenance and trouble shooting, plus I walk dogs and am a gun smith. I work for cash or barter and make it known up front. I have a respectable checking account and a debit card for emergencies and the few things you can't avoid, like car rental. Otherwise I keep cash in a safe along with my secure papers and such. I report a modest income and pay taxes on it. I don't own a smart phone, I have an anonymous cell phone with cash purchased minutes and an email account on several public services for doing business. Almost all of my business is via word of mouth and I am doing quite well. I will not frequent a business that doesn't accept cash, except in an emergency. It helps that I have friends I can count on to help me out in some cases. It is possible to survive with out using the cashless options, but getting harder to do so.

So

[apn_k]

Without the existence cash how would one deal with something like garage/yard sales?

Re:So

[b0s0z0ku]

Something like Square or Venmo, probably.

A double edged sword

[nehumanuscrede]

There are both positives and negatives to doing away with cash, but I think the latter outweighs the former and will cause more problems than it solves.
I like to think of it this way: Imagine all the negative and stupid sh*t that happens with PayPal and then imagine that PayPal is the ONLY choice you have. :|
F*ck that.

Some potential Positive Aspects:

1) Illegal immigration takes a big hit as a bank account ( and all the identification paperwork that goes with it ) is now mandatory.
2) Bribes / off the books payments are now much more difficult if an electronic paper trail is always established.
3) No such thing as tax avoidance if everything spent / earned is audited and / or deducted down to the penny on the fly.
4) No more fighting with the soda machine that absolutely REFUSES to take your damn dollar bill. lol

Negatives:

5) #1 will cause an increase of Identity Theft
6) Banks can freeze your accounts at will for any reason leaving you unable to do anything ( even eat ) until resolved. ( Needs to be regulated )
7) Credit Cards / Debit Cards are still too easy to compromise. Will get much worse if all transactions go electronic. ( #8 becomes a HUGE problem )
8) Power or Network outages wreak havoc on systems that rely on it.
9) Transaction fees will simply be pushed onto consumers because you know they're not going to eat those costs. ( Needs to be regulated )
10) Surveillance State wet dream to be able to track ( and either authorize / deny ) ALL purchases made.
11) Banks are free to charge whatever they want for monthly account fees. A problem if a Bank Account becomes mandatory. ( Needs to be regulated )
12) Alternative options ( Bitcoin, $FutureCoin, etc ) will spring up everywhere as folks try to avoid Big Brothers bullsh*t

#6 would probably require you keep funds in multiple accounts spread across multiple banks ( or even countries ) if you don't want to run into issues.

Really the only folks who come out on top are the Businesses, Transaction Brokers ( Visa, Master Card, etc. ) and maybe Banks. Other than convenience, I don't really see any positives for the consumer at all. Convenience at the expense of privacy isn't a very good trade off in my opinion. I really don't want to live in a world where I basically have to ask permission from the Bank / Government to spend the money I make on goods or items they deem " acceptable ". Especially since the definition of " acceptable " will change over time depending on the Banks morals and / or which team ( Red or Blue ) is in power at the time.

You're really in for a world of pain if the bank you do business with decides your profession or purchased merchandise is something they don't agree with. ( Gun Dealers, Porn Industry, take your pick )

Based on all the above, I would have to say going cashless is a terrible idea until a whole lot more thought, protections and regulation are put into play.

Re:A double edged sword

[b0s0z0ku]

1. Illegal immigration is basically a problem made up by xenophobes in the US.
2. Corruption available to the average Joe and Jane is actually a good thing -- in an authoritarian society, it's nice to be able to bribe a cop to fuck off and look the other way. High-level corruption seldom uses ACTUAL cash.
3. Tax avoidance -- unlimited ability to tax by a bad government isn't a positive aspect. One means of bloodless revolution is a mass tax protest.

Re: A double edged sword

[b0s0z0ku]

I didn't see very many Native Americans pulling for Trump, do you?

Re: Danger? No.

[astrofurter]

Yeah. Just move to a different planet where they have different rules. Easy - problem solved!

Transaction fees and corporate control

[WaffleMonster]

Willing to entertain a specific replacement for cash on the merits so long as it provides similar levels of availability, privacy and freedom as cash does today.

One thing is for sure if there is not going to be cash then governments have to step up and fulfill basic role of providing electronic equivalent of currency same as tax payer funds currently going into managing circulation of physical currency.

Corporations who can set whatever conditions they want, charge ridiculous transaction fees and don't answer to the public/voters must not be allowed to become defacto middle-man controlling all transactions.

We need to adopt instant banking payments similar to SWIFTs solution to have a credible alternative to centralized CC systems. Hand waving think decentralized pay pal without pay pal's transaction fees. It should cost me the same to exchange 10 cents as it does 10 million dollars and I should have the freedom to pick a bank with the most favorable terms. Retailers should feel comfortable passing transaction fees associated with a specific pay method on to the customer rather than absorbing it and allowing it to be externalized. Everyone's feet needs to be held to the fire rather than current system of Visa setting the rules and demanding everyone fall in line or die.

Cash is much cheaper

[DogDude]

Cash is much cheaper than credit cards. Anybody who tells you that it costs 2.5-3% to handle cash is trying to sell you merchant services.

Although, the fact that cash is cheaper doesn't really make a difference. Average people are willingly paying a 3% Mastercard/Visa tax on everything they buy (with a card). People are so stupid and greedy, it's kinda' sickening.

Re:Cash is much cheaper

[Z00L00K]

You have to count in the costs you as a customer don't see that are applied to the shops where they have to pay to get the money deposited to the bank counted and to get a bunch of small change coins from the bank.

Add to it the risk that the people handling the money transfers run the risk of robbery, equipment to safely handle the cash and the time used to take care of counting and packing the cash. It all adds up and the card transaction fee is then not as bad as it looks in theory.

Re:Cash is much cheaper

[DogDude]

I understand that. None of what you describe comes anywhere near the 2.5%-3% fees of a credit card. It costs our brick-and-mortar retail business about 0.05% to handle cash.

Re:Always

[Z00L00K]

Around here you can't even use cash when there's a power outage since it will not be possible to get the price of the products anymore.

Re:Off the chain blockchain is the only solution

[Z00L00K]

That has already been tried and it failed.

Re:Power/Internet outages ... need cash

[Z00L00K]

It would have if you had purchased a first class ticket to some obscure location known for drug trade cash.

It's a power shift

[Dmitri_Yuriescu]

Who issues the money, hold the power. (You can even find a medieval quote about faces on coins.) Cashless solutions isn't the worst problem, but it is part of a trend moving power from governments to private banks. It is huge and not discussed a lot. Check out Positive Money at http://positivemoney.org/.

Re:Danger? No.

[johannesg]

My bank currently gives me a whopping 0.03% (not 3%, not 0.3%, but 0.03%) interest on my savings account. I could move to a different bank, of course... Oh wait, the maximum I can get in this country is 0.05%. That will net me a few euros each year, hardly worth switching bank over.

Now tell me this: what is stopping them from just applying the negative interest rate they so clearly want?

Tax evader? Or just avoider?

[Bruce66423]

To operate a society needs to have taxes paid. If people refuse to do so, then eventually civilisation will collapse. Taxes are needed for infrastructure - roads etc. Taxes are needed for the police and prisons. Taxes are needed for care of the insane. Taxes constitute insurance against health care costs: if you have a major medical incident, who's going to pay?

Hobbes argued in his defence of the role of the state that if you insist on rejecting its rules, you should leave, and made being allowed to leave a fundamental right. By contrast you seem to be a parasite, depending on the taxes others pay. Is that fair?

Re:Tax evader? Or just avoider?

[Archfeld]

I pay my taxes , and have medical insurance that I pay for myself as well. I spent 17 years working for a large corporation paying into a system that I never collected a dime from, be it unemployment or so-called welfare. I pay sales tax, vehicle registration, property tax, and what I believe to be a fair amount of income tax. You seem to have jumped to an erroneous conclusion that because I prefer to use cash that I don't contribute, which leads me to the conclusion that you are a taint licking douche flute wance...

Re: Danger? No.

[crimson tsunami]

You could, but I think my way is still easier.

Re:Danger? No.

[crimson tsunami]

You tell me. According to you they clearly want it but haven't done it. So whatever is already stopping them seems to be working.

Re:Suica

[Viol8]

Except the credit card companies know you use the train , almost certainly know where you topped it up so could analyse your travel patterns. Also the train company knows where and when you travel too. If you think this card as as anonymous as cash then you're obviously just another idiot millenial.

Re:Danger? No.

[Sicily1918]

They already do with their "minimum balance" fees.

Re:Danger? No.

[johannesg]

You tell me. According to you they clearly want it but haven't done it. So whatever is already stopping them seems to be working.

Alright, let me spell it out for mr. Simpleton then. It's because we still have the option of taking our cash out completely. In a cashless society that's no longer an option, so the bank can apply an interest rate of -10% if it wants to.

Re:Power outage

[bn-7bc]

Well maybe bot from 2019-01-01 (at keast here in Norway, no buisness us allowed to make a dale if the pos is down (I think the wording in the regulation is v all sales are to be enterd in an sproved pos at the time of sale) so cash will not help ypu ehen tje pos is down, and with the tecent popularety of cloud backed pos there might be several reasons That xan not be mitigsted localy. I know this is manly a us site, so if this does not aply to the us, this might be condidered ot, if so thst was not my intention. Personaly I find using cash to be inconvinient as lose chsnge tend to accumulate and dealing eith it is rather slow, a cc/debit catd transacrion takes aprox the same time evry time (assuming tha card and treminal works which is mostly) and no change to deal with. Will I miss cash nope. And as for beeing tracked, us there any chsnce that anyone will realy care what i purchase as long as it is legal and I pay my taxes vat etc? I doubt it

Why not simply Bitcoin 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin

- government can not deny you right to transact in it

- government can not inflate it by just adding more 1000000s to his account

- government can not (without some type of physical direct coercion) steal it from you

Also, when used with Bitcoin LightningNetwork

- transactions arrive in 5 seconds

- transaction fee is around 0.01 USD (currently more like 0.001 USD)

- more privacy (not visible to everyone in the world even by bitcoin address)

In addition, tools to increase privacy are being developed

- coinjoin

- new planned bulletproofs

Re:Why not simply Bitcoin 3

[PPH]

government can not deny you right to transact in it

The government can deny you the right to transact practically anything just by declaring the possession of alternatives as money laundering. And without Net Neutrality, what makes you think that ISPs won't choose 'voluntarily' to block exchange sites?

government can not (without some type of physical direct coercion) steal it from you

Script kiddies can clean out a Bitcoin exchange. What makes you think that the expertise behind Stuxnet can't be directed against Bitcoin?

Round and round we go

[crimson tsunami]

https://slashdot.org/comments....

Re:Danger? No.

[Kjella]

Please take the time to research how money works and that using credit or debit cards only at the very least gives government and the banks all the power over the money. When this happens, banks now can charge a 10% transaction fee and there is nothing you can do about it.

I live in Norway where VAT is like 25% and while it's been bumped up a few percent it's been 20%+ since it was all cash. So if "they" wanted an extra 10% they could do it right now. And if you were really losing money on having it in the bank like -10% interest rate it'd be just like 1930s hyperinflation in Germany - spend it when you get it before it becomes worthless. The greatest problem in the US is that you have super-mighty credit card companies that have made people think it's "free" to skim 2-3% off every transaction or even that they magically make money through baked-in services and kickbacks.

Here in Norway we have a no-frills national debit card system called BankAxept, the cost is $18/month + $0.03 per transaction. Actually it's $0.015/transaction if you're a huge company doing 50+ million transactions/year. That's roughly the price you should be paying if the US went a little socialist and made "digital money". In fact, they could probably fund the whole thing by redirecting the budget for printing/minting/disposing cash because it's not completely free once you want a physical representation.

We're already cashless-ish here in Norway, it's 97% card transactions, 3% cash withdrawals. And most of the regular costs items like rent, utilities, subscriptions etc. go via direct deposit so the white economy is 99%+ cashless. We also have services that provide free person-to-person transactions, many people literally don't use cash at all. The blocker here is that the law says you must take cash, if they could just stop accepting cash I think many would and if Internet is down BankAxept has a backup system with signature and ID. And if you don't got electricity most would simply close, unless it's a real emergency in which case I think grocery stores would take IOUs.

The downside is more that absolutely everything would be tracked. Want to buy some kind of product or service that isn't legal? There'll be a record of that. Don't want your wife to know you have a mistress or was at the bar? Well better not let her see the bank statement then because it's all there. Don't forget that sex toy store and the gay bar. A bunch of people from CSRs to DBAs at the bank will know. And people like to poke into other people's business, we just had a police officer fired here because he was doing non-work related searches with his Tinder date. And that's before the Gestapo gets involved...

There's a reason there is a saying "follow the money", whatever else is going on that's not on the record somebody, somewhere is looking to make money. So if you got a complete record of all the money, well that's a ridiculous amount of power. I mean you could try using proxies like a bottle of scotch but that really only works if it's more or less passed around, it's not like the one person with a pallet of scotch can easily convert that to legitimate money. Well maybe by selling to a bar, but then the bar would have to explain how they managed to sell far more scotch than they officially bought. Because you know, no cash.

Re:Danger? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live in a country where the banks are in bed with the government you are screwed anyways. Especially since "ReGooolationZ am bad for U" (TM, pat.pend. (C) 2018 United Morons of Americat)

In civilized countries we have regulations that make it impossible for banks to charge you a 10% transaction fee. If they would try, they would lose their license to operate the bank and the government would shut them down. But hey, I am living in a socialist/communist hell according to most of you so what would I know?

And don't get me started on the "gubernmnt" taxes that pay for my health care, education and gives me and my socialist/communist fellow citizens a decent living standard. They are sooooooooo bad.

Why people are advocating a black economy is beyond me.

Re:Danger? No.

[houghi]

So now it is the stores that could ask for a 10% transaction fee, if they so desire.Oh? That is illegal? So make it illegal for cashless as well.
There are places in the world where it IS illegal for them to do so.

Before you reply with CC, understand the difference between a credit and debit card.

Re: In a cashless society all legal tender is cont

[misexistentialist]

People wouldn't deposit their money in the bank if they didn't have a legal right to withdraw it when they wanted, but in a cashless system they have no control over their money, so the terms of accessing it could be anything. No doubt the economists have their God fantasy all worked out, even in the absence of a crisis there might be limits on how much you are allowed to spend on fast food or gasoline, for example.

I'm pretty close to paper free today

[williambbertram]

The only time I really ever have cash is when someone puts it in a holiday card, or on rare occasions where my son needs it for something that's "cash only" at his school. I definitely never "miss" it, but I'm also 100% positive I don't understand the gestalt.

Some outcomes could be....

[Maelwryth]

....an inability to buy certain sets of products. For instance your card could be refused as you had also bought certain other products that could be combined to make an explosive. You might not even know what those products are.

....centralised control of spending such as a quota on CO2 spending habits or additional taxes to pay for carbon offset.

....geographic control such as we have nowadays (eg; your card was used in Ghana) but fine grained so you have to gain approval from your bank to travel.

....large scale rioting and theft when power and/or banking systems go down due to there being no other alternative currency.

etc.....

Re:Some outcomes could be....

[PPH]

You've eaten HOW MUCH fast food this month??! Your health insurance premiums are going up.

And then there's the booze and cigarettes. Weed? Cannot have, no matter what your state says. The feds have the banking industry by the balls.

Re:In a cashless society all legal tender is contr

[voss]

Why do you think poor people keep money in cash now? Because if you have small amounts in the bank you already have a negative interest rate...its called a monthly service charge or transaction fees,etc.

Read your bill

[shayd2]

If you read a U.S. bill, it says "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private."

Go to a cashless shop; offer to pay with bill(s); sue them.

Just be sure to get good management for your new business

No cash = No privacy

[biggaijin]

When cash is gone, there will be an electronic trail available to tell anyone who can look exactly where and when you have been spending all your time and what you ate for lunch every day, The New Jersey "Easy Pass" system for paying highway tolls had only been in place for a few months before it was used in a court case to prove that a cheating spouse was not where he said he was at a particular time. This is a very small, minor example of what can happen. I prefer cash, thanks.

Re: Not legal in the United States

[b0s0z0ku]

Time to start organizing the (often heavily armed) "mark of the Beast" hyper-religious crowd, then, of which there's a lot in the US.

Re: Danger? No.

[flatulus]

Three times over a 20 year period I chose to do my banking with a regional bank, only to have them bought by Wells Fargo. I finally broke the cycle by going to a credit union. I think (but am not sure) that there are laws preventing commercial banks from acquiring credit unions. So far it's worked, but laws get changed all the time...

Re:Danger? No.

[flatulus]

They used to. Decades ago you had to pay a monthly fee to have an account, unless you had very large constant deposits in them. I would offer that fees are a type of negative interest. I think we can credit competition for wiping this out (but not really sure).

One word

[denis.goddard]

Monero

'Cashless' in a world of ZERO data security

[Rick Schumann]

With the current state of data security everywhere in the world, the world being 'cashless', where everything is paid electronically even if it's a small-change purchase, is roughly equivalent to just walking around bad neighborhoods with $100 bills hanging out of your back pocket, it's not a matter of if you'll get robbed, it's a matter of when you'll get robbed. Fight against this 'cashless' bullshit, it's a bad idea.

Rob you for your credit cards

[bussdriver]

It doesn't work ONLY because they let you LIVE after they steal your cards so you can report them stolen. If they simply put you into a coma or kill you, it'll be a while before your cards are frozen. Same with your phone; after the cut off your finger or beat the unlock PIN out from you.

So much safer to let them have some cash.

FYI

[bussdriver]

In the USA it is required by law that all debts be payable by US Dollars. They can not legally require only an alternative to cash.

Re:FYI

[JesseMcDonald]

In the USA it is required by law that all debts be payable by US Dollars.

Emphasis on debts. Businesses which do not extend credit are under no obligation to accept cash in exchange for goods or services.

It's the same with electric cars

[RogueWarrior65]

Cash is totally anonymous and its use can't be restricted. If you have cash, you can go anywhere you want, any time you want, and do anything you want without having to ask permission from some faceless agency. An electronic payment can be denied if some faceless agency decides that you aren't allowed to do whatever it is you're trying to pay for. By the same token, electric cars are a slippery slope. As long as you have cash, you can buy gasoline and go wherever you want, whenever you want. But if you have to use some internet-connected machine to charge an electric car, the aforementioned faceless agency can decide that no, as a matter of fact, you aren't allowed to charge your car. To be sure, restricting your movement is easier when the car has to get permission to move at all via wireless internet but even if you manage to disable that aspect of it, eventually, you'll have to charge the battery and no charging station takes cash.

Re:It's the same with electric cars

[b0s0z0ku]

Charge at home. Slip a motel clerk some cash to "borrow" their 220v dryer outlet over night.

Re:Danger? No.

[WindowsStar]

Thank you for sharing.

You mean we're not already cashles?

[Tony Isaac]

Of course, I know that cash still exists. But I can't remember the last time I actually used it.

Funny..

[SuperDre]

Not even two weeks ago we had a problem here were noone with a meastro related pin/creditcard could pay due to a malfunction. Also it isn't uncommon for networks being down where pin-machines don't work (or the pin-machines themselves are broken, happens in our bar regularly). Also not everywhere where it's digital only there is a good sign before you enter that it's digital only, so how to deal with customers who don't want to pay digital and only cash (you should always be able to accept cash, even if it's at one station and it's station has a timelock of 10 minutes in case of robberies).

Re:In a cashless society all legal tender is contr

[Agripa]

So there's nothing preventing the government from taxing your savings by declaring a negative interest rate or from bailing out banks using your money (a 'bail-in').

Or they could control the interest rate such that the inflation rate is always higher.

Re:In a cashless society all legal tender is contr

[urusan]

You realize that they can do those things without a cashless society, right? Just pass a law to tax savings or bail out the banks.

Simply moving savings to cash doesn't prevent these actions because it's illegal not to follow these rules and they're relatively well enforced. Your money is already their money.

Racist, against the poor

[ebvwfbw]

Black people often don't have credit so this hurts them the most.

order something; buy something THEN pay

[bussdriver]

If they wouldn't let me pay then I'd leave it behind right there. They can put it away. If it is food.... then it's a debt and it's their fault for letting me eat it before paying for it.

Re:order something; buy something THEN pay

[JesseMcDonald]

If they wouldn't let me pay then I'd leave it behind right there. They can put it away.

If you knew up front that they didn't accept cash then this is pure vandalism. On the other hand, if a reasonable person in your position would not have known about the policy (your first time & not clearly posted) then that would be a reasonable course of action. The store would probably prefer to have their own employees restocking the shelves, actually, just to ensure everything goes back where it belongs.

If it is food.... then it's a debt and it's their fault for letting me eat it before paying for it.

If you're referring to a restaurant where the expectation is that you eat first and pay later, then I agree that this represents a debt and legal tender laws would apply. If you offer to settle your bill in full with cash (with no expectation of receiving change) and they refuse, they can't later legally claim you still owe them for the meal. The simple solution if they don't want to deal with cash is to collect the payment up front when the order is placed.