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NYC Politician Wants To Ban Cashless Restaurants (eater.com)
If New York City Council Member Ritchie J. Torres has his way, the growing trend of cashless restaurants -- establishments that accept payment only in plastic and digital forms -- will be snuffed out. From a report: Torres plans to introduce legislation before his fellow city council members that, if passed, would levy fines on any local businesses that refused to accept paper currency. "I started coming across coffee shops and cafes that were exclusively cashless and I thought: But what if I was a low-income New Yorker who has no access to a card?" he says in a Q&A with Grub Street. "I thought about it more and realized that even if a policy seems neutral in theory, it can be racially exclusionary in practice. Therein lies the problem with card-only policies. I see it as a way to gentrify the marketplace."
Torres believes the cashless business model is inherently classist and racist, as it excludes anyone who might not be able to afford smartphones loaded with digital currency such as Apple Pay or qualify for credit cards, let alone the roughly 22 million Americans who do not have bank accounts. "If you're intent on a cashless business model, it will have the effect of excluding lower-income communities of color from what should be an open and free market," he tells Grub Street. In 2009 Wall Street Journal story, Tony Zazula, co-owner of now-shuttered Commerce in New York City, explained, pretty much, yes, that's right.
Torres believes the cashless business model is inherently classist and racist, as it excludes anyone who might not be able to afford smartphones loaded with digital currency such as Apple Pay or qualify for credit cards, let alone the roughly 22 million Americans who do not have bank accounts. "If you're intent on a cashless business model, it will have the effect of excluding lower-income communities of color from what should be an open and free market," he tells Grub Street. In 2009 Wall Street Journal story, Tony Zazula, co-owner of now-shuttered Commerce in New York City, explained, pretty much, yes, that's right.
Paper cash handling is one of the most unhygienic thing you can do around food.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Umm, you can stroll down to your local Walmart, Dollar Store, Gas Station and trade your cash for a pre-paid "credit-card" anytime. You can reload that card too. So even if you don't have good enough credit to get a credit card you could go this route.
Lets not even address the elephant in the room, of in modern society you just need a credit card and internet for that matter to function, so if you do not have these items you need to come up with a work around. Like above.
SImply as a last resort - if you're lost your wallet or phone you can always borrow some cash whereas not many people will let you borrow their cards!
Plus sometimes its nice to be able to pay anonymously and not always be tracked by some financial organisation by using their services.
Once cash is gone then the banks + Apple really will be the ones in charge or your life. There'll be no anonymity and if the bank suspends your account then you won't even be able to buy a coffee never mind pay your rent. All the millenials rushing to ditch cash and thinking its yesterdays payment system might want to think about that for a moment especially given how hot they are on privacy and anonymity elsewhere.
Anyone know how operating a cashless business is legal by refusing Legal Tender?
Isn't the entire point to have a common / ubiquitous currency that is available to ALL citizens?
when I look at a dollar bill, it says "this note is legal tender for all debts, public or private".
So I'd think that if you offer to pay your coffee-shop bill with dollar bills, that's legal tender for the debt you owe then for the service. "A creditor is obligated to accept legal tender toward repayment of a debt."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Politician wants you to give up your choices, want to use the police to force his own choices upon you.
Politician justifies this by telling stories, trying to make you afraid, or angry, or resentful, or otherwise too emotional to ask yourself how any of this is his business, or the business of the police, or anyone else's business. Why can't the people involved in the transaction simply choose for themselves? (Don't ask. Don't think. Emote! Otherwise politicians won't have power over you.)
Are there still a ton of restaurants that accept cash? Yes? Then who cares?
Fix it when it becomes a problem.
I think what's more funny is that he's trying to be politically correct while implying that black people are poor, rather than just saying it negatively impacts the poor.
PC Principal would have broken broken his legs just for that kind of agregious microagression.
I live in an urban area served by Southern California Edison (SoCalEd). Without fire, earthquake, or severe weather, SoCalEd fails more than once each year. When there is an interruption in electricity -- whether it is for 5 seconds or 5 hours -- my Internet service through Spectrum dies, sometime for over an hour after a 5 minute interruption of electricity.
Many Internet-connected devices require electricity. New York City also experiences occasional interruptions of electrical service. How does a cashless restaurant get paid when that happens?
Just strikes me as a horrible thought process, and show how everyone these days is trying to make every fucking thing about RACE.
Poverty knows no skin color.
This guy is the racist for even daring to make such a horrible statement.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
NYC could offer their own pre-paid card with zero fees to their low income constituents. Call it The Big Apple card. Problem solved.
If they haven't sold the coffee to you, then there is no debt, and therefore they don't have to accept your legal tender.
Most restaurants I go to, you get your meal first, and then you pay.
I guess you're right about coffee shops, though-- it's counter service, usually, where you pay then get your coffee.
There's a lot more at stake with a cashless society. Every purchase you make will be stored and analyzed. Do we want that? I thought financial privacy was important to Americans.
The problem that restaurants have with cash is that the IRS can confiscate their cash for making daily deposits under $10,000 that appear to deliberately avoid reporting requirements for depositing $10,000 or more. If the restaurant keeps cash on site to comply with the IRS reporting requirements, robbery becomes a greater risk. Going cashless fixes both problems.
Last trip to NY from Canada, I bought only cash with me because of the cut that my credit card get with each transactions in foreign currency.
If most of the restaurants where cashless, I don't know what I would have eaten.
So instead of banning cashless restaurants, how about the city help the people to get cashless up and running? Instead of tearing down, let's build. Get them an ID and registered to vote at the same time. The effects will show at the next election, you can count on it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Why take away options to pay for your services?
Generally, places will ADD payment options... Not alienate their other customer-base that's been used to the other methods for so long.
I tend to rant.
How about instead of forcing everyone to handle paper and coins, they instead require any bank wanting to do business in NYC to issue a fee-less checking account to anyone who requests it in person regardless of ID status? Maybe cap the maximum total deposit until they meet certain ID requirements to prevent money laundering issues.
Make banking freely available to all.
Ban an establishment from refusing cash, unless there is a business or vending machine within 500ft of
the entrance advertising a service where legal tender can be used to purchase prepaid cards or tokens
which will be accepted by the establishment and at least 20% of nearby businesses, AND when the customer is billed,
the customer's bill at the establishment will be discounted by the sum total of all "load fees" or other charges that could be incurred
from the time of obtaining the card or token until after it is used.
So could people enumerate just what is left in this world that is NOT racist? I am simply amazed that I find the time to be a racist and still get all my work done...whew.
Unless it could be bought anonymously with cash, this wouldn't solve the privacy/traceability issues. But here's another idea. Embed the replacement for the Metrocard (NYC subway pass) with an EMV chip, allow cash reloading up to $100 or $200, and require NYC businesses that don't accept cash to accept it.
[Legal tender] only refers to the US Government.
The notice on a Federal Reserve Note explicitly includes private debt: "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." Cashless businesses avoid the legal tender rules not by asserting that they are "private" but by structuring their transactions to avoid creating a "debt" in the first place. They do this by requiring payment in full up front before handing over ownership of goods or performing a service.
Umm, you can stroll down to your local Walmart, Dollar Store, Gas Station and trade your cash for a pre-paid "credit-card" anytime.
Of course but you think there are a lot of Walmarts and gas stations in Manhattan? I'm sure there are alternatives where you can get a pre-paid debit card but it sure as hell is a lot less convenient than carrying the cash that is already in your wallet. Furthermore there is a cost to doing that. Time, fuel, financing charges (the cards aren't free), etc.
Lets not even address the elephant in the room, of in modern society you just need a credit card and internet for that matter to function
That's not even remotely true. I have had dozens of people work for me who do not have credit cards and a few of them have pretty much zero interest in the internet. You can get by just fine without the internet. Don't confuse what you find convenient with what is actually necessary to function. Hell, there are huge swaths of the US where internet access is dicey to non-existent. I've gone into plenty of restaurants and other stores that are cash only. You can pay for all your bills, get all your food, and pay for your housing and never touch a credit or debit card once. Doing so can be convenient but it's not required.
What the fuck are you on about?
This is a step in the right direction of not having every fucking transaction go through some 3rd party service. You're saying you're against this?
I tend to rant.
If the store tells you in advance that they refuse to provide you with the product unless you will pay cashless, and you refuse to accept those terms, then you have not yet incurred a debt. If you receive the product and then state you will only pay with cash, then the store can just take back the product, again no debt incurred
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
There are cards you can get that are reloadable. It does not need to be tied to a bank account. I do not believe using card is exclusionary...
Those cards also aren't free, whereas in many instances credit/debit cards are.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I agree that correlation !=causation, and would further that Americans DO need to worry about race and entitlement.
I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed, even if they're McJobs.
I boycott the self-scan checkout lines for the same reason. I'm not trying to hang on to concepts of the 1960s, rather, the death of service by a thousand cuts usually means that the labor costs shift into the quarterly earnings report to Wall Street as a "labor savings".
There are people that lead good honest lives in occupations like: janitor, food server, and the jobs that aren't in tech, health care, that don't lead to glorious McMansions and Estates by Lake of the Gravel Pit. But they need jobs. Not installing kiosks.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
What about Kenny and his family...are they also not included because they're low-income, or are you going to be racist and exclude them because they're white? He wasn't able to enjoy Halloween like the rest of Southpark, because he lacked a cellphone to ride a scooter. F'n stuck up New Yorker, you need some Tegridy.
ManBearPig is real!
They do get to live in SoDoSoPa for really cheap though. Of course, SoDoSoPa did die out when Shi Tpa Town got a Whole Foods....
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You remind me of how some black people say that going to college is "acting white" and therefore derided.
I do not believe using card is exclusionary...
Except for
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
While I can appreciate you boycotting self checkout lines, I'll hop over to those in a heartbeat if the human-staffed lines are packed. I'm out of the grocery store in a fraction of the time it would take the human cashiers to ring up my groceries.
> now that the government openly targets anyone with political ideas that disagree with His Worship
Uh,, you do realize that the Obama IRS was blatantly doing that? The bureaucrats haven't been replaced. While the war on coal is no longer in full force, Trump hasn't been nearly as effective at using the federal government for revenge as was his predecessor.
Sorry, but it IS about race. Like it or not this kind of "political correctness" doesn't emerge from a void, it comes from a long history of discrimination in the post-civil war north through the use of financial tools. Just read up on the history of the great migration, when people of color migrated north looking to build businesses and buy homes and do those things we all now take for granted. Stuff like loan refusals and restrictive covenants were (and in some cases still are) used to keep minorities separate and poor, and the shift to operating fundamental aspects of our society upon expensive and exclusive technologies only serve to continue that problem.
The solution to this is the collapse of the US after increased polarization. If NYC becomes a self-governing city-state (free city) and DC is mostly bankrupt, then New Yorkers will no longer have to be worried about being robbed by the filth in DC.
A politician grossly out of touch with what technology is actually available? Well I never
Some people view any rule that restricts the "rights" of big corporations as Marxism and somehow evil. Personally, I'd wear the label proudly.
Just strikes me as a horrible thought process, and show how everyone these days is trying to make every fucking thing about RACE.
Poverty knows no skin color.
This guy is the racist for even daring to make such a horrible statement.
It's how you have to argue things in the modern world. And he could be right: if the poor people in the area the law would apply to are predominately of one race, and the middle class another.
Personally, I think most restaurants just don't want the hassle and occasional robbery that comes with cash, but there could certainly be some that want to keep undesirables away from their establishment (the definition of which may not be what one expects).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed, even if they're McJobs. I boycott the self-scan checkout lines for the same reason.
The flaw in your argument is that you assume incorrectly that using kiosks equals reduced employment. Your theory is simple and logical but the problem is that it isn't supported by evidence. Unemployment rates are right in line with if not better than historical norms. You're making an argument based on truthiness rather than actual facts. What actually happens is that people find other jobs doing other more value added activities. The industrial revolution replaced a lot of manual labor (the McJobs of the era) with automation but guess what? Unemployment didn't increase - people found other jobs that previously weren't available. People moved off the farm to jobs that previously didn't even exist.
Jobs need to actually add value. Jobs that exist unjustified by economic need are nothing more than charity. Charity is a good thing but it shouldn't be a permanent state of existence. Keeping an economically inefficient job out of some misplaced idea that you are helping people causes real economic harm to society and individuals. It makes companies that do it less competitive and in the long run it doesn't do the people in the make-work job any favors either.
damn good, stealing this one
I have no idea where this fallacy comes from, but a lot of people have the same wrong idea.
Yes, cash is legal tender. That means you're not breaking the law when you give or accept it as payment. That says nothing about refusing it as payment. No law requires anyone to accept payment in a specific form.
Depends where in Europe. Some of the former Soviet satellites and Southern Europe are mostly cash economies. They tend to value their privacy. Not every country is Sweden or Denmark.
I don't understand why this is an issue in the US. Most of Europe has contactless debit cards by this time. No income discrimination whatsoever. You get the card when you open your bank account. It works as long as you have enough balance. Depending on the place, popping-up a fancy credit card may even be frowned upon as showing off.
A lot of people don't have regular or sufficient sources of money to maintain enough balance for a bank account, or have necessary documentation (or funds) to open one in the first place. For example the bank I use requires a $100 minimum deposit just to open an account.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Normally, the pressure of decreased customer satisfaction and employee strain would shift an increase in checkout lines. By which I mean lines occupied by someone being paid a wage, not 28 empty registers and a pair of temps.
Normally.
In our guesswhatgoeshere-ist world, nothing happens and you wait away ineffectually. And you might as well hop over to selfcheckout.
"It's just good business."
Politician wants you to give up your choices, want to use the police to force his own choices upon you.
This is the "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" argument. Give up choices? Someone has to give something up here. Either A) the customer has to give up choice of payment type or B) the restaurant has to accept a payment type they might not prefer. Why should the rights of the restaurant supersede the customer rights or vice-versa? Someone has to loose this argument. If the politician does nothing then they are de-facto taking the side of the restaurant. If they act then they are taking the side of the individual. But a side will be taken no matter what. There is no middle ground here.
Except that poverty affects people of color disproportionately compared to whites. Here's a reference - https://www.kff.org/other/stat... From that reference, in the State of New York, poverty rates are: White - 7%, Black - 19%, Hispanic - 18%, Asian/Pac Islander - 13%, Native American - 24%, More than one race - 14%,
Just read up on the history of the great migration, when people of color migrated north looking to build businesses and buy homes and do those things we all now take for granted.
I could but it would be entirely pointless unless I compare it to the outcomes to non-colored people who also migrated north looking to build businesses and buy homes at the same time and place as the colored people.
A customer came in who bought one of those pre-paid credit cards. He wanted to put more money on it. Thing is, we have no way of doing it. He said he doesn't have online access. And he needed money on the card because the hotel he went to required a card. Even though he had cash to pay a deposit. The only thing we could do is sell him another one which cost him a $4.95 surcharge.
Imagine if you were homeless and had to pay $5 every time you needed to get a new card. In my area that's enough to get a container of instant coffee/tea, a loaf of bread, and two cans of vegetables.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
It's kind of sad they need to use the argument poorer people without bank accounts are left out, a perfectly valid and important concern.
But there's a bigger picture concern -- the feedom to transact business without the government panopticon tracking you. We're not talking tracking illegality with a warrant but stopping the removal of yet another roadblock by denying another dictatorial tool as prophylactic against the future loss of freedom.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
reading up on history, great idea; now go read up on those acts of bigotry and discrimination done to the Irish, Poles, etc. in the early USA; not an issue of race, but of some other mechanism people do to include/exclude others divisiveness is the issue, and sometimes race is used, other times it's religion, socio-economic class, culture, sexuality, etc. in the article, the weasel politician is trying to *make* it about race for political gain riding on the back of his White Knight (hehe) facade the no-bias way would be for him to champion all that would be excluded, not just those of 'color'
...perhaps you shouldn't be dining out at restaurants?
Restaurant meals are a luxury, not a necessity.
re-post for edit
reading up on history, great idea; now go read up on those acts of bigotry and discrimination done to the Irish, Poles, etc. in the early USA; not an issue of race, but of some other mechanism people do to include/exclude others
divisiveness is the issue, and sometimes race is used, other times it's religion, socio-economic class, culture, sexuality, etc.
in the article, the weasel politician is trying to *make* it about race for political gain riding on the back of his White Knight (hehe) facade
the no-bias way would be for him to champion all that would be excluded, not just those of 'color'
Another day, another stupid politician playing the race card so that people will pay more attention to what they say
just make dine and dash not a crime in a cashless store. And they will find a way to take cash when someone does not have a non cash payment system.
I think humans should not be employed for anything. My hopefully end goal is that all work is automated, allowing humans to not care about how to make ends meet.
Do you also boycott cars, bikes, and walking to help horse-drawn carriages?
That was my takeaway.
Even poor folks can get a gift card.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Everything that is more expensive than something else would be racist. Toyota is racist because communities of color are less able to afford Toyota cars than Kia cars, and therefore they are excluded from Toyota cars. Why are so many people intent on stripping the word "racism" from any significant meaning?
So you don't support the many people who make kiosks.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
All smartphones have cameras, but not all have NFC chips, especially the cheaper ones. So QR code payments, used allover Asia, in a few chains in the US (including Walmart, Best Buy) would be more accessible. All that'd be needed is a bank account (Chase, Walmart, etc.).
No, they're not going to shut down the subway, they're just not going to arrest people who don't pay because that's racist (the majority of fare evaders are black): https://dc.curbed.com/2018/10/...
restricts the "rights" of big corporations
Corporations are a creation of the state. You are free to do business as an individual or sole proprietor. But if you ask for a license to hide behind an artificial entity, the jurisdiction granting that license gets to set down some rules.
Have gnu, will travel.
Anybody who drinks $5 bad coffee _isn't_ poor, just stupid.
That's Charbucks anywhere, it's worse in Manhattan and other high rent zip codes. Do homeless bums really want artisanal, small plot, central American coffee at $10 a cup?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If the McJobs actually cared about what they did, and got your orders correct, I would agree, but most of the time they can't be bothered.
They are to busy listening to crap going on in the background.
I can't wait for the rest of them to go peopleless. The people do a terrible job and 9 out of 10 times literally get orders wrong.
Same basic issue with checkout lines. You get people that sit there chatting when there are 5 people deep and the person doing the checkout is slow AF. I can go to a self checkout line and be done in a fraction of the time.
(punchline) In the (service branch) the teach us not to piss on our hands.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Personally, I think most restaurants just don't want the hassle and occasional robbery that comes with cash
Yeah, I don't buy that.
Oh sure, dealing with cash certainly has that risk, a risk that credit cards do not have (at least not in the same way), I just don't buy that credit cards are less of a hassle. If they were, you wouldn't see discounts for using cash, you'd see discounts for using a card. But for some reason no one ever offers a discount to use a card, only cash. Furthermore, credit card purchases occasionally have minimum purchase amounts, while I've never seen a minimum for a cash purchase.
But maybe the times are a-changing and credit cards are becoming less of a hassle. All I am saying is that from a historic stand-point, cash has been the least hassle despite its risks.
Yes. They are all in Starbucks, charging their phones and taking naps.
Have gnu, will travel.
I am not sure if the cashless restaurants are doing this as a code to be exclusionary. There is just a lot of overhead dealing with cash, especially in expensive cities such as New York City, where square footage is expensive and to waste it for a cash lock box/register is expensive.
I actually think a good solution would be blocks having a reverse ATM Where people put Cash into a machine and it will provide them with/update a Prepaid card that they can use the services of these venues without needing a bank account or expensive tools.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The article is about DC, not NYC. Also, they're not legalizing fare evasion, just making the fine proportional to the crime and not sticking people with a criminal record for life for it.
Say you don't pay the $2 metro fare. How is that different from deliberately parking in a metered space and not paying for it? Why should one be a slap on the hand and the other a jailable offense?
Oh, yes we do.
Were phone operators inefficient? The telco when I was a kid employed operators. There were no dialpads, not even rotary ones. It was a small town. Eventually, rotary dial replaced the operators, and then DTMF dial pads. Those operators left of attrition, and to do new jobs as the local telco expanded from tip-and-ring brass phone plugs into 411, and other pursuits. Now people say, "hey Siri, call a pizza place near me". This is evolution.
Don't tell me you don't dial into an Interactive Voice Response system and get frustrated by: dial 1 for sales, dial 2 for sales, dial 3 for sales, and for anything else, leave a voice mail in our general mailbox; oh, sorry, mailbox is full. Yes, it's an implementation problem, but it's because we've removed useful humanity in the belief that people would tolerate automated substitutes for human tasks.
Isn't it nice to dial a voice phone number, and have a human answer, who speaks your language, and can dispatch your needs deftly? How many times have you gone through a self-scan and it screwed up and you had to find a human to fix the mess?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
As it says on every US bill, "Good for all debts, public and private"/
I'll point out, also, that decades ago, rental car companies (back then, that would mostly be Hertz and Avis) refused to accept cash. They got better....
For that matter, sounds like a *great* location to launder money....
Last time I was in NYC I had the exact opposite problem. Sit down restaurant, linen tablecloths... cash only. No sign or warning at all until after eating and being told 'we don't accept anything except cash'. There I was with cards only. Had to borrow from the friends I was with. No idea what I would have done if I had been alone or none of us had cash.
So, a NYC black politician is trying to preserve cash transactions because he feels credit cards are racist against blacks. Does he realize that if that black person has cash and really wants that $7 coffee, they can stop into that Duane Reade on the way to that coffee shop and get a reloadable cash-based card? Racism solved. Why not let the market decide if that works? If an coffee shop wants to go cashless and they're willing to lose any cash customers, that should be on them. Or does the black politician want all businesses to carry cash because they remain essentially ATMs for criminals who want to rob the joint? No cash means nothing to rob and that disenfranchises criminals. FBI numbers show that blacks rob at an extremely high rate as compared to whites. Could he be protecting crime as a new black entitlement?
NYC's crime rate isn't particularly high compared to other US cities. I've always carried cash in NY, have never been robbed.
agreed. I support the idea of banning cashless stores because some of us regardless of class or race prefer to use cash. it is legal tender and it should be accepted everywhere.
but this nonsense really turns me off this politician, as he seems to be looking for social justice credit for something that had no need to go there at all
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
do you not driver a car either, to keep those horce and carriage employees working???
better not send any email, gotta keep that post office funded....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Maybe he's using "social justice credit" to sell his idea without being accused of being a paranoid privacy-kook.
Plenty of people who value their privacy HAVE complained about the spread of cashless businesses ... the way to solve an epidemic is to catch it before it becomes pandemic.
Your can get robbed, you need to do overnight deposits, employees can be stealing from the register... A cashless restaurant doesn't have to worry about all this. I don't know the situation in the US, but I guess it should not be too hard to get a prepaid card and top it up at a local store.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Huzzah for common sense. I hope he goes far in politics.
For this argument, that doesn't make sense to rate it per capita.
For gross numbers, total poor whites have always and still do out total number of poor blacks.
So, if there are more poor whites in total than poor blacks, and we go cashless, it actually will affect more white people than black people.
This conversation and subject doesn't affect why blacks per capita are more poor, this it arguing that public businesses going cashless will affect more blacks than whites and that is just not the case, in fact it would be the other way around by pure numbers of people in the US.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Oh sure, dealing with cash certainly has that risk, a risk that credit cards do not have (at least not in the same way), I just don't buy that credit cards are less of a hassle.
There's a lot associated with having a cash drawer. You have to audit the cashier every day. You have to drop the day's receipts at the bank every night, and have a safe to store the money you need at the start of each day.
There's hassle with either payment mode, but clearly less if you just pick 1. Not very customer focused, though.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Or you accept some level of theft, which will probably be lower than the fees charged by banks to accept cards in the US (also theft, just legal).
Besides the usual no power, no network and everything else required for electronic transactions to happen issues. . .
If everyone went cashless tomorrow, what happens when Visa, MC, Apple Pay, etc decide they want more of a cut than they already get by raising the percentage fees per transaction ?
Do we really want so few unregulated companies with that much control over, what will be, the end cost for a consumer ?
Imagine if it were PayPal only and what kind of nightmare that would turn into.
Now let's go back to fare evasion. There is nothing to impound except the person. I can issue you a fine, but what if you refuse to give me your name? Who do I make the ticket out to? What if you do give me ID, but it turns out you already have 10 unpaid tickets over the last year, can I put you in jail then? If there is no room to escalate, then I just give you an 11th ticket and you go on your way.
Not to mention a $50 fine is only about 10% of a rush hour fare. At a point fare evasion starts to be cost effective, considering that pretty much nobody gets caught. (I've personally seen a lot of metro fare evasion, and never seen anyone actually stopped for it)
That being said, if the penalties are too harsh, then metro employees are more likely to look the other way, so there is a reason not to go overboard.
I am not sure if the cashless restaurants are doing this as a code to be exclusionary.
In my experience, entrepreneurs are extremely uncaring about other people's problems, and those cashless establishments are a good example of them concentrating only on their own problems and totally not thinking about others.
Fast Food Kiosks are increasing business which increases the need for more employees to make food and serve customers.
The McDonald's outside of Disneyland has a couple rows of kiosks and business is booming. No more standing in long lines to order and there are plenty of people making food to keep things moving along.
Automation has generally increased the need for labor, not decreased it. McDonald's now has table service.
The cotton gin actually increased the demand for slave labor. When you automate one part of a process, there is necessarily more demand for the non-automated parts.
Work Safe Porn
Never mind going to college, what about being elected POTUS???
But what if you are that panhandler and all you have is cash, and you wasn't to buy something but no one will take your money.
Now granted if you are poor it isn't the best use of your money to buy food from restaurants buy get it for cheaper at a grocery store (and if you are that poor then you should already have SNAP (food stamp)) however if we value freedom, we shouldn't be so judgemental on their spending habits, because they may have a good reason to do so at that time.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
perhaps, but i would prefer the honest approach of "cash is legal tender, accept it or dont open shop in our town/city/state/country
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Personally, I don't carry cash because cash can get stolen. That, and when I get harassed by panhandlers I can just open my wallet and show that I don't have anything.
That will work until one of them creates a Square account, and holds out one of their portable Bluetooth CC and/or NFC readers...
I've been waiting for THAT to happen.
Didn't say that productivity gains were a bad thing, and they're evolutionary, just like that rat bastard Henry Ford's production line.
But I can resist the willy-nilly automation process, which cares far less about people, and far more about squeezing profits to Wall Street.
Lots of economic growth hinges on sheer population growth, without the quality of life that every human needs. I care not one whit whether McDonald's services its queues better with kiosks, and I'll bet you that the net employment there is reduced, not increased. Think about that. Yeah, people screw up. So do machines. Look on any news website about how much Marriott cares about its customer's data today. The apparent answer is: not enough.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed, even if they're McJobs.
I boycott the self-scan checkout lines for the same reason.
I admire the sentiment- but unless many people do the same, it will look like statistical noise to the companies in charge and the boycott won't work.
Now, as I said, I do admire your reason for boycotting those automated things, but personally, I'm not going to join in. I hate dealing with people- if I can deal with a machine instead (unless it's on the phone). I don't want to put people out of work- but I don't want to have to deal with them either.
Interesting fact about the self-scan checkout lines. Average wait time to go through and process and scan is longer than the express check out lines that they're replacing... average person takes longer checking out their own stuff than a cashier will do it. That said, there's a lot of psychology gone into it to make you "think" that they're quicker- for example, placing them next to the exit so it feels like a quicker get away even if it isn't.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I find cash more useful in NYC than elsewhere. I never use cash at home- but when I've been up to NYC on conference there have been street vendors and food places that ONLY took cash. (don't know if that has changed dramatically in last several years). I carried cash when I went to NY but never do at home.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Just thinking, that MOST of the business in the US are small businesses, and not traded publicly on Wall Street.
Sure this helps those companies, but the far majority of them are small, privately owned businesses that do not interact with nor are traded on any stock exchange.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Does he realize that if that black person has cash and really wants that $7 coffee, they can stop into that Duane Reade on the way to that coffee shop and get a reloadable cash-based card? Racism solved.
Seems logically consistent to me; the Ritchie J. Torres of the world argue that we can't expect minorities to provide identification to vote, even if the ID is free and easy to obtain. Somehow the expectation is still racist and exclusionary. Guess they figure trading in re-loadable cards is too intimidating or might expose someone to abuse by law enforcement or whatnot.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Why? Don't you wash your dick every morning (bathe) before leaving the house and start each day with a clean dick?
If you dick is clean, and you don't piss on your hands.....why do you have to wash your hands every time?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There is a local chain grocery store. A friend works there. It was the stated goal of putting in self-scan to reduce the "cashier nightmare" they had. The goal was to reduce 90 cashiers to 60.
So what? EVERY company eliminates costs when it is possible to do so and do otherwise is foolish. Margins in a grocery store are thin to begin with. You seriously think they aren't going to cut costs whenever they can? They don't hire those people because they are feeling magnanimous but because they don't have a better alternative. Hiring someone is an exchange of labor for capital. It's not some touchy-feely crap about "dignity and respect and joy". If you get those things from a job, great, but it's not the responsibility of the company to provide them. If the company does well then it will grow and people working for it will (probably) benefit as a result. But the purpose of a company is not to provide employment.
Whose charity are you talking about?
If I hire you when I have a more economically efficient means to accomplish the labor you provide then I am being charitable to you.
Swiping the margin and paying it to a stockholder rather than an employee is a fool's sense of productivity gain.
You are arguing that companies should hire employees they don't need. If I have to explain why that is a stupid idea to you then there is no point to further discussion. You're thinking of it as a zero sum game and it isn't. The owners of the company (the stockholders) are able to do what they wish with the profits of the company but companies that are going to be around reinvest profits into the company so the company can grow and hire more people. Retaining employees which are not needed hurts the future prospects of the current and future employees (and other stakeholders) the company does need.
You remind me of how some black people say that going to college is "acting white" and therefore derided.
I spent my last few High School years in the US at a majority black High School and was surprised to witness this at my school very strongly. A lot of really intelligent black kids would "act dumb" and get bad grades by not doing homework, etc, not because they were lazy, or unintelligent, but because there was a lot of social-pressure on them to act-dumb.
There are probably thousands of would-be highly gifted scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs doing menial work today because society pushed them in that direction instead of nurturing their gifts.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I am not sure if the cashless restaurants are doing this as a code to be exclusionary.
Yep.
It is more interesting than "exclusionary". Few have followed the shift to
a "rentier" state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_state).
Often the lease for a property includes a percentage ($$) of the till.
So on one side the landlords (and FBI) are pushing for an easy to audit system.
On another side the political kickbacks, protection rackets no longer have a cash till
to drain in difficult to audit ways.
On the customer side privacy games are very much involved.
Did Uncle Ernie pay cash for the lavish meal and wine with Uncle Donald.
If Uncle Ernie is a contractor and Uncle Donald an official then a missing
audit trail has value. That PRE IPO hint, that pre-earnings hint to make a
killing on the street.
Again something the FBI/CIA/NSA/DHS all want to control. Cell phone
location tracking combined with documented extravagant spending might reach
as far as the Casbar in Tangier, Morocco.
Then there are private clubs like THE MAR-A-LAGO CLUB where the club has
club rules for degree of KevinB interactions.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
We shouldn't be judgmental of their spending habits but we should dictate to the owners of the establishments without regard for their "reasons?"
There are no shortage of options if you have cash, particularly options which are viable for people with low income.
There are rules about employment discrimination and even those are morally questionable when it comes to privately held and small businesses. Really, some measure of that is probably fair with the liability immunity that comes with incorporating but since that is basically mandatory in today's legal climate even that argument is weak. A corporation can be two or three people with a convenience store and with preference for minorities and women for SBA loans there is no particular reason these type of establishments shouldn't be able to serve who they want and hire who they want or not hire who they don't want. People have a right to be morons, bigots, or just pick the qualified worker they'd prefer to have around regardless of reason. This shouldn't be an issue because the barrier to start one up with a different policy is ridiculously low.
For mass scale employers of big publicly traded companies it's a different game altogether on hiring but they are still in business to make a profit and it is one thing to require a neutral or less profitable path, in today's society it may well cost some businesses more to accept cash than they take in. Sorry Tony, you're just going to have to start laundering your walking money as well.
Maybe in that case, they fire up their phone's wifi hotspot and do it that way. Unless your cell service is down, too.
Or unless the shift manager's phone's wifi hotspot ends up connecting to a captive portal operated by the telco that returns an unknown issuer error for all HTTPS requests and redirects all cleartext HTTP requests to a form to pay a surcharge for hotspot access, as the shift manager's cellular plan happens not to include enough (or even any) hotspot data transfer allowance.
so a low skill job goes away and a few different high skilled jobs appear.
There is no lack of low skilled jobs. Just because a grocery store doesn't provide one doesn't mean the local farm or a restaurant or a machine shop or a landscaper won't hire the person. Hell, a lot of Americans of a particular political persuasion like to bitch about immigrants "taking their jobs" but despite the fact the argument is wrong on many levels it obviously implies there is a job there to be taken. Farms need help and can pay a certain price for it. If you think you are too good to do that work then that is your problem. The work will be there regardless.
Whatever happened to "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." I believe it is STILL on each and every denomination of "paper" (cloth) money in the U.S.
Therefore, I don't see how a merchant can FORCE someone to NOT pay with cash.
So, what happens when you go to the restaurant, and when they present the bill, you just give the server cash, claiming you didn't know about the cashless policy?
Do you REALLY think they wouldn't accept it, rather than be "out" the amount of your meal? And do you REALLY think they could call the police on you and have you arrested for "failing to pay", when you showed the cop the money for your meal?
I think not.
Just strikes me as a horrible thought process, and show how everyone these days is trying to make every fucking thing about RACE.
I see the problem even more fundamental than that. How do you have barriers in your society that prevent 6% of your population owning a bank account? How is it that someone doesn't have a bank account or bank card simply because they are "poor".
When you go to the bathroom are you thinking about others? How about when you make yourself a bowl of soup? Are you thinking of others when you deposit your paycheck? And no, not your family/household, that is just a larger group of self because it is all one closely dependent team.
Is there some particular reason these guys should be "thinking of others" in their moves while they try to eek out a living? It isn't like they are closing the doors of cash businesses. Those others like you and those you are talking about obviously aren't thinking about the small business attempts that will be bankrupt and abject failures because of something like this. No doubt you see some rich guy in a slick suit working from a skyrise in your head, in reality there might be some of those overseeing franchising or something but the people who are hurt are John, Jose, Jamel, Sandy, and Sarah who saved up to get enough money just to turn around and borrow the rest to start that franchise. Now they'll lose their life savings or simply not have this lower startup cost opportunity and never break out of the hamster wheel, the rich guy in a slick suit will just do something else. This is especially damaging for John since he already had to work the hardest and save the most because everyone else on the list gets waived requirements and preference for SBA loans while John who grew up on food stamps is 'privileged' even though he systematically has to outperform everyone else to get the same opportunities.
This guy is the racist for even daring to make such a horrible statement.
He's just being a jerk by sensationalizing racism, like what you just did.
Honest approach? From a politician? *spews coke out nose*
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Well he's talking about New York City and here poverty definitely is defined by race. The kids at school who aren't getting enough to eat are never white, etc ... Around the country this definitely isn't true, lots of white poverty. This law is for Manhattan. I know a kid (white) who can't buy ice cream with the dog-walking money because the local too-cool ice cream shop went cashless.
I always pay with plastic, I get points, but I'm all for this law. It costs to take cash but that's the cost of doing business. Like a sales tax or zoning laws it's a municipal decision.
Even if they do give you a bank account, you aren't guaranteed a MC/Visa Debit Card.
My bank in the US issued me an ATM card only.
Valid only in branch, and at Bank ATMs only.
No VISA/MC Association.
No ability to make debit purchases in person.
No ability to make credit purchases online.
So, only useful to work with cash.
I miss European Banks.
If you can get my Bank to issue me a debit card, and not just an ATM card (not valid for purchases), I'd stop complaining about card-only places.
The bank will issue you an ATM card (NOT a Debit Card), that is only functional in bank-owned ATMs and in at the branch.
The ATM Card has no ability to make purchases, just deposit and withdrawal cash.
The card looks like https://img.letgo.com/images/8...
And it's annoying af.
Maybe they should worry about it because of the fact that cash says right on it, "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private."
I love Canada's solution to the Wheelbarrow problem.:
Coins have a legal tender limit per person per day.
the 51st penny paid to an entity in a day is not considered legal tender.
(Don't recall the exact limits, but it's about 1 roll of each deonmination of values = $1, $50 for coins valued $2-$5; Single coin for denominations $10+)
They don't have to accept your transaction terms. They can say no.
Of course they don't. Never argued otherwise. The problem is that SOMEONE is going to have their options restricted. Either the restaurant is allowed to continue to refuse cash transactions and the customers lose choices or the restaurant is forced to accept cash and the restaurant loses choices. Whether the government acts or does not, either way the government is making the choice for someone. No action is still an action even if it is the right thing to do.
For the record I agree with you that the proper course of action is for the government to stay out of it. If the company doesn't want to take cash then that is the company's problem. I don't see any compelling public interest here necessitating government intervention. There is no lack of alternative eating establishments that still take cash so it strikes me as a non-problem.
Exactly! These are things that any kiosk can get perfectly right but that low-skill humans don't give a crap about doing right. This week on two different dates and at two different locations I was pressed for time in the morning and opted for my guilty pleasure of (don't judge me) Two McDonald's Sausage Egg McMuffins for breakfast. I don't know what it is about those damn things but I'm their bitch and crave them. First day I pull through the drive through and end up with two sandwiches that have no sausage on them. It's in the damn name people! Second time I ended up with two sandwiches that had no egg on them. I cant wait for machines to start handling this.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Not making any judgements here, but as with most profit seeking businesses, they normally do some kind of cost/benefit analysis, i.e. increase pay for our 25 workers by $3.00 per hour, weekly cost assuming each worker gets 20 hours is $1500, annual cost is $78,000 (in the hopes that all of our worker will be more loyal and will refrain from steeling in the future) OR go cashless, which saves money (i.e. more efficient, no bank deposits, etc.) at the expense (perhaps) of some customer dis-satisfaction). If it was your business, which would you choose?
Unless you actually say that payment is to be made in a specific manner, it's not defined in the verbal contract.
Federal Law says no business is required to accept cash, unless mandated by state law.
If the business has a clear "No cash" policy, it is an easy argument to make that the implied currency was not Cash; and that the purchaser entered the contract with "No Cash" being part of the agreement.
That was the PR. The reality is that it shrinks long term full-time-equivalent employees, and improves queue management.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
"I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed"
What about all the kiosk designers, engineers, installers, maintainers? What about when the kiosks are upgraded? Who are you putting out of work by boycotting them?
In my experience, entrepreneurs are extremely uncaring about other people's problems
Well, they are and they aren't. They care a great deal about solving the problem they're trying to solve in a way that people will pay money to have the solution. Or to be specific, they're trying to solve the problem of customers being hungry and wanting convenient and tasty food at a good price. As others have mentioned, part of the "good price" bit is not having to deal with cash.
As an entrepreneur, you can't solve every problem for everyone. I'm sure they recognize that some people like to use cash. They are deliberately deciding they are willing to forego that business in order to streamline their operations. Whether that's racist or classist, well, I don't know if they lost a lot of sleep worrying about that. You'd have to ask them.
A $2 fee for each deposit means that for someone with access to smaller amounts of cash at a time, the fee will make up a greater percentage of the total amount deposited than it would for someone with access to larger amounts of cash at a time.
Anybody who drinks $5 bad coffee _isn't_ poor, just stupid.
Yeah, that's why you should buy $5 good coffee, that is to say, Philz. Literally $5 a cup, totally worth it.
That's Charbucks anywhere, it's worse in Manhattan and other high rent zip codes. Do homeless bums really want artisanal, small plot, central American coffee at $10 a cup?
I dunno but I see homeless-looking people bumming money outside the local Starbucks all the time. Sometimes I see them inside buying something (but I don't pay a huge amount of attention to what).
I also don't support the robbers and thieves of humanity. There are industries that will find their Darwinian end. So it goes.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Hey Council Member, why not propose a city budget with more police and other enforcement so businesses will feel more comfortable with the risk of cash? I'm pretty sure the NYC robbery, larceny, and embezzlement rate is not zero.
Yes, but in this case there will be a larger proportion of the black population that will be discriminated against, in effect perpetuating racists' notion that blacks are inferior.
That will work until one of them creates a Square account, and holds out one of their portable Bluetooth CC and/or NFC readers...
I've been waiting for THAT to happen.
I've seen quite a few bums with phones, but none that have caught on to mobile payments yet. If enough people stopped carrying cash, I'm sure they'd figure it out.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Um, if you RTFA, the city councilman's concern is not about privacy or third-party transaction services, it's about people not being able to buy things in cashless stores because they don't have cashless accounts, which he thinks is "exclusionary". I'm just pointing out the illogic of this, but you go ahead and rant about your privacy, which no one involved in this is threatening, if you like.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
I wasn't aware you had to be a "big corporation" to run a coffee shop.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
OK, so suppose one of the coffee shops or bakeries in this story were a sole proprietorship. Would you *then* be OK with them having a cashless transaction policy?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed, even if they're McJobs.
Do you also happen to ride a horse, and light your home with kerosene? Are you going to get arrested for shooting at the delivery drones, when they start putting your local UPS drivers out of work?
Technology has been putting people out of work ever since the industrial revolution. Society will continue to adapt. It may not be initially pleasant for everyone, but if enough people are disgruntled, change will materialize. It always does.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Pretty sure it's the same in the UK.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It sounds like neither of you understands what that means. In one sense it refers to the fact that fed notes are considered "legal money" and can legally be used in place of the gold and silver the constitution requires but the courts have interpreted it as not requiring.
The notes are legal tender for debt because US currency is based on debt, all federal reserve notes represent debt and are promissory notes. Essentially, they are IOU's the federal reserve issues at its discretion. Each dollar note represent a "dollar" of debt. Although the President nominates the chairperson, the Fed is a private bank and as Donald Trump recently discovered to his dismay, they do what they want and make a profit to a handful of private interests.
A token nod to the actual law is that the treasury prints the bills but the Fed buys them at printing cost and the Fed issues digital currency at will.
no no no your supposed to put it IN the nose!!!!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I have never in my life had to pay a $7.95 monthly service charge (or any other service charge) on any non-prepaid credit or debit card, and I use normal banks (not credit unions) who you'd expect to screw you over if they had a chance, and started off in this country with no credit and have had periods of great credit (when I was single), and terrible credit (it's amazing what how a baby will wreck your organizational abilities...) Who the hell are you banking with?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"But what if I was a low-income New Yorker who has no access to a card?" [...] it can be racially exclusionary in practice."
So being short on money is a race now? Or is it that you are biased on that some race associates with the inability to make money?
1) You are a fucking racist.
2) USA has a problem when simple social problems need to be disguised as something else for somebody to do something about them.
How many times have you gone through a self-scan and it screwed up and you had to find a human to fix the mess?
This is also an implementation problem. The self checkout machines have no way of knowing if you're honest, so they treat every user as if they're trying to walk out with the store. So, when the scale malfunctions or you accidentally double-scan something, it doesn't trust you to override the error.
All of the stores which let you use an app to turn your smartphone into a self-checkout scanner avoid this idiocy (most likely because it's not anonymous, as you have to make an account to use the app). I wish more stores implemented this, because scanning stuff as you're putting it in your cart saves a lot of time.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
"Is there some particular reason these guys should be "thinking of others" in their moves while they try to eek out a living?"
Not at all. Even more: that would be highly unexpected.
And that's one of the reasons why we have laws in place: for people to do the necessary when otherwise they wouldn't be inclined to.
"It sounds like neither of you understands what that means."
A lot of blah, blah just to say "...and, well, This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private."
Wish I had mod points!
While there is no particular reason these people should be thinking of others, their priorities can have an aggregate effect and thus can be examined for regulation. The entire point of regulation is handling behavior that the involved parties would not otherwise do on their own.
Let us not forget the fate of the humble horse. Sure their work was automated away, but that did not free up most horses for loftier endeavors. Most of them were put down.
In a world where you don't need poor people for their labor, and the wealthy own the means of production, why bother continuing to have poor people at all? They don't own the robots, they will not make ends meat, they will just starve.
I attach a loofah to an orbital sander. Gotta get that thing clean.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I've used the kiosks at several McDonald's locations. At the end of my order it tells me to take a number, find a table, and my food will be brought out to me. This has never (ever) happened. I sit awhile and then go the counter where they give me my food. When I point out that the kiosk told me they would bring it out they tell me every single time that they were not aware of any such a thing, and I should just come get it.
Yes.
Google "amazon cash"
Cashless businesses can't be racist, because the refusal to take paper money doesn't show hatred to a racial group
But let me guess - you carry a phone because phones canâ(TM)t be stolen?
those are distinct things, but it's a fact that minorities are more likely to be poor. I mean, seriously, that's just a fact.
It's also a fact that there are more poor white children than black. The takeaway there is that poverty is indeed a class problem, hence calling out the class.
So why call out race at all? Because of de facto segregation tactics. These are most commonly used in the south, but there's lots. For example, after schools were desegregated in the 60s white folks pushed heavily to fund schools with property taxes and then set up new school districts while passing laws against sending your kids to a school outside your district.
Now think about cashless society and the poor. Imagine you're a racist, or your clientel is. You don't want blacks in your shop but you can't legally refuse service. So you go cashless, knowing that most of them don't have credit cards. Maybe some do, but you can then use another defacto segregation technique: using zip codes to influence credit scores, to weed more of them out. Well, you don't personally, but your buddy on the board of directors of so and so does....
If all this sounds nuts it's because it is. Racism isn't rational except in that the ruling class uses it to divide and conqueror the working class. But for your everyday racist they're not thinking, they're feeling. Or their nuts. Same difference.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Or to push a political agenda and force people to act in a manner there isn't any sane reason they should. We have laws to keep someone from something underhanded, dishonest, keep a level playing field, etc. The law doesn't exist to force people to sacrifice themselves for others as if they should value those others more highly than themselves!
This entire concept is valuing a group that is pitiable over a group that is actually productive and contributing to society, not because there is any actual need but just for the sake of doing it.
The wants of the homeless buying $5 coffee at Starbucks do not outweigh the wants of a small business owner putting his or life savings into building a drive through self serve coffee kiosk. Just because we need to recognize the poor man as human and having rights doesn't mean those rights outweigh someone elses. It certainly doesn't mean we should support measures that will result in more people who are poor and homeless. What the hell kind of thinking is that?
This guys concept of racism is worse. Racism is an attitude, it is a feeling. The entire reason it is wrong is that race is artificial concept and not a valid way to group people in the first place. There is absolutely no reason anything should be done or not done because of how it INCIDENTALLY impacts some quantity of people who happen to fall in a completely arbitrary and meaningless category by accident of birth.
I thought financial privacy was important to Americans.
Why would you think that? Banks and credit card companies sell all of your information all of the time. It's 100% legal in the US.
I don't respond to AC's.
The wants of the homeless do not outweigh the wants of these people. There is no justifiable reason why one should cater to the other.
Race is an arbitrary indicator of nothing meaningful. The only reason how something impacts one racial group should be examined is if it is the result of some deliberate action for precisely the reason that race is not a meaningful indicator or basis for action! Incidental or coincidental impact some significant quantity of people who self identify as one race or another or share some random physical trait isn't a valid reason to do anything in its own right.
If menu items are priced out-of-reach of lower economic classes, can the city force them to lower their prices?
What about when the hobo pulls out his Motorola and asks you to Venmo the money?
Yes, I asked for an ATM card only, not a CheckCard, since my previous card had been compromised by fraud. This allowed criminals to purchase directly from my account without a PIN.
In my area that's enough to get a container of instant coffee/tea, a loaf of bread, and two cans of vegetables.
That sounds like a very gross sandwich, I'm betting you're British.
Just remember, In HELL:
The police are German
The cooks are British
The engineers are Italian
The administrators are French
The lovers are Swiss
The politicians are American
You're right to boycott fast food kiosks. A recent test of the touchscreens at McDonald's locations in the UK showed that every one of them had poop on the screen, specifically human gut bacteria.
My doctor's office uses touchscreen kiosks for check-in. The next time I'm there I'm going to ask if they've checked those screens for bacteria and viruses, and how often they clean the screens. You'd think doctors would see the danger before the general public, but you never know.
That says nothing about refusing it as payment. No law requires anyone to accept payment in a specific form.
Apparently you aren't catching the word ALL there. That means no exceptions. Cash must be accepted when offered as payment.
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
Dollar: it's the law.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
A cup of charbucks is almost crack money.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Yuck. More latex gloves in my pocket.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Put a cash-to-card reverse ATM a few blocks apart.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The funny thing is that credit cards actually cost the business 1.5-3% more than using cash. If they were to go cash only I'm sure they could save enough to set aside 2 or 3 square feet for a register and lock box. 8^)
Baring any local business licensing regulations, yes.
Have gnu, will travel.
I suggested the reverse ATM after you did. They could be placed every few blocks. Standard ATM safety guidelines apply.
In addition to the non-exclusionary explanations you provide, cash is an invitation to walk-in robberies. Also, proprietors have to arrange for depositing/withdrawing cash at least twice a day and, many times, make cash runs or hire armoured cars
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
So, it's like capitalism and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You fell for the trap.
Go back to basics:
The only RACE this motherfucker is concerned about is his own political one.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Asshole. That's called, "acting orange."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... I boycott the self-scan checkout lines ...
That's "soft protest."
I go to the self-checkout and press, "page attendant."
The attendant asks, "How may I help?"
I say, "You can scan all this stuff for me. Thanks."
That doesn't affect much change at grocery stores, but it sure as hell did at Home Depot. They pulled those stations.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
BULLSHIT. There are plenty of overpriced locations that manage to deal with cash. Some even leave you no other option. This makes it a dangerous prospect to travel without at least some cash as backup.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Oh sure, dealing with cash certainly has that risk, a risk that credit cards do not have (at least not in the same way),
The maximum personal risk from the theft of a credit card is $50. So you might as well have as many Grants in your wallet as you do pieces of plastic.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Parts.
Itâ(TM)s probably in a case.
Good screen? Cash.
Battery? Cash.
Well the whole thing overseas? Cash.
At a minimum, you could simply LOSE your phone by forgetting it somewhere. Are you not going to carry a phone because you might lose it? How is it any different than the risk of someone stealing it?
Either way...refusing to carry ash because it might get stolen is a fairly regarded rationale.
SImply as a last resort
Actually, given the typical restaurant model where you have your meal first and then pay afterwards, isn't cash still a last resort? Legal tender in most countries means that the law requires that they accept cash for "all debts public and private". So a shop or fast food place can refuse to accept cash because you pay first and, if you do not offer a means of payment that the business will accept, they can simply refuse to do business with you.
But a restaurant is different. If you have eaten the meal already you are effectively in debt to the restaurant so aren't they obliged to take cash to pay off that debt? Indeed I'd be curious to know exactly how the restaurant could force the issue. It seems unlikely that the police or courts would intervene if a customer offered cash to pay for the meal they had eaten and the restaurant insisted on a credit card...and I'm never going to find out in practice since I almost always pay using plastic!
He's trying to create am anti-discrimination law, so he needs to tie it to some discrimination against a group legally protected from discrimination. While it is illegal to discriminate based or race, it is not illegal to discriminate based on someone's account balance or lack thereof. Welcome to politics and lawmaking.
....says that not accepting cash is perfectly fine:
https://www.expertlaw.com/libr...
For myself I wouldn't bother to do business with such an establishment, but hey.....it's a free country.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
The law doesn't exist to force people to sacrifice themselves for others as if they should value those others more highly than themselves!
Never heard of the draft I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The thing is, if you're a business, depositing cash in a business checking account usually incurs fees of its own:
* Do you have an employee carry the cash to the bank? HUGE insurance premium, because you're going to get sued for a small fortune if that employee gets mugged on the way there.
* Do you pay an armored car company to pick up the deposit? This costs money.
* Are you a sole proprietor who carries your own deposits to the bank? You're probably insane, because eventually you WILL get mugged by someone.
OK, one way or another, you get the cash to the bank and hand it to the teller. Guess what? Counting fees, cash-deposit fees, and additional surcharge fees for coins. If you're a business, banks constantly hit you up for fees in BOTH directions.
Cash is only "free" for a business to accept if it turns around and directly uses that cash to pay its employees, vendors, rent, and the owner takes the remainder home and deposits it straight into his own personal bank account. And if you do this, your accountant is going to absolutely hate you & charge you more for their services.
I've heard of all sorts of bad laws.
Like many laws, depends on use.
Other examples include that Captain of the Italian cruise ship that ran aground being sent to prison for not making sure the passengers were safe before he left the ship. And even the law about yielding to a pedestrian, even if they're unimportant, or using a handicapped space instead of letting an unimportant cripple use it.
While you're right that ideally laws shouldn't force people to act civilized, unluckily there is a whole class of self-important assholes who will abuse others, often without thinking, because they feel more important then their fellow human beings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
That doesn't mean what you think it does.
Bruce Perens.
If enough people figure it out and they read Slashdot, it will happen.
FTFY
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
LOL Like Kevin Hart asking Tony(Bradley Cooper) and Jennifer Lawrence to 'black it up' while the couple were dancing, in the Silver Linings Playbook
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."
This statute means that all United States money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law which says otherwise.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
The story references New York City.. New York is in the United States. US law applies.
"this note is legal tender for ALL DEBTS, public and private". enuf said.
Well, you're fucking wrong. ENOUGH SAID.
"The law doesn't exist to force people to sacrifice themselves for others as if they should value those others more highly than themselves!"
Are you sure? In two words: military draft.
"It's really just the government's way of asserting that "this is not just a piece of paper, it's money.""
It's a bit more than this: "...for *all* debts". On one hand, the fact that bank notes is "money" doesn't preclude other "things" being money, but, on the other, is legal money in any and all cases and, thus, should be accepted.
Of course, the government was probably not thinking on all corner cases, but I think it was indeed thinking of a case very relevant to this one, as the main use case for that phrase can be theatralized like this:
- Here, the money I owe you.
- No, no, no... I *insist* you pay me in minted gold.
- Sorry man, you are unlucky because The Government insists that I surely can pay you with these pieces of paper and you have no recourse: either you accept them or resign the debt.
Now, change "minted gold" for "credit card". We may have forgotten this original meaning, and we made things no better by going against it in some "common case" scenarios since, for instance, we find natural somebody not accepting a big note, say 100$, much less 1000$ (if even the receiver knew it's still legal tender), for a little payment (well, not to give change, to be precise, not exactly the same, but still...).
This is more common than you think. For instance, my bank will charge me $10 a month. BUT...to avoid that fee I let them transfer $25 from my checking to my savings. (I, of course, transfer it back the very next day out of spite.)
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
No, the draft is a bad use of law. There is no ethical use of a law forcing people to participate in murder or risk their lives for a cause they don't believe in.
"because they feel more important then their fellow human beings"
Everyone should be more important than their fellow human beings... to themselves. The false rationale is when every self-interest is treated as if it has equal value. Some things cost you very little and would mean the world to someone else. Other times a sacrifice is something you can bear and it is an investment in goodwill or supports a cause or ideal that has itself grown to a greater importance to you than the sacrifice, since it is still pursuing what you want that is still self-interest.
The best use of law is to protect your ability to make those choices and decide what acting civilized means for yourself. The next best use is ensuring those who have drive and merit succeed in proportion while those who lack those things are relatively less successful. This means encouraging automated coffee kiosks for artisian coffee that a hard working middle class person could open. This means encouraging the kind of climate where that homeless man who can't afford the coffee can show the slightest bit of drive and instead press the apply button and get a job restocking the machine.
No other person is better than you. There is no reason you should be putting others on a pedestal taller than your own. There are situations where I will put others ahead of myself but not when all else is equal, when all else is equal the deciding vote should be for yourself. No matter what other teams you are on, everyone should be on team self! That is just survival instinct and self-worth 101.
And for the record, the slick suit wearing scumbag middle-man peddling the franchises and taking a profit that means they are more expensive and there are less of them and the homeless guy who can't be bothered to apply... I can't see giving either much consideration short of "being human" and the very simple reason that matters is all of us are human. The higher we make the point that is the lowest a human can fall, the higher that point is if unforeseeable circumstances strike and we or those we care about fall. Personally, I'd hope that one day we set that bar somewhere in the crappy one bedroom neighborhood rather than sleeping in your own piss and vomit by an illegal burn barrel but we need to remember that aside from the mentally ill, almost all of those people could have some kind of shitty part time job if those choose to do that instead.
No, this is a common misunderstanding combined with a bit of an urban legend. There is no actual obligation to accept the currency accept by the Federal reserve which issued the promissory notes. There is plenty of precedent for others to refuse, stores will no longer accept a bag full of pennies, no shortage of gambling establishments will only accept their own tokens, coupons, and chips. The USPS will only accept their stamps. In this case, US dollars are being accepted, they just aren't accepting cash. This is no different than a gas station that won't take hundreds.
"No, the draft is a bad use of law."
No, it isn't: ask the Swiss. You may very well disagree with such kind of laws, as you are perfectly entitled in principle to reject any part of the social contract -at your own peril, but that's exactly why the law exists.
"There is no ethical use of a law forcing people to [whatever]"
That's what you say. But law is exactly that: forcing people to [something]. Well, not exactly forcing, but declaring what the payment for some actions will be, in the hope you'll see them as not worthwhile (that there's a law against murdering does not preclude you doing it; it just states what society is committed to do against those that do it). If you happen to agree with the law, its spirit and application, that's a bonus -but just a bonus.
"No other person is better than you"
Which goes both ways: you are no better than any other person.
"The best use of law is to protect your ability to make those choices and decide what acting civilized means for yourself."
I sincerely think that, since there's only one life to live, nothing should preclude me to take the most of it, as there won't be any other time nor place to do it but here and now. If you happen to be what takes me apart from my free pursuit of happiness you may very well die and take out of my way. I even think my argument to be self-evident like that of all men being created equal and independent, therefore I hold this truth to be sacred and undeniable for others to behave in exactly this same way that I concede to myself (oh, but I happen to be the first-born of a powerful warlord, so good luck with that).
What I mean is, in the end, there will be things when you will have your very reasonable arguments (to you, at least), and I will have my own (I mean, the *really* reasonable ones... to me, at least). Now what?
"Or to push a political agenda and force people to act in a manner there isn't any sane reason they should."
Maybe.
Now: what are sane reasons or insane ones? Moreso: who are you to tell me if *my* reasons to force people to act this way or the other are sane or not?
"There is plenty of precedent for others to refuse, stores will no longer accept a bag full of pennies, no shortage of gambling establishments will only accept their own tokens, coupons, and chips."
Now, what would you think of me answering just this? "I've heard of all sorts of bad precedents."
Oh, the irony!
A customer came in who bought one of those pre-paid credit cards. He wanted to put more money on it. Thing is, we have no way of doing it. He said he doesn't have online access. And he needed money on the card because the hotel he went to required a card. Even though he had cash to pay a deposit. The only thing we could do is sell him another one which cost him a $4.95 surcharge.
Imagine if you were homeless and had to pay $5 every time you needed to get a new card. In my area that's enough to get a container of instant coffee/tea, a loaf of bread, and two cans of vegetables.
The last time I checked, all of the cards available in my area also had transaction and monthly fees which slowly deplete the balance anyway. So you are charged for the card, you are charged for possessing the card, you are charged for using the card, and you are charged for not using the card.
One reason for this is state laws which require "abandoned" funds to be turned over to the state. With a monthly fee, there will never be any abandoned funds and the card issuer gets to keep the money instead of turning it over to the state.