Banning cash is such a monumentally bad idea its a miracle of modern propaganda that a single person is willing to even consider it. From negative interest rates to ubiquitous tracking of your every move and purchase (by stores, banks, governments, and whoever else they choose to share the information with), to the total paralysis society would face from any sort of blackout or network disruption, to limitless technical vulnerability by hackers, eliminating cash is truly one of the worst ideas ever conceived. Its bad enough that the government enforces a legal monopoly on currency. Extending that monopoly to digital-only currency is a huge step in the wrong direction for business, commerce, and freedom.
Cash is public, banks are private.<p>Half of the problem with cash could be solved by ending the war on drugs. The war on drugs has created a class of people whose main economic function is to transfer wealth from the public to the worst people in society. This is a many-headed monster that robs/burglarizes/steals money from average people, and vacuums it into a global system of money laundering. The cost is mostly absorbed through higher insurance premiums and more costly welfare schemes. The physical needs of this class of people are often carried by family and charity.<p>No cash could kill this, but so could treating drugs like simple agricultural and/or chemical products and regulate the distribution.<p>All costs of the war on drugs are covered by the public. All profit by heavy criminals.<p>Sort this first, and then get back to cash and its utility in evading taxes.
I've never heard a credible argument of how a fully cashless society could operate under conditions of natural (or man-made) disaster. The multi-day blackout in the Northeast US, flooding, tornado, earthquake recovery, targeted cyber attack, etc.<p>The idea that because the electronic payment system is readily available on all of the "good days" doesn't mean it will be available at a time of strife.<p>Cash works without electricity, without phones, and without network. That's a killer feature.
Once an intermediary feels secure in their position, the temptation to use the position to further other goals becomes pretty irresistable. Consider Square:<p><a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/25/gun-shop-owners-longer-hip-square/" rel="nofollow">http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/25/gun-shop-owners-longer-hip...</a><p>They are actively seeking to erode 2nd amendment rights. What other do-gooder impulses will Square pursue? Perhaps they'll next infringe on our 1st amendment rights by prohibiting payments to organizations they disagree with.<p>We see the same thing with speech brokers such as Facebook. Want to exercise your 1st amendment rights? Not on our platform!
"There's huge interest in cryptocurrencies and what perhaps they can create in the market place. Now we at MasterCard are not completely comfortable with the idea of cryptocurrencies largely because they go against the whole principle that we've established our business on which is really moving to a world beyond cash and ensuring greater transparency.. If you think about it, cash is a problem for a number of countries. Cash really facilitates anonymity, it facilitates illegal activity, it facilitates tax avoidance and a range of other things that aren't going to drive efficiency in an economy"<p>-<a href="https://youtu.be/bO4jHXjCXw8?t=2m57s" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/bO4jHXjCXw8?t=2m57s</a><p>"If it's an anonymous transaction, that sounds like a suspicious transaction. Why does somebody need to be anonymous?"<p>-<a href="http://youtu.be/bO4jHXjCXw8#t=4m12s" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/bO4jHXjCXw8#t=4m12s</a><p>MasterCard SE Asia President on cryptocurrencies and cash
> He (Kenneth Rogoff) argues that, apart from facilitating crime and tax evasion, cash hampers central banks from setting negative interest rates.<p>I think a lot of the "war on cash" boils down to this. Central Banks want to impose negative rates on us to try and get us out of the mess of having too much debt in the system. Cash makes this difficult.
I wish I could upvote this ten times. This is the clearest and best written exposition of what cash really is and why it matters that I have ever seen. Well worth taking the time to read the whole thing.
> We are fighting a broader battle to maintain alternatives to the growing digital panopticon that is emerging all around us.<p>This is just one of the aspects that support stronger governments and corporates that put the interests of themselves and a tiny section of the population (those who help these get even stronger) above everything else. While some people discuss about this or mass surveillance or tracking, most of the populace isn't even aware how liberties are being lost and how "the power of the people" is becoming more of a carefully constructed mirage. Things seem to be moving in the direction of a dystopian society where appearances mask reality and common people are kept complacent with entertainment and other things to keep them occupied.<p>I don't see a cashless world happening in the next few decades, because it will take a lot of work to get people out of poverty first while some entities focus on removing cash. Even if it were to happen, a cashless society would still have many different pseudo-currencies and barter systems (like those that exist in different contexts and systems today). What's worrying though is that in the future many goods and services may become inaccessible (if one wants to avoid electronic transactions) unless one resorts to the black/gray/underground markets.
Currently down. Mirror:<p><a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?site=&source=hp&ei=njm4V6TuJorKmwGIsJaoBQ&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fthelongandshort.org%2Fsociety%2Fwar-on-cash&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fthelongandshort.org%2Fsociety%2Fwar-on-cash&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.3...11998.19363.0.20202.8.8.0.4.4.0.113.755.4j4.8.0....0...1c.1j2.64.mobile-gws-hp..0.7.373.3..0j41j46j0i131k1j0i46k1j0i3k1.As2uiZpw-U8" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?site=&source=hp...</a>
I was expecting yet another puff piece on the advantages of some app-based alternative. A good exploration of some of the disadvantages of cashless society.<p>Only thing they have missed is the indirection of cashless - the further you are from actual money, the more you're likely to spend, especially impulsively. Works for credit cards, game currencies, and undoubtedly for cashless apps.
I hereby resolve to use cash as often as I possibly can, to show in my own small way that "the market" still demands the cash option.<p>The small inconvenience of carrying around a few bits of paper and metal is worth it to protect the rights of those outside the banking system.
This article fails to touch on who issues the money. In particular in the example of the Rai stones it fails to ask what if the ledger keeper could magic up stones all over the island to capture labour by eroding the value of the current stones.<p>Really for me this is one turtle down the stack and he needs to ask who creates credits and what that means.<p>edit: and right on queue in my twitter feed an article on money creation as theft:<p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/meet-the-man-who-d-revolutionize-money-from-the-inside-out" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/meet-the-m...</a><p>edit2: and every single time I submit to a post on money on HN "you're submitting too fast please slow down"! What a surprise...
Tracking isn't the problem to prevent tax avoidance at the point where avoidance becomes immoral.<p>UK last month: Grosvenor dies leaving 9bn GBP in land to his son. We have inheritance tax in the UK, the son should have received a bill of several billion which would fund our health service.<p>They know where all the assets are, but the UK govt has a special loophole for rich people: trusts. The son inherits the full 9bn GBP.<p>It's all tracked but the UK is totally corrupt.<p>Given the above example how will the state act against the rich when all "money" is tracked because it's electronic? They won't touch them.
I am 100% more concerned about the negative interest rates motive than the dependence on financial institutions for payment (which is also worrying)<p>Having said that, yes, cash sucks. Small coins suck even more and I rejoiced when countries started rounding prices to 5c on cash payments
What stops banks from implementing a negative interest rate today? Practically nobody keeps a large amount of savings in cash. Such a policy would be really lousy in a society where retirement planning is largely a private affair, though.
This might be a naive question, but has there ever been a successful non-profit bank-like financial institution?<p>As I was reading this article I thought of iPredator.se, which provides a non-tracked VPN service. Their USP is "We don't track anything you do". I wonder whether there could ever be a cashless option that offers a similar service. This of course would only address the concerns of privacy and profit-driven interests, and not the other serious concerns raised in the article.<p>Has there been/could there ever be a bank like that?
Well if someone comes up with, and popularizes a system that can actually replace cash then we should consider it. I would be thrilled to use something like bitcoin or taler to pay for my groceries. In the mean time we are stuck with physical cash. Credit and debit systems are good for some stuff but are simply not technologically advanced enough to replace cash. In fact, actual electronic cash would to some extent make credit and debit obsolete, as well as causing a great many other changes.
"Much fintech 'disruption'..." revolves around eliminating slack and incompetence of the low grade employees. Once you've tried services of an average investment banker, and paid 1% entry fee,1% exit fee, and 1% annual maintenance fee, you'd see fintech needs in a different light.
I love being able to throw some cash at a taxi driver, or to use cash at a grocery store and just get out of there.<p>As it is lineups at stores are really really slow since every single person has to fiddle with a card and a PIN to pay for their coke and chips.
I like cash too. I'd like to see a smart start up do for cash what Square did for credit card payment. A super simple way for a small store to manage it.
The cashless society is hugely convenient though. Wouldn't it be better to accept that it's inevitable, and solve the privacy issues?<p>For the year 2016, and excluding rent, 3.1% of my expenditure has been cash. I've used an ATM five times. [More-or-less; foreign spending isn't on this statement. In Germany I use more cash, in Norway I didn't use cash at all.]