The Political War on Cash

This is an alarmist piece on negative interest rates.<p>The real war on cash is driven by consumer convenience, the IRS, and Anti-(Drug|Terrorism|Vice) government agencies. Government agencies want a paper trail to catch tax evaders and illicit activity.<p>Whenever I see a very popular business (usually a bar or restaurant) that takes &quot;Cash Only&quot;. I think to myself &quot;Tax Evader&quot;. Which may or may not be true. Sadly, they are painting a target on their back.

You can still buy gold (and if they try to ban that, they&#x27;d have to ban jewellery also, so good luck trying that). Gold isn&#x27;t actually that dense - in terms of currency it&#x27;s about as dense as $50 bills[1]. Platinum or palladium maybe?<p>[1] Assuming this site: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;1000000-euro.de&#x2F;how-much-does-a-million-dollars-weigh&#x2F;index.php#weigh-dollar" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;1000000-euro.de&#x2F;how-much-does-a-million-dollars-weigh...</a> is correct.<p>Edit: Of course I&#x27;m confusing density with mass. Anyone want to work out the volume?

Civil disobedience matters. Use cash and cryptocurrencies only.

Italy&#x27;s limit has been raised from 999.99 to 2999.99 at the beginning of the year. It means you couldn&#x27;t pay 1000 in cash, now it&#x27;s 3000.<p>Any banknote larger than 50 Euro is very uncommon here. ATMs don&#x27;t give them. Anecdote: I was sure the 200 one is green and when I googled for the 100 note I discovered that it&#x27;s the 100 which is green; the 200 is yellow. I remembered correctly that the 500 is pink.<p>Doing without the 100 USD bill would be problematic for tourists in those countries with very minimal credit card penetration and that insist to accept only pristine very recent bills, the ones that in the West would be looked at with suspicion. Example: former USSR central Asia countries.

Having no high denomination bills is also very problematic.<p>I witnessed it firsthand in Argentina until very recently, and in Venezuela and other hyper-inflation countries it&#x27;s still a huge burden.<p>Spanish-language links:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.elpais.com.uy&#x2F;economia&#x2F;noticias&#x2F;argentina-reclaman-billete-mas-que.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.elpais.com.uy&#x2F;economia&#x2F;noticias&#x2F;argentina-reclama...</a><p>Translated quote: &quot;Not having higher denomination bills leads to very high costs in transportation and storage because of the large volumes handled and because bills don&#x27;t fit in small safes.&quot;<p>Other curious facts: Singapore has a 10.000 dollar bill (U$ 7.500), and Switzerland has a 1000 CHF bill (U$ 1070).<p>However, the Singapore bill won&#x27;t be printed anymore, for the same issues (money laundering concerns).<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.out-law.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2014&#x2F;july&#x2F;singapore-to-stop-issuing-10000-dollar-notes-to-combat-financial-crime&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.out-law.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2014&#x2F;july&#x2F;singapore-to-st...</a>

I&#x27;m not registering to read full article but the other mainstream articles list curbing terrorism &amp; crime as the main reasons. None mention the possibility of cash withdrawl in a negative rate environment. (Can anyone verify?) But I find it hard to believe we&#x27;ll go negative since it would destroy the money markets, &amp; possibly pensions.

I don&#x27;t want huge denominations, but assuming inflation over the last 50 years, seems to me that we should have a $500US note.<p>Yes, I understand if LE had their way we&#x27;d be paying with 5-spots, but convenience has to mean something also. Let&#x27;s bring back the $500 bill and then index the entire thing to inflation such that there isn&#x27;t more than a dozen or so steps between the smallest and largest monetary units.<p>I don&#x27;t think this is a political discussion&#x2F;argument we need to have constantly. Fix it once and then leave it alone. I&#x27;m also completely opposed to eliminating all currency and going totally electronic, which sounds like an even more dystopian state than the current one our betters have created for us over the last decade or two.

All cash transactions will now have to be done in coin. Have a weighty day.

In the unfolding of this agenda, when they invariably claim only criminals use these notes, remember what they mean by &quot;criminal&quot;. It is anyone who holds wealth outside of the mainstream financial system where they, the government and banks, could confiscate it with negative interest rates.<p>Negative interest rates will never &quot;work&quot; without also having <i>capital controls</i>.

You can&#x27;t ban $100 bills because huge number of those circulate in countries all around the world, most of them poor. Some families&#x27; fortunes consist of a few such bills in countries of Africa or Central Asia.<p>What&#x27;s your plan here?

would hate to see the death of cash. it would pretty much mean the entire black market would have nowhere to go. meaning a lot of people would be without an income. of course governments want this, but should they? <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakonomics.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;11&#x2F;01&#x2F;the-black-market-is-the-second-largest-economy-in-the-world&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakonomics.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;11&#x2F;01&#x2F;the-black-market-is-the-s...</a>

in this surveillance society, cash is a threat because its still anonymous. Bitcoin is not anonymous!

one has to subscribe to see the whole article

Non-paywalled version: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wsj.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-political-war-on-cash-1455754850" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wsj.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-political-war-on-cash-145575...</a>

This article is ridiculously biased. The actual reason the EU reps want to phase out the 500€ bill is that according to the latest data, over 90% of those bills are used for criminal activity. Can&#x27;t look up references well as I&#x27;m on the phone, but you read that right: only 10% of the bills are used by regular people. All the rest of it is used by crime syndicates because the larger the bill, the easier it is to move illegal money.