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Why we should fear a cashless world

theguardian.com

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Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#71

Post by knodi123 »

0xCMP wrote: post #38

I love being cashless honestly, but I see the benefits of using cash for transactions. My problem is that I usually do things online and plus I'm always feel much more secure knowing my Amex would be fully protected vs cash. Day to day I'm not worried I'll get robbed, but in the off chance I'm somewhere where I might I'm much happier carrying no cash and just my Amex.

> I'm always feel much more secure knowing my Amex would be fully protected vs cash

Seems like the opposite should be true. Who cares about losing the amount of cash a normal person carries in their wallet to a mugger? If you get mugged often enough for it to have a real effect on your finances, then maybe you should move.

Conversely, if the only thing in your wallet is some plastic that will probably be cancelled within half an hour of the mugger fleeing, then he has two separate motivations to kill you; 1. how dare you not give him easy cash for his quick junkie fix, 2. if you're dead, the card will go uncancelled for longer.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#72

Post by grimmdude »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49
mikegioia wrote: post #10

I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible. There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and…

Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. Mentally, money in my account is "my money". Cash I've withdrawn feels like already-spent money. Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Might be a generation-to-generation thing.

Yep, I share your same mindset. Whenever I take money out of the ATM I typically only take what I need right now because once it's in my wallet it's already spent.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#73

Post by kamaal »

carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

>>let's remember that this kind of hidden economy has a huge cost for society and it's very widespread in southern Europe.

Any where, where there are cash transactions this is an issue. In India, apart from salaried people taxed at source almost anybody else rarely if ever pays taxes. Its assumed taxes are only what stupid people pay.

And since they make up for a huge vote bank, any move to introduce reforms for cashless payments are resisted. Plus contribution to political parties happens in cash so politicians themselves don't want it.

This leads to a situation where the tax burden is expected to be endlessly on the salaried middle class and they are expected to pay up unfairly all the time.

Privacy aside, the true reason is people just don't want to pay taxes.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#74

Post by walterbell »

rickdale wrote: post #36
mikegioia wrote: post #10

I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible. There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and…

There are so many privacy benefits to using cash I like to use cash a lot too. And the privacy benefits are true sometimes, but more and more places want your information when you purchase anything. I bought a weed wacker the other day and they wanted my address and phone and email. I never say no, but instead reply with, "555 Fake Street" which is obnoxious, but its like you don't need my damn address to sell me law…

How many people use 555-areacode-1212 for loyalty card search at the cash register? It's an offline equivalent of bugmenot.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#75

Post by borispavlovic »

carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

There will always be ways to evade taxes and the problem with Italy, Greece and other southern societies is not technical but a weak government which can't impose the already existing laws to their citizens, public workers and politicians themselves. Going cashless is not an excuse for an incompetent tax office and Ministry of Finance.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#76

Post by darkclarity »

mikegioia wrote: post #10

I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible. There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and…

Similar for me, but I resisted using cards in real life from the beginning. I use them exclusively for internet transactions. I just don't like the idea of giving up a freedom of anonymity, yet I notice others are seemingly jumping at the chance.

I'm not sure what I would do if I lived in a city where electronic transactions are a requirement for public transport. I guess I would walk as much as possible... or even move to an alternative place.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#77

Post by b2384912 »

gizi wrote: post #52
nmrm2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really mean globally, then inequality is in fact falling. No. Inequality is decreasing between nations as the developing world catches up with the west. But inequality within nations -- even developing nations -- is increasing. It's possible for inequality to increase as the the developing world catches up to the west; in fact, that's exactly what's happening. So the old geographical distributions are very s…

> and lessen nation states' ability to combat inequality with policy Ok, one person is a great programmer making good money and another person is not interested in any of that and makes less money. I do not see any inequality here that needs to be combated with policy. One possible result of such policy would be that both will turn out to be less interested. You cannot turn the losers into winners, but you can certai…

>convince them to build their next factory in China instead

No, the government doesn't do this, the shareholders do this (this includes the CEO). It's a huge red herring that delays automation from happening. Even China nowadays invests heavily into automation.

>At the basis, quite a bit of inequality is caused by the fact that some people happen to be smarter

Everytime I hear the word "talented", "bright" or "smart" on HN I don't even know what it's supposed to even mean anymore.

Somehow you deserve to be called a genius because mommy got you a contract with IBM and you decided to buy off an OS from some random guy for $50,000 and then made it run on IBM's computers.

There was also that guy who screwed over his cofounder with some social network.

Yeah sure they are now two of the richest humans on this planet but I don't think their success can be attributed to their "talent" alone. They very likely are not capable of pulling it off a second time.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#78

Post by lmm »

borispavlovic wrote: post #75
carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

There will always be ways to evade taxes and the problem with Italy, Greece and other southern societies is not technical but a weak government which can't impose the already existing laws to their citizens, public workers and politicians themselves. Going cashless is not an excuse for an incompetent tax office and Ministry of Finance.

There will always be ways to evade taxes, but the harder we make it the less tax evasion there will be.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#79

Post by kamaal »

agentgt wrote: post #68
carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

This is exactly what happened to Greece (my in-laws are Greek). Greeks and Greek Americans are completely cash based. Consequently the government has no idea how wealthy its residents are and tax evasion is extremely rampant. I'm sure that isn't the only reason to Greece's problems but I bet it did have a huge impact.

>>I'm sure that isn't the only reason to Greece's problems but I bet it did have a huge impact.

These sort of problems run quite deep and have unintended consequences.

If money is not traceable, you also give way accountability. Opening up a door for corruption to happen easily, unchecked and unaccounted for. Rinse - Repeat for some time and you will see there are new problems due to corruption, which breed other new problems and so on..

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#80

Post by spystath »

carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

Exactly the same thing happens in Greece. It used to be very common for shop-owners to "forget" to give you the receipt. After the crisis broke up though people are way more likely to ask for receipts as there are some incentives to do so (minor tax cuts for a specific amount of receipts etc.). Credit/debit card transactions have also tripled since 2008 or so which is good I guess. Things are different with doctors, lawyers etc. though, since virtually noone accepts cards and sometimes you might even need to argue with them to actually print you one. Thus you have some ridiculous incidents of doctors with apparent annual income of 9000 euros which is ridiculously low even for lower class standards. It's getting better, but it's a whole culture that needs to change for these incidents to cease. People using credit/debit cards is a step to the correct direction. In our case a cashless world might even be good.
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