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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

#111

Post by pjc50 »

majewsky wrote: post #69
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…

So what is it then that makes this kind of fraud common in Southern Europe but practically nonexistent in Germany? (judging from my experience)

It's that nebulous thing called "cultural factors".

There are two stable equilibrium points in a society, one where most people play by the rules most of the time and one where most people ignore the rules most of the time. It's quite difficult to shift from the latter to the former; it seems to be historically associated with Protestantism, which itself could be seen as a movement to ""clean up"" religion from corruption.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#112

Post by mirimir »

BinaryResult wrote: post #60
mirimir wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small payments using BitPay require one confirmation, and that typically only takes a minute or so. Their fee (1%, I think) covers reversal risk.

One confirmation on average is approximately 10 minutes. Most small value payments are acceptable with zero confirmation once the payment has been broadcast to the majority of nodes which only takes a few seconds.

Yes, you're right. No confirmation, just broadcasting.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#113

Post by mdpopescu »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #35
blowski wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that you're referring to Revelation 13:17: > And [the Beast] causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Like most of Revelations, I think this need…

> to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark How else would you describe 21st century RFID using 1st century vocabulary? Revelation was written 2,000 years ago, and is supposed to be about things in its future, after all.

There are Christians, like myself, that do not believe that Revelation is about the future. Look up "preterism".

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#114

Post by mseebach »

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…

You can't have "privacy, but".

Either you have privacy and accept that sometimes, some people are going to use that privacy to commit crimes (such as dodging taxes), or you don't have privacy. If there can be an exception to privacy because tax, then there can also be an exception to privacy because terrorism.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#115

Post by sosuke »

staticelf wrote: post #17

The best tip ever for saving to only spend cash. When you have the physical money leaving your hands it feels like a lot more than inserting a card and pressing a pin code. I am mostly using cash if I have the possibility to, which is kind of annoying sometimes since in Sweden (where I live) there are many "cashless" shops. Even in normal grocery stores checkouts it's like 50/50. I've never visited a country that has…

I did the envelope savings plan. Single cash amount for the month, when the envelope was empty that was it!

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#116

Post by rsync »

clarkmoody wrote: post #94
zzalpha wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. If you don't believe the government has any role to play in, say, paving roads, maintaining bridges, etc, then there's no "cost for society". Well, until the bridges start falling down, anyway...

Ah, the tried-and-true roads & bridges argument. No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things. But if you look at actual government spending, these sorts of infrastructure projects are dwarfed by things like military spending, which could use a reduction.

"No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things."

I live on a very long (two miles) private road that I jointly build and maintain with an association, etc. There is no government role whatsoever, and we even have bridges.

So it would appear that my experience validates your libertarian fantasy world. Look - we're actually doing it!

I've got sour news for you. Even a wealthy, well educated collection of fair minded and well intentioned people find it very difficult to maintain a dirt/gravel road to an acceptable condition. It's very difficult and costly. We are right on the edge of success or failure in this maintenance.

Further, if we were to actually pave the road (a true fantasy) it would be completely, totally unthinkable with regard to cost. Asphalt is paid for by the square foot and it isn't cheap. When you drive by a very quick section of asphalt road being resurfaced ... say 200-400 meters or something - very short ... understand that that is millions of dollars in asphalt work. Millions.

Can you build some roads and bridges without the government ? Sure, of course you can. Will they approach, in any category, even the bare minimum acceptable standard that you hold ? No.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#117

Post by toomuchtodo »

st3v3ndungan wrote: post #110
pc86 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a super easy fix for that, if the people have the will to demand it: require receipts for all transactions, allow consumers to report business who do not give receipts, and have large fines for businesses who still don't. Offer cash rewards to consumers who report businesses that are repeat offenders.

> if the people have the will to demand it I think Mitch Hedberg put it best: I give you a dollar, you give me a donut. End of transaction. What's a consumer's interest in asking for a receipt? Especially when you can get a discount instead?

> require receipts for all transactions, allow consumers to report business who do not give receipts

You incentivize compliance through monetary awards for reporting offenders.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#118

Post by studentrob »

kyrra wrote: post #109
studentrob wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is mostly cash and they use a receipt lottery to encourage people to buy from vendors who give receipts. Each receipt has a number and there's a lottery at the end of the month with cash prizes. Also, people here know they can report a business for not giving out receipts. They might get a share of recovered taxes for that. I don't know all the pros and cons of that setup but it seems there are ways to maintai…

China has something similar as well, called the Fapiao: http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2013/08/13/understanding-... Though as I understand it, it requires a dot matrix printer to populate these receipts (or writing them by hand).

Hmm I don't remember receiving many receipts in China. I spent 3 months there over two occasions a couple years ago. Taiwan's implementation appears more successful to me. Fapiao means receipt, so that makes sense. There is some required hardware or software but doesn't seem any more cumbersome than a credit card machine and printer. Nearly every shop has them in TW.

Edit: reading further I see China is rolling out their lottery in more areas the last few years

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#119

Post by logfromblammo »

grimmdude wrote: post #72
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same effect, different reason.

Once it's in my wallet, it's already spent by my spouse.

I might actually spend as much as 10% of my cash withdrawals myself. I can reliably keep a single $10 bill in there, as the "didn't want to clean you out"-based guilt prevents the very last note in there from being taken.

Of course, now the spouse just takes the debit card from my wallet instead, so I might have to start keeping more cash in there, in case I go to pay for something one day and it's not there.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#120

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rsync wrote: post #116
clarkmoody wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the tried-and-true roads & bridges argument. No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things. But if you look at actual government spending, these sorts of infrastructure projects are dwarfed by things like military spending, which could use a reduction.

"No, I don't believe the government is necessary to do those things." I live on a very long (two miles) private road that I jointly build and maintain with an association, etc. There is no government role whatsoever, and we even have bridges. So it would appear that my experience validates your libertarian fantasy world. Look - we're actually doing it! I've got sour news for you. Even a wealthy, well educated collect…

Hm. I understood that freeway (one of the most expensive roads in the world) was $1000 per foot. $5M per mile. I would expect asphalt to be much less.

Here's a link: http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/policy/costs/costs-D7.pd...

Florida says 2-lane roadway is $3.3M per mile. So a few hundred feed, costing millions? Nonsense.

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