I was living in a rural area where the poor used the underground economy ( flea markets etc. ) to supplement or offset low subsistence , meager wages and I know the poor in urban areas do as well. A cashless society will be a regressive tax on the poor !
Why we should fear a cashless world
161–170 of 257 posts
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#162Earlier 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?
If I find dead insects in my donut, I'd like to have evidence that I actually bought a donut from them.
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You could also say "there will always be crime, but the harder we make it the less there will be."
Technically true but useless for evaluating the cost/benefit of any specific proposal. If the question is, is it worth pervasive mass surveillance, the answer is no.
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
They need better internal auditors. If you just cut their budget alone, it doesn't decrease waste or fraud. To change the percentage of waste requires accountability for wasting.
Accountability must come from outside government for it to be effective.
Not necessarily, you just need the internal auditors to have independence and the right incentives.
And actually-enforced penalties for individuals in government who stonewall the auditors because they know an honest auditor would want to reduce their budget.
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm assuming for it to work in Italy, you would have to make the reward for reporting non-compliance higher than any discount a business owner could offer.
It would presumably need to be several orders of magnitude higher as I would probably buy more donuts than I would submit non-compliance reports. And let's not forget it's the government that's running this - they don't necessarily need to turn a huge (or any) profit to make this work in the long term. Donut with receipt: $ 1.49 Donut without receipt: $ 1.00 Taxable reward from gov't for reporting non-compliance: $50…
The government would also have to worry very little about profit because the fine for not giving customers receipts could be higher than the reward for reporting non-compliance, which makes the system self-funding.
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#166The push for a cashless society and negative interest rates doesn't paint a good picture about the future of our financial system. It's nearing its well deserved end. The bubble is about to burst and they're trying to release pressure to make it last a bit longer.
The funny thing about negative interest rates is it is one of the few good reasons to buy physical gold, especially with the elimination of large denomination euro notes.
Gold is just another fiat currency, plus at a high value it's even more worthless as a currency since you'd need such minuscule amounts to trade for goods/services.
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly I think that peoples support for paying taxes is proportional to the perceived value they receive from them, and how fairly they are being applied (c.f. Denmark vs. USA - and note that "perceived" is important, and subject to manipulation) I don't know the details, but plausibly could you argue that India's real problem lies in government inefficiency and/or corruption?
>>plausibly could you argue that India's real problem lies in government inefficiency and/or corruption? Your are assuming corruption is an phenomenon that is generated in total isolation without other factors contributing to it. Both government inefficiency and corruption have roots in lack of accountability.
I suspect you can chase the turtles down quite a ways - and I already specified I don't know the details.
It wasn't really about India but about the idea that people somehow inherently dislike paying taxes, rather than feel like they are getting ripped off when paying them. It's a complex issue regardless of the country and culture.
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#168Here 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…
That are mostly the smaller companies (at least in Germany). The bigger corporations also avoid taxes, but the legal way and with electronic transactions.
First politics should do something about this!
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I hope that globalization isn't inconsistent with national autonomy, especially when it comes to taxation and social policy. If these two things are inconsistent, then globalization will lose out in the long run. That would be a shame, because liberalized borders and economies -- if properly regulated -- would benefit everyone. > One possible result of such policy would be that both will turn out to be less intereste…
> Tax rates on the top 1% or 0.5% of earners could double over-night ...
They are not after the 1%, never have, and never will. They are after you and me, my friend. So, gear up for a good fight, because I am giving them zilch. I'd rather flush my money down the toilet.
> So your argument for not redistributing some percentage of the wealth of billionaires is that they're petty assholes who will take their ball and go home?
Yes, and that is why the factories have been rebuilt in China over the last 25 years. It is not going to get any better in the future. I don't know what they will be doing next, but it will certainly not include "redistributing some percentage of their wealth". Why would they? But then again, who cares? I don't want their money. I have my own.
In order to outsmart them, you will have to be smarter, but if you could, you would be one of them. ;-)
Re: Why we should fear a cashless world
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what is it then that makes this kind of fraud common in Southern Europe but practically nonexistent in Germany? (judging from my experience)
Read Tacitus' writings on Germania. While the Mediterranean and Near Eastern peoples were issuing violently long-winded, and ultimately hollow, discourses on the subject of ethics, Northern peoples were holding to faithfully monogamous marriages and living in small communities in comparative peace. What the Southern peoples preached the Northern peoples lived.
Yeah lets look back to a 2000 year old mistly fantasy document that romans used to moralise their own society for our own explaitions. That seems like a great idea. Its not like that line of thought ever had bad consequences.