61–70 of 74 posts
What happens when power grids fail, or if war ever breaks out in Europe and internet banking fails as a result? --- At least with cash you can still get the staples at the store.
I guess what would happen is that people will invent new cash as needed. Cigarettes being the classic example.
House of cards. Cashless societies mean: the unbanked are further isolated and prevented from engaging in commerce. Older generations are left behind. Just trying to switch bankid login from old phone to new phone is a PITA, and I'm tech savvy. Lack of anonymous transactions means that my banks know about my vices such as gambling, porn, or strippers. Cascading failures - payment network crashes means no one can auth…
This can't happen if you can take cash out (and to a lesser degree if you can buy gold/silver).
House of cards. Cashless societies mean: the unbanked are further isolated and prevented from engaging in commerce. Older generations are left behind. Just trying to switch bankid login from old phone to new phone is a PITA, and I'm tech savvy. Lack of anonymous transactions means that my banks know about my vices such as gambling, porn, or strippers. Cascading failures - payment network crashes means no one can auth…
One of the primary reasons for the push for cash-less societies is for the government being able to put a negative-interest rate on personal savings (for economic and social reasons - none of which are good). This can't happen if you can take cash out (and to a lesser degree if you can buy gold/silver).
House of cards. Cashless societies mean: the unbanked are further isolated and prevented from engaging in commerce. Older generations are left behind. Just trying to switch bankid login from old phone to new phone is a PITA, and I'm tech savvy. Lack of anonymous transactions means that my banks know about my vices such as gambling, porn, or strippers. Cascading failures - payment network crashes means no one can auth…
One of the primary reasons for the push for cash-less societies is for the government being able to put a negative-interest rate on personal savings (for economic and social reasons - none of which are good). This can't happen if you can take cash out (and to a lesser degree if you can buy gold/silver).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find this approach really curious. All the transactions can be monitored by third parties anyway as all the pos systems are networked and subject to even lesser legal scrutiny than banks. Random adverisers can and do build comprehensive profiles. A company is us claims to have full profiles of all Americans. And yet, if there's a chance a citizen might benefit either via less hassle as in the cash case or via bette…
I think GP's point re cash was just that cash transactions are typically anonymous. Obviously you can get around that by e.g. matching up till receipts against video surveillance and facial recognition tech, but I'm not aware that that happens routinely, so in practice you probably have a fair degree of privacy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find this approach really curious. All the transactions can be monitored by third parties anyway as all the pos systems are networked and subject to even lesser legal scrutiny than banks. Random adverisers can and do build comprehensive profiles. A company is us claims to have full profiles of all Americans. And yet, if there's a chance a citizen might benefit either via less hassle as in the cash case or via bette…
I think GP's point re cash was just that cash transactions are typically anonymous. Obviously you can get around that by e.g. matching up till receipts against video surveillance and facial recognition tech, but I'm not aware that that happens routinely, so in practice you probably have a fair degree of privacy.
Why on earth is this considered a good thing? Haven't we learned anything about mass surveillance in the last five years?
I do not worry about mass surveillance that much. With all the cameras anonymity of cache quickly disappears in any case. What really bad is when a police or any arbitrary guy representing a state can order to freeze all the cards and bank accounts for an individual. This is already happening in Russia and is used not only against political activists but sometime against arbitrary persons through police bribes by the…
Why on earth is this considered a good thing? Haven't we learned anything about mass surveillance in the last five years?
I do not worry about mass surveillance that much. With all the cameras anonymity of cache quickly disappears in any case. What really bad is when a police or any arbitrary guy representing a state can order to freeze all the cards and bank accounts for an individual. This is already happening in Russia and is used not only against political activists but sometime against arbitrary persons through police bribes by the…
I live in Stockholm and haven't used cash for several years. I have no cash on me ever, no coins, nothing. It's liberating. I get very annoyed when travelling and I rediscover the cash-based society and the need to always predict how much cash to carry.
I find the opposite is true, that cash is liberating. 1. I always know how much cash in in my pocket. I typically carry $30-50 which is plenty for everyday transactions. 2. It's easy to budget with cash. You can never spend more than what you have. 3. I don't have to worry about paying off card balances. 4. The chances of getting a credit / debit card stolen are a lot higher than having my cash stolen, eliminating th…
As for your other points: Swedes use nearly exclusively debit cards directly linked to an account (so no bills to pay, no interest, no risk of spending more than you have). We all have apps to monitor our account balance.
For P2P payments we use Swish, an app linked to your bank account and your phone number. It lets you pay instantly to anyone with a phone number and it's "free" but of course locks you in to your bank. The UI is decent.
As for "supporting your community by eliminating overhead" I think the overhead is higher for cash, and many businesses seem to prefer cards (many now, like banks, are cash-free). Also, eliminating cash has the advantage of making it harder for businesses to avoid paying taxes.
I also agree that paying with your phone sounds worse than using a card (which takes seconds and never runs out of batteries), but maybe you get your privacy back?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the primary reasons for the push for cash-less societies is for the government being able to put a negative-interest rate on personal savings (for economic and social reasons - none of which are good). This can't happen if you can take cash out (and to a lesser degree if you can buy gold/silver).
Government does not meddle with interest rates. Not here, at least
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11895084/How-Sw...