I would never support getting rid of cash, it's a basic right to spend money without being tracked.
In praise of cash
11–20 of 369 posts
Re: In praise of cash
#12In my experience as a college student, it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. While you can argue that one should be able to reasonably break laws and not get caught - anything else is a surveillance state and there is value to discretionary enforcement - I wouldn't characterize criticism of cash as just manipulative. For example, on my campus, t…
In europe most of the population seems to prefer to pay in cash (for clothes, groceries, electronics etc. pp.).
Re: In praise of cash
#13After having my card skimmed for the 4th time (at a gas station pump, at checkout at grocery store, etc), I decided to pay for everything with cash. It's not worth the hours it takes to clear up things with the bank and I get a better understanding of where my money is being spent when my wallet gets light.
Re: In praise of cash
#14The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things: * Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents * Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea tha…
I can go weeks without touching cash these days. Nonetheless, I find the idea that I could be prevented from making a person-to-person financial transaction for even a modest amount without a paper trail pretty unsettling.
Re: In praise of cash
#15In my experience as a college student, it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. While you can argue that one should be able to reasonably break laws and not get caught - anything else is a surveillance state and there is value to discretionary enforcement - I wouldn't characterize criticism of cash as just manipulative. For example, on my campus, t…
There's also these weird remote countries nobody has ever heard of where 1/3 (estimate, but more than 10%) of restaurants only take cash, paying amounts Oh, by the way, one of these countries is Germany.
Re: In praise of cash
#16The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things: * Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents * Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea tha…
Bingo, I think you nailed it.
The cashless society – which more accurately should be called the bank-payments society... is a utopia where money cannot leave – or even exist – outside the banking system, but can only be transferred from bank to bank.
Such a system replaces a relationship between two parties with relationships between those parties and the bank. If either party falls out of favour with the bank, they can't do business with each other.
Re: In praise of cash
#17In my experience as a college student, it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. While you can argue that one should be able to reasonably break laws and not get caught - anything else is a surveillance state and there is value to discretionary enforcement - I wouldn't characterize criticism of cash as just manipulative. For example, on my campus, t…
In europe most of the population seems to prefer to pay in cash (for clothes, groceries, electronics etc. pp.).
Except Sweden apparently.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/04/sweden-cash...
Re: In praise of cash
#18My biggest concern is the frightening fact that all of these cashless systems are powered by private, for-profit banks. I'd be more fine with a move to cashless if the fundamental system which powered it were operated by the Fed (for free, as a public service), not Visa or Mastercard.
Re: In praise of cash
#19After having my card skimmed for the 4th time (at a gas station pump, at checkout at grocery store, etc), I decided to pay for everything with cash. It's not worth the hours it takes to clear up things with the bank and I get a better understanding of where my money is being spent when my wallet gets light.
How many hours will you spend at the ATM withdrawing cash?
You get a better understanding of spending by feeling your wallet then by looking at your bank statements? That smells like a false pseudounderstanding.
Re: In praise of cash
#20While I agree that cash is extremely convenient and largely anonymous, it is still much more of a hassle to manage than credit or debit cards are. I lived in NYC for a bunch of years and the one thing that I absolutely do not miss is paying for >$100 dinners, entirely in cash, because the restaurant was "too cheap" to handle processing and transaction fees.
Did you mean less than? The processing fees part is throwing me off. I do agree though, in Japan I'm seeing a lot of credit or phone based transactions , I almost never carry cash now. Side note: my wallets last longer!
Greater than, makes paying in cash annoying