And then there's companies like Square that decide to tie their political ideology into their terms of service.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/square-guns/index...
In praise of cash
331–340 of 369 posts
Re: In praise of cash
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be the devil's advocate here, what situation can you imagine that would warrant a person to legitimately hide information or keep secrets from their own government?
Not everything that is a law should be. Why is marijuana even illegal? Can ANYONE even answer that in the context of alcohol being legal? So yes, for this any many other reasons, it's good to keep secrets from the government. By the way, pot is just an example, you can literally dig millions of unjust laws up if you looked, we're all just conditioned to OBEY.
Alcohol is involved in a very large number of deaths in the US every year. A very large proportion of suicides, automobile deaths, shooting deaths, diabetes deaths, and so on are directly caused by alcohol consumption.
It's not like we need more people running around with impaired decision making ability.
Re: In praise of cash
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh, where I live in Brooklyn there are no places that take card for less than $20 (sometimes $10). It definitely required some adjusting.
Almost certainly a violation of their agreement with their card processor. If you want to be a jerk, you can pressure them into taking your card.
Minimum spends are allowed so long as it's posted.
Re: In praise of cash
#334The 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…
And don't forget that 'payment processing' is never free. In fact, it is never even a flat fee despite the fact that it does not actually cost anything more to transfer a larger number over a network than it does a smaller one. Yet people seem to have no problem handing over the majority of their economy to 'processed' payments which empower banks with the ability to do nothing less than levy taxes and exert the same…
> In fact, it is never even a flat fee despite the fact that it does not actually cost anything more to transfer a larger number over a network than it does a smaller one.
A flat fee doesn't inherently make more sense either, as the marginal cost of processing a transaction is negligible. The costs come from the infrastructure.
There are many ways they could price it, but relating it to transaction size makes a fair amount of sense, since people making larger transactions are demonstrably able to pay more.
Re: In praise of cash
#335You can already feel the pain in CN. Almost everyone is using WeChat in tier 1 cities. WeChat is like WhatsApp/FB-Chat but with integrated Paypal-clone. It has also an integrated Didi app (Uber/taxi hailing).
You feel the pain if you don't have a local bank account and therefor cannot use the WeChat wallet. So you cannot hail a Taxi with Didi, you have to do it the old way by waving the hand. It's already really a pain, if you don't look like a local but being a visitor from the west. I heard there are restaurants that accept no cash anymore. It's also not so great that bank debit cards now have some regional lock, you have to deactivate it before you travel abroad, otherwise you cannot use ATMs there. Been there, learned it the hard way, good I had 300 USD in cash with me to survive 3 days until the debit card region locked got processed around the globe to enable ATM cash deposit. Let's hope current kind of paper cash stays around and will be a legal and common payment method for a long time to come.
Re: In praise of cash
#336The 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…
Uh, no. Paying with cash is exchanging a promise that someone else, usually the central bank, will pay the bearer on demand the value of the promissory note. Even if you could actually exchange the note for its equivalent in precious metals — which you can't — you're still just exchanging a token without intrinsic value. Its only value is conferred entirely by the monetary whims of the government. Governments can, an…
>This is something you have literally no defense against.
People can be on either side of any trade. If you are worried about inflation, be short cash.
Re: In praise of cash
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be the devil's advocate here, what situation can you imagine that would warrant a person to legitimately hide information or keep secrets from their own government?
Not everything that is a law should be. Why is marijuana even illegal? Can ANYONE even answer that in the context of alcohol being legal? So yes, for this any many other reasons, it's good to keep secrets from the government. By the way, pot is just an example, you can literally dig millions of unjust laws up if you looked, we're all just conditioned to OBEY.
Because they have different psychological effects. One makes you think, the other makes you stupid.
Re: In praise of cash
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With Bitcoin, neither of those is true. How much money is in my Bitcoin wallet?
Once you give out its address for someone to send you what they owe you they will know, which is not the case with your physical wallet or your bank account.
They'll know how much is in that address, but a wallet consists of many addresses. How do you find all of the other addresses?
If you watch for long enough, you can wait for a transaction that spends from the address you know, and you might find some other addresses that were spent with it.
It's true that a non-zero amount of information about your Bitcoin holdings is leaked. But it's not true that that amount is 100%.
Re: In praise of cash
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never gone so far as to have a second bank account. But I'm guessing a brokerage account could basically serve as the same thing.
Yes, absolutely, most brokerage accounts let you request ATM card/debit card/checks to access your core position. Additionally, Both Fidelity and Schwab let you open a free checking account(1) as well with no balance limits and ATM reimbursement. Second bank account is more important than second credit card, IMO. Being locked out of your cash is much worse than being locked out of your credit. (1) technically they ar…
>Being locked out of your cash is much worse than being locked out of your credit.
As a general principle I tend to agree. But, when traveling, having something that functions as a credit card can be pretty important. (Of course, if you have a healthy cash balance and a debit card, that works equally well.)
Re: In praise of cash
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you ask for a cash discount?
I've been doing this by just straight up asking. "Is there a discount with cash?" "No" "Ok, I'll pay with my card" Merchants prefer cash as card costs them money. Usually works with dry cleaners, cafes, etc. Big businesses generally say no.
Merchants don't always prefer cash. There's trade-offs to both. If merchants always preferred cash then there wouldn't be merchants who go cashless, and there are.