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Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

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Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#161

Post by gloryjulio »

noduerme wrote: post #46
shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

> what are the main benefits of going fully cashless One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office. At the systemic lev…

What's wrong with junk food?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#162

Post by mc32 »

efitz wrote: post #147
mc32 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the threat to civil liberties was exposed in Canada when the government saw it fit to freeze people's bank accounts. I believe this is being reviewed and maybe something will come of it so that the gov is not allowed to cavalierly freeze accounts in the future, but you can see how even liberal people are ready to violate people's civil liberties when they see it fit. It's like principles are only followed when t…

The US has wantonly applied “sanctions” all over the place, which in lay terms means “we take your money electronically and/or prevent you from moving money”. This has been applied both against governments and individuals, even individuals not accused of any crime in the US.

Yes! We have faithless actors as well. Civil forfeiture is another one. They should not be able to confiscate people's property until they have had due process and found to have unlawfully come to said property.

I use Canada as an example because it was a vast and wanton act by the government affecting and threatening thousands of accountholders at once.

It's a shame we don't have more libertarians representing the interests of the people in the Congress.

Can only hope whomever might be the next president would have the Coglioni to reform civil forfeiture.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#163

Post by seanmcdirmid »

walterbell wrote: post #26
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposite in my part of the world. Lots of businesses aren’t taking a cash anymore. The only ones I know that deal with cash only are marijuana dispensaries, which are popular targets for thugs as a result.

In New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia: all businesses accept cash, as required by municipal law.

I live in none of those cities, so those rules don’t apply.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#164

Post by bombcar »

danpalmer wrote: post #72
jon-wood wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mullvad have made it work, but it’s definitely not smooth. I believe their process is to assign a unique ID to your invoice, which you can then write on an envelope stuffed with cash you mail to the correct address. On receipt they match your cash with the invoice and mark it as paid.

This might work but sending cash in the mail is a pretty terrible idea. Most postal services strongly discourage it, or you're using recorded services which are expensive and add all the same tracking issues.

They all say that but it works fine for smaller dollar amounts (say under $100).

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#165

Post by lottin »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11
standardUser wrote: post #9

On a recent trip to Europe I didn't take out cash once over 3 weeks across 3 countries. I brought 50 euros with me and that was all I needed! Everything else was just a quick tap of the phone, including every metro system outside of Paris. My only hesitation to getting rid of cash entirely - how will I buy drugs? I don't gamble illegally or pay for sex, but I imagine those services would also struggle in an increasin…

The absence of cash should terrify anyone. So ridiculously easy to quash any dissidents if you can cut off their ability to buy anything with a single click of a button. I don't use much cash at all but if my government was planning on ending all cash, I'd go out and buy a bunch of precious metals. Can't trust my basic freedom with Visa and Paypal.

Sorry, this is a lot of nonsense. Any government that has the ability to prevent dissidents from paying for stuff also has the ability to employ much more brutal and effective methods of quashing dissidence.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#166

Post by shishy »

jameshart wrote: post #140
noduerme wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are the main benefits of going fully cashless One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office. At the systemic lev…

What's the basis for this advice? Personally I'd be far more interested to learn that someone running for office refuses to use a credit card to buy groceries because they fear having that information collected and used against them... than that they once spent $500 in a single month on Twinkies. If someone wants to use your spending history against you they don't actually need your credit card bills these days, they…

I interpreted it more as “it’s a trail of information that could be used against you” instead of literally, but I could be wrong

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#167

Post by seanmcdirmid »

SoftTalker wrote: post #35
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposite in my part of the world. Lots of businesses aren’t taking a cash anymore. The only ones I know that deal with cash only are marijuana dispensaries, which are popular targets for thugs as a result.

My barber carries a Ruger GP100 357 magnum revolver to discourage thuggery. I'm 100% serious.

They aren’t allowed to carry guns at marijuana dispensaries, for federal law reasons similar to why they can’t take cash. It’s a weird business to be in, you pretty much have to drop all your cash into a safe as soon as you get it.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#168

Post by renewiltord »

incone123 wrote: post #34
walterbell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is arguing for a cash-only society. Digital has use cases. Cash has use cases. We can have both.

I don't think they were making that argument, more that websites don't usually take cash anyway. (Can't imagine pornhub selling gift cards at the supermarket checkout next to the App store ones)

Interesting. We could probably sell cards with crypto on it with immediate resolution by simply transferring the passphrase/wallet rather than on the chain.

Could do it with pure stablecoin.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#169

Post by tenebrisalietum »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

Money order physically sent to a mailing address. Slow, and a bit inconvenient, and there is no support for automatic recurring debits. But it does work, and it worked before the Internet.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#170

Post by kernoble »

noduerme wrote: post #46
shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

> what are the main benefits of going fully cashless One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office. At the systemic lev…

Even with cash, you can't buy a plane ticket without handing over all your info. Which is a good thing!

And, if I had to guess, the booking of hotel rooms probably has more to do with liability rather than tracking. There are plenty of ways of getting a roof over your head without using a credit card; though IMO they are likely a downgrade.

While your statements resonate with me, it's a bit hyperbolic to say that electronic payments/banking are the only way of exerting the control you're worried about. I think there are a lot of good points in this line of complaint about centralized private financial systems, but the ones you're raising are a bit fringe.

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