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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

#261

Post by tchaffee »

onionisafruit wrote: post #116
arcticbull wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

And if it's for human trafficking? Payment processors are made up of people, and people have to have the freedom of drawing a moral line they won't cross. The real problem as I see it is that payment processing is a near monopoly. Better competition and smaller players would almost guarantee that every transaction except the most egregious would have a willing payment processor. Diversity is so often the best answer over a one size fits all rule.

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

#263

Post by darkerside »

tchaffee wrote: post #261
onionisafruit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

And if it's for human trafficking? Payment processors are made up of people, and people have to have the freedom of drawing a moral line they won't cross. The real problem as I see it is that payment processing is a near monopoly. Better competition and smaller players would almost guarantee that every transaction except the most egregious would have a willing payment processor. Diversity is so often the best answer…

It's odd to me that the way to combat this is to freeze money. Yes, money is the lifeblood, but that means you can also follow the money to the source. Wouldn't you want to do that instead of freezing it and killing the lead?

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

#264

Post by BlueTemplar »

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.

I mean it's not like businesses can refuse to take cash as payment - it's legal tender !

(The inconvenient bit is that they are not required to give change.)

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

#265

Post by tchaffee »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #226
wwweston wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you feel differently for someone hired to break into your home and retrieve valuables or information? Or perhaps hired to perform a hit on the life of someone you care about? Transactional sex might not be something you want people drawing lines around with financial regulation, but usually people have a line.

Nope. There are other mechanisms to target illegal actions, such as sending the police to arrest the person. Those actions are guarded by due process and the right to trial. Using the financial system to target people is not.

So you would willingly, knowingly, and personally process a transaction to kill someone? Not your problem, let the police discover it?

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

#266

Post by twobitshifter »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #173

We already have a cashless society, effectively. Let's say 1% of transactions worldwide are done with cash. Is that 1% really holding back all of these bad things that pro-cash folks imagine?

15% of UK transactions are cash FTA.

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

#267

Post by SoftTalker »

asdff wrote: post #227
SoftTalker wrote: post #12

I encounter more businesses that only take cash than I do those that refuse it. A couple of local restaurants, and my barber. Though one of the restaurants recently also started accepting Zelle. I can't think of anyplace local that refuses cash but there are several others that offer a discount for cash.

Small businesses pay a lot in cc fees. I am happy when they give me the fee back as discount. One restaurant I frequent its 4%. Imagine losing 4% on all revenue just to be a participant, what a sham, its like being taxed by the mafia. It's also interesting how you see more knowledge on making it work with cash in communities where its common to have small businesses, like working class immigrant communities. A greasy…

Yep, exactly the places I am thinking of. Chinese place in an unimpressive storefront, dining room looks like it's furnished from an institutional cafeteria surplus auction, menu is handwritten on posterboard and pinned up on the wall. No website, no online orders, no delivery. The food is really good though.

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

#268

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

walterbell wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

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

What? There are people in this comment section doing exactly that.

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

#269

Post by spaceman_2020 »

lottin wrote: post #165
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you travel around the central Asian "stans", especially Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan - you'll notice that a surprisingly large number of people, especially older people, have gold teeth.

They didn't do this as a fashion statement - being able to escape with whatever gold you could carry was a means of survival against a brutal communist regime.

My own great grandparents escaped during the partition of my country by bartering my great grandmother's gold bangles and earrings for safe passage.

The government can and will try to quash dissidence. That doesn't mean you have to make it completely easy for them and hand over complete control on a silver platter.

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

#270

Post by rsaesha »

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.

There is an option: a direct payment system provided by the Central Bank to the general public.

In Brazil it is called PIX, and was implemented in 2020. Last month it has processed more than 3 million operations.

Works 24/7, 0 fees to end users, low cost for business. IMO, going cashless is not an "if", it is a "when".

https://www.bcb.gov.br/en/financialstability/pix_en

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