51–60 of 176 posts
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It's not. The guy is an incompetent right wing a-hole who babblers populist ideas like this to get the people riled up like he's standing up for them with their best interest at heart, instead of focusing on the real issues that people face (housing, cost of living, healthcare, education, immigration, the economy, etc) He's basically the Donald Trump equivalent of Austria but instead of raising border walls to "stop…
What makes cash special is that compared to other assets, it puts a bit more power into the hands of the individual and a bit less power in the hands of the government. To count or seize the individuals cash, the government has to make some fuzz. Aka send men with guns. There seems to be some divide in our world between people who consider individual power a good thing and people who consider it unnecessary. Here in…
> Governments on the other hand understand very well that money is a sham. Thats why they hold hundreds of billions of dollars in gold: > https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/which-world-... Wow, that was really interesting. I wonder why some supposed richer countries are quite low on that list. E.g. Sweden way down at 30
In addition to some level of security — there are a lot of reasons to keep cash around.
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It's not. The guy is an incompetent right wing a-hole who babblers populist ideas like this to get the people riled up like he's standing up for them with their best interest at heart, instead of focusing on the real issues that people face (housing, cost of living, healthcare, education, immigration, the economy, etc) He's basically the Donald Trump equivalent of Austria but instead of raising border walls to "stop…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Here in Europe, I have the feeling the vast majority of people consider it unnecessary. The vibe I get is "The system works, so why not let the government handle and control everything.". > I wouldn't be surprised if that is a golbal phenomena and holds steady throughout time. Come to the east of EU/Europe and you'll see a completely opposite vibe. No wonder, people in their 40s still remember communism. And the ol…
I've seen that vibe. In my experience, communism-was-better generally crystalizes out to two things: * Good old times / not remembering the bad parts. * Having your path in life mapped out, i.e. not dealing with uncertainty.
Probably because the "bad parts" never applied to them since they had the right socio-economic background (connections to the party), and they knew how to game the system so that it worked in their favor (did no actual work but were reaping the rewards).
>Having your path in life mapped out, i.e. not dealing with uncertainty.
Because after the fall of communism a huge portion of the population was financially illiterate since you grew up and were taught that the state will take care of everything, and suddenly you wake up in an economy that's 180 degress different to what you were taught and were used to your whole life, making people completely clueless to the new world of unregulated capitalism and an easy pray to all the scammers and wise-guy opportunists at every step, so inflation, poverty and unemployment was rampant, as well a huge amount of people fell victims to various Ponzi/pyramid/get-rich-quick schemes that were common in the west 100 years earlier but were new here.
Cash has a real implication accessibility as well — particularly those who may not have enough income to even hold a bank account (that may be a NA thing?). It also helps those who aren't digitally literate or may have cognitive disabilities that a screen can make worse. In addition to some level of security — there are a lot of reasons to keep cash around.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good idea is a good idea, even when uttered by terrible people. If Hitler said german should eat more fruits and vegetables, that doesn't make it false.
>A good idea is a good idea Everyone has good ideas, hell, I just had 3 good ideas this morning, the point is the intentions of political ideas, and he's intentions are purely for gathering populist support and votes from those doing tax fraud (a large sizable percentage in Austria) as going cashless was never an option in Austria anyway so it was a non-issue to begin with, a nothing burger if you will.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not. The guy is an incompetent right wing a-hole who babblers populist ideas like this to get the people riled up like he's standing up for them with their best interest at heart, instead of focusing on the real issues that people face (housing, cost of living, healthcare, education, immigration, the economy, etc) He's basically the Donald Trump equivalent of Austria but instead of raising border walls to "stop…
Without clicking I assumed this was about Kurz. Is he out or is there two of them now?
What makes cash special is that compared to other assets, it puts a bit more power into the hands of the individual and a bit less power in the hands of the government. To count or seize the individuals cash, the government has to make some fuzz. Aka send men with guns. There seems to be some divide in our world between people who consider individual power a good thing and people who consider it unnecessary. Here in…
However most people didn't have the approximately 20 ounces of gold that was the cutoff, or didn't have it in the bank to begin with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Europe has since a few year though is a right to a bank account. Banks must offer basic accounts to anybody (at nondiscriminatory pricing) and unless it's used for fraud or if the fee cannot be paid isn't allowed to close it. That certainly helps.
It helps with accessibility, not with the problem that cashless is dangerous for democracy. Everytime you pay anything with something else than cash, it is recorded: the amount, the time, the place, and the nature of the thing you buy. There is no way to go to a gay bar (or another place loaded with consequences) without a trace. And this is needed for human dignity. There is way to support a controversial political…
-- "Every exchange will leave a full track - where, when, what" already should raise a "you'd better be joking".
-- Failsafe fallback: a system depending on running infrastructure (electricity, internet, servers etc.) is badly conceived.