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D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

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Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#11

Post by asgraham »

spicybright wrote: post #2

Off topic but the writing style is so weird. It's sad they have to make articles a few paragraphs with a bolded titles to get people to read.

For me it makes it harder to read. I think it's because my skimming muscles are so tuned to both bold and first-sentence text that when presented such a stark opportunity, I naturally try to jump from one bold title to the next. But the bolded "titles" contain no substantive information, so I have to fight that urge, which means I can't skim at all, even though my attention reeeeally wants to jump.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#12

Post by PumpkinSpice »

dools wrote: post #7

Instead of banning cashless businesses because it's discriminatory to the unbanked perhaps they should focus on reducing discrimination in the banking sector and providing a publicly run electronic payment system.

In that position, the government would inevitably try to meddle. Look up Operation Choke Point back in the Obama years, when the government pressured banks to cut off a variety of "undesirable" businesses, such as payday lenders, gun dealers, and so on.

Cash serves an important purpose. It is a safety valve in case of such extrajudicial overreach. Yeah, because it's private, it also enables some bad stuff (tax dodging, drug trade), but the same can be said about not requiring ID verification to use the internet.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#13

Post by Larrikin »

dools wrote: post #7

Instead of banning cashless businesses because it's discriminatory to the unbanked perhaps they should focus on reducing discrimination in the banking sector and providing a publicly run electronic payment system.

Why not both? I would hope the government could do two things at once. There's no reason the post office couldn't also function as a basic bank, the same way it does in many other countries, while eliminating a discriminatory business practice.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#15

Post by aketchum »

I have no dog in this fight as I rarely deal with cash and do not run a retail business. However from a conceptual point of view I really have a viscerally negative reaction to not accepting cash. It is a societal acceptance of the rent seeking behavior of the credit processing networks. I already have to pay a sales tax to ${TAX_ENTITIES.length} different government entities, I don't love that I also have a 3% tax going to VISA/Mastercard/Amex/...

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#16

Post by SuperNinKenDo »

farzinadil wrote: post #8

Ridiculous. Why not also then force cash only businesses into taking card and mobile payments also?

Probably because the state has limited ability to compel business relationships, thank God, and taking card effectively means enforcing a business relationship with a duopoly.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#18

Post by joegibbs »

farzinadil wrote: post #8

Ridiculous. Why not also then force cash only businesses into taking card and mobile payments also?

Card payments are done through a middleman (Visa, MasterCard) and therefore require a surcharge that's going to a private company. They charge much more than it actually costs them, even including chargebacks etc, which is how they're able to offer things like credit card rewards. In my opinion it was justifiable back when it was new and not heavily used, but now that the economy revolves around it it's just parasitism, and governments should either cap their fees like the EU does, or, if they want a cashless society, provide their own EFTPOS system that doesn't charge fees to do business.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#20

Post by SuperNinKenDo »

dools wrote: post #7

Instead of banning cashless businesses because it's discriminatory to the unbanked perhaps they should focus on reducing discrimination in the banking sector and providing a publicly run electronic payment system.

I agree that the state should do more to alleviate the situation of being unbanked, but this is a major win for the unbanked that will offer immediate relief and comes with a number of other benefits for all different kinds of stakeholders. It's a non-brainer starting point even if your only goal was helping the unbanked
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