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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

#51

Post by havaloc »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24
joegibbs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 parasiti…

A business can always choose to only accept debit to limit their card transaction costs to near zero.

Debit isn't always cheaper.

https://dharmamerchantservices.com/faq/visa-consumer-interch...

Scroll down and check out the debit rates. 22 cents a transaction for credit union debit cards isn't cheap.

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

#52

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

DerekL wrote: post #26
fragmede wrote: post #3

Interesting. I get why you'd want to ban cashless business, but many business in a nearby town with a high crime rate are going cashless because you can't rob a Square reader quite as easily as a cash register.

It looks like many stores cut down on robbery opportunities by not having a cash register. They don't give change back, they only give store credit if you don't pay in exact change. That way, they can just put each cash payment in an envelope and drop it into a time-locked safe. (I imagine that they would do that, I don't know for sure.)

What state/country is this in? I think it's an interesting approach but I have never seen any store in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) that takes cash but doesn't give change.

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

#53

Post by dools »

fragmede wrote: post #49
dools wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I'm not suggesting we eliminate private credit creation or that the government issue loans, what I'm advocating is a government supplied and run electronic payment system. They already supply a payment system (cash), it's just not electronic. Last time I checked we're not hurting for lack of competition in the "minting currency" industry, and in fact when this was competitive (ie. before the Federal Reserve…

FedNow is a payment system by the government providing the rails, but we'll have to see how it evolves. Zelle's implementation/rollout, which is a similar product, but owned/operated by the banks/corporations, has been messy. Venmo, and CashApp, however, are fairly popular.

Isn't FedNow more like the NPP in Australia that enables things like Osko and PayID?

It's not quite the same as a postal savings system because the customer still holds their primary transaction account with a private bank. If, instead, customers have their primary transaction account with a government run service (the reason it's called a postal savings system is because historically this was the post office) it would mean that the government is essentially giving retail access to the central bank transaction clearing service.

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

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid »

philwelch wrote: post #37
wly_cdgr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to that is to help your citizens so they don't need to rob a Shake Shack, not to exclude even more people from enjoying Shake Shack while going surveillance mode on everyone's calorie intake

Nobody needs to rob a Shake Shack anyway. Robberies are not a product of need.

If the perp needs fent and Shake Shack has cash that can be used to purchase fent, the robbery is a product of need.

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

#55

Post by PumpkinSpice »

dools wrote: post #29
PumpkinSpice wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dodgin…

Operation Choke Point was run by the government within the framework of the existing banking sector. It was enacted by DoJ (one part of the government) then: "In August 2014, U.S. Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer introduced a bill that would limit law enforcement's ability to restrict access to the banking system as a response against Operation Choke Point.[12]" So it was stopped by Congress, another part of governm…

I'm having trouble parsing your argument, to be honest. In a cashless society, the government has a near-absolute power to shut down or penalize any economic activity it deems undesirable - whether that activity is criminal or not.

In a society that permits cash, the government's reach is still long, but not nearly as complete.

Unless you always expect governments to be perfectly benevolent and well-attuned to the needs of all social groups, it seems prudent to fight for cash to remain a valid payment choice.

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

#56

Post by Spivak »

SuperNinKenDo wrote: post #16
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.

Is that really any different from Netflix being card only? Or worse being online-only so you need a relationship to an ISP?

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

#57

Post by ZoomerCretin »

SuperNinKenDo wrote: post #16
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.

The 10th amendment gives states nearly unlimited right to enact any law. Many states literally have emergency power laws which grant the Governor essentially dictatorial powers (to create and enforce laws himself; by decree), which was used for lockdowns and mask mandates.

It's a common misconception that arises from state legislatures doing nothing for several decades, but the power is there.

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

#58

Post by tarboreus »

fragmede wrote: post #3

Interesting. I get why you'd want to ban cashless business, but many business in a nearby town with a high crime rate are going cashless because you can't rob a Square reader quite as easily as a cash register.

Tell that to the guy who charged $4k of jewelry on my credit card. I've never been robbed of a penny of cash and now I'm having to sue my bank to get that money back.

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

#59

Post by alphabetting »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #36
olliej wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh, so we all keep money in a safe/home? Or are you going to propose yet another wildly unworkable cryptoscam?

A bank does not keep your money in a safe. Cash is a very, very small portion of money. We are mostly just editing numbers in various databases over and over. I would propose the federal government offer an inalienable electronic money account as a constitutionally guaranteed right.

I get the sentiment but in practice I think many would be against the govt being in possession of their funds given attitudes towards the IRS

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

#60

Post by lotsofpulp »

aketchum wrote: post #15

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 g…

> I don't love that I also have a 3% tax going to VISA/Mastercard/Amex/...

You don’t. The merchant you are buying from is choosing to pay 3% for credit card payments because they believe incentivizing people to pay with credit cards will result in them earning more (via higher prices or higher margin goods) than incentivizing them to pay with debit/cash.

If a merchant wanted to, it would be trivial for them to give you a 3% discount for paying with debit. In fact, Target gives you 5% off for paying with debit via their Redcard, but I suspect they do not advertise it because they still want their non savvy buyers to use credit cards. And they want to funnel their rewards seeking savvy buyers to the 5% discount since they bet the cost benefit for those people does not work out.

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