61–70 of 508 posts
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.
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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.
Ridiculous. Why not also then force cash only businesses into taking card and mobile payments also?
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 dodgin…
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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 ne…
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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.
I live in DC and support this law not just from an accessibility standpoint but also from a privacy standpoint. I am tired of every retail/restaurant establishment building a profile of me.
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 y…
Ridiculous. Why not also then force cash only businesses into taking card and mobile payments also?
I live in DC and support this law not just from an accessibility standpoint but also from a privacy standpoint. I am tired of every retail/restaurant establishment building a profile of me.
But like serious question, are you tired enough that you'll actually stop using payment cards? Is it worth the inconvenience and losing 2%ish off the top of everything you buy?
However having the option not to is a very important privilege I feel we should protect.
Believe it or not we do have cash first businesses and I make it a point to use cash with them as they will only charge a fee if you use a credit card.