Everywhere should accept cash, and every place should also (try) to support tap to pay.
I’ll gladly pay an extra 5% for a donut if it means I don’t have go to an ATM, withdraw the minimum, and forget the change in my car anyway.
D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
221–230 of 508 posts
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Big problem is AML and KYC related legislation - this is expensive to do for people who are statistical outliers. I.e. people with low income. So it'd have to be government subsidised banking.
I would love to see analysis on the trade offs with KYC and AML. How much does it actually help in fighting crime? Vs. all of the lost opportunities due to all of the red tape and regulatory blockers for legitimate business models.
Very very hard to get a number on this.
From experience I can say that it reduces crime, but it does create massive issues too.
Problems are current regulations aren't risk based, which results unproportional compliance costs.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Big problem is AML and KYC related legislation - this is expensive to do for people who are statistical outliers. I.e. people with low income. So it'd have to be government subsidised banking.
Perhaps the free government accounts could be exempted from that red tape, and be capped to a maximum turnover amount such that it isn't attractive to money launderers. Once your turnover exceeds that cap, you have to "upgrade" to a regular account with all the KYC stuff.
Yep, that'd be the solution. The issue comes with the fact that these regulations are based on the "guidelines" set by FATF - which is a political organization and they make really idiotic decisions.
To some extent I believe the larger financial institutions lobby for these regulations in order for them to not have to serve low income customers.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#224Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
I used to think of cash as fiat currency.
But nowadays cash is hard currency, while electronic payments are fiat currency, or like NFTs.
I think of this after all the stories about paypal/square/etc withholding payments and destroying an individual or a business.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#225Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
> It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. But most businesses do. The main issue is there: why should a business be forced by law to accept cash if they absolutely need electricty and cables to work as a business ? It's one step below forcing them to accept hand written checks. Those are also extremely resilient, you just need a pen and paper. But god no I wouldn't want to deal with…
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Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#226Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
Cash is a superior technology for security -> Huh? The bullet proof glass cage protecting the cashiers is the “technology”.
that i can't steal from the other side of the planet.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#227I 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…
The EU limits the processing fee to 0.2% of transactions, which solves a lot of the problems with taking cards as a store. Why can't the US? The only downside is less benefits on your credit card because you didn't indirectly pay that 2.8% extra on everything you buy
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#228Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
Regarding resilience, and no need for electricity, and network:
In Hungary currently it is mandatory to use networked cash registers for cash transactions and centralized digital reporting system for issuing invoices. There are some minor exemptions, for farmer's markets and some similar specific niche very low volume cash transactions.
I know about no disaster protocols. (though the Hungarian mindset wouldn't give a damn about law forbidding sales without digital invoice in case of a slightly sustained emergency situation, possibly an outage longer than a day.)
So basically even with cash you might need electricity. (until nobody starts to give a damn)
I support using cash, for the several reasons outlined in the comments and the article. Yet I think when the trust in government/public services starts to break down (as ignoring laws banning non digitally accounted transactions), the trust in cash might also start to break down (though it takes longer imo)
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#229Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages. There's a completely different take; Civic resilience From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers. Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations. Also,…
On the 2nd week at the beginning of the Khartoum war, the bus companies started to refuse electronic payments and only take cash because they didn't trust the banking system will remain working.