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Why we should fear a cashless world

theguardian.com

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Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#101

Post by Symbiote »

Ntrails wrote: post #51
realusername wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the opposite for me, using cash makes it way easier to get an idea of how much I spend. I use the ATM three times per month with 100 pounds each so 300 pound/month in normal expenses. With card I would need to to an addition of everything per month.

My credit card bill this month is £500, That seems easier than "i had n trips to the ATM plus I think I had £30 in my wallet from last month and I got £25 from donna for the booze we bought in France over the summer"? Not only that, I can download a monthly spreadsheet of all my transactions, pivot them into a simple table and so on and so forth. Data out the wazoo. £105 a month on tube fares. £235 a month on lunch.…

My bank (Danske Bank) even does that for me. When I log in, it shows a bar chart of spending categorized for the previous 30 days (housing, transport, food etc).

Changing the range changes what transactions are summarized, and what transactions are shown in detail below the graph. Clicking a graph category further filters and shows the transactions that match, with the graph changing to more specific sub-categories (rent, water, electricity etc if I click housing).

The categories are set automatically, but can be overridden or a transaction can be divided between several, and that remembered for future transactions.

I'm impressed that a bank produced this system!

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#102

Post by bluedino »

carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

That's not uncommon in the USA either. Restaurants, salons, convenience stores. All businesses that deal with a lot of cash and you can easily hide income from.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#103

Post by pc86 »

zzalpha wrote: post #89
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. Mentally, money in my account is "my money". Cash I've withdrawn feels like already-spent money. Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Might be a generation-to-generation thing.

> Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Which is fine! Here's what you do: allot a certain amount of cash to discretionary expenses each month. You take that money out at the beginning of each month (actually in my case, twice a month) and then use it. And when you run out you're out. What you've just done is used physical cash to put a hard ceiling on your discretionary spending. This turns…

This is also called "budgeting"

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#104

Post by scott_s »

The concern for economic fairness is, I think, a real one. There is a disparity in most economies between the people who are banked, and those who are unbanked. Going "cashless" favors the banked, and that is a problem. I don't know how to address this.

But, I disagree with one of the authors' other claims: "Cash has its uses for small transactions – a chocolate bar, a newspaper, a pint of milk – which, in the UK, are still uneconomic to process by other means. It will always be the fastest and most direct form of payment there is."

This is not necessarily so. Think about another example: let's say I order something online, and the store gives me free shipping. Free! For sending me a physical item! How can they possibly come out ahead on that? Simple: because we have a sophisticated infrastructure for sending physical goods to many different places, and the marginal cost of one more item on all of those vehicles - and there are likely to be at least three or four, including several processing centers - is actually rather small.

What if, instead, I want that item as soon as possible? Very expensive. Because my item is no longer a marginal-add to a sophisticated system. It is now closer to a one-off, and I have to pay for the service.

So what does this have to do with cash? Everything. Cash is a physical item that must be stored, transferred from businesses to banks, then counted at banks, stored and redistributed. Doing this is expensive. There are many small businesses in NYC that do not accept cash, and I have assumed the reason is that completely eliminating this cost - handling, storing and transferring cash - is easier and cheaper for them. We have always considered handling cash just a part of running a business, but it is not necessarily so. In the future, handling cash may be more like overnight-express, rather than free-ground-shipping.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#105

Post by theandrewbailey »

blowski wrote: post #44
theandrewbailey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark How else would you describe 21st century RFID using 1st century vocabulary? Revelation was written 2,000 years ago, and is supposed to be about things in its future, after all.

> How else would you describe 21st century RFID using 1st century vocabulary? Why did it need to use 1st Century vocabulary? I am a practising Christian, and in my heart, I suspect Jesus would say something like "don't worry about how you pay for physical stuff".

It used 1st century vocabulary because that's all that could be had when it was written (about AD 90, Greece), using a different language, culture, context, and mindset than anything that exists today. If one were to update it, it would be impossible without fundamentally changing it, due to subjectiveness and the gulf in descriptions.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#106

Post by jqm »

zzalpha wrote: post #85
clarkmoody wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cost for society You meant "cost for government," right? It sounds like the slice of society that gets the cash discount is benefiting greatly from this "hidden economy." Saving 50% on a venue is a big win for the newlywed's pocketbook, leaving more money in their pocket to buy goods for their new household.

True. If you don't believe the government has any role to play in, say, paving roads, maintaining bridges, etc, then there's no "cost for society". Well, until the bridges start falling down, anyway...

Roads and bridges are fine. 700 hammers for the military maybe not.

I worked as project manager for a contractor doing public works at one point. The government (at least in the US and probably everywhere) wastes a staggering amount of money.

Not saying the government doesn't need funding. They do. But they could certainly do a lot more with less.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#107

Post by spystath »

adamc wrote: post #84
spystath wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same thing happens in Greece. It used to be very common for shop-owners to "forget" to give you the receipt. After the crisis broke up though people are way more likely to ask for receipts as there are some incentives to do so (minor tax cuts for a specific amount of receipts etc.). Credit/debit card transactions have also tripled since 2008 or so which is good I guess. Things are different with doctors,…

Does the government not prosecute obvious cases of tax evasion (9000 euros example)? That's what would likely happen in the U.S.

It should but it doesn't (or didn't). Up to recently there was practically no investigation on such cases and tax evasion on such circles was rampant. You drive a BMW, run a private clinic in an expensive area in Athens and your annual income is 10k euros. That's OK, I mean why would you lie to me? OK, I'm probably exaggerating but you get an idea. Since 2013 or so there is some effort to audit professionals with such declared incomes but it is practically impossible to check a backlog of 20+ years of cases especially with the glacial pace that the revenue services move.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#108

Post by mark_l_watson »

I recommend Douglas Rushkoff's book "life inc, How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take It Back":

Centralized money has been the means for sucking profit out of local economies since about 1300. Rising income inequality has been an 800 year process. I thought I knew how the world worked, but Rushkoff changed my world view.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#109

Post by kyrra »

studentrob wrote: post #70
carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

Taiwan is mostly cash and they use a receipt lottery to encourage people to buy from vendors who give receipts. Each receipt has a number and there's a lottery at the end of the month with cash prizes. Also, people here know they can report a business for not giving out receipts. They might get a share of recovered taxes for that. I don't know all the pros and cons of that setup but it seems there are ways to maintai…

China has something similar as well, called the Fapiao: http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2013/08/13/understanding-...

Though as I understand it, it requires a dot matrix printer to populate these receipts (or writing them by hand).

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#110

Post by st3v3ndungan »

pc86 wrote: post #97
carlob wrote: post #53

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount? A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount. So before we talk privacy and company let's…

There's a super easy fix for that, if the people have the will to demand it: require receipts for all transactions, allow consumers to report business who do not give receipts, and have large fines for businesses who still don't. Offer cash rewards to consumers who report businesses that are repeat offenders.

> if the people have the will to demand it

I think Mitch Hedberg put it best: I give you a dollar, you give me a donut. End of transaction.

What's a consumer's interest in asking for a receipt? Especially when you can get a discount instead?

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