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Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

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Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#41

Post by walterbell »

incone123 wrote: post #34
walterbell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is arguing for a cash-only society. Digital has use cases. Cash has use cases. We can have both.

I don't think they were making that argument, more that websites don't usually take cash anyway. (Can't imagine pornhub selling gift cards at the supermarket checkout next to the App store ones)

In North America, retail stores often sell prepaid Visa cards that can be used both offline and online.

NYC cashless ban law exception allows a fee-free machine to convert cash to prepaid digital payment mechanism, e.g. stored value card.

US Coinstar kiosks offer fee-free conversion of coins to Amazon and other gift cards.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#42

Post by chmod600 »

shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

"create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of"

Nit: you mean a positive feedback loop: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#43

Post by SoftTalker »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11
standardUser wrote: post #9

On a recent trip to Europe I didn't take out cash once over 3 weeks across 3 countries. I brought 50 euros with me and that was all I needed! Everything else was just a quick tap of the phone, including every metro system outside of Paris. My only hesitation to getting rid of cash entirely - how will I buy drugs? I don't gamble illegally or pay for sex, but I imagine those services would also struggle in an increasin…

The absence of cash should terrify anyone. So ridiculously easy to quash any dissidents if you can cut off their ability to buy anything with a single click of a button. I don't use much cash at all but if my government was planning on ending all cash, I'd go out and buy a bunch of precious metals. Can't trust my basic freedom with Visa and Paypal.

Yeah I completely understand a business not wanting to handle cash. It's bulky, dirty, easy to steal, must be secured in a heavy expensive safe, it takes time to count, it has to be physically transported to the bank or picked up by an armored car service, it's error-prone.

But in terms of personal freedom, I don't want cash to go away.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#44

Post by dang »

jjgreen wrote: post #3

"Paper money" is such a strange expression to use here: it's inaccurate (because coins) and much longer than the obvious word, cash.

Ok, we've replaced the article title with a bit of its subtitle (edit: plus a representative phrase from the main text).

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#45

Post by 908B64B197 »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

> the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors

And the government. In Canada the government suspended the constitution (because that's a thing over there?) because of some peaceful, free-speech protected, protests in the capital and started arbitrary freezing protester's bank accounts. Of course, without any due process (remember, constitutional rights were suspended!).

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#46

Post by noduerme »

shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

> what are the main benefits of going fully cashless

One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office.

At the systemic level, the main benefits of going cashless are:

- Being able to track everyone's purchases (for taxation, law enforcement, and in some countries the blackmail of political opposition or assigning "social credit" ratings)

- Have realtime, near-total visibility into the movement of money, for economic management and personal profit

- Being able to cut off individuals or members of a political movement from the ability to purchase basic necessities, if they fall afoul of the party in power[1]

[0] https://www.wlox.com/2022/09/20/gop-ags-call-credit-card-com...

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-a...

[edit]: I should have also mentioned freedom of movement and association. You cannot buy a plane ticket or a hotel room anymore for cash - even if your bank's ATM allowed you to access enough of your cash in a single day to do so. Cards enable the granular tracking of everyone's movement, whether or not that person chooses to carry a cellphone.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#47

Post by thegrim33 »

The primary benefit of cashless is pretty much just the ability to be lazy. You swipe a card in a reader instead of having to count out cash. That's the major benefit. All things being equal, sure, it's more convenient. But all things are not equal; in my opinion the potential negatives that others in the thread have listed overwhelmingly outweigh the ability to be more lazy. That so many people have the desire to ditch freedom in exchange for the ability to be slightly more lazy is such a disappointing state of affairs and says a lot about society.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#48

Post by dragonwriter »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #38
SoftTalker wrote: post #12

I encounter more businesses that only take cash than I do those that refuse it. A couple of local restaurants, and my barber. Though one of the restaurants recently also started accepting Zelle. I can't think of anyplace local that refuses cash but there are several others that offer a discount for cash.

>> there are several others that offer a discount for cash This is relatively new; previously Visa/MC prevented their merchants from doing this but it changed recently. Counter example: you can penalize a company you don't like by paying with amex.

> This is relatively new; previously Visa/MC prevented their merchants from doing this but it changed recently.

Not in all states (and maybe not recently in some of the states where it changed); a class action lawsuit in 2013 changed it for several states, and over time more states have allowed it by (IIRC) a mix of legislation and court cases; it is now at 48 states that allow it (plus D.C.) and two, Connecticut and Massachusetts that don’t.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#49

Post by raincom »

incone123 wrote: post #23
shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

There is a cost to handling cash too. Don't know how it compares to cards but with the latter you don't need to have fleets of armored trucks to move money around and robbers can only steal stock.

The cost is not so much about paying armored trucks, but most banks don't want to deal with small businesses that deal with cash.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#50

Post by hbn »

3pt14159 wrote: post #29
shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

> Can't be tracked If that were true, then criminal elements wouldn't need to severely launder their money. It's a spectrum. Cash can be tracked, each legitimate bill has a unique serial number, and yes, at least at present I haven't heard of private actors outside of those that service law enforcement tracking it, but the reality is that if you withdraw $8k to pay for a motorcycle and hand it to a guy that sells you…

> if you withdraw $8k to pay for a motorcycle and hand it to a guy that sells you the motorcycle and then deposits it straight into his own bank account then yes, this is quite obviously tracked.

Not really? As far as they know I could have spent that $8000 on a used car from another guy who then used that same money to buy a motorcycle. It's untracked for all the time it's not in the bank's hands.

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