Cashless Society is getting closer

[all41]

If the power goes out for an extended period

That happened to us during the big ice storm a few years back. We were without
power for 26 days in our rural location. Even the big shopping centers within an hour's drive had no terminals running,
so yes--it was cash or check only.

Though we had a generator we couldn't get gas because the local stations had no power for the pumps.
After five or six days you could get gas 24 miles north--but it was a very long wait in line every time. Every store in town was sold out
of gas containers. I saw one pickup with the bed entirely filled with them. You could not find a store with D cells, and the flashlight aisles
were empty.

The lucky few had gas/propane generators and were able to get propane locally--now we have one as well.

[Pierre]

like all41 said - - If the power goes out for an extended period ..
- that's the Big Flaw in our Modern Society

when we had a big bush-fire some years back, and there was No Power for several days after that,
and there was lots of impromptu BBQs held in the days after that bush-fire, as eveyone's freezer defrosted.


but, having said that, there is a distinct push towards that Cashless Society,
by both the Big Banks & the Big Supermarkets.

and the people will accept this - - as it's always So Convenient - to use. of course.

The Theory Goes Like This - - a Cashless Society won't be Forced on Anyone - - because Folks Will Demand It !.

[xenopeek]

In my part of the world it's not uncommon for cash-only, particularly in rural areas.

Having lived through a tornado in my home town, and also seeing Harvey last year while in the States, I don't like to be without some cash. If the power goes out for an extended period, there's no other way to pay (except the clerk trusting that you'll come back later to pay).

That isn't about about privacy though, which is what OP is concerned about.

I described how it is in my country, where tornadoes and isolated rural areas with long power outages aren't a thing.

Out of curiousity, do you have garage sales in your part of the world? If so, are they cash-only? Generally the ones I've seen are, though some also accept cheques.

I don't think actual garage sales are a thing here. Instead, people that need to get rid of stuff put the items for sale on a local marketplace website. What I've sold that way was paid for through banking apps in past few years. In any case a garage sale wouldn't be run by a business, would it? It would be consumer to consumer and if the seller or buyer would prefer cash that would be fine in my book. It's when a business here only accepts cash, you just know they are doing something fishy with their books.

[killer de bug]

Any businesses that only accept cash I suspect of being scammers, tax dodging frauds, money laundering criminals, or about to go out of business because why else would they not purchase or rent a pay terminal?

There is really a huge amount of places in Austria where the debit or credit card is not accepted. Only cash. A lot of restaurants are doing this.
It's not for cheating. Just part of the culture.

[whm1974]

Any businesses that only accept cash I suspect of being scammers, tax dodging frauds, money laundering criminals, or about to go out of business because why else would they not purchase or rent a pay terminal?

There is really a huge amount of places in Austria where the debit or credit card is not accepted. Only cash. A lot of restaurants are doing this.
It's not for cheating. Just part of the culture.

Don't business have to pay processing fees to use Credit/Debit cards? That alone would be a good reason to accept cash only.

[all41]

Don't business have to pay processing fees to use Credit/Debit cards?

You bet. Guess who actually pays those fees.

[xenopeek]

Again, I can only speak for my country. Cash payments incur higher costs for businesses here because depositing money, purchasing change and money insurance all have fees that amount to more than the debit card transaction fees. Here it's cheaper for a business to get paid by debit card than it is to be paid in cash. Over the years, as payment by debit card has become ubiquitous, the transactions fees have come down significantly to effect this switch. Not to say cash isn't used.

[kenetics]

Someone mentioned using checks. That's probably the unsafest form of payment there is. A check has all your bank information, name and address, your signature and usually your phone number. Every once in a while i get behind someone in a grocery store taking their good old time to write out a check.

[all41]

probably the unsafest form of payment there is

True--
You would not issue a check willy-nilly, but only to trustworthy vendors which you can hold legally accountable.

[Citizen229]

Resistor hit the nail on the head. Seems everyone missed it, or he didnt explain it well enough.

Whilest they may spy on what we purchase, we have been cashless for over a decade now. It is not determined by my or your transactions. It is determined by the cashless transactions between the Federal Reserve banking system and banks themselves. Given the US currency is not back by gold and is backed by petro (google Petro Dollar), The currency is still considered FIAT because of the system. A system where a centralized bank can print money uncontrolled, for its own profit, as well as the governments own personal limitless credit card. Now with the modern era, this centralized bank no longer needs to print physical money. Labor and printing has long been the reason this centralized bank has been charging interest. Now they push buttons and create money out of thin air to loan to a bank. They loan it to a bank and charge them 0-0.25% interest, whilest you get charged 3.75-4.0%. As the central bank prints many many zeros, inflation is the direct result. The dollar becomes worth less. The current dollar is worth 0.03 cents on the dollar, to its purchasing power in 1913. When the currency as a whole is devalued without regulation. A silent tax is performed, without the consent of congress or its voters.

So a private institution has sole control over a currency. Unregulated. There is a bigger picture than tracking what you or I spend on. The system itself creates a debt that can never be paid off. For example. If i create 1 Universal Dollar for you to spend, and the next day you pay it back to me. You have just repaid your debt with all the money ever created... now you owe me the interest. How can you pay interest when there is no money? Yup print more money. Yup, 19 trillion worth of debt for the US alone. The world runs on the ignorance of circle logic. As soon as it stops, The debt can be paid, but the interest cannot be. This is where the private banks will one day end up owning everything. Interest will need paid back with physical goods, such as land.

You are a slave now as we speak. Enslaved by generational debt.

[xenopeek]

While only the central bank can print money, most money is in fact created by commercial banks in the form of loans. Banks generally loan out 10 times as much as they have. That's how majority of money comes into existence. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_cre ... nk_lending for how this works.

[Faust]

....... Banks generally loan out 10 times as much as they have. That's how majority of money comes into existence.

Yes indeed !

They are only obliged to hold around one tenth of all deposits , as liquid cash .

And there's a key historical point on how that " fractional reserve" system came into being ,
starting with companies in Amsterdam and Rotterdam who had the best vaults and strong-rooms available ,
and would store valuables belonging to jewelers , traders in gold and precious stones etc.

They would then issue paper promissory notes which could be traded on trust ( as are the modern Fiat currencies )

[idle]

If lets say we do go cashless, which surprisingly many many people are actually fine with, what's the next evolutionary step? We can pay with our devices (which in of themselves are personal trackers knowing our every movement, call, text, internat usage, and for many their purchases) and there are big names in these fields of technology spending huge sums hooking us all up to this system. I know my phone stays with me 24/7 and never leaves my side. Already we 'Tap & Go' to pay for things in stores with our cards and phones. I find it all very very interesting ...

[Pierre]

so, what's the next evolutionary step?
most likely to "personalise your experience" AKA add your card to your SmartPhone . .

interestingly - the ApplePay got hacked within the 1st 24hrs of it's release,
but, Apple denied that it's payment system was at fault - it was the information Into The System
- that got Hacked - - Of Course.

For over a year, Australia's largest banks have been engaged in a quiet war with Apple.
Their goal is to force the world's largest technology company to open access to the iPhone's NFC chip
and allow collective bargaining over Apple Pay.
The country’s consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC),
has shot down that request from the nation’s big banks to be able to collectively bargain with Apple
to let iPhone users make mobile payments from the banks’ apps, rather than Apple Pay.

so - here a side Question: what's the limit on your Local Tap & Go ? here it is $100 .. .

[GS3]

Neither Governments or Corporations can be trusted and shouldn't be.

+1

If they can misuse or abuse their power they most certainly will. No question about it.

We have strong privacy laws that require banks (or any organization) to make public what information about their customers they process and for what legitimate purpose --- what information about their customers is stored, for how long and why — and what information about their customers is shared with whom for what legitimate purpose. Besides that all bank directors and employees here are required to take an oath indicating that they will act with integrity and professionalism and that they will put the interests of customers first.

I don't see cashless society as being the problem. If at your end the banking sector and/or government aren't putting in place protection of customers' rights, that is the problem. Ultimately that's both down to the people; what banks and representatives they give their trust or vote.

I think this is very naive. The EU has laws which might look great on paper but in practice things often do not work that way. I do not want the government having all my information while they reassure me they will only use it for good. Governments have workers who break the rules and governments fudge up quite often.I do not want the assurance that they will do things right because I know full well they often won't. I want them out of my life unless strictly necessary.

It is already required that transactions above certain amounts be done through banks or be reported to the governments and this already causes people who live on the fringes of society a lot of problems. If you require that all transactions be done through banks you would be forcing an important segment of society back to using something of value other than money in their exchanges.

Government officials and people in comfortable positions live in a world where they have no idea of the real situation of a great part of society who live on the fringes and are barely getting by. A century ago you might be poor but if you lived in a small town you had neighbors who would help you out and you would help them out. This has changed and the poor are more disadvantaged than ever and having no access to bank accounts, credit cards, internet etc. puts them outside of any possibility of integrating and progressing.

It is easy for a government to explain why it is reasonable that you show them all your info and what you do and did but governments often screw up and then you can find yourself outside of society. I want to have the option of surviving, even if badly, outside of government "protection". As I say, EU bureaucrats can make laws which might look good on paper but their bureaucracy is a cancer which is going to grow until we realize we need to stop it.

[lmuserx4849]

My bank charges $5/paper statement. More and more is done online, and you can even be penalized for not going online and doing your business. It's odd that we have all accepted the high costs of Internet access with no guarantee of availability. I don't think you can operate at 100% in today's society without Internet access. It's kind of freaky when you think of so much in so few hands. I use a card and pay it off each month, and I get rewarded for that or I pass the rewards to a non-profit. I do care, and do what I can, where I can.

[lsemmens]

like all41 said - - If the power goes out for an extended period ..
- that's the Big Flaw in our Modern Society

When I worked for a living I was working in a network surveillance centre for Telstra. We used to get a phone call from the "card centre" (I think it was in Canberra), asking us to send out a Technician to check the eftpos terminal at Daly Waters. We'd look at the clock and respond, "They've turned their Gen Set off for the night, as they do at 11PM every night, it will come back on at 6AM". "Ok, but can you send someone to check?" " You want us to call out a technician to drive 200Km round trip to tell us the generator is off?" "Oh! Are you sure?" Every hour on the hour through the night, we'd get a call, "That machine is still off".

Those who live in big Cities have NO IDEA when it comes to rural and remote areas. A Telephone service is hard enough, eftpos and internet can be even nearer to impossible to find.

[Luna Moon]

Any businesses that only accept cash I suspect of being scammers, tax dodging frauds, money laundering criminals, or about to go out of business because why else would they not purchase or rent a pay terminal?

There is really a huge amount of places in Austria where the debit or credit card is not accepted. Only cash. A lot of restaurants are doing this.
It's not for cheating. Just part of the culture.

It's the same in other European countries. But I think xenopeek meant that it's so common to pay cash-less in the Netherlands that it looks suspicious if they don't accept it. Of course it's different in other societies, where cash is still used frequently.

[AZgl1800]

Here in my rural outback ( all of 30 miles from the metro areas )

it is a Mox Nix, who cares, situation....

debit card if you want to, or pay me cash, I don't care....

the clerks prefer the CC cards because they can't count money anymore
that is a feature that has been left out of our modern USA primary and high school education system in the last 20-30 years....

"New Math" is a joke, the kids don't have a clue how to add or subtract anymore.

[all41]

"New Math" is a joke, the kids don't have a clue how to add or subtract anymore.

however they have an innate ability to type with their thumbs