The most important aspect is control.
If it’s all digital they can cut you off at any moment, as they are doing now with certain journalists.
After the 2008 financial ‘crisis’ they had to decide on bail outs to reward the scammers.
After that they left their gambling system intact, nobody (except in Iceland) got punished and we will inevitably have another crash.
But they did change it for us suckers who paid for it the first time.
Now there is a bail in system where they will simply take anything above a certain amount on your account.My bank now charges my business to deposit cash. The cash or cashless part is not relivent to the greed.
Plus the money is always in an account now, so it’s always available for banks to leverage for their profit. Instead of only when the dollar is deposited.
In a cashless world, banks can just make up how much money everyone has, while trading with it. All of it is just numbers in a ledger that banks handshake on “moving” from one place to another.
Fractional reserve banking means that they do this with cash too
But cash can be kept at home or in a safe deposit box. All cashless society means there’s no benefit to that and the reserves on bank increase. Per person it’s a small amount but over all account holders and fractional reserves, it maybe be worth several billion dollars
I know the part about the government will be unpopular in some circles, but
Imo it’s the government’s job to facilitate trade and provide currency. Nowadays, digital trade is the norm, so the government needs to facilitate a digital currency that is functionally identical to cash. No fees (neither transaction nor accounting), no tracking, no restrictions on how to use it. Ideally, it works offline.
I’m eagerly awaiting what becomes of the digital Euro wallet.
It’s so weird that digital infrastructure is still treated so different from traditional infrastructure in so many ways. Plumbing and electrical networks are run by the state, why not treat fibre networks the same way? Same with digital vs traditional cash.
Especially when most actual network improvements are paid for directly by the government/taxpayer yet magically become the property of private companies.
“No tracking” is the one we’re least likely to get, since the.Christians want to.be a me to control what you spend it on
How would untrackable digital currency even work?
Any transaction is a request from one to another entity, with some authority registering the exchange of funds. Even bitcoin works like this, where the authority is the consensus of the network, instead of a bank.
Any system without some central authority seems impossible to keep safe from fraud to me. But while I’m skeptical, I’d love to be proven wrong here.
As someone replied before me, monero is one example. There is more, though.
But that’s never going to be government promoted, and I’ll be content with any fork of digital currency,cause fuck the banks taking a share of every transaction :')
That would happen in an ideal society but at that point you basically have cash. Cash works offline but a digital currency wouldnt because there is no way to prove that youre the one who has the money. This way an offline transaction could be used to basically duolicate money and the first one to reconnect to the network would get the money. But idk, there are much smartee people than me, they can probably figure something out.
Fully offline is of course impossible. But it can be partially offline. Blockchain, for instance, doesn’t require an internet connection to prove that a transaction is possible, but it does need an internet connection to submit and settle. So you would not need an internet connection to pay, the merchant does to accept payment. Similarly to how this works today with card payments.
You must be delusional if you think anything good will come of digital euro.
It will be nothing but a mass surveillance tool. And another step towards the abolition of cash.
There isn’t much more they can surveil with a digital euro that they can’t yet with how banking works today. Everything is controlled.
So, between a controlled banking system and a controlled bankless/facilitatorless digital euro, I’ll pick the one that doesn’t give away my money to the financial world.
As opposed to Visa/Mastercard?
Currently, there are only concepts and promises. They promise the wallet will be p2p, anonymous, and non-traceable. We’ll see if that’s the case.
I still don’t understand what Visa and MasterCard do that justifies 5% of every transaction. Computers have made their job infinitly easier, yet their fee has remained the same.
It’s called “we’re a duopoly so fuck you guys”
It’s amazing how people can’t see that cash is the next freedom they will take awzy from us.
the government needs to facilitate a digital currency that is functionally identical to cash. No fees (neither transaction nor accounting), no tracking, no restrictions on how to use it. Ideally, it works offline.
This will happen sooner or later because cash and crypto are currencies of criminals and tax evaders.
Walmart keeps the entire $100 bucks actually.
One of many reasons. Surveillance is another.
And being able to control what people are able to buy.
like weapons, drugs.
And porn, as we’ve seen with Visa and Mastercard.
Revelation 13:
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads,
17 that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name.
The part everyone ignores is that the cash also has a price for the stores or anyone with a lot of money. They have to spend a lot more time, effort and money on security for their cash. After a while putting it under your mattress just doesn’t work anymore. And it costs you 1 - 2 % per received payment, but you also “save” 1 - 2% by having your money on an account where you get intrest on it while your under the mattress stash just becomes worth less and less purchasing power a lot faster… It’s a slight win for banks (waaaay less employees and offices), but the entire gain of electronic payment is definitely not benefiting only the banks, that’s oversimplifing things a lot.
For small, local, high volume transactions cash wins.
For large purchases over long distances or time periods, modern banking is more efficient
I disagree. For a very large volume of very small transactions the time it takes to process 1 digital payment is a fraction of the time it takes to process 1 cash payment (and giving back change). For very small transactions in digital payment there’s no entering PIN, no confirming, no thinking and change giving, no opening cash registry or even putting it in a pocket or pouch, it’s incredibly fast nowadays. I don’t even have to put my card in the machine, just hold it in front of it, seller doesn’t have to count or give back, it saves enormous amounts of time.
That time saving costs 2%.
Oh they can more than make up for the costs of dealing with cash by not declaring it as income. What sale? Waves hand. There was no sale!
Oh they can more than be happy with dying on the street when they’re sick. What hospital? Waves hand. There was no hospital!
Large majority of collected taxes serve just purposes in many countries.
Then you have places like where I work where 2% is our the entire profit margin, pay me cash or fuck off.
I do try to avoid places where I’m obligated to pay cash. I don’t want to collect coins, nor do I want to round up or tip up to round numbers to avoid getting coins.
How can I go to the sex shop and the bathhouse and buy shrooms if I don’t have cash?
You can buy sex toys or mushrooms and pay by card, no issue.
The other part is that they can then also act like crackpot dictators, who ban random things they don’t like, except they’re just withholding payment options on sites that host things they don’t like.
Fun fact:
In some countries there are laws that make it illegal for prices to vary based on payment methods, this means that sellers must decide to either take the 1.5% fee so that the prices are fair for cash payments, or increase all of the prices by 1.5% to cover the fees, regardless of payment method.
This means that in those countries, everyone is paying more just to enable the system of cards, even if you don’t use one.
A common loophole for that (because the credit card companies themselves demand no fees for using a credit card) is to offer a discount for cash/debit. So everything is priced with the CC fee built in, but they take it off the price when you don’t use a CC.
Though I have the most respect for the places willing to say “nah, we won’t take CC at all”.
fyi I live in one of those places and giving “discounts for cash” is illegal (It does happen anyway) and “nah, we won’t take CC at all” is also illegal… so yeah…
The first one I can kinda understand (though in a “yeah, corruption” kinda way, not a “great idea”), but the second one sounds more like an outright racket because there’s fees and shit involved in just being able to process CC payments.
I’m curious about where, though understand if you’d rather not share.
Isn’t that the case in most countries? I’ve never seen in European offline shops different prices advertised based on payment method. They’d put up the annoying “cards only above 10 €” and such, but never “cash 9€, card 10€”
Banks are hilarious. They use YOUR money to invest and make more money, then they have the audacity to give you paltry interest. Meanwhile they charge a percentage of a sale for processing that has a flat constant amount of processing power used. It costs them the same to process a $1 transaction and a $10,000,000, but they have the gall to charge 1.5% for both. Sure you can argue that the 1.5% is to cover overdrafts and nonpayment, but if you pay the bill in full you should be refunded the extra.
Buy a home. The paperwork costs a % of the home’s value. It’s the same paperwork whether you buy a 2 million dollar home or $200k home. It is not a substantial sum. Plus you you tip your realtor a % of the sale value. Absolute scam.
Yeah I’m not against taxes that tax the rich more.
I assume you mean it is not an insubstantial sum.
I think the logic with buying a house is, that a person buying a 2 million house can probably afford to pay more, than a person buying a 100k house. So paying a percentage is in theory fair, not conaidering that 100k houses do now go for 2 million.
Every loan made by a bank can create another loan 90% the value of the first loan. Think about what I just wrote and you will see your argument doesnt scratch the surface of the greed they create.
They also create money out of nothing to lend it for profit. So that’s fun.
“Money is created out of nothing, as bank debt” / “Although new loans are being created, the interest on the principal is not. Nowhere in the system is this additional money created. This gives rise to scarcity, which, in turn, creates competition to acquire the extra money to cover the loans’ interest.” / “The competition to obtain the money necessary to pay the interest is structurally embedded in the current money system. […] to pay back interest on a loan requires using someone else’s principal. In other words, not creating the money to pay interest is the device used to generate the scarcity necessary for a bank-debt monetary system to function. It forces people to compete with each other for money that was never created, and it penalizes them with bankruptcy, should they not succeed.” / “When a banker checks a customer’s credit score, it is to assess how successful or aggressive that individual or business will be in contending with others to obtain funds that are not created in sufficiency to pay back the interest on the loan. In a manner of speaking, it’s like a game of musical chairs in that there are never enough seats for everyone. Someone will end up getting squeezed out. There isn’t enough money to pay the interest on all the loans, just like the missing chair. Both are highly competitive games. In the money game, however, the stakes are elevated, as it means grappling with certain poverty or, worse still, having to declare bankruptcy.” (from the book “Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity Into Prosperity” by Bernard Lietaer [who worked at the central bank of Belgium] & Jacqui Dunne)
Here’s a nice series from Paul Grignon that explains it in video form.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdMxiaZGboJSgU2raUksCFGSUfWS8eHR8
Most don’t pay interest on paltry amounts.
Find it mildly funny that he’s talking about a 100 dollar bill, when I can see this guy is obviously in the UK.
He’s shopping in Marks & Spencers (clothes and food) and probably a Boots (Pharmacy, Health and Beauty).
To be fair, although the UK does have a £100 note, it’s rare to ever get one. Plus, people in shops get suspicious when you hand them even a £50 note.
I’ve started seeing more shops actually offer discounts for using cash. But just as many now take card only. I guess it depends how much time and money is needed with the additional admin that comes with it. Maybe 1.5% is a saving to the business.
Took me an hour in the evening to do the cash admin and banking when I worked in retail, for a 3-6k a day business years ago. I think my hour was cheaper than 1.5% of takings, but then card was usually faster at checkout, so maybe it does all balance out.
That’s interesting, here in Germany a 50€ note is very common, a 100€ note is not that common but people do use it from time to time, we also have a 200€ note that is definetly rare and then there even was a 500€ note which is basically extinct by now.
But we probably also use more cash here, I’ve never heard of a place here that doesn’t accept cash, only of places that don’t accept cards.
I hardly ever pay cash, but places that refuse to take it loose my business.
Generally it’s the sole traders and some cafes that have gone cashless in the UK.
Does nobody use debit FFS? Card-based, zero fees. Don’t act like there’s only two options.
Debit cards cost merchants 2% , which they add to prices. you thought that was free?
Honestly I didn’t even think about it.
There are still fees for the retailer, and on lower cost purchases, the fees tend to be higher. That’s why stores often have a $5 minimum for cards. They don’t want people buying a pack of gum with their debit card, and end up costing them more than the meager profit.
That’s why stores often have a $5 minimum for cards.
no, it’s a percentage of total monthly transactions. The $5 minimum is a bullshit excuse to make you buy more.
The fees on CREDIT cards are confusing, with the percentage changing based on volume, etc. I once found a really good explanation online, and it made perfect sense for about 15 minutes, and then it faded again.
Debit cards usually have a fixed fee per transaction, as well as a percentage based on volume. Credit cards don’t have that fixed fee, just a percentage of the total, so they don’t care if you use it on a small purchase.
But if the fixed fee is 50 cents, and you buy something that is 50 cents, they literally lost money. Even in a case where the item is 2 or 3 dollars, that 50 cent charge is a big hit to the profit. Do that 100 times a day on things like cans of soda and candy bars, and much of your profit on those items gets eaten by the fees, and those things are a BIG part of the profit for something like a convenience store.
In the states the machines to process debt are far more expensive than credit, and all of the services I looked into using had a monthly subscription… on top of the fees to take debit. While the fee schedule was less than credit, it was not zero.
Erm… Pretend like I don’t know what that is.
You use your bank card to use money in your bank account (or credit union account) to pay for things at the point of sale. Insert or tap the card, and pay for things.
Is that seriously not a thing elsewhere??
We also have built-in money transfers, where we can directly pay for things by electronic transfer. No need for any of those 3rd party apps you hear about.
It’s pretty much default in Europe. I feel like credit cards mostly gained popularity here because American companies required them.
My guess is that they thought you were referring to something called “debit FFS”
LMAO
It’s all I use here in the US.
INTERAC? Canadian? Orbdoes another country do this.
Many, most? It may go by different names. “Debit” is more of a generic term for the type of process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#Debit_cards_around_the_world
Yes, Interac. I am Canadian. Elbows up.
Merchants pay 2% to Interac. They charge you for this in the purchase price. There is no free in finance.
