Cash is Dead

Except a very few occurences, I dropped cash use years ago. It's just so much easier using the CC everywhere.

 

Does that 7% include the underground economy? The use of cash may be on the decline amongst the elite, but I have serious doubts that it's going away anytime soon. The fact that it's anonymous and untraceable will keep it the primary means of trade for a great number of people. Not all them upstanding members of the community, necessarily......

 

They have the bitcoin.
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin]Bitcoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

It's supposedly popular for anonymous transactions on the web.

 

True wealth is not in money of any form. True wealth is in stuff. Money can be exchanged for stuff, but then it's not the money itself, but its potential to buy stuff.

Good point!

Fascinating! Thanks for posting that link. Personally, I don't think I'd trust bitcoin. It's basically just another kind of currency. All currency has only the value that people place in it, as determined by a market. It sounds as though bitcoin was very well thought-out, and well implemented, with lots of safeguards. But it is still accepted (I'm sure) at very limited places, and if they ever stop accepting it, its value could plummet. The dollar is accepted throughout the world and by all U.S. businesses. How many places can you spend bitcoins? Then there's the unfairness that early miners were able to accumulate lots of bitcoin, and later arrivals have a much harder time, or else must buy them with conventional money.

It sounds to me like something for the anti-government wackos.

Reminds me of the guy I knew who refused to work unless he was paid in silver bullion. It meant he could only work for someone willing to go to the coin shop to buy bullion, and could only shop where they'd accept his bullion, which they'd then have to sell back to the coin shop, which profited on both the sale and the re-purchase.

Anyway, it's a fascinating idea, but I think I'll stick with dollars.

And yes, I, too, have largely shifted to plastic, though I use currency for some things, especially but not exclusively while travelling.

 

i like cash.

 

That last 7% is mighty important. Once cash becomes 100% electronic, it then provides the government 100% access to all your economic information. The republicans want to know everyone's finances since that allows them to find terrorists. The democrats want to know everyone's finances since that allows ensuring the rich are properly paying the poor and which category you are in.

You get the point if you have half a brain - R or D or Independent or Don't Care. The loss of the physical part is not to bothersome. The ability to fully know your private business by the government is really, really worrisome......because the government is going to need LOTS of money to fund all the programs that we cannot afford.

 

We should all be uncomfortable with the amount of personal information we trail behind us as we shop. I'm not so sure it's the government that's the threat - it's the private sector collecting the information. The taxman knows your annual income and deductions, but not the details of when and where you shop, and what you've purchased.

 

I like cash pie.

 

You really should retire those 1970's shorts.



Tom

 

What you talking about Willis?

 

The private sector has a head start, but the government can do the real damage over the long run. Once the government realizes it can know the details of when and where you shop, and what you have purchased........


(If they appointed themselves the right to track what you have read via your library cards, do you really think that they would not look at more revealing data?)

 

Cash can die when the true cost of cash is greater than the cost of electronic transactions.

The current situation is sick since laws prevent a customer and trader from agreeing the mutually best option.

 

Once they outlaw cash, then only outlaws will have cash.
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OK, somehow that sounded better when I first typed it.

 

The later detail is sent to the Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents at the border, not to the taxman. Your government may not know what my household bought while in your country, but my government seems to be clued in surprisingly well.

 

The same law that gives the government the ability to look at library borrowing also covers financial/business records. And even aside from the PATRIOT Act there are still subpoenas and good old fashioned tails.

 

I also very rarely use cash any more. I love being able to transfer money to individuals via the Chase app on my iPhone. I pay all my bills online and just really don't see a need for cash. Even my 9-year-old daughter's lunch money is online.

Do I care if the government knows that I purchased a gallon of milk at Kroger today? Not really.

 

Which reflects on my original comment. While dealing with cash, these records basically dead end on the ledger entry. When dealing entirely electronically, the amount of personnel information digested by the government can go much farther. I have no problem with the PROPER use of law enforcement authority, but these future capabilities will provide severe temptations for many to abuse this financial tracking possibilities.

 

we have a saying in our business. cash is king. it was true 30 years ago, and it's true today.

 

There are many places here in the Islands that are cash only. Usually it is smaller restaurants and mom and pop shops. Then there are some stalls at the swap meet with mobile card readers and they take cash and plastic. I use both just depending on where I am going. I like to have a wad of cash in my hand every now and again.


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