Stores to customers: "Cash not welcome here"
To get a glimpse of the future of commerce in America, look no further than Sweden.
The Scandinavian country is largely a cashless society, with consumers relying on mobile phone payments or plastic. While the U.S. is still far from achieving the same level of cash-free existence, increasing numbers of restaurants and retailers are now snubbing the lowly dollar bill.
Once Scandinavia goes cashless, the EU will quickly follow. It will take longer here to get to a cashless economy, but we are well on our way.
Most Americans wholeheartedly embrace direct deposits/transfers and credit/debit cards now. I can see people demanding the ability to load all their "customer convenience" cards on a single combination debit/credit card so they only have to carry a single card instead of multiple cards and cash.
I haven't heard many complaining about the RFID in passports and banks are already adding those as well.
While I have qualms about a cashless economy, I would note that electronic transfers have the added benefit to merchants in that it minimizes their exposure to counterfeiting, check fraud, theft, and employee shrinkage.
Life is an engineering compromise.
Notice I said 'in the event.' That wasn't a conditional statement. :-) We both know it WILL happen eventually, but until it does I'll continue to putter along with my greenbacks and devise a way to satisfy all my neighbors' needs, the ones who refuse to capitulate to the beast, by way of bulk purchasing. Sure! I'll order stuff electronically all day long--I already do--and then resell it for bucks, bullion, bunga-bunga or barter. I'll charge a couple of percent markup and run my own brick-and-mortar.
And just so everyone knows, I'm pragmatic about this. It's not as if I'm totally averse to an either/or paradigm. My hackles only come up for no options at all.
Edit: back in the day, when all those tent preachers were going on about the mark of the beast, and how everyone would willingly take the mark, we couldn't figure out how that would even be possible. That was then. That was just before the Internet and the advent of 'smart' phones (a/k/a gover-business leashes).
The benefits to business and consumers alike are obvious. The drawbacks not so much. What happens when all those electronic funds get wiped by hackers, rogue governments, pissed off apparatchiks or X-class flares?
Suppose Trump (or Hillary) becomes prez and doesn't like something you've said on social media. Next day you wake up and all your life savings are gone. Yeah. That's how I wanna live. Sure, speech is still free...but only if you agree with the party line du jour.
And what about that subversive book you just bought off Amazon? Poof! There goes your 401K.
No, but until the law changes it's not something I have to worry about.
It's illegal to do that here, depending on amount of money owed vs coinage value. I could be out of date (it's a long time since I've been involved in retail) but I think any retailer has to accept payment up to any amount if the value of the coins/notes is £1 or more. Below coins of that value retailers can refuse to accept payment if the amount rises above a certain (fairly low) level, something around £20 and possibly less for payment by coppers only.
Back in the day it was assumed that people would be forced to take the mark. Something antithetical to the concept of "freedom" that most Americans still believe we possess. People look for signs of an Orwellian 1984 state. They should instead read/reread Huxley's Brave New World. Huxley later spoke about the "ultimate revolution" wherein people will be ruled not by force alone, by by consent. In fact, people will, by and large, not only consent, but also demand the means of their enslavement. That this will happen with a cashless society is clear.
No. A cashless society is anti libertarian and must be resisted.
It would end privacy. Everything we did would be tracked and traced and used to manipulate us.
If you had no choice but to deposit your money in a bank, it would depress interest rates on savings to zero or even negative rates.
Many taxes have to be flat rate because of the anonymous nature of cash. A cashless society would open the door to progressive taxation for everything.
It would end tax evasion which would be a disaster for the economy. Many small businesses would go under if they didn't have a double set of the books. It would cause insider corporations that legally avoid taxes to have a massive competitive advantage over the small business that couldn't avoid them.
Bingo! It still amazes me that people actually go into debt for the 'privilege' of letting the government follow them around like a puppy.
No I wouldn't.
Excellent reply!
Bravo! Correct on all counts. It's nice that people--some people, anyway--get this!
Edit: I would have withheld that last point, but that's just me. :-)
Why? It seems a natural order of progression to me. It used to be that kids were counseled in careers...some to college, others to vo-tech and some directly into the working world. Now they push all kids into college. Many drop out, but not before amassing student loans. Our economic and monetary systems are predicated upon debt. Colleges are offering basic courses and tutoring that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. Kids are pushed into college - and debt - as a matter of routine. Then they recieve credit card offers...and they go further into debt. If they graduate and find employment in their field, they buy a house they cannot afford, fill it with furnishings and cars and toys they cannot afford...all on notes...mortgages, car loans, credit cards. It is programmed into kids from a very young age that this is the American dream. As disgusting as I find it, I do not find it surprising.
