Posted on 05/28/2015 10:14:29 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Confirming conservative stereotypes, Germans have come out strongly in favor of sticking to hard cash in conducting transactions, a survey published on Thursday showed.
Paying for your bus ticket with a contactless card, putting down plastic in a restaurant or shop—these may be everyday aspects of life in the Anglophone world. But not so in Germany, where remembering to go to the cash point is something many expats have to get used to.
And according to a study released by YouGov on Thursday, this is just how Germans like it. Nearly three quarters (74 percent) of respondents said that they would oppose a law allowing shops and businesses to refuse cash payments. […]
The survey shows that three quarters of Germans believe cash is safer than card payments. They also believe that paying in cash helps one keep a better overview over one’s finances. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
I hate to see us evolve to a cashless economy. Among other things you completely lose privacy. There will be a paper trail of all your spending if cash is done away with.
I understand the need to fight money laundering and criminal activity. The criminal element deals in cash . but do we have to throw the baby out with the bath water ? Do we really want NSA types having a complete financial statement on all of us?
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Yep...just another way for big broth-ah gubbamint to further control folks.
No more private cash sells/purchases of items from private individuals. All transactions on the record, thereby open to taxation.
Cashless society would be a disaster.
A very high percentage of restaurants in Germany only take cash.
The government wants complete control of all transactions. It has no right to do so. With that control they will know where the money goes and be able to tax it.
It’s people valuing convenience over privacy. Checks used to leave a paper trail before the ubiquity of debit and credit cards. Unless you stick to cash your spending can be tracked. Or maybe barter.
Cell phone ‘wallets’ are a big deal in other parts of the world, I’ll be interested to see if they take hold here.
When has public opinion ever stopped EU Statists or German führers - especially when the financial system and the survival of governments and ideologies is involved?
Playing it out, people will convert their "credits" into tangible goods like gold and silver or some other tangible commodity. Then an underground economy rises where people exchange money with each other using these "off the books" commodities.
Fast forward, state governments which make a lot of money on sales tax, fold because nobody is paying sales tax anymore. Feds step in, raise income tax through the roof since it's the only reliable tax now, take the money up front before it can be converted. And we get a VAT since businesses will be under a microscope and thus cannot sidestep the credit system.
With confiscatory tax rates, soaring prices thanks to the VAT, and non-functional state governments people are reduced to soup lines where they get a bowl of gruel and a moldy roll.
Yup, sounds like something the Democrats would be for.
I opposed unsecured credit.
The ‘criminal element’ is not the reason.
The reason is that the banks want to be able to charge negative interest rates (charge you for parking your money at their bank). And currently that is not possible if a person is allowed to withdraw the money as cash.
How the hell are you supposed to evade taxes and operate a shadow economy without cash?!? ;')
On a slightly different subject - what do you think about Greeks withdrawing their funds from Greek banks?
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