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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — After being robbed a handful of times in the past few months, one Baltimore coffee shop is no longer accepting cash to stop the robberies and keep their staff safe. Nowadays, many people don’t carry cash in their wallets day-to-day, and at Park Cafe in Bolton Hill, cash payments are no longer on the menu. “We’re not going to accept cash anymore,” said Park Cafe & Coffee owner David Hart. “I’m going to take that out of the equation.” Park Cafe was robbed five times from October to January. While the armed suspect is now behind bars,...

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, thinks so. Phasing out currency and moving towards a digital economy would, over the long term, have “benefits that outweigh the cost,” the Columbia University professor said on day one of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos… “I believe very strongly that countries like the United States could and should move to a digital currency,” he said, “so that you would have the ability to trace this kind of corruption. There are important issues of privacy, cyber-security, but it would certainly have big advantages.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/the-us-should-get-rid-of-cash-and-become-a-digital-economy-says-this-nobel-laureate-economist

The U.S. Mint has unveiled a commemorative $100 gold coin that features an image of Liberty as a black woman. The 2017 American Liberty 225th Anniversary Gold Coin shows the woman’s head in profile with a crown of stars. […] The mint says it’s the first in a series of 24-karat gold that will also depict Liberty in designs representing Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Indian-Americans. …

Vice President-elect Michael Pence is currently the most powerful single political influence on President-elect Trump. Among other things, he is in charge of the transition team. He will also be in charge, after the inauguration, with dealing with Congress. For leftists, hostile to gold, that is a problem. However, for those of us who believe that the only way to solve our long-term economic problems is by a return to honest money, it is a godsend. The editor of the New York Sun realized this quite a while ago. He wrote, back in July, about the wise choice of then-Governor...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suspended on Saturday the elimination of the country's largest denomination bill, which had sparked cash shortages and nationwide unrest, saying the measure would be postponed until early January. The surprise pulling of the 100 bolivar note from circulation this week - before new larger bills were available - led to vast lines at banks, looting at scores of shops, anti-government protests and at least one death. Maduro, speaking from the presidential palace, blamed a "sabotage" campaign by enemies abroad for the delayed arrival of three planes carrying the new 500, 2,000 and 20,000 bolivar notes.

CARACAS— Venezuelans are rushing to the banks this week in a desperate attempt to protect their savings from the government’s latest spasm of reckless financial policymaking. On Tuesday morning thousands of people across Venezuela played hooky from work to line-up outside banks and deposit bundles of cash into their savings accounts after the government gave everyone a 72-hour countdown to turn in all their 100 bolivar notes before they’re removed from circulation. “I’ve been saving for so long, withdrawing money every week and for what? Nothing!” complained José Orozco, who was holding a backpack full of money as he stood...

U.S. government officials say Treasury Secretary Jack Lew could release early images of redesigned $5, $10 and $20 bills in an effort to pressure the Trump Administration away from reversing their plans. . . . ...in the throes of the primary election, Trump called the move “pure political correctness” and suggested moving Tubman to a lower denomination like the $2 bill. “Andrew Jackson had a great history. I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill,” Trump said last spring.

It’s not so easy to find someone who still uses a wallet in Venezuela, where inflation is expected to reach 720 percent this year and the biggest bill — 100 bolivars — is worth about 5 U.S. cents on the black market. The currency has dropped dramatically in value as Venezuela’s oil-based economy has cratered and the government has frantically printed more money. Prices, meanwhile, are soaring. So Venezuelans must handle huge volumes of cash — so much that the bills don’t always fit in a standard wallet — with many people packing wads of currency in handbags, money belts or backpacks.

A 10-day losing streak for the euro against the U.S. dollar is rekindling an old debate: Will the single currency reach parity with the dollar? In the last two weeks, the euro has fallen 4% against the dollar, hitting $1.06, a level last seen 12 months ago.

Amid scenes of panic across India, following PM Modi's shock decision to withdraw high-value bills in the middle of the sowing and wedding season, Reuters reports the move, aimed at cracking down on the shadow economy, has brought India's cash economy to a virtual standstill. With over 90% of all transactions done in cash, money flows in and out of the black-and-white system... until now, as Devangshu Datta exclaims, "The system works because everybody believes that those pieces of paper will be accepted by everybody else... This move has shaken that trust." Farmers have been left stranded as traders have...

Jeff Berwick November 17, 2016 We are living in a world where paper fiat money is becoming a novelty. In Australia, Citibank has just become the first to declare that it no longer will accept notes or coins. Only digital transactions. This follows on the heels of India banning large cash denominations. The cash-oriented changes of these two countries are especially troubling in light of the eventual plans to phase out large denomination euro notes and the US 100 dollar bill by 2018. Just as the Economist predicted nearly 30 years ago, the world is going cashless. A few days...

S&P 500 futures jumped Sunday after FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to Congress that the agency continues to believe that Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted for her handling of emails. Futures for the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq 100 rose more than 1% Sunday evening. The S&P 500 has fallen for nine straight sessions, its longest losing streak since 1980s. The Nasdaq's nine-day decline is its longest since 1984. On Oct. 28, the FBI's Comey said that he was investigating new emails related to Clinton's private email server while secretary of state. That news up-ended the...

In Zimbabwe, a strange black market where the American dollar trades against itself

(CNSNews.com) – The Unites States should phase-out all denominations of the U.S. dollar larger than a $10 bill to thwart money launderers and tax evaders, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff told attendees at a Council on Foreign Relations event this week in Washington, D.C.“Cash is not used in ordinary retail transactions. It’s used by tax evaders and in a lot of crime of all types, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, racketeering, you name it,” said Rogoff, a member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and author of The Curse of Cash.“Cash is being used...

An eighth grader in Houston, TX tried to pay for lunch with a $2 bill. Danesiah Neal told ABC News, ”I went to the lunch line, and they said my $2 bill was fake. They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble.” The officer told Danesiah she could be charged with a third-degree felony. After investigating the incident, police discovered that the bill was real. Just very old and rare.

Fourteen years after the introduction of the Euro in cash, Germans are still holding onto their Deutschmarks (DM), mainly for the sentimental value attached to them. The DM, which was introduced in West Germany in 1948 under Allied rule and adopted in East Germany in 1990, was replaced by the Euro in 2002. On the 31st of December 2001, DM banknotes to the value of €76.57 billion were in circulation. Since then, “more than 95% of DM banknotes in circulation have been exchanged” for Euros, Dorit Feldbrügge from the Bundesbank (German Central Bank) told The Local. But that means that...

Rachael LevyJuly 1, 2016 "We are facing the largest macro imbalance in global history." That's according to Kyle Bass, founder of hedge fund Hayman Capital Management. Investors better prepare for a Chinese crisis that will mimic what happened in the US mortgage crisis, Bass said in a Friday interview with Real Vision Television. "When I look at what's happening now in China, the amplitude of what's happening is two, three, or four times what happened in the US," he said. Here are Bass' main points: •The Chinese are going to have to accept a devaluation of the yuan. • When...

China’s Foreign Ministry has pretty much had it with Donald Trump. Join the party. Speaking about his trade policies on Tuesday, the presumptive Republican candidate for the US presidency called China the “grand master” of currency devaluation and said if elected he would label Beijing a currency manipulator. Breaking with their strategy of not directly criticizing Trump, the Foreign Ministry responded on Wednesday by saying the yuan’s exchange rate was not the reason for unbalanced trade ties with the US and more to the point it said Trump’s trade policies are irrational. For much of his campaign, Trump has focused...

After a modestly stronger open, which saw sterling rebound to just under 1.35, the British currency has taken another sharp leg lower in recent trading tumbling another 3%, to a low of 1.3224 - taking out Friday's post-vote lows when the currency plunged over 8% - and dropping to fresh 31 year lows, as it remains under heavy selling pressure as of this moment.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Steve King introduced an amendment in Congress that would have prevented Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist and supporter of women's suffrage, from replacing President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. However, the House Rules Committee agreed Tuesday night to deny floor consideration of proposal, which would have prevented the Treasury Department from spending money to redesign paper currency or coins. The Iowan Republican's amendment, which was first reported by the Huffington Post, would scrap the federal government's plans to replace Jackson on the $20 bill with a picture of Tubman, a black woman who was born...