Hmmmm. Gave me something to think about. So far, Big Brother knows I love Kohl’s and knows I love to buy shoes at Zappo’s. I buy groceries and gas in the same places each week. And I shop at Goodwill and St. Vincent thrift shops on a regular basis, maybe a WalMart run for pet supplies from time to time and Home Depot or my local Hardware Store for home supplies.
I’m at Walgreen’s a LOT picking up meds and supplies for Dear Old Dad.
I look absolutely normal and harmless in cyberspace. According to their records, I have never purchased any guns, ammo or liquor nor have I ever contributed to ANY political party.
*SMIRK*
We’ll never be totally cashless, it’s too convenient for the places where it works. But it’s also a pain in the butt, so we’ll reduce its use constantly. It’ll top out at about 95% cashless, but there will always be some cash transactions.
I haven’t actually used cash in ages. The nearest I come to it is the quarter I insert into the Aldi’s shopping cart lock.
Two years ago I did use cash to pay for a couple of $3.00 prescriptions.
The most troubling is you will never be in physical possession of your money. It will always exist somewhere else in electronic form....ready for the government to freeze or seize if you misbehave, vote the wrong way.....seek tax exempt status for your organization, etc.
I agree, it is troubling. The reason it’s tempting, besides keeping an electronic trail of what people do, is that it does work very well during normalcy conditions.
But when a bad day does come, and power is out, all that is left is bartering. And while bartering may sound romantic, try bringing your 1/2” Craftsman Ratchet to Sam’s Club to exchange for a carton of toilet paper and see how far you get. Sell that same ratchet to your neighbor for $15 in cash, bring the cash to Sam’s and you’ll likely have your toilet paper (if there’s any left, that is). BIG DIFFERENCE.
Also, having cash around doesn’t preclude bartering...it just gives you more options.
Your neighbor’ kid accepts Apple Pay and has a Square reader on his iPhone. He’s had this since he was 12. Apple Pay sends your payment to his Wealthfront account which allocates his money across low-cost index ETFs that invest in stocks, bonds and commodities around the globe.
Cash? What’s that?
An inability to make small donations anonymously, from a kid with cancer to a political group.
Complete loss of privacy for donating to politically incorrect groups. Anyone getting access to financial data can out you for donating to something, resulting in harassment as occurred with founder of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript for a several hundred dollar donation to a proposition against homosexual marriage in California. And the information could be stolen from banks or the recipient organizations, instead of being shared through leaked tax documentation.
You can pay the babysitter with a financial transfer, but now your records are documented and can be used years later for not paying the 14 year old a minimum wage.
You lose the ability to buy socially unpopular products in privacy. It used to be condoms and porn; now it is tobacco, conservative magazines, etc.
The Obama administration is using Operation Chokepoint to shut off financial services to industries they don’t like, such as payday lenders, gun sellers, and adult services. The government says the services are legal, but they pressure banks under threat of extra audits if they let a gun shop have a merchant bank accounts or payment processors have gun dealers as customers. That forces the businesses to rely mostly on cash or a very few payment processors. If we were cashless, Operation Chokepoint essentially means that what the government bans from the banking system cannot be bought and sold - regardless of the law.
There are already many inconveniences when the feds freeze your bank accounts on charges that you did something. If there was no cash, you become desperate and unable to fight because there isn’t even cash under the mattress to pay your bills with when the feds freeze your accounts.
The government theoretically gains the ability to make all cash under the mattress illegal. There are stories already of people in Central America who kept cash savings at home, the government changed the currency, and the old savings are obsolete. If everything is digital, such “we don’t have that money in circulation, it is all illegal” mandates become possible. It may or may not fight inflation, if a lot of paper cash becomes moot.
The government can track your purchases and come after you for too many vending machine purchases per government health regulations.
The Bible speaks of a future ‘cashless’ society. It doesn’t end well.
Revelation 14:9-11
Buy a gun at a gun show for cash. Usually a better price and I don’t ask if they declare anything to the jack booted thugs at the IRS.
As long as there is cash the govt will not be able to control the sheep. They have to get rid of cash at all costs.
Many government offices take nothing but cash (eg Recorder’s Office)