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Care to provide some meaningful insight on your hypothesis?
The information has been out there for a while. A simple YouTube search explains it well. The talk is from the 1990s. It's amazing how much is playing out just as he said 20 years ago. He talks about the cashless society specifically at 7:00. But the cashless society ties into a lot of other things:
The information has been out there for a while. A simple YouTube search explains it well. The talk is from the 1990s.
The fear of cash, or the fear that cash will be removed is very old. You can dig out speeches from the 19th century where politicians say that no one has the right to create a single piece of paper worth more than an ingot of gold. President Andrew Jackson was very against paper money. The $500, $1000, $5000 and $10000 banknote were produced up until 1945 in the USA to help with the tremendous increase in paper money issued during the second world war. In 1969 the decision was made to destroy all of the large value banknotes that were turned into the commercial banks. The existing banknotes were still legal tender, but over 95% were destroyed.
The European Union did something similar with the 500 Euro banknote. The existing banknotes will remain legal tender, but an updated series will not include that denomination. As a result a fairly large percentage of the old banknotes have been turned in for destruction.
Although the decision to destroy as many $500 banknotes was made in 1969, the first major media calls to do the same thing with the $100 banknote were published in 1976.
One could say the fear of someone taking over your freedom to buy and sell goes back to the writing of Revelations in the first century AD.
Personally, I think that the inability to use cash to make petty transactions everywhere is inevitable. Many businesses find cash to be expensive to handle and exposing their employees to unnecessary danger. They only accept cash as they are afraid of alienating too many customers. It really doesn't bother me that some restaurants will accept $10K to give up cash transactions.
But cash is not just for petty transactions. Cash is also a readily spendable store of value that has no connection to commercial banks. Citizens have a basic right to have cash outside of a bank. I understand that we can own gold ingots, diamonds, or paintings, but they are not readily spendable.
While I admit that circulating 36 $100 banknotes per capita in the USA seems a bit much to me, I am bothered by Sweden only circulating 6 banknotes per capita worth US$60 (500 SEK) . I don't live in Sweden, so I can't really object to what they do, but I would hate to see something similar happen in the USA.
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I would like to add that "cashless" is an extreme state which is talked about a lot, but no country is seriously considering. South Korea is going to make all coins invalid in a few years, and the United Kingdom is considering making the 20 GBP ~ US$26 their largest banknote. Sweden has reduced circulating cash to less than US$600 per capita which is more in keeping with a country like Russia or Mexico instead of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
So far no country plans to go "cashless" at this time. Even if Sweden does go cashless, it is not currently illegal to use Euro banknotes between two parties that are both willing to operate in that currency.
Last edited by PacoMartin; 08-13-2017 at 02:29 PM..
The fear of cash, or the fear that cash will be removed is very old. You can dig out speeches from the 19th century where politicians say that no one has the right to create a single piece of paper worth more than an ingot of gold. President Andrew Jackson was very against paper money. The $500, $1000, $5000 and $10000 banknote were produced up until 1945 in the USA to help with the tremendous increase in paper money issued during the second world war. In 1969 the decision was made to destroy all of the large value banknotes that were turned into the commercial banks. The existing banknotes were still legal tender, but over 95% were destroyed.
But cash is not just for petty transactions. Cash is also a readily spendable store of value that has no connection to commercial banks. Citizens have a basic right to have cash outside of a bank. I understand that we can own gold ingots, diamonds, or paintings, but they are not readily spendable.
While I admit that circulating 36 $100 banknotes per capita in the USA seems a bit much to me, I am bothered by Sweden only circulating 6 banknotes per capita worth US$60 (500 SEK) . I don't live in Sweden, so I can't really object to what they do, but I would hate to see something similar happen in the USA.
================
I would like to add that "cashless" is an extreme state which is talked about a lot, but no country is seriously considering. South Korea is going to make all coins invalid in a few years, and the United Kingdom is considering making the 20 GBP ~ US$26 their largest banknote. Sweden has reduced circulating cash to less than US$600 per capita which is more in keeping with a country like Russia or Mexico instead of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
So far no country plans to go "cashless" at this time. Even if Sweden does go cashless, it is not currently illegal to use Euro banknotes between two parties that are both willing to operate in that currency.
1) This figure of 36 $100 banknotes per capita is doubtful. Lot of 100 dollar bills are circulating outside America also. Sometimes even salaries are given in Dollars and tourists pay in dollars. Do they have any count that how many 100 Dollar bills are in USA and outside.
2) Money exchange kiosks in European countries are literally everywhere, every street. Sweden might be having lot of Euro notes too as people frequently change between different banknotes. British tourists to Spain change pounds into euros for their holidays. Poland people keep on changing different currencies into zloty. How does this affect Sweden? Any foreign vistor will have lot of trouble when he visits sweden and same thing for a swede when he or she goes outside.
Actually this isn't a new thing. In the 1970's while driving cross country I stopped for gas. In those days you pumped first then paid. When I went inside to pay I pulled out a ten dollar bill. The rather elderly lady behind the counter went ballistic. "You trying to get me killed. Use your dam credit card so I don't have no cash for them bums to steal."
Guess it made sense then. Maybe now too.
Actually this isn't a new thing. In the 1970's while driving cross country I stopped for gas. In those days you pumped first then paid. When I went inside to pay I pulled out a ten dollar bill. The rather elderly lady behind the counter went ballistic. "You trying to get me killed. Use your dam credit card so I don't have no cash for them bums to steal."
Guess it made sense then. Maybe now too.
There's a fuel station chain in my area that only allows customers to use their account card, no cash or credit cards. They are self serve fuel stations mostly used for commercial and government. They stay fairly busy. They are nice, have vending machines, and decent restrooms.
The fear of cash, or the fear that cash will be removed is very old. You can dig out speeches from the 19th century where politicians say that no one has the right to create a single piece of paper worth more than an ingot of gold. President Andrew Jackson was very against paper money. The $500, $1000, $5000 and $10000 banknote were produced up until 1945 in the USA to help with the tremendous increase in paper money issued during the second world war. In 1969 the decision was made to destroy all of the large value banknotes that were turned into the commercial banks. The existing banknotes were still legal tender, but over 95% were destroyed.
The European Union did something similar with the 500 Euro banknote. The existing banknotes will remain legal tender, but an updated series will not include that denomination. As a result a fairly large percentage of the old banknotes have been turned in for destruction.
Although the decision to destroy as many $500 banknotes was made in 1969, the first major media calls to do the same thing with the $100 banknote were published in 1976.
One could say the fear of someone taking over your freedom to buy and sell goes back to the writing of Revelations in the first century AD.
Personally, I think that the inability to use cash to make petty transactions everywhere is inevitable. Many businesses find cash to be expensive to handle and exposing their employees to unnecessary danger. They only accept cash as they are afraid of alienating too many customers. It really doesn't bother me that some restaurants will accept $10K to give up cash transactions.
But cash is not just for petty transactions. Cash is also a readily spendable store of value that has no connection to commercial banks. Citizens have a basic right to have cash outside of a bank. I understand that we can own gold ingots, diamonds, or paintings, but they are not readily spendable.
While I admit that circulating 36 $100 banknotes per capita in the USA seems a bit much to me, I am bothered by Sweden only circulating 6 banknotes per capita worth US$60 (500 SEK) . I don't live in Sweden, so I can't really object to what they do, but I would hate to see something similar happen in the USA.
================
I would like to add that "cashless" is an extreme state which is talked about a lot, but no country is seriously considering. South Korea is going to make all coins invalid in a few years, and the United Kingdom is considering making the 20 GBP ~ US$26 their largest banknote. Sweden has reduced circulating cash to less than US$600 per capita which is more in keeping with a country like Russia or Mexico instead of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
So far no country plans to go "cashless" at this time. Even if Sweden does go cashless, it is not currently illegal to use Euro banknotes between two parties that are both willing to operate in that currency.
I think you're incredibly naive. They're not going to announce to everyone on the evening news "We're now officially cashless". It typically doesn't work that way. Your whole post is a classic example of how the stepping stones technique works. Step by step--over a long period of time--they gradually get people used to not using cash and it's working. I work in a library where people want to pay to print off the internet with debit/credit. These are very small transactions of a few bucks or less. I see people in their 20s who use debit/credit for almost everything. For university students where I work, they can only pay their fines electronically. They won't even accept cash. That's how it works. Step by step with small things like library fines. Then it works its way up. They make it more and more inconvenient to use cash and more and more convenient to pay electronically so that people who use cash are effectively disincentivized/punished (depending on how you look at it). The name of the game is tracking every transaction we do. It's all about power and control.
It's explained even better here than in my previous video:
Actually, there is no federal statute requiring a business to accept currency. Businesses are free to decide if they want to accept currency unless there is a state law requiring it.
Actually this isn't a new thing. In the 1970's while driving cross country I stopped for gas. In those days you pumped first then paid. When I went inside to pay I pulled out a ten dollar bill. The rather elderly lady behind the counter went ballistic. "You trying to get me killed. Use your dam credit card so I don't have no cash for them bums to steal."
Guess it made sense then. Maybe now too.
Ha ha we still mostly pay after we fill up. Only some places at night get you to pay first.
Unlike the US restaurants here often will not split bills. If you do not have cash then someone has to put it on their card and you have to pay into their bank account (cheques are not used much here any more) It is quicker and easier to just put in the cash.
True. I went to the 99 cent store and the cashier said they didn't accept AmEx...very annoying...but true...
That's common. AmEx fees to merchants can be much higher than Visa or MasterCard.
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paying cash
