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You want to have enough cash on hand in the event that there is a disaster. And you can't access cash for a few days or make electronic transactions for a few days or a week. Also should have food and water on hand.
I already mentioned before I have been in a few stores(these were chains) where their system went down and cash was all they could accept.
Would you like to have a cartful of groceries and be told "sorry the system is down, can't take your debit/credit card". Or be able to pay because you have $80 on you.
Foolish to think things will always work as they're supposed to. There were several power outages today thoughout the US, impacting everything from ATMs to cell service.
No one says you have to walk around with a $1,000 in your pocket. But don't just walk around with a plastic card that you assume you can swipe everywhere and it will work.
There is no particular reason a store cannot take an imprint or write down the information and process the card later or elsewhere. They don't actually need to go to cash and that would probably work for only a small part of their clientele. IN the event of a real disaster you would find them much more helpful than in a system outage. Without power they have a whole lot of stuff that will be without value in few hours.
If we are talking about real disasters you will not survive on your cash. Try Sandy...or NOLA. In those cases a thousand dollars would not be nearly enough. So you would end up dependent on the system which may or may not do a reasonable job.
I have a reasonable setup for a problem. That even includes a generator that would enable me to maintain refrigeration and minimal systems for a week or just about. I would however expect that few people could even get past three days without power. I would think most would run out of refrigeration and other stuff long before cash became an issue.
There is no particular reason a store cannot take an imprint or right down the information and process the card later or elsewhere
I remember those old credit card imprint machines... and if I can order by phone and give them the credit card number, there's no reason I can't "order" in person and just give them the number as well...
Are you sure you want no cash? There are people who predict that way out in the future all your money will be on a card. What would / could this do to poor people who buy second hand items? Even the cards we have now have limits per day or per use. Do you want your wages to be put on your national card and have to use it to buy everything? How would people give at church if checks and cash were not available. How could we all tip the pizza delivery so it does not turn up on the restaurants income for that sale?
A lot of low income people are "unbanked." They don't have the required credit history to qualify for checking accounts and credit cards. There are prepaid cards, but those come with costs. There are a myriad of reasons why we still use cash. Who knows? Maybe in the future, we'll find no use for it.
Also, don't credit card companies charge merchants for accepting their cards in transactions?
A lot of low income people are "unbanked." They don't have the required credit history to qualify for checking accounts and credit cards. There are prepaid cards, but those come with costs. There are a myriad of reasons why we still use cash. Who knows? Maybe in the future, we'll find no use for it.
Also, don't credit card companies charge merchants for accepting their cards in transactions?
The lowest socioeconomic strata uses EBT cards or similar. So a similar provision would need to be opened to all.
There is of course a cost with any transaction cash or card or check. I would think that card is actually the cheapest route. You will of course have the battle about who gets what....
GArage sales, local fund raising BBQs, buying an ice cream cone, dropping in for a single beer, travelling to a foreign country and perferring to pay cash which you paid a more reasonable conversion rate than the credit card companies charge, bussers etc. And the foreign country might be your own to some one else.
It is not only the poor and the young who use cash. Some seniors do not like to use credit cards or debit cards. I feel strange not having cash on me but I do have 4 credit cards that have enough credit on them to buy a luxury car and I use my debit card more often than I use cash but to me there are times I perfer cash and other times only cash is accepted. What would you do if your co-worker had a cordless drill you wanted and he wanted to sell if you could not use cash An IOU but what if the reason he was selling was because he was moving away.
Ahh Garage Sales. How about the guy down the block who runs one every other week and sells used tools by the thousands of dollars worth. You think he is paying his sales tax.
I send my children and grand children prepaid cards to whatever they have no problem using them.
If it was one of my grandkids running the lemonade stand they would be all set to transfer the charge from your cell phone by whatever protocol you wished. Kids adopt first.
So we keep coming back to assisting tax cheats or minor nuisance of certain small transactions.
Any of you really think we should not make life difficult for the dishonest for those reasons?
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