Question about a 'cashless' society (from radio show I listened to tonight)

[The Straight Story]

Was listening to a local radio show and they were talking about how much cheaper it would be to become a cashless society (one of the things the host asked was, how much does it cost to print $1 Million).

One of the things which popped into my mind: How would the Amish deal with this all? I have been to places in Amish country where the stores had gas lanterns, no electric, and they use manual cash registers.

One caller asked about churches and how they would pass the collection plate - if there were no cash, how would they donate funds (whether they be a Christian sect, Jewish, Druid, etc).

On top of all that, how could someone donate money without being tracked if we got rid of cash and went to a strictly debit card/cashless society?

How would you be able to give someone homeless some change, and how would you be able to buy pot if you wanted to?

To me, a cashless society looks bad all around - but I am willing to entertain the views of others.

[lob1]

1. A cashless society is when the bankers have taken it all.

[Yo_Mama]

6. LOL

I think the barter economy is coming back due to the shortage of cash a lot of people are experiencing.

The whole idea about the "cashless" society is that no one would be able to evade tax collection - that's why this keeps coming up in bad times. But the reality is that there is always barter.

[Hannah Bell]

10. & every transaction could be tracked; what you buy, what you sell, & all income (outside barter of

goods & services).

i think, more than taxation, the tracking aspect is attractive to some. the near-total dependency on the system, too.

[rcrush]

2. No thanks.

I use cash as much as possible. I don't like having everything I purchase being tracked online. The only thing I use my card for is bills.

edit: Utility Bills. Rent and water and stuff.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Cashless = databanks of every penny you spend. No thank you, No benefits are worth that.

Also, cash allows for the existence of underground, off-the-radar, transactions.

While these can be bad, as in firearms, these can also be good, as in trading in maintaining some privacy and in buying goods that might be regulated but shouldn't be (thinking holistic meds, heirloom seeds, etc.)

An underground economy in the background can be a good thing.

[rcrush]

5. The underground economy is keeping a lot of people from being homeless right now.

[NYC_SKP]

12. There's another great example. Thanks. n/t

[happyslug]

4. And most of the protection for the poor are cash based

For example the exemption from an execution sale in most state is a CASH BASED EXEMPTION. Another protection that is cash based is that creditors can NOT take more then 25% of your pay, but once it is deposited into a bank account creditors can take it all.

[jmowreader]

7. Most of those things can be dealt with

First, the Amish: they both accept and use credit cards and have bank accounts. http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/amish-and-credit-cards-1278.php. The Amish have been known to buy solar panels, run generators, have windmills...they have NO qualms about making money and if it requires buying a phone line to handle their credit card machine, they'll do so.

Churches would take credit and debit cards. Many do now; all would if they had to. How hard is it to set up a PayPal account? Donating money without being tracked wouldn't be a large problem either--not with prepaid Visa cards. You'd buy one, register it under a fictitious name and address, and donate all the money on it.

Pot is also easy. The creative pot seller would create an e-book entitled "One Joint." In it would be stories about something, and it would sell for $9.95 on eBay via their Buy It Now option. When you bought One Joint, you would soon receive an e-mail containing your copy of One Joint. You would print out Page 4 (which contains an address) and Page 20, then take both of them to the place on Page 4, and receive your one joint. Similarly, there would be a One Blunt e-book, a One Lid e-book and so on.

The only thing I can't figure out is how to give money to panhandlers. Perhaps they'd have to join the information age too.

The real reason we will never see a cashless society: the fundamentalists will describe the debit card as the Mark of the Beast (read Revelation 13:16-18: And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand (which hand do you hold your debit card in?) or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.) and will rebel against it. You don't want to piss off the fundies, man; they will go back to barter before they played in a totally cashless economy.

[Fearless]

8. I don't really care about being tracked or whatever...

If someone wants to see that I bought an extraordinary number of pasta makers so what. I'd make a game of it, pending winning the lottery. Rather what I'm worried about is rampaging fraud. That is, identity theft. You could lose every hard earned penny in a flash without a paper trail to speak of. I equate this idea to paperless voting machines. Overall the chance of abuse to convenience ratio renders it useless.

[Yavin4]

9. Cash Is Extremely Expensive

Think of the costs of operating an ATM machine. You have to stock with money, and to do that, you need security guards, armored trucks, insurance, firearms, training, maintenance of the machines, etc.

Using cash for purchases is also costly to the retailer. They need to stock it with change, count it, and supervise the handling of case.

[hunter]

11. It's easy to make someone a "non-person" in a cashless society.

Punch a couple of keys and all of the sudden that undocumented worker or political dissident ceases to exist as an economic entity. There's no way for them to spend money, there's no way for them to get paid, they can't pay their rent, they can't buy food, they can't even ride the bus.

That's a damned scary world.

[Blackhatjack]

13. Attach a fee to every 'cashless' transaction and the Big Banks will OWN EVERYTHING...

... especially if as corporations they are free to spend any amount of money on any politician in any election.

A very bad idea to allow all monetary transactions to become electronic transmissions handled by the very firms that would like to deprive you of every single dollar you have.

[Lorien]

17. +1 nt

[Greyhound]

14. Very bad for a variety of reasons, most of which have already been mentioned.

:kick:

[bemildred]

15. How about a moneyless society? That would be really advanced. nt

[scarletwoman]

16. Horrible idea. The banks would take a cut of everything, coming and going.

Plus, it would be every sci-fi dystopian nightmare come true. :scared:

[sendero]

18. Yes.....

.... I really want the government and every marketing company to know exactly where each and every dollar I spend goes to. NOT.

[Lint Head]

19. The poor do not have credit cards, ATM cards or computers.

They would be truly cashless and money-less. They would have nothing to spend in a cashless society.