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Alecs Ștefănescu [38c3]
Brett Scott published a really good piece on the cost of "cashlessness".
"Money is political, and that’s the starting point of the economics of cash."
https://www.asomo.co/p/the-cost-of-cashlessness
It's especially important since the only *other* time I hear people defending cash is when they fear a take-over from a shady, world-wide organization. And it's not that they want freedom, but they want another shady, world-wide organization to *not* lose its foothold.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic Just saw this in my stream: https://www.heise.de/en/background/Missing-link-Card-pioneer-Sweden-rediscovers-the-importance-of-cash-9708352.html
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@catileptic I haven't used cash in ages. I don't miss it. I don't want to return to it.
When I travel this summer, the single thing I'm *least* looking forward to is having to carry pocket loads of easily-stolen paper to pay for things, but *shrug*, that's the price of going to backwaters like North America.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@jens @catileptic And I'm saying fix the financial system so that cashless is accessible to all instead of forcing, for example, every small business to have two separate systems for paying (one of which puts them at increased risk for criminal action), and other such matters.
The problems you're talking about aren't related to cash or the lack thereof. They're social organization issues that forcing cash on top of is at best a band-aid solution.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic The problems are not related to cash or lack thereof, but they exist the same everywhere. Changing the system around it is a noble goal, but so far off that saving cash is a necessary intermediate step.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic I'm not forcing anyone. You can keep paying cash-free. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't be able to. I'm saying people should be able to pay with cash.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@jens @catileptic That sounds like a problem with how finance is handled in your country, then, not cash vs. cashless.
You're blaming a lack of cash for what is really a fucked-up system that stabs you in the neck. Fix the system. Don't force everyone to carry their purchasing power with them where it can be easily stolen or lost.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@jens @catileptic I started moving away from cash in about 2010. I went, for all meaningful purposes, 100% cashless by about 2013. (So much so that my 2016 visit to Canada had me really upset at the huge amount of money I suddenly had to carry around.) I am entirely un-eager to go back to cash.
Every advantage cited for cash is put in the category of "hypothetical bullshit" AFAIC, but the risk of theft and loss is something that is all-too-real with multiple real-world occurences.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic Sadly, it's not bullshit.
I mean, I live cash-free for most intents and purposes. But I've had periods of my life where my income wasn't stable - I could always get money, but perhaps not *right now* - and that makes banking surprisingly hard. And without access to the banking system, you're immediately unable to access other things, like a safe place to sleep, etc. (again, this worked out for me always, but with significant effort).
Basically, a cash-free life is...
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic That said, there are definitely alternatives to keeping cash around that would address the same kinds of issues, but those nobody seems to want to talk about.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic ... Vimes' Boot Theory (from Pratchett) in real life: trivial for the sufficiently privileged, and yet another unnecessary hurdle for those who are not.
The worst part IMHO is that the hurdle of "sufficient privilege" here is so low, it really only hits those folk hard who already have next to nothing, so it becomes largely invisible to the majority of folk.
I'm very, very adamant that cash *must* stay, even if I don't particularly want to use it most days.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl Second,
if we want to have a conversation based in personal anecdotes, I've had *way* more money stolen from me by businesses, including banks, simply because cashless payments allow them to act on funds that aren't strictly speaking theirs. In one case, a bank just lost me a few grand, which caused me follow-on costs that they didn't reimburse.
You're right that the financial system is bonkers and needs fixing. You'll note as well that I keep telling you I agree with that.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl First of all, you will note that I did not claim stealing cash doesn't exist. Very specifically I stated that hereabouts the burden of accepting cash payments seems to be lower on businesses than the burden of cashless payments. In fact, for anything below ca. EUR 20, many businesses flat-out refuse cash-free payments. Hence, your claim that cash theft makes handling cash too problematic is not substantiated here.
Cash theft still exists, sure.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@jens @catileptic Something very strange happened in the slightly over a decade of me not using cash, though: nobody has stolen money from me at any point. Hell, I'm not even at risk from the kind of weird ways people have stolen from credit cards (double-imprints, say) or bank cards (apparently some way of capturing the PIN when paying?; I lack technical knowledge of how that works).
It seems that going cashless has solved a problem that has been around since I was a teen.
(2/2)
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@jens @catileptic I have had cash stolen from me.
In Germany.
I'm not sure when it was: might have been picked while I was outdoors, might have been stolen from my hotel room while I was out at the pool. But it was stolen. It's happened to me here too. Indeed small property crime is commonplace in most places I've ever lived in or visited; I've been fortunate enough to have it happen only a small handful of times in my life.
So this is a real problem, directly experienced.
(1/2)
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl @catileptic And yet you argue that it's crime that makes cash a problem, when I'm telling you that hereabouts, it doesn't.
So maybe where the problem lies is not as clear cut as you would like it to be.
Which brings me back to my main argument: even if the long term goal may be to fix the financial system here, that does not help folk in the short term. Cash does.
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@jens @catileptic The crime rate *was* fixed.
Since nobody carries cash and most businesses (begrudgingly) have a small amount of cash, robberies, pick-pocketing, etc. have basically vanished as an entire category of crime.
(Other crimes are also on their way out, but for far more troublesome reasons.)
That being said, your parallel doesn't really work. You want to keep cash because your society is broken. The crime rate dropping wasn't the goal of going cashless, it was a side effect.
Jens Finkhäuser
@zdl If you give me a lever to fix the financial system, I will.
Instead, I have a lever to help those people screwed over by the financial system: keep using cash.
Hereabouts, cash is the *preferred* payment method for small businesses, for what it's worth. It seems that the risk of criminal action is not as high here as the cost cashless payment systems incur.
Am I telling you to fix your crime rate? Because it seems that is the problem, not the fact cash exists.
Wendy M. Grossman
@catileptic I'm opposed to cashlessness for an entirely different reason, which is that it replaces a public infrastructure with a private one.In other areas this has not worked out well...
zeh
@wendyg @catileptic
@jens
@zdl
Yes.
'Cashless society' is a euphemism for the "ask-your-banks-for-permission-to-pay society".
https://thelongandshort.org/society/war-on-cash
If we have to ask permission, we've lost power and autonomy. Cash is like the bicycle for payments: you may not want to use it most of the time, but it's essential the the option is there when needed.
https://reason.com/2019/07/02/hong-kong-protests-show-dangers-of-a-cashless-society/
zeh
@zdl
sure, working on abolishing money and exploitation every day. until then, we need to keep cash so we can have a bit more power and leverage to fight.
@wendyg @catileptic @jens
🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦
@zeh @wendyg @catileptic @jens Again, that sounds to me like a social disorder unrelated to cash or lack thereof.
Fix your society.
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