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I know the part about the government will be unpopular in some circles, but
Imo it's the government's job to facilitate trade and provide currency. Nowadays, digital trade is the norm, so the government needs to facilitate a digital currency that is functionally identical to cash. No fees (neither transaction nor accounting), no tracking, no restrictions on how to use it. Ideally, it works offline.
I'm eagerly awaiting what becomes of the digital Euro wallet.
It's so weird that digital infrastructure is still treated so different from traditional infrastructure in so many ways. Plumbing and electrical networks are run by the state, why not treat fibre networks the same way? Same with digital vs traditional cash.
Especially when most actual network improvements are paid for directly by the government/taxpayer yet magically become the property of private companies.
You must be delusional if you think anything good will come of digital euro.
It will be nothing but a mass surveillance tool. And another step towards the abolition of cash.
As opposed to Visa/Mastercard?
Currently, there are only concepts and promises. They promise the wallet will be p2p, anonymous, and non-traceable. We'll see if that's the case.
I still don't understand what Visa and MasterCard do that justifies 5% of every transaction. Computers have made their job infinitly easier, yet their fee has remained the same.
It's called "we're a duopoly so fuck you guys"
It's amazing how people can't see that cash is the next freedom they will take awzy from us.
"No tracking" is the one we're least likely to get, since the.Christians want to.be a me to control what you spend it on
How would untrackable digital currency even work?
Any transaction is a request from one to another entity, with some authority registering the exchange of funds. Even bitcoin works like this, where the authority is the consensus of the network, instead of a bank.
Any system without some central authority seems impossible to keep safe from fraud to me. But while I'm skeptical, I'd love to be proven wrong here.
Banks are hilarious. They use YOUR money to invest and make more money, then they have the audacity to give you paltry interest. Meanwhile they charge a percentage of a sale for processing that has a flat constant amount of processing power used. It costs them the same to process a $1 transaction and a $10,000,000, but they have the gall to charge 1.5% for both. Sure you can argue that the 1.5% is to cover overdrafts and nonpayment, but if you pay the bill in full you should be refunded the extra.
Buy a home. The paperwork costs a % of the home's value. It's the same paperwork whether you buy a 2 million dollar home or $200k home. It is not a insubstantial sum. Plus you you tip your realtor a % of the sale value. Absolute scam.
I assume you mean it is not an insubstantial sum.
I think the logic with buying a house is, that a person buying a 2 million house can probably afford to pay more, than a person buying a 100k house. So paying a percentage is in theory fair, not conaidering that 100k houses do now go for 2 million.
They also create money out of nothing to lend it for profit. So that's fun.
"Money is created out of nothing, as bank debt" / "Although new loans are being created, the interest on the principal is not. Nowhere in the system is this additional money created. This gives rise to scarcity, which, in turn, creates competition to acquire the extra money to cover the loans’ interest." / "The competition to obtain the money necessary to pay the interest is structurally embedded in the current money system. [...] to pay back interest on a loan requires using someone else’s principal. In other words, not creating the money to pay interest is the device used to generate the scarcity necessary for a bank-debt monetary system to function. It forces people to compete with each other for money that was never created, and it penalizes them with bankruptcy, should they not succeed." / "When a banker checks a customer’s credit score, it is to assess how successful or aggressive that individual or business will be in contending with others to obtain funds that are not created in sufficiency to pay back the interest on the loan. In a manner of speaking, it’s like a game of musical chairs in that there are never enough seats for everyone. Someone will end up getting squeezed out. There isn’t enough money to pay the interest on all the loans, just like the missing chair. Both are highly competitive games. In the money game, however, the stakes are elevated, as it means grappling with certain poverty or, worse still, having to declare bankruptcy." (from the book "Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity Into Prosperity" by Bernard Lietaer [who worked at the central bank of Belgium] & Jacqui Dunne)
Here's a nice series from Paul Grignon that explains it in video form.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdMxiaZGboJSgU2raUksCFGSUfWS8eHR8
Every loan made by a bank can create another loan 90% the value of the first loan. Think about what I just wrote and you will see your argument doesnt scratch the surface of the greed they create.
One of many reasons. Surveillance is another.
Fun fact:
In some countries there are laws that make it illegal for prices to vary based on payment methods, this means that sellers must decide to either take the 1.5% fee so that the prices are fair for cash payments, or increase all of the prices by 1.5% to cover the fees, regardless of payment method.
This means that in those countries, everyone is paying more just to enable the system of cards, even if you don't use one.
A common loophole for that (because the credit card companies themselves demand no fees for using a credit card) is to offer a discount for cash/debit. So everything is priced with the CC fee built in, but they take it off the price when you don't use a CC.
Though I have the most respect for the places willing to say "nah, we won't take CC at all".
Isn't that the case in most countries? I've never seen in European offline shops different prices advertised based on payment method. They'd put up the annoying "cards only above 10 €" and such, but never "cash 9€, card 10€"
The part everyone ignores is that the cash also has a price for the stores or anyone with a lot of money. They have to spend a lot more time, effort and money on security for their cash. After a while putting it under your mattress just doesn't work anymore. And it costs you 1 - 2 % per received payment, but you also "save" 1 - 2% by having your money on an account where you get intrest on it while your under the mattress stash just becomes worth less and less purchasing power a lot faster... It's a slight win for banks (waaaay less employees and offices), but the entire gain of electronic payment is definitely not benefiting only the banks, that's oversimplifing things a lot.
Then you have places like where I work where 2% is our the entire profit margin, pay me cash or fuck off.
Plus the money is always in an account now, so it's always available for banks to leverage for their profit. Instead of only when the dollar is deposited.
In a cashless world, banks can just make up how much money everyone has, while trading with it. All of it is just numbers in a ledger that banks handshake on "moving" from one place to another.
The other part is that they can then also act like crackpot dictators, who ban random things they don't like, except they're just withholding payment options on sites that host things they don't like.
My bank now charges my business to deposit cash. The cash or cashless part is not relivent to the greed.
Walmart keeps the entire $100 bucks actually.
Banks also charge businesses cash transaction fees though. Unless you really expect anyone to keep large volumes of cash around?
Find it mildly funny that he's talking about a 100 dollar bill, when I can see this guy is obviously in the UK.
He's shopping in Marks & Spencers (clothes and food) and probably a Boots (Pharmacy, Health and Beauty).
To be fair, although the UK does have a £100 note, it's rare to ever get one. Plus, people in shops get suspicious when you hand them even a £50 note.
I've started seeing more shops actually offer discounts for using cash. But just as many now take card only. I guess it depends how much time and money is needed with the additional admin that comes with it. Maybe 1.5% is a saving to the business.
The most important aspect is control.
If it's all digital they can cut you off at any moment, as they are doing now with certain journalists.
After the 2008 financial 'crisis' they had to decide on bail outs to reward the scammers.
After that they left their gambling system intact, nobody (except in Iceland) got punished and we will inevitably have another crash.
But they did change it for us suckers who paid for it the first time.
Now there is a bail in system where they will simply take anything above a certain amount on your account.
Fractional reserve banking means that they do this with cash too
But cash can be kept at home or in a safe deposit box. All cashless society means there's no benefit to that and the reserves on bank increase. Per person it's a small amount but over all account holders and fractional reserves, it maybe be worth several billion dollars
Does nobody use debit FFS? Card-based, zero fees. Don't act like there's only two options.
There are still fees for the retailer, and on lower cost purchases, the fees tend to be higher. That's why stores often have a $5 minimum for cards. They don't want people buying a pack of gum with their debit card, and end up costing them more than the meager profit.
Debit cards cost merchants 2% , which they add to prices. you thought that was free?