Cash is important

right, so not actually adding anything in particular then. just finger pointing.

I run a mobile business. I own a small card machine and find it very useful. However, because some of my customers are elderly and others live in complete reception black spots, going completely cashless would be impractical.

Criminals will use anonymised transfers and/or illegal currencies.

Joe Soap will have no financial privacy.

With inter-linked databases you could enslave people by instantaneously freezing their assets. Already begun in Canada.

If society collapsed to the extent that there is no more food in the shops & power stations aren't running, do you really think that anyone is going to be interested in accepting your little coloured pieces of paper for exchange?

From the many recent threads about cash vs cashless, I can see that some people an unusual affinity for cash, but some of the scenarios proposed by the pro-cash side are unhinged...

Ever had to ring the central bank to cancel your cash because it has been stolen? It’s surprising the number of people who keep their cards in their phone wallet. If you have to cancel your card (not many have multiple credit cards I suspect, I have only one myself), and have no cash, then it’s the dishes and a pair of marigolds for you.

Also, who carries around all their holiday cash in their wallet if there is a safe in the room?

Personally I don’t think it should be electronic only, and I don’t like people like you who think that everyone should conform just because you do so easily. I’m not a conspiracy theorist who thinks someone is always watch me, but I do want to retain autonomy on what method I use to spend my money.

I dont think we should get rid of cash. If you see that anywhere in my post can you point it out.

Also, who carries around all their holiday cash in their wallet if there is a safe in the room?

You have to carry all that cash on you until you get to the hotel.

Ever had to ring the central bank to cancel your cash because it has been stolen?

No, i rang my own bank when my wallet was stolen and since my card was cancelled immediately it meant i lost no money.

My entire post was just saying i don't understand this argument. I have 4 methods of paying for stuff whereas if you only use cash then you only have one.

I think the moral of the story is that a bit of both is the best option.

I use cards/cashless as much as possible but always have a few Euro in cash on me or at least know where an ATM is.

I think these people who like to tell us how much we don't need cash anymore, or how long it was since they used cash, or how they refuse to use cash only businesses are just trying to tell us how hip and modern they are.

Got to agree. I don't mind using the card but it is way to convenient to use and I find it is very easy to overspend. On nights out now I bring the amount of cash that I am going to spend that night and I leave the wallet with the cards back at the car. I have heard the horror stories of lads going for a night out and waking up the next day and checking their account and nearly dying when they see how much they spent.

Except I'm not talking about a collapse of society but a temporary downage of electronic banking, which has happened both in Canada and Ireland already.

Little coloured pieces of paper would be very useful in such a scenario.

I suppose people would have to trade signed IOUs instead. So paper currency, of a kind, would spontaneously re-emerge.

That is not a conspiracy theory, it is a fact. Just listen to what Agustin Carstens, head of the Bank of International Settlements, also known as the Central Bank of Central Banks, had to say about cash and the introduction of CBDC in 2020. A quick google search brought this short video up.

It's less than a minute long. In it he says that with cash, they have no knowledge or control over who spends cash, but with the introduction of CBDC they will have absolute control and the technology to enforce this. Now maybe some people are happy with this, for whatever reason. But as others have pointed out earlier this is a double edged sword. Take for example if another lockdown was to be brought in and the government decided that people could only travel for 2km, so it would be easy for them to say that your card is only valid for transactions in a 2km radius of your home.

Or maybe, for health reasons, they say that you can only buy a small amount of certain foods like meat, or decide that people should eat meat substitutes like insects instead. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/sustainable-food-alternative-proteins/. Or let's say that the government is lobbied by someone who sets up a plant making such meat substitutes and pays the government to decrease people's access to locally grown meat. Then they decrease people's ability to buy this, but say hey you can buy these substitutes instead. So people are controlled in what they are allowed to buy because of backhanders and lobbying.

Or maybe they decide that alcohol should be rationed, so you are only allowed to buy a sixpack, a naggin of spirits or one bottle of wine a month as anything more is unhealthy?

Now like I said, maybe there are some people here that are more than happy with that, but I'd wager that the majority are not, and if the argument was presented to them in this way they would reject it.