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In some countries like Sweden, it would wreck the economy. The push towards a cashless society in Sweden means few ATMs, and the majority of banks not even havi

In some countries like Sweden, it would wreck the economy. The push towards a cashless society in Sweden means few ATMs, and the majority of banks not even having any cash on hand. For a country like the United States, where electronic payments make up around half of the total commerce volume, it would be painful, some economic carnage would be wraught, but business would still keep going. The upper-middle class and upper class would be the most affected, as most in that section of society don't keep cash on hand. Comparatively, the lower class which is mostly disenfranchised from the banking system would fare okay with some cash on hand, and those on EBT & WIC would incur an inconvenience as retailers had to call the state for voice auths rather than processing those transactions via a terminal.

number6 9y ago
> Business would still keep going I was thinking about Industries. Think "just in time" and SAP. Sure you could call but what about VoIP.
- StudentStuff 9y ago
  The largest chains would suffer the most. They don't train their staff on how to handle outages, and most are centrally managed, soviet esque command companies, with local store managers & staff not having the skills to price or order inventory. Some chains don't let anyone at the store level do pricing or promotions at all.
mseebach 9y ago
I think you're underestimating just how reliant all but the most trivial firms are on reliable communications for even basic operations, and just how many of those communications touch the internet at some level. Sibling comment mentions "just in time" supply chains, even "once a month" supply chains would collapse because nobody would know what to load in the trucks, and nobody would know which drivers were supposed to go where. I would not assume that government benefits payments would work unaffected, and especially not that you could "call the state for voice auths" (that sounds like something that involves VOIP and an outsourced datacenter). Ironically, the big banks and credit card clearing houses and the electronic payments they facilitate would probably be among the least affected, because they still largely run on in-house mainframes and dedicated lines. Assuming that the POTS telephone network still work, the last generation of credit card terminals (dial-up) might actually still work.
- StudentStuff 9y ago
  Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Esp. among wholesalers, faxing is still very popular. With regard to voice auths, I doubt the state would have their hotline go down, rarely do they use the public internet to backhaul calls. Most credit card processing is over IP. Chains like Kroger (and their 200+ subsidiaries), Walmart, etc would not be able to process cards. A small double digit segment of small businesses would fail over to processing over phone, but most Verifone and FD terminals have dial disabled.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Hmm. Likely not working either given that telcos have migrated their backbones to fiber/internet long ago, and the exchanges between telcos are quite possibly also reliant on Internet.
- chiph 9y ago
  Do any businesses still have the old credit card impression machines? Where you run a pressure roller over the card to make a copy of the numbers on a multi-part carbonless form? Because my most recent card doesn't have the raised info on it to take an impression.
  - dwyerm 9y ago
    I'm sure many of them have the machines, still. The new kids pull them out from under the counter top and muse, "What are THESE for?!" Aside from what you said about the embossed cards, I suspect the greater problem is probably the multi-part forms. I've seen embossing machines more recently than I've seen a stack of credit slips. For what it is worth, you can take a decent impression of a card with an ordinary piece of thermal receipt paper and a firm rubbing with a soft plastic like a Bic pen barrel or a thumbnail.
  - nxc18 9y ago
    I worked in a grocery store about 5 years ago and the machines went down. We used the impression machine and everything was fine. It may break some rule, but there's no reason you can't just write all the information down. That's ultimately just a slower version of what the impression machine does.
KGIII 9y ago
The number isn't high enough to be meaningful, but many of the wealthier folks that I know have safes built into their homes and offices. Some even have a safe built into their car and may have another built into their RV, if they have one. I haven't seen inside all their safes, but I have seen inside a few of them - including my own. In those, again a very small sample size, there is always some cash. I tend to be willing to jump on a deal and have a small automobile addiction. So, I keep a pretty decent stash on hand. The amount will vary, please don't rob me, but it's not unheard of for me to have nearly six figures in between a couple of safes. If I'm planning on buying something big(ish), I may have already taken the cash out to have it on-hand. I live in a crime-free area, as in zero crime, so it's not really a risk. People will often favor me in barter, if they know I have cash immediately available. So, if I'm going to a car show, then I will have extra cash already in my safe. If I'm going to be traveling, there will be extra cash in my safe. If I haven't made it to deposit the money, there will be extra cash in my safe. A friend of mine owns an excavation/trucking company. I know he's usually got six, or more, figures in his safe - though some will be in checks. Another one owns a bunch of franchises and doesn't always make it to the bank as often as he should. He's good for a five digit sum, probably (speculating) in the $20k region, plus whatever he usually has in there. This will usually be after a long holiday weekend. I can't really say much about the rest but those are the only ones where I know some of the contents and they all have decent amounts of cash. Again, that's a very, very small sample size and a very biased sample. I'm not sure if it carries over to other people and to other areas. Since I retired to here, there have been zero property crimes. That's ten years. There have been zero violent crimes. The only crimes I know about was some guy was in an accident while he was driving drunk and one guy who led police on a merry chase that happened to go up the State highway. So, this may very well not apply elsewhere.
- pjc50 9y ago
  I know you know that's a biased sample, but I've been trying to estimate just how unusual it is and can't find the right stats. Six figures in cash is I think more than median total net worth. Having that much as an individual rather than a business is clearly top 10% territory and maybe even top 1%.
pjc50 9y ago
By comparison, and a heartening story against collapsism, in the Irish Banking Strike the country turned to a system of informal credit mediated through pubs. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-can-all-get-by-quite-well-without-banks-ireland-managed-to-survive-without-them-10382975.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-can-all-get-b... https://bankunderground.co.uk/2016/01/20/the-cheque-republic-money-in-a-modern-economy-with-no-banks/ https://bankunderground.co.uk/2016/01/20/the-cheque-republic... https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Irish-deal-with-the-1966-1976-bank-strikes https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Irish-deal-with-the-1966-1...
rwallace 9y ago
I hadn't thought of this before but, while I am dubious about the whole cashless society idea, it must be granted that this is an advantage: if it comes to it, makes it harder for an oppressive government to shut down the Internet.
gozur88 9y ago
The banking system would shut down in the US as well when the bloody revolution started. People would simply not tolerate a deliberate internet shutdown by the government.

number6 9y ago

> Business would still keep going I was thinking about Industries. Think "just in time" and SAP. Sure you could call but what about VoIP.

StudentStuff 9y ago
The largest chains would suffer the most. They don't train their staff on how to handle outages, and most are centrally managed, soviet esque command companies, with local store managers & staff not having the skills to price or order inventory. Some chains don't let anyone at the store level do pricing or promotions at all.

mseebach 9y ago

I think you're underestimating just how reliant all but the most trivial firms are on reliable communications for even basic operations, and just how many of those communications touch the internet at some level. Sibling comment mentions "just in time" supply chains, even "once a month" supply chains would collapse because nobody would know what to load in the trucks, and nobody would know which drivers were supposed to go where. I would not assume that government benefits payments would work unaffected, and especially not that you could "call the state for voice auths" (that sounds like something that involves VOIP and an outsourced datacenter). Ironically, the big banks and credit card clearing houses and the electronic payments they facilitate would probably be among the least affected, because they still largely run on in-house mainframes and dedicated lines. Assuming that the POTS telephone network still work, the last generation of credit card terminals (dial-up) might actually still work.

StudentStuff 9y ago
Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Esp. among wholesalers, faxing is still very popular. With regard to voice auths, I doubt the state would have their hotline go down, rarely do they use the public internet to backhaul calls. Most credit card processing is over IP. Chains like Kroger (and their 200+ subsidiaries), Walmart, etc would not be able to process cards. A small double digit segment of small businesses would fail over to processing over phone, but most Verifone and FD terminals have dial disabled.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Hmm. Likely not working either given that telcos have migrated their backbones to fiber/internet long ago, and the exchanges between telcos are quite possibly also reliant on Internet.
chiph 9y ago
Do any businesses still have the old credit card impression machines? Where you run a pressure roller over the card to make a copy of the numbers on a multi-part carbonless form? Because my most recent card doesn't have the raised info on it to take an impression.
- dwyerm 9y ago
  I'm sure many of them have the machines, still. The new kids pull them out from under the counter top and muse, "What are THESE for?!" Aside from what you said about the embossed cards, I suspect the greater problem is probably the multi-part forms. I've seen embossing machines more recently than I've seen a stack of credit slips. For what it is worth, you can take a decent impression of a card with an ordinary piece of thermal receipt paper and a firm rubbing with a soft plastic like a Bic pen barrel or a thumbnail.
- nxc18 9y ago
  I worked in a grocery store about 5 years ago and the machines went down. We used the impression machine and everything was fine. It may break some rule, but there's no reason you can't just write all the information down. That's ultimately just a slower version of what the impression machine does.

KGIII 9y ago

The number isn't high enough to be meaningful, but many of the wealthier folks that I know have safes built into their homes and offices. Some even have a safe built into their car and may have another built into their RV, if they have one. I haven't seen inside all their safes, but I have seen inside a few of them - including my own. In those, again a very small sample size, there is always some cash. I tend to be willing to jump on a deal and have a small automobile addiction. So, I keep a pretty decent stash on hand. The amount will vary, please don't rob me, but it's not unheard of for me to have nearly six figures in between a couple of safes. If I'm planning on buying something big(ish), I may have already taken the cash out to have it on-hand. I live in a crime-free area, as in zero crime, so it's not really a risk. People will often favor me in barter, if they know I have cash immediately available. So, if I'm going to a car show, then I will have extra cash already in my safe. If I'm going to be traveling, there will be extra cash in my safe. If I haven't made it to deposit the money, there will be extra cash in my safe. A friend of mine owns an excavation/trucking company. I know he's usually got six, or more, figures in his safe - though some will be in checks. Another one owns a bunch of franchises and doesn't always make it to the bank as often as he should. He's good for a five digit sum, probably (speculating) in the $20k region, plus whatever he usually has in there. This will usually be after a long holiday weekend. I can't really say much about the rest but those are the only ones where I know some of the contents and they all have decent amounts of cash. Again, that's a very, very small sample size and a very biased sample. I'm not sure if it carries over to other people and to other areas. Since I retired to here, there have been zero property crimes. That's ten years. There have been zero violent crimes. The only crimes I know about was some guy was in an accident while he was driving drunk and one guy who led police on a merry chase that happened to go up the State highway. So, this may very well not apply elsewhere.

pjc50 9y ago
I know you know that's a biased sample, but I've been trying to estimate just how unusual it is and can't find the right stats. Six figures in cash is I think more than median total net worth. Having that much as an individual rather than a business is clearly top 10% territory and maybe even top 1%.

pjc50 9y ago

By comparison, and a heartening story against collapsism, in the Irish Banking Strike the country turned to a system of informal credit mediated through pubs. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-can-all-get-by-quite-well-without-banks-ireland-managed-to-survive-without-them-10382975.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-can-all-get-b... https://bankunderground.co.uk/2016/01/20/the-cheque-republic-money-in-a-modern-economy-with-no-banks/ https://bankunderground.co.uk/2016/01/20/the-cheque-republic... https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Irish-deal-with-the-1966-1976-bank-strikes https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Irish-deal-with-the-1966-1...

rwallace 9y ago

I hadn't thought of this before but, while I am dubious about the whole cashless society idea, it must be granted that this is an advantage: if it comes to it, makes it harder for an oppressive government to shut down the Internet.

gozur88 9y ago

The banking system would shut down in the US as well when the bloody revolution started. People would simply not tolerate a deliberate internet shutdown by the government.