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>From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers.
by jdietrich 3y ago
>From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers.
If the power goes out, I can't get any cash. I don't keep any meaningful amount cash on hand and neither does anyone I know, including my elderly relatives. Most of the stores I shop at won't actually be able to sell me anything, because none of the products have price tags and I sincerely doubt that any of their staff are trained to revert to pen-and-paper accounting. Even if they did manage to keep things running, they'd likely run out of change by the end of the day. The grocery stores are JIT and have no more than a few days of stock of anything; again, I doubt there's a manual backup to their reordering system.
Maybe things are different in countries with less reliable infrastructure, but I just can't think of a scenario in which cash would gain you any appreciable amount of resilience without much wider systemic changes. So much other stuff beyond payments is wholly reliant on technology. I'm not sure that would be a wise investment versus improving the resilience of power distribution and network infrastructure.
- Chris2048 3y agoIt isn't just for infra failure. When your credit card provider cuts you off for "unusual activity" that they won't go into detail about, and you realise they are free to refuse you business as they feel like - you'll appreciate cash while rushing to find a new provider as existing debts still loom.
- jbotdev 3y agoI’ve actually run into this more with debit/cash accounts than with credit cards. I’ve had checking accounts frozen, but I’ve never had a credit card entirely suspended for “unusual activity”. At worst they’ve declined individual charges until I called, or I just switched to a different card, since it’s easy to have many redundant credit cards.
- ghaff 3y agoFor travel, etc. it's absolutely a good idea to have multiple redundant cards (that aren't issued by the same bank). I haven't had issues for years, but I have had issues in the past and it's a lot easier to just pull out a different card than deal with international calls trying to get a problem resolved on the spot.
- Chris2048 3y agoI have CCs suspended all the time, requiring verification (often steam purchases..). In this case I'm talking about the entire account, and linked CCs, suspended for activity - all incoming payments, card payments and direct debits suspended.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoI couldn't use my card a few months ago because of accumulated tarnish. All caused by penny pinchers abandoning gold plated contacts. In a paperliess socciety, the lack of erasers may be our ultimate downfall.
- jdietrich 3y agoI'm not even sure if it's possible to pay most bills in cash in my country. I have had a bank account frozen due to identity theft; it took me less than 10 minutes to open a new account and get a new debit card in my Google Wallet. The bank transferred my funds within a couple of hours and all of my recurring payments were automatically switched within a couple of days. Maybe my experiences are atypical, but my impression is that consumer banking in the US is quite dysfunctional.
- nyanmatt 3y agoThis is pure privilege to be able to open an account so quickly. Not everyone is so well off.
- jdietrich 3y agoAgain, I don't know what the situation is in the US, but over here it's a privilege available to anyone with a recognised form of ID issued by any EU member state. If you don't have that ID you'll have to go into a branch, but you have the legal right to a bank account, even if you have no home address, even if you've been made bankrupt, even if you don't have the legal right to be in the country.
- gcanyon 3y agoAs someone who lived in Thailand for two years and experienced the joy of scanning a QR code on a postcard to pay a power bill, your experiences are not atypical: the U.S. is behind the curve here.
- vel0city 3y agoYour experience could be done here in the US as well. Doing a transfer within the same bank is usually pretty instant. I could get a new account at my bank and a digital card to add to Google Wallet in a similar timeframe.
- sitkack 3y agoYou are moving the goal posts. Before it was retail transactions and now it is bill pay.
- Hnrobert42 3y agoIn that case, it might be wise for you to withdraw some cash now (depending on your financial situation). I keep a couple hundred in crisp bills of varying denominations in a go bag.
- saagarjha 3y agoHow long would that last you, though? I’d go through that in a week…
- j-bos 3y agoTypically go bags are emergency items meant for immediate "GO"ing during or right before a natural disaster, forced evacuation, civil unrest, or condemnation of your living space. So it would a week to get your feet under you.
- mopenstein 3y agoHow much would 0 dollars last you?
- Ryoung27 3y agoMy whole life.
- xmcqdpt2 3y agoIf there is like a hurricane and your whole city is out of power for a week and you can't leave, there will be distributions of water and food pretty quickly. IMO you need the cash more to make the first day or two easier, or if there is a card payment outage as happened last year here in Canada, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Rogers_Communications_outage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Rogers_Communications_o...
- ChoGGi 3y agoMoneris just had an outage a week or two ago on Sat.
- throwaway9870 3y agoHave you never walked into a store and they said you can't use a CC because their reader is down? It is nice to have a few dollars in your pocket for times like that.
- nisegami 3y agoI have literally called ahead to order food then arrive to pick it up and be told that the card reader has not been working all day. Had no cash so I just ended up leaving.
- dcow 3y agoWhy not offer to leave your phone number and pay later when the system is back up. The food goes to waste otherwise…
- nisegami 3y agoI live in a low-trust society, so they wouldn't have accepted something like that. Had they offered, I might have said yes and gone back later. But I was mostly just pissed they didn't mention it on the phone.
- mindondrugs 3y agoI dont think I have ever encountered this in my adult life honestly. A more common occasion is encountering a business that is cash only (usually small market stalls) and is infinitely more annoying as I have to go and take out a amount of money greater than the product I want to buy, leaving me with a rather annoying amount of loose change.
- assimpleaspossi 3y agoI used to own several restaurants. This happens far more often than most people may realize.
- 3y ago
- ghaff 3y agoIt's probably worth keeping some (few hundred dollars maybe) cash around for a variety of reasons. But pretty much no store is going to be able to (or at least try to) sell you anything if they don't have power--the most likely scenario. Maybe some emergency supplies in a natural disaster but I pretty much guarantee you my local Walmart is closing its doors if there's no power. And, as others note, CC readers in an individual store do go down though I probably won't have much cash in my pocket even if I have some at home.
- brightball 3y agoI think you might be surprised by how many larger stores and grocery stores especially are prepared to operate in low power or no power conditions if necessary. Another side effect of this DC rule will be to ensure that more are prepared too.
- gomoboo 3y agoYup I’ve seen a large grocery store keep business going during an extended power outage with hand-written ledgers and cash transactions. Customers kept coming in to shop despite the outage.
- 6510 3y agoIt should be a requirement. From all the national security bullshit I've seen this must be the easiest way to permanently turn a country into chaos. Also funny is losing your id card/passport and your bank card/credit card simultaneously. You then need to get a new card from your bank that requires a valid id and you need to get a new id card which costs money. And no driving! "Gladly" this process takes so much time you can usually borrow money or pay it for you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Workaccount2 3y agoThe restaurant I worked at years ago would bust out those old slider-carbon-copy things for credit cards during power outages.
- rtkwe 3y agoBoth my credit and debit cards are instant prints that don't have the embossing those require. Running the old carbon copier over them wouldn't show anything except maybe a vague outline of my credit card.
- mdgrech23 3y agoIn a true shit hit the fans situation cash is you what you need to bribe the official to get you on the boat/plane/train out of the disaster area.
- FredFS456 3y agoIn that case you would often need gold, not cash.
- plagiarist 3y agoBy the time the infrastructure and economy is fucked enough by disaster that currency is worthless, the gold will be worthless as well.
- 6510 3y agoI always tell rich people that ill buy everything they own for this can of beans here. You might not want to buy it now but eventually you will take the deal.
- black6 3y agoBeans and bullets are better than gold in a SHTF scenario. As are Bic lighters.
- extraduder_ire 3y agoI'm partial to clipper lighters, myself. There not as reliable, but they're completely reusable. (gas refill port, removable flint stalk)
- olyjohn 3y agoWhat are you going to do, cut up your gold into tiny bits to give to people? Gonna keep a scale with you and weigh it out exactly based on the market rate? It seems pretty useless for spending on supplies and food if you ask me.
- strathmeyer 3y agoIf our nations air traffic controllers can figure it out I think big business can too.
- axus 3y agoThat's a reason to have a bank with traditional branches. Also a reason for land-lines that don't require a separate power source. I think South Africa has had power problems in recent years, might be good to look at how they've dealt with it?
- assimpleaspossi 3y agoAnd if a tree falls on you and breaks your leg... We can bring up all kinds of scenarios but his point is a good one.
- readingnews 3y ago>> If the power goes out, I can't get any cash. I don't keep any meaningful amount cash on hand and neither does anyone I know, including my elderly relatives. Well, that is well on your single data point, here is mine: I live in a bad weather prone area of the united states. I do not know _anyone_ that does _not_ have a meaningful amount of cash in the house for bad weather. Yes, stores here operate with low/no power or communications and use cash. I agree with the poster who noted that it provides a localized resilience. It is your fault, not anyone else's, that you do not have some currency. Truth be told, I have kept about a weeks worth of spending in cash for decades in the house, just in case, and I have indeed had to use it during long term power outages. Heck, in my area just last week, all of my banks ATMs were down for the entire week due to a software issue after an upgrade (I am not making this up). While I might not have needed cash, it shows the fragility of our systems we rely on.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Clubber 3y agoI also keep cash around. I always put $200 in my wallet around payday and spend it like petty cash. Next payday, I make sure it's $200 again. I always fill my gas tank at 1/2 too. I also have 2 5 gallon containers of fresh water in my garage. It's simple preparedness that is fairly low effort.
- raffraffraff 3y agoMy BIL does the low effort stuff. Extremely low effort. He has a bunch of canned fish. Oh, and he got solar panels. But didn't know that they don't actually work if the grid goes down. So we had a regional power cut a few weeks back and he was astonished that his house went dark. He was about to complain to the company that installed it when I reminded him that I told him he had to pay extra for a grid-side battery and some additional circuitry, and he replied that he didn't think he needed that, and would save the money. At least he had his canned fish. I gave him some candles.
- GuB-42 3y ago> I don't keep any meaningful amount cash on hand and neither does anyone I know. That's your choice, not a problem with cash > Most of the stores I shop at won't actually be able to sell me anything But many other stores will > ... by the end of the day Often, it is all that is needed Not all outages are apocalypse scenarios. Sometimes, it is just about finding something to eat for the night, the kind of small things that add up in an emergency situation. Take the 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami for instance, it caused big problems like flooded cities and the Fukushima disaster, but it also caused small problems for millions of people, power outages, stopped trains, etc... These people had to eat, sleep,... while most of the infrastructure was down, it got better the next day, but in the meantime, it is good not to have to worry about millions of people being able to buy their meal when thousands are in need for immediate assistance.
- JohnFen 3y agoI live in the US. I keep a couple thousand dollars in cash at home for emergencies, and in my part of the US if the power went out there are a number of stores that could continue operating.