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The comments and the article don't mention the positives of "cash"; Physical currency. And really, it's more trouble than it's worth. The number one benefit o

The comments and the article don't mention the positives of "cash"; Physical currency. And really, it's more trouble than it's worth. The number one benefit of going full cashless is just controlling inflation. It's MUCH easier to regulate supply if the supply isn't physical. Also it's expensive to make and expensive to maintain for little real benefit. And to solve the problem of vulnerable people not having economic access: Make accepting government cards required; It's the same argument for cash, but doesn't run into the difficulties of physical currency. Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Weren't the Chinese playing with two types of virtual currency? One that goes down in value quickly over time? So you get paid 'savings' and 'spending cash'. Government cards often have complex requirements associated with them, for example what can be purchased. Some of the older processing specs only allow for a small number of purchased item classifications to be passed. Under those as long as someone purchased 20 approved items they could purchase whatever they wanted after that because the spec allowed 20 item specific segments.
akira2501 2y ago
> The number one benefit of going full cashless is just controlling inflation. It's MUCH easier to regulate supply if the supply isn't physical. To what extent is inflation influenced by the physical money supply? Isn't it just banks that control it at their discount window?
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  Not much at all. Most money has been just numbers on some ledger for a long time. And what people call money is just written promises on a piece of paper. The gold standard where those pieces of paper could be exchanged for that is also history at this point. And people physically moving lots of gold around as a means of payment of course stopped being a thing centuries ago.
shrimp_emoji 2y ago
> The number one benefit of going full cashless is just controlling inflation. It's MUCH easier to regulate supply if the supply isn't physical. I don't think you appreciate the experiment you're enrolling yourself into here though. There are those who would rather not suffer negative interest rates and whatever else "for the greater good as seen fit by The Fed". Fiat currency was a great financial innovation, but it has sort of mixed results, and this is turning it up to 11. It's kind of like saying, "It's going to be MUCH easier to catch criminals if the government has a live feed from everyone's visual cortex via microchip." And you're right, but...

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

Weren't the Chinese playing with two types of virtual currency? One that goes down in value quickly over time? So you get paid 'savings' and 'spending cash'. Government cards often have complex requirements associated with them, for example what can be purchased. Some of the older processing specs only allow for a small number of purchased item classifications to be passed. Under those as long as someone purchased 20 approved items they could purchase whatever they wanted after that because the spec allowed 20 item specific segments.

akira2501 2y ago

> The number one benefit of going full cashless is just controlling inflation. It's MUCH easier to regulate supply if the supply isn't physical. To what extent is inflation influenced by the physical money supply? Isn't it just banks that control it at their discount window?

jillesvangurp 2y ago
Not much at all. Most money has been just numbers on some ledger for a long time. And what people call money is just written promises on a piece of paper. The gold standard where those pieces of paper could be exchanged for that is also history at this point. And people physically moving lots of gold around as a means of payment of course stopped being a thing centuries ago.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago

> The number one benefit of going full cashless is just controlling inflation. It's MUCH easier to regulate supply if the supply isn't physical. I don't think you appreciate the experiment you're enrolling yourself into here though. There are those who would rather not suffer negative interest rates and whatever else "for the greater good as seen fit by The Fed". Fiat currency was a great financial innovation, but it has sort of mixed results, and this is turning it up to 11. It's kind of like saying, "It's going to be MUCH easier to catch criminals if the government has a live feed from everyone's visual cortex via microchip." And you're right, but...