From the archives: MDB’s prophetic article from April 2016 is as relevant as ever. In essence, cash is the sole preserve of criminals and has no place in a modern economy. Another reason why cash needs to be banned with immediate effect is that, according to accredited scientists, COVID-19 is able to survive on a dollar bill for up to 7 WEEKS! By choosing to pay for your soy latte with bank notes instead of credit card, you are literally shooting the checkout person DEAD. WTF would you even do this?
Another urgent argument for dispensing with cash is that, in order to adjust certain natural imbalances in the system, our accredited banks need to charge negative interest rates for a while. Criminals who hoard cash act as a bulwark against recovery and are unAmerican. For the sake of our democracy, negative interest rates are essential and so we need to ban cash. This is only a temporary measure until our credit-based fiat monetary system naturally self-adjusts.
Here, without further ado, is MDB’s original treatise on the matter. Pbier.
A pressing issue for both banks and policy makers is what to do about the outdated concept of cash payments. It has long been known that cash is the payment method of choice for criminals and terrorists. To this day, cash is used to launder billions of dollars worth of proceeds from criminal activities every year, and there is very little our authorities can do to stop it. Cash transactions also give central banks and governments less oversight over how and where our money is being spent, denying them valuable economic data that could be used to better manage our economy. Yet for some reason we still allow this antiquated form of payment, even though the alternatives are far more convenient and less costly.
In the 21st century, electronic payments are ubiquitous and widely available, even in the most remote parts of the world. Banks have embraced the internet and allowed their customers to make online payments, and internet access is fast becoming free and universally available. Credit and debit cards now allow customers to seamlessly spend money in multiple currencies while the complex foreign exchange operations are handled in the background. Visa and Mastercard also offer recourse for consumers who have been cheated by retailers, by allowing them to raise chargebacks and get their money back. And as if that’s not enough, mobile payments are now turning our phones into bank cards, making electronic payments more convenient than ever before. Why anyone would want to use cash in this day and age, other than for criminal purposes, is truly puzzling.
There are two fundamental problems with cash. The first is that cash transactions cannot be monitored by governments and banks. This makes it ideal for criminals such as drug cartels and human traffickers who use it to hide their activities from law enforcement. Electronic transactions on the other hand are captured in government databases where they can be flagged as suspicious and used as evidence in prosecutions. The non-traceability of cash also makes it ideal for tax evaders, who choose to simply not declare their cash income.
The second major problem with cash is that it threatens the stability of our financial system. Banks operate in a fractional reserve system that allows them to lend a large percentage of deposits to consumers, businesses and governments. This provides our economy with the capital necessary to grow, and allows consumers to get mortgages and credit cards. When depositors withdraw cash however, this money is removed from the banking system and cannot be lent out. Banks only have so much of their depositors’ money in reserve, so if too many people demand cash, banks will face a serious problem. This is why banks often limit cash withdrawals.
We have to come to terms with the fact that cash is unnecessary for law abiding citizens in this day and age. In a cashless society, many forms of crime and tax evasion will be simply impossible, as every transaction in the world will be monitored by governments and taxed accordingly. Our financial system also faces challenges after the restructuring following the crash of 2007-08, and cash withdrawals are not making things any easier. We need to protect our financial institutions in order to avoid a repeat of the last financial crisis, and outlawing cash would help immensely in this regard. It’s time for us to abandon the prehistoric relic of cash, and bring payments into the 21st century. Fighting it is futile, so let’s embrace a cashless society and focus on evolving our economy for the future of payments for the benefit of all.
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1 2 Next »@blm: Yes, as usual the article is good, but the comment section was disappointing today, as if several of those zerohedge nutcases suddenly discovered this progressive blog by some coincidence, it triggeredme.. Fortunately MDB will educate them soon.
Those are old comments JFB - those were the days when I used to promote my articles on ZH, only to be abused for hours on end by their readership. Needless to say I've had enough - and now prefer to keep the Accredited Times a safe space for progressives.
Hey snowflake, you better get your safe space ready for then TRUMP owns sleepy Joe Biden in November! MAGA
Drug dealers, hookers and flea market vendors are totally against cashless.
The like cash! A Lot!
This article make me weep for Quaran-Teens again. Big words here only make sense to Boomers. My Mom educate in Boston say "spit it out in words of one syllable", if she not understand. In a cashless society, I say "swipe it".
These bad boys are totally into "swiping it"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uXz-MWChoU
So The Obumbler bumbled yet again when he gave Iran $1.5 billion in pallets of cash, instead of giving it in an electronic format?
$1.5 billion can buy a mountains of fried chicken, chitlins, french fries and collard greens and a lake of soda on the side.
your covid19 thrives on electronic dollars. to prosper, we must cut off its sustenance.
I hear Bill Gates pays cold hard cash for putting covid19 on death certificates.
i support anything to separate gates and the government from their money.
Just think where you'd be today without those wads of ones spent at titty bars in twenty different states?
You are a man of class @hungrypirana, do you just wave your dollar bills or throw them down for the girls to pick them up?
I spended my nomey in church
Bill felt his balls one day, and realized that they were curved. He reported it to WHO, they flattened the curve with a heavy duty roller. His voice has become squeakier, you can hear it when he discusses 7 billion doses of vaccine for the world.
Don't press the curves in titty bars yourself, to flatten them. Report to the WHO, they have professional curve flatteners.
MDB has stayed ahead of the curve by having them flattened. If only BLM felt his curves and reported to WHO for flattening ...
How about you swipe your MTA card to get on the TRUMP train! Socialism sucks! Get off the demonrat plantation! KAG
This fake news needs to pay his taylor in cash.
...unless his wife is his taylor
Sicko. Will a cashless society help him?
Ain't nothin' gonna help Nadless! He's got an acute case of TDS: TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME! MAGA
right on.
You know who also tried to ban cash!?!? HITLER! The REGRESSIVE DEM-O-CRAPS are the real fascists!
societies without cash look like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mskqvrmw-zM
societies with abundant cash look like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4kHOqxz8Gc
I like the second video - locked up people with fake smiles.