Will Money die out

[spud the mackem]

Stand in a checkout queue and you will see that most people use a Card to pay.

The Banks keep asking if you want to do on-line banking. Direct Debits means no cheques.

Some Hotels wont accept cash as payment you have to pay by card.

A lot of people dont carry cash these days.

You can go almost anywhere and pay by card,except maybe a Betting Shop,

Any comments on this ?

[Frank Merton]

Good hotels don't want riff-raff and anyone without at least a debit card is clearly riff-raff.

Vietnam remains about 90 percent cash, and international company employees, who are paid by having their salary automatically deposited, form a queue each payday at ATMs to withdraw it all. Somehow I get the feeling neither the currency nor the banks are trusted overmuch, although this is improving. The few places that accept cards want some extra percent depending on what card it is. Really large purchases are made with gold. I have seen a few places offering discounts if you use a certain card -- I guess as a promotion.

ATMs now exist almost everywhere. This sure makes my life easier. I use to keep a large amount in a safe in my house; now I go to an ATM. It is much safer I think and even though bank account insurance is not trusted, a scheme of it now exists and I think it would be honored. There have been a couple of bank runs, but all it took was the government showing up with trucks full of cash and the runs subsided.

The government made a big push to introduce coins a couple years ago. To a population not use to coins this was a damn nuisance, and they were hated. They seem to have gone away. The size of available bills has also been increased a lot. The paper money now is very sophisticated with all sorts of ways to detect counterfeits.

[A rather obscure Bassoon]

Money is slow becoming an illusion,just numbers on a computer.Every day Billions are moved around the world and not one bank note in sight,

[Frank Merton]

Money is just a unit of measurement, like kilograms or degrees Centigrade. We use it to measure an abstract thing called "value." Whether it is represented by pieces of paper or seashells or entries in a bank log or entries in a computer database does not change what it is.

[onereaderone]

it is important to never forget what money is...

as a device ... money is any object or device with the taxing authoritys icon applied to it .

the creation of money is done to unifie the worth or value of wage , and items for the purpose of taxation .

money has no relationship to free markets or trade ... and money is only of value because rich people need it to pay the tax the goverment requires of them...

to a point... in the united states , where taxation rates of collection are the highest since the beginning of time .... all persons making less than 55,000.oo per year collectivly do not pay enought to off set the cost of the collection of the tax and record keeping .

in the united state , persons making between 55,oo.oo per year and 2.5 million dollors per year pay only enought to cover the employment of all city , state , and fedaral employees ... but not a dime tword any other costs of the goverment ....

( this is not guess work , it is math and public record ...)

of the top 500 corparations in the unites states ... they pay no more that than 3% of earnings in tax .

those persons who record making more than 2.5 million or more pay all the bills ... and they make money have value .

credit cards are a bank device , that makes the banks 85% of their money .

mainly in over draft protection or in fees for over draft charges .

the cost of the credit card mantance is less than 1% of the fees and charges ...

the actual plastic and record keeping is less than 1 usd per year ... more is spent in postage than the paper ... and that is the greatest cost to the bank ....

all you need to do is get one 35.oo over draft fee once... and you have paid for everything and made the bank money for the service .

[onereaderone]

so of course ... banks want universal credit card useage ... the single greatest difficulty is illegal drug and criminal enterprises ... because , credit cards leave a paper trail for taxation .

what the goverment will do is make non-person credit card accounts , or throw away cards ... spend them to the limit and throw them away ... so that the underground will except the non money ...

[Nefer-Ankhe]

I agree that money is slowly becoming an illusion, but let's just rewind a few thousand years, where great civilizations thrived without the concept of money, e.g. ancient Egypt, Inca's, Mayans and Aztecs. They did have a currency of some sort, of course, which some aspects of, I much prefer, for example being paid for your duties, not in money, but with rations of food and land.

Man has created the concept of money, money which has been the direct cause of greed, corruption and power, though opposed to all this, money does have it's benefits and purposes.

[Frank Merton]

I don't see money ever being an illusion; it is a unit of measurement. What it represents of "value" in terms of other things averaged out into an overall and varying price list. How we represent it (electronic marks on a piece of plastic work fine) it remains money.

[Ashotep]

At least one state wants you to use cards or checks in yards sales even. I think that's stupid. So afraid your going to buy something without them getting their cut.

If there is a disaster you had better have cash.

[kobolds]

unless need to pay big amount or place that required to use creditcard , I usually use cash .

I don't like the idea where people can track your activity

[Frank Merton]

I rather like the idea where all transactions leave a paper trail. It would mean that tax evasion is more difficult, rewarding the honest over the cheat. It would also make it easer to detect crimes like insider trading, money laundering, financing and profiting from illegal businesses, and to catch and prosecutes frauds.

[freetoroam]

I do hope it does not, that means that we will have to trust every bank!

[Frank Merton]

I don't see how it is possible to not trust at least one bank. It occurs to me that one could always avoid the paper trail by bartering.

[freetoroam]

I don't see how it is possible to not trust at least one bank. It occurs to me that one could always avoid the paper trail by bartering.

Will have to ask the Cypriots about that.

I do not have enough money to barter with, so what ever little bits of paper I do have stays with me. Saves any hassle when the cash machines crash!

I got cloned at A BANK 8 years ago, got the money back eventually, but thats not the point, the point is it should never have happened in the first place. They caught the person who done it and i said I wanted to press charges myself, the bank said I could not as it was their money which was taken as they had paid me back, so basically my account was theirs and if anyone interfered with it within their system then it was nothing to do with me.....I DON`T THINK SO! I closed the account, opened up another one elsewhere and each time they phone me and ask me if I want a credit card I tell them where they can insert their cards.

I have no chose but to have an account for my wages to go into, but it does not stay there long.

[spud the mackem]

There are some interesting posts, cheers, but in the future maybe they could use a Credit system,you are paid for a weeks work in "Credits" to your bank account.When you go to buy something you are charged X amount of "Credits",and when you sell something you charge X amount of "Credits" All transactions being done by Computers,so all you have is a plastic card, and so Money becomes obsolete.I regularly get messages asking me if I want to do "online banking" with paperless statements, which so far I have refused,as I don't like the thought of being "owned" by a bank.But I am getting used to paying by card,instead of money,which saves you carrying cash and "buttons"(small change) around, all my small change goes into a "penny jar" everynight when I empty pockets,and last time I cashed it just before Xmas I had £142.38, in the jar, so maybe I'll still use money.

[ohio traveler]

unless need to pay big amount or place that required to use creditcard , I usually use cash .

I don't like the idea where people can track your activity

Me too. Sadly, most people would gladly give that up all in the name of " convenience "

[Frank Merton]

Will have to ask the Cypriots about that.

I do not have enough money to barter with, so what ever little bits of paper I do have stays with me. Saves any hassle when the cash machines crash!

I got cloned at A BANK 8 years ago, got the money back eventually, but thats not the point, the point is it should never have happened in the first place. They caught the person who done it and i said I wanted to press charges myself, the bank said I could not as it was their money which was taken as they had paid me back, so basically my account was theirs and if anyone interfered with it within their system then it was nothing to do with me.....I DON`T THINK SO! I closed the account, opened up another one elsewhere and each time they phone me and ask me if I want a credit card I tell them where they can insert their cards.

I have no chose but to have an account for my wages to go into, but it does not stay there long.

Strikes me you were well treated that they didn't make you chase the money.

[Frank Merton]

One time I had kinda the opposite problem. The bank credited me with a sizeable deposit twice. I had several sit-downs with bank officers, me saying I know better and them giving me every possible assurance with all the sincerity they could muster that it was my money.

Well, I don't know what the details of the law might be, but I was taking no chances, this being a state-owned bank. So I took all my money out of the account except the erroneous deposit and put it into a new account, so there could be no co-mingling, and even what interest the first account earned would be clear and unambiguous.

A few months later the old account just vanished. No one even thanked me.

[freetoroam]

Strikes me you were well treated that they didn't make you chase the money.

Actually they did get my money back quick, one month. Once you go to the police and get a crime number the banks act quickly, especially when its happened in an ATM machine inside their bank.

[Miss Shadows]

Honestly? I think it depends on how smart/vigilant you are about it. I know the APR'S on all my credit cards (I even know what an APR actually is), how much is on each, how much I should be using them, etc. If you're someone who doesn't want to spend more than 30 seconds a month covering your bases here then I wouldn't recommend using the plastic too much, but at the same time I'm 18 years old with a credit score of over 740. Knowing my income, and everything else involved, I put 90 percent of my expenses on credit cards every month, then I pay it off a day, maybe a week before my payments are due. I do okay with numbers so it's not that much of a hassle really, and I've never payed more than 2 bucks for interest. At least in this part of the world, you need credit for certain things, and in all honesty it does make life convenient in a lot of ways. I have a certain amount of money I don't keep in any bank for my own reasons, but other than that the only occasions I won't use a card are when a place doesn't take them, or when I pay my rent.

[freetoroam]

Honestly? I think it depends on how smart/vigilant you are about it. I know the APR'S on all my credit cards (I even know what an APR actually is), how much is on each, how much I should be using them, etc. If you're someone who doesn't want to spend more than 30 seconds a month covering your bases here then I wouldn't recommend using the plastic too much, but at the same time I'm 18 years old with a credit score of over 740. Knowing my income, and everything else involved, I put 90 percent of my expenses on credit cards every month, then I pay it off a day, maybe a week before my payments are due. I do okay with numbers so it's not that much of a hassle really, and I've never payed more than 2 bucks for interest. At least in this part of the world, you need credit for certain things, and in all honesty it does make life convenient in a lot of ways. I have a certain amount of money I don't keep in any bank for my own reasons, but other than that the only occasions I won't use a card are when a place doesn't take them, or when I pay my rent.

Well done for being so responsible.

I do without credit, if I can not afford it right now, I will save up until I can, its because I do not want to owe anything to anyone, especially banks!

[Miss Shadows]

Thank you. As much as I understand your philosophy, where I currently live having credit is so important. I paid off a 10,000+ dollar car on a loan in 2 years, and my interest rate was less than 3 percent. I guess it all just depends.