Opposing digital currency.

[Stalker62]

I very seldom have cash now, and find it extremely inconvenient if I have to use it.

A couple of weeks ago, I paid for a Sunday paper with a £10 note.

The young girl behind the jump, seemed to take an age to work out the change (£8).

She eventually handed over four £2 coins. I stared down at the strange lumps of metal and (ironically) seemed to take an age to work out that that was £8!

I have put these rare objects by the front door, and now take one each Sunday to make that same purchase - strange times...






The irony that those coins now sit on a Credit Card tray is not lost on me...

 

[spanj]

I don’t really understand the opposition to getting rid of cash.

Can someone explain what the concern is?

I very seldom have cash now, and find it extremely inconvenient if I have to use it. Really dislike businesses that insist on it.

Control

 

[zambezi]

Can someone explain what the concern is?

Cash is a universal medium of exchange. You earn it, you spend it however you choose.

Credit card payments are akin to cash in that central government are not party to that transaction. They are blind to it. They cannot control or limit your spend. Your bank can...but that is between you and your bank.

Digital currency as proposed by Sunak/BoE has every single transaction pass through their vetting system.

Simply:

• Cash = unqualified wealth
• CBDC = conditional wealth

[cast you mind back to the closure of Canadian trucker accounts and then consider a system that can do that to 40 million people on a whim and flick of a switch]

 

[zambezi]

A petition here from GB News against a digital currency and a cashless society.

Signed!

 

[JTO]

Perhaps some businesses do not want the expense of being connected to the credit card system.

 

[Mungo]

Cash is a universal medium of exchange. You earn it, you spend it however you choose.

Credit card payments are akin to cash in that central government are not party to that transaction. They are blind to it. They cannot control or limit your spend. Your bank can...but that is between you and your bank.

Digital currency as proposed by Sunak/BoE has every single transaction pass through their vetting system.

Simply:

• Cash = unqualified wealth
• CBDC = conditional wealth

[cast you mind back to the closure of Canadian trucker accounts and then consider a system that can do that to 40 million people on a whim and flick of a switch]

Ah!

I was confusing cashless payment via a credit/debit card and a centralised digital currency.

I now fully appreciate the concern.

 

[Dunwaters]

Oh, another thing. I sometimes go to rugby games at Twickenham. It is now a cash free zone. You can't buy anything without flashing plastic. Not a drink, not a rugby shirt, not even a greasy burger from some stand. Nobody takes cash. And these days, of course even the tickets appear on your 'phone, which, if you can get one, will have been paid for online. Not even using a card!

Interestingly cash is legal tender, the card isn’t, so order your pint, get it in your fist and then offer the cash.
Legally you’ve offered to pay and the vendor has refused to accept it, so you now have a free pint

 

[User00035]

Cash is a universal medium of exchange. You earn it, you spend it however you choose.

Credit card payments are akin to cash in that central government are not party to that transaction. They are blind to it. They cannot control or limit your spend. Your bank can...but that is between you and your bank.

Digital currency as proposed by Sunak/BoE has every single transaction pass through their vetting system.

Simply:

• Cash = unqualified wealth
• CBDC = conditional wealth

[cast you mind back to the closure of Canadian trucker accounts and then consider a system that can do that to 40 million people on a whim and flick of a switch]

Exactly. Cash is ownership of income. A digital currency is a subscription service where someone else writes and can rewrite the rules and controls access. It's a short step to all earned income being transferred directly to the state and the state paying an allowance to the individual based on politically determined need. Remember, the Corbyn/McDonnell Labour party actually proposed such a thing.
They were torn to pieces for the idea at the time, but imagine the evils a future Marxist government could inflict by incremental stealth if a digital currency was already in place.

 

[JTO]

It's a short step to all earned income being transferred directly to the state and the state paying an allowance to the individual based on politically determined need.

Sounds like the Gordon Brown idea!

 

[User00035]

Sounds like the Gordon Brown idea!

Brown and McDonnell both proposed state control of income. Brown disguised his intent with a lot of pseudo waffle about aleviating poverty while McDonnell was more specific in floating the idea of making society entirely cashless with a Cuban-style ration book and voucher system.
It was never official Labour policy but it was discussed publicly at conference fringe meetings. Everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together laughed it out of court at the time, but imagine if such a dangerous and deranged regime found themselves controlling the levers of a digital currency.

 

[Bo Diddley]

Yep signed.

 

[zambezi]

Brown and McDonnell both proposed state control of income. Brown disguised his intent with a lot of pseudo waffle about aleviating poverty

The Tory version of that stalking horse is called "levelling up". It has its own minister.

It is very much about levelling down.

 

[markj1]

I understand that in some gulf countries everything is digitised, including your ID. If you speed while driving, at the end of the journey you'll find that the fine has been taken from your bank account. Seriously.

 

[Ade8mm]

I understand that in some gulf countries everything is digitised, including your ID. If you speed while driving, at the end of the journey you'll find that the fine has been taken from your bank account. Seriously.

Which Gulf countries?

 

[Dickturpin]

Surely it's illegal to refuse cash as it's legal tender..folk need to wake up .the I can't do anything people need to realise we are the many they are the few..... government meant to work for our benefit!!!!! Resist resist and resist...if not for yourselves for your children

 

[Fadcode]

I have to say if I find a business that's cash only I would avoid it. One, I never have cash. I don't use it, need it or get paid in it & Two, I'd assume that the business was dodgy.

I think what a lot of people do not realise is that when a business accepts payment through a card, it has to pay in the region of 2% to the firm that does the card transaction, so that means that the buyer pays the 2%, so that means that paying by card means you get overcharged by 2%, it is the same for cash, but at least with cash you can haggle, no doubt when cards become the norm, the transaction fees will go up, and so will the cost of everything.

 

[Fadcode]

Perhaps if there was a run on the Banks they would realise how important cash was.

 

[markj1]

Which Gulf countries?

Countries who are members of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose residents use the Emirates ID card. The ID card is linked to their bearer's bank accounts and can be used for all forms of payment to government departments, as well as some commercial purchases (e.g. paying for fuel).

They like technology over there, they have the money, and their population does not seen to have the same concerns about privacy that we in the West do, hence why they are ahead of us (we'll get there eventually, but it will take longer because there's a lot of resistance to overcome).

 

[markj1]

Surely it's illegal to refuse cash as it's legal tender..folk need to wake up .the I can't do anything people need to realise we are the many they are the few..... government meant to work for our benefit!!!!! Resist resist and resist...if not for yourselves for your children

When I first ancoutered it during COVID, I queried this as well.

Archived Petition: Make it unlawful for shops to refuse cash payments.

Make it illegal for retailers and services to decline cash payments.

petition.parliament.uk

In short, businesses can choose whatever forms of payment they accept. The only case where a business can't refuse cash, is when a debt is being paid (which is why some reluctant debtors have been known to make payments in 1p coins... but I digress).

 

[Ranger6555]

I don't submit as easily as you. And I don't think I'm in a minority. I've yet to find a business not accepting cash - except during Covid, and those have gone back to cash. If I find a digital-only business, I will go elsewhere. If they won;t take my money in cash, they won't get any of it.
Just because the wealthy, the powerful, and despotic say something is desirable, almost certainly means it is not; and just because they say it must happen, doesn't mean it has to or that we should accept it.

If they refuse to take cash report them to the local authority. It is illegal to refuse legal tender,