Now, what is it again we call people who have no ownership of the fruits of their labor?
A proposed new law in Denmark could be the first step towards an economic revolution that sees physical currencies and normal bank accounts abolished and gives governments futuristic new tools to fight the cycle of “boom and bust”.
The Danish proposal sounds innocuous enough on the surface – it would simply allow shops to refuse payments in cash and insist that customers use contactless debit cards or some other means of electronic payment.
Officially, the aim is to ease “administrative and financial burdens”, such as the cost of hiring a security service to send cash to the bank, and is part of a programme of reforms aimed at boosting growth – there is evidence that high cash usage in an economy acts as a drag.
But the move could be a key moment in the advent of “cashless societies”. And once all money exists only in bank accounts – monitored, or even directly controlled by the government – the authorities will be able to encourage us to spend more when the economy slows, or spend less when it is overheating. […]
In this futuristic world, all payments are made by contactless card, mobile phone apps or other electronic means, while notes and coins are abolished. Your current account will no longer be held with a bank, but with the government or the central bank. Banks still exist, and still lend money, but they get their funds from the central bank, not from depositors. […]
At the moment it’s easy for individuals to avoid seeing their money eroded this way – they can simply hold banknotes, stored either in a safe or under the proverbial mattress.
But if notes and coins were abolished and the only way to hold money was through a government-controlled bank, there would be no escape.
“This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5103
If you offer US currency to any shopkeeper in the US and they refuse it, you have made a legitimate attempt to pay the debt, and legally owe them nothing more. When they take that phrase off the currency, only then we should start to worry.
>gives governments futuristic new tools to fight the cycle of “boom and bust”. <
The Federal Reserve: 100 Years Of Boom And Bust
IT’LL WORK THIS TIME, part 3,148
Horseshit. The real goal is to monitor what said money is being spent on.
Sounds like the first step towards reintroducing the barter system.
In the dystopian future, all wealth will be ones and zeroes in the Matrix.
Imagine, oh say, Greece with no cash and only a computer file evidencing one’s life savings. That is, imagine a government which will be bankrupt in a matter of days casting its gaze upon its citizens’ wealth as a means of perpetuating its own existence. Make no mistake. That is the end game.
-Exactly, Shermlaw. For ‘the good of the nation’ they will be able to seize any monies they want. In America [soon]: ‘Your 401K’s, they belong to us’.
-This kind of system will also allow governments to put monies they’ve created out of The Ether into accounts and mandate they be spent, all in the name of ‘stimulating The Economy’. The effect, of course, will be to make money worthless, stimulating, as Ernst states, a Barter System.
Its effect will be to make government money worthless. People will trade, and as barter-based black markets become more complex they will need some kind of marker accepted widely to simplify each participant’s tradings.
Of course, by then the matrix will have collapsed anyway and the new regime will happily declare the most widely favored scrip legal tender throughout the realm.
If the black market hasn’t become the new regime — as it probably should.
Some old Shlomo of the poorest man: “He’s happy, and yet he don’t have two pfennig to rub together.”
Some earnest Dane: “Ah, so that’s a good thing. No rubbing. We’ll eliminate rubbing.”
Drumwaster: There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
The Government itself begs to differ about that.
“Legal tender” means that the business you try to pay with a dollar can’t say “that’s not money!”.
They can say “no cash accepted”, and you do still owe them. Debts do not magically disappear because someone refused to take your preferred mode of payment.
Some urban myths refuse to die, I suppose.
(Link added, per Squid’s comment below. –admin)
I have asked before what is “liberty” unless you mean economic liberty?
Recreational marijuana or SSM may seem nifty keeno for some but, are not what I think of when I think of Liberty and Freedom.
…there is evidence that high cash usage in an economy acts as a drag.
I would be very interested in reviewing such evidence. Kinda funny, the author not providing any links to it…
Sigivald says May 14, 2015 at 10:26 am
Drumwaster: There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
I gave the cite that says that the currency is “legal tender” for ALL debts, both public and private. Coins are not actually considered currency, and there have been legal precedents that allow businesses to refuse to accept them for large debts (you can be denied the right to buy a car or pay a large court fine using pennies, for instance), because the Coinage Act of 1965 also makes them legal tender for payment of debts, except where such payment would cause an “undue hardship”. (Many grocery stores today have one of those machines that accept large quantities of coins for a small fee – usually a percentage – and hand back a receipt which the store will accept as cash for the purchase of groceries, or just a straight cash swap, avoiding the hardship that might be imposed.)
If a business has that policy posted about refusing large denominations during certain hours, that would become part of the “contract” that the seller and buyer are entering into, but without prior notice, such a policy is invalid on its face. The seller cannot suddenly spring such a policy mid-transaction. (Which is one reason most gas stations require payment in advance of dispensing the gasoline purchased, and can even charge higher prices for certain forms of payment, so long as such higher prices are clearly advertised before purchase can be made.)
There is no legal standard anywhere allowing any business to refuse cash as payment for services or goods, and any business that refuses to accept it cannot complain when the customer refuses to offer any other form of payment. There just is no buying or selling between the two. (The customer walks out with his cash and the business keeps its products, and loses whatever percentage of the market that refuses to play by those rules.) However, once the seller and buyer have entered into a legal contract (such as buying a car or house on payments), the seller cannot then suddenly change his or her mind and refuse to accept cash as a means of payment. If he does, that buyer can go into court and seek to have the entire remaining debt legally discharged, and would almost certainly win.
Finally, Federal Law supersedes any State law on the same issue, and that has been long-standing precedent. (Just ask Arizona about its immigration policy.) No urban myths required.
By the way, the way you have italicized the words after my name, and separated it with a colon makes it appear as though I said such words, and you are replying. That is not the case, and you should take great care to avoid such wrongful attributions in the future, and even the appearance of such, lest others begin using the same tactics against you.
Sigivald, was there supposed to be a link in your comment, or are those orange words just for decoration?
They do like kinda purty, mind you…
this seems like a great way to encourage the development of innovative and exciting off grid currencies
Remember the old joke about the Soviet System? They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work?
Everything old is new again.
“Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself.”
Milton Friedman
It’s said that Man is distinguished from other animals in being a political animal — but I would say Man’s politicality is a result of his being an economical animal.
Politics is how we created a safe space (heh) for trade.
as Marshall Dillon said it: Around Dodge City and in the territory on west, there’s just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers and that’s with a U.S. Marshal and the smell of gunsmoke
McGehee, I’ve said it frequently that politics is the art of man getting along with his neighbors, and that includes trade. Another truism is that “Capitalism isn’t an ideology, it’s what people do when the government leaves them alone.”
If we do not have the freedom to make trades that make both parties better off (even if only in their own perception), then we are not free to do anything at all.
PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) just surpassed Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) to become the largest energy company in the world, on a market cap basis.
I think I told this one before. One guy from Brazil I worked with thought the US was less free because he could not do things like drink a beer on the street and party all night.
Sigivald’s link should have gone to this page at Treasury.gov.
I contend that formal freedom to trade has generally been a kind of shared joke between the government and the governed. Informal freedom to trade has never really been much limited; black markets flourish even in totalitarian societies. Traders in such circumstances factor the risk of arrest and punishment into the cost of doing business, but the business gets done.
If free trade comes under threat from a too closely monitored legal tender, there will be barter, and in some cases where there’s enough market to support it, there will be extralegal tender that can be used for just about everything except paying taxes.
i’m worried about all these sick chickens
I bet PeTA like radicals behind it. They plant people in the industry all the time, why not infect the animals.
[…] Daily TelegraphA proposed new law in Denmark could be the first step towards an economic revolution that sees physical currencies and normal bank accounts abolished… The Danish proposal sounds innocuous enough on the surface – it would simply allow shops to refuse payments in cash and insist that customers use contactless debit cards or some other means of electronic payment.The author of the article seems to think this is a good idea, because it would eventually lead to a "cashless society" where all money exists only in electronic bank accounts and be subject to government control.Darleen at Protein Wisdom points out that people who don't own the fruits of their labor are called slaves.But there's more wrong with the idea than just that.Daily TelegraphBut if notes and coins were abolished and the only way to hold money was through a government-controlled bank, there would be no escape.There is always an escape. The concept of money has existed for millenia because it is simple, effective, and it works. The moment the government's "money" system becomes more annoying to use than some other system, people will switch. And there are thousands of alternatives, whether you prefer alternative electronic systems like BitCoin, or running your black market economy on imported paper dollars from the US, or coming up with a new currency from scratch. Believing that this proposal could actually eliminate the concept of cash is insane. ("Sharply reduce the use of" is a different question). […]