Care to elaborate on where I lost you?
I think I alluded to wealth consisting of more than cash in this thread, and many times in many threads I’ve talked about what differentiates wealthy people from poor people. Of course most billionaires probably don’t have billions of dollars in actual cash, though I’d bet there are some, like Bezos or Gates that actually could demand and receive a billion dollars in cash if they had the need. I don’t know what you’re overall point is here, the simple fact is that any billionaire, or millionaire for that matter could withdraw far more cash out of the bank than I, and I’d bet you, ever could. It’s a moot point, if cash disappears the middle class will disappear too, and that really is what the whole program is about.
This bothers me greatly. I am not an economics buff, but I do know that bartering (trading one service or physical item for another) is the antidote to socialism, or so I figured. Then there is capitalism, where, instead of trading goods/services, you trade the former for capital (or money). A cashless economy will disable bartering and capitalism, and allow more surveillance of individual trading, allowing the government to ban goods that they don’t like. Including those that include information. It puts teeth to a regime. Because it is electronics, there is the possibility of hacking, if not to steal money, but to spy on an individual’s transactions.
Not only that, but a cashless society could exacerbate inflation.
Let me know if I’m wrong.
Lack of a physical representation of currency does not disable capitalism.
The majority of capital transactions are disconnected from any physical representation of capital. It’s ledgers and contracts. Same as it would be in an “all digital” scheme.
2 Likes
This part I agree with. But we are already most of the way there even with cash.
By law almost any transaction of merit requires record keeping.
With cash we have a few privacies yet available, but they are vanishingly small… paying the baby sitter, buying an item from a private party. I prefer these remain and support keeping cash.
Without cash these small privacies will require exchanging an intrinsically valuable commodity like gold. Inconvenient but possible.
1 Like
So the 12 year old neighbor kid who mows his neighbors lawns, shovels their snow, washed their cars and other odd jobs to make money wouldn’t be affected if cash was gone?
And none of you guys are getting the point.
WHAT WILL CASH BE REPLACED WITH? HOW WILL ITS VALUE BE DETERMINED IN RELATION TO YOUR LABOR?
1 Like
Venmo? Cash App? Zelle?
If the kid doesn’t have a phone… send the money to his parents
If neither is available then, oh well, kid isn’t getting paid.
Why does it need to be replaced with something?
[quote=“Optrader, post:66, topic:241363, full:true”]
I didn’t say no effect. I said it would not “disable capitalism”. The kid in your example would be inconvenienced significantly by either maintaining a digital banking account or bartering his services with an intrinsically valuable commodity.
We are talking about prospective systems, but eliminating physical cash simply in exchange for a digitally represented currency would have no effect on valuation of the dollar. Just as the current value of the dollar is not determined by the presence of or amount of physical currency in the system.
So to that end the dollar could be valued the same as it is today.
Edit: could go unstated, but distaste for all-digital currency could lower the value of the dollar. But that is determined by human emotion, and not inherent to the “digitalness” of the system.
The point hasn’t changed. Most “wealth” is not in the form of cash.
About a year and a half ago I came across a cartoon of a dragon sitting atop its hoard of toilet paper.
1 Like
You’re right on all of these things. Our currency is already backed by nothing, it’s had nothing behind it since Nixon took us off the gold standard. Our monetary system is nothing but smoke and mirrors and the government is trying to collapse that. We are literally wage slaves running like hamsters on a wheel to pay a debt the government keeps running up. On top of paying the debt the government is running up we have to sometimes struggle to maintain our own lives. They know full well what they are doing and like in everything else on their agenda they are now moving quickly to bring their vision about before their minions catch on. Even minions won’t like the Cuba like tyranny and poverty the hard left is trying to establish, but by the time they wake up, as in every other Communist revolution, it will be too late. The useful idiots will suffer just as much or more, but the rest of us will be too busy trying to eke out a living to take any satisfaction at their mutual plight.
Dem
72
What’s up with people and complaining about the gold standard. There is no intrinsic value in gold. It only had value, because we said it had value.
Trading gold as means to purchase goods is no different than when people traded see shells.
Peoples who used rice as currency made more sense than using gold.
This is the critical observation.
Having physical currency (which I prefer) does not reduce or mitigate the government’s power to effect the value of the dollar.
Digital dollars increase the ability to track and tax and regulate, but already we have a free-floating valuation of currency and are beholden to US and global policy decisions to maintain the value of any dollars we hold in hand.
This is also true for most other wealth storage implements like land, minerals, stocks and bonds. All of which are tied to government policy and regulation to maintain their values.
Turns out there are not a lot of materials that lend themselves to usage as a currency.
This is put forth as one of the “pros” of digital currencies like Bitcoin. They are characterized as resilient to state control. I contest that myself, but that is part of the “buzz” surrounding them.
Gold exists and has been valued by men when there were no governments or big banks to insist that gold exists and has value. You saying there is no intrinsic value in gold ignores that men simply value it simply as gold … even ignoring its many useful properties. It is simply human to value gold.
Meanwhile paper only has value because there’s a big government and a big bank insisting it’s money … even as they’ve pursued decades worth of intentional inflationary policy.
So here’s the thing: the fine bone white China and the common chamber pot may both be pottery … but one is valued and the other is ultimately for ****.
There is no election they won’t steal
No perverts they won’t legitimize
No criminals they won’t coddle
2 Likes
Gold is great. It does have downsides that limit it. Particularly in a capitalistic system which craves efficiency.
Unfortunately there is no ideal item we can use as a currency.
The good news is that if you prefer gold you can still choose to hold your wealth in it.
All good until the gubmint confiscates it.
So true.
The sucky reality of being an individual.
conan
79
Interest…I hope you all are getting this.
Dem
80
Gold is just like any other commodity money in history. Shells, metals, stones, jewels etc. They have value because we say the have value. And they only have value because we needed something rare and durable, to serve as a third good to solve the coincidence of wants.
Pining for the gold standard is just an emotional attachment that needs to go away. Especially in modern times, when the US economy alone, is double the size of all known gold mined in human history.
