A cashless society - peer to peer payments?

Prism

eskbanker said:

Elmer_BeFuddled said:
Don't want the gov/bank really knowing where and how I spend my money (not that they'd really be bothered in little old me!).

Ah but they'll know where you are at all times via the GPS-enabled chip they'll be injecting....

Only if they pay Bill Gates the monthly subscription.

Grenage

barnstar2077 said:

It would need to be something that holds it's value and can be easily verified as genuine.  So that rules out bitcoin! :  )

Crypto would be the perfect currency, but as you say the level of service X might get you would vary from second to second!

At 39 I loathe cash; it is inconvenient and cumbersome.  Almost all of my friends feel the same and we only ever use PayPal or such to send money.

Cash has been dead for a long time, and I can't imagine the next generation being more receptive.  I have no issue with the bank or government knowing where my money goes, much as I have no issue with Google knowing my every waking movement and interest.

Mickey666

This whole argument about abolishing cash to make it easier to track people's behaviour has some amusing implications.  Ever seen those wildlife films where huge shoals of fish clump together for protection against predators?  On the face of it it seems odd behaviour since a huge shoal is the very thing that attracts the predators in the first place.  Why not strike out, get away from the shoal and go it alone?
The answer is that you're less likely to be noticed if you're among loads of similar company, but strike out on your own and you become highly visible.
Thus, if you always use untraceable cash, have no credit or debit cards, no credit history, work for cash and so have no recorded income etc etc, then far from being untraceable you lack of a 'footprint' makes you stick out like a sore thumb to anyone interested in such things.  Whereas 'Mr Average' is able to blend in . . .  hiding in plain sight as it were.  Not an exact analogy of course, but you get the point.
Try being a self-employed tradesman working only cash-in-hand, living in a large house with a new Range Rover on the driveway and see how long you can stay 'under the radar'

barnstar2077

Mickey666 said:

This whole argument about abolishing cash to make it easier to track people's behaviour has some amusing implications.  Ever seen those wildlife films where huge shoals of fish clump together for protection against predators?  On the face of it it seems odd behaviour since a huge shoal is the very thing that attracts the predators in the first place.  Why not strike out, get away from the shoal and go it alone?
The answer is that you're less likely to be noticed if you're among loads of similar company, but strike out on your own and you become highly visible.
Thus, if you always use untraceable cash, have no credit or debit cards, no credit history, work for cash and so have no recorded income etc etc, then far from being untraceable you lack of a 'footprint' makes you stick out like a sore thumb to anyone interested in such things.  Whereas 'Mr Average' is able to blend in . . .  hiding in plain sight as it were.  Not an exact analogy of course, but you get the point.
Try being a self-employed tradesman working only cash-in-hand, living in a large house with a new Range Rover on the driveway and see how long you can stay 'under the radar'

This is why I mow the lawn regularly and go to church on Sundays.  So no one questions what I'm doing in my basement! : ) 

IvanOpinion

As far as I am concerned the sooner cashless comes the better - nasty dirty filthy unhygenic stuff.  Since lockdown I have become pretty much cashless ... the £80 that I have in my wallet has been there now for almost a year.  If someone wants cash then I usually walk away.  Even before lockdown, cash was only used as a last resort.  Personally I think shops should be entitled to charge extra for having to handle, count and check both cash and cheques.

As for the tin foil hat brigade concerns over monitoring ... please under no circumstances get a mobile phone.

Type_45

eskbanker said:

Type_45 said:
What's in it for the Bank of England is control and power. BoE is owned the government. They are one and the same. Two cheeks of the same !!!!!!.

How would that work then, i.e. in what meaningful sense would abolishing cash (with that activity being picked up by the retail banks) allow the central bank more control and power than it already has, given its role in managing the major financial and economic levers?

Type_45 said:

And finishing your post with high status opinions about the Mail and Farage may impress the simpletons, but I can see it for the fig leaf covering your vast lack of knowledge that it is.

No need to tar the rest of us with the same brush just because you're being evasive!

The official line (quoted at conferences attended by BIS, IMF etc) is that if everyone is using Central Bank Digital Currencies, with no cash available, then it would make it easier to prevent fraud and terrorism.

Everybody would have an ID card, and your Bank account is linked to your ID. The central bank/government can therefore cut off your funds whenever it likes. Monitor your spending. Stop you spending more than your allocation on fossil fuels each year. Stop you catching flights. Stop you earning untaxed money. See which charities you give money to.

CBDC is not for your benefit. It's for the benefit of the 1% who want complete control of the population. They get money and power from the arrangement. You get nothing whatsoever.

And this isn't a conspiracy. Conspiracies require secrecy. All of this is in the public domain. Openly discussed by the IMF, BIS etc.

By the time people like you wake up to it it will have already happened.

And indeed it is inevitable anyway.

So again, my only question is this: what forms of peer to peer payment can the people use which are off the books and away from government prying and bank fees? 

Type_45

barnstar2077 said:

Even if cash was abolished completely something else would replace it.  There is always going to be people who want to carry out clandestine transactions, for drugs or sex etc.  It would need to be something that holds it's value and can be easily verified as genuine.  So that rules out bitcoin! :  )

Yes. But what is this thing which can/will replace cash?

DiggerUK

Mickey666 said:

This whole argument about abolishing cash to make it easier to track people's behaviour has some amusing implications...........

Type45, this post should be taken as the final word in response to your daffy fears.

I don't think your problem arises from whips and sodomy, but I'd reduce my rum intake if I were you..._

eskbanker

Type_45 said:

The official line (quoted at conferences attended by BIS, IMF etc) is that if everyone is using Central Bank Digital Currencies, with no cash available, then it would make it easier to prevent fraud and terrorism.

Everybody would have an ID card....

There's a small but crucial two-letter word in the middle of that on which the whole of your argument stands or falls (the latter!) - there can clearly be no such 'official line' but obviously people can dream up hypothetical scenarios to their heart's content and bump their gums about them at conferences....

Type_45 said:
So again, my only question is this: what forms of peer to peer payment can the people use which are off the books and away from government prying and bank fees? 

Use what you like!  I'd suggest that those who buy into the dystopian fantasy pay each other with Bacofoil....

Gadfium

Type_45 said:

Gadfium said:

Type_45 said:

AlanP_2 said:

Same way many of us do now - card / contactless and/or bank transfer and/or one of the phone pay systems

All of which carry fees (or can be made to) and are traceable.

If I give you £10 for washing my car it is between us and cannot be interfered with or monitored.

AKA, the "black economy" or tax evasion. Why should someone expect income to be untraceable?

Someone would probably expect it because it's been that way since the creation of money thousands of years ago.

If you wash my car and I give you £10 you will declare it to the tax man, will you? 

In other words, if you don't lock your front door then it's OK if I wander in and steal your stuff.