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August 31st, 2017 
Awake Goy Governments and banks are promoting the idea of a society completely devoid of turnover of cash. It’s amazing how weak everyone resists these attempts. Blogs and news websites are mostly referring to the fact that cash is a “legal means of payment”, as if this is important for the unfolding trend.
Here is the list of mixed reasons for turning irrevocably into non-cash settlements: combating terrorism and tax evasion; impeding black market trade; cost-cutting on banknotes and coins; fighting the shadow economy; combating money laundering; eliminating counterfeit money, etc.
The fight against terrorism is in the limelight, which is not surprising. It is difficult to contest this argument because of the emotional intensity inherent in the subject matter. Any opponent of refusing cash looks like an accomplice to terrorists in this context.
Lawrence Summers, a university professor at Harvard and The Washington Post’s contributor, referred to a study of the Harvard Kennedy School. The paper argued that availability of large banknotes in circulation makes it easier to commit crimes. For the sake of persuasiveness, the professor wrote that the € 500 note is known as “Bin Laden” “in certain circles“.
It turns out that giving up cash is an absolute blessing, isn’t it? It would be so, unless there were a couple of catches – criminals’ knack for taking people’s money, vulnerability to internet fraud and end of privacy.
2016 Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report reveals some unpleasant facts about financial cybercrimes:
- 594 million people worldwide were victims of online crime in 2015;
- Consumers who have been the victim of cybercrime lost an average of 21 hours over the past year dealing with the fallout, and nearly $358 on average per person, enough for a year of home security monitoring;
- And because so much of our business is conducted online—bill payments, shopping, and trading, for example—the inconvenience of dealing with the impact of having financial information compromised can be almost painful.
Numerous mafia clans and terrorist groups have long ago mastered modern technologies, and are using the achievements of the digital age for their own enrichment. Nowadays, suitcases with dollars are the destiny of either not very smart and sophisticated, or too greedy and corrupt.
Nothing is obvious when it comes to the fight against illegal sectors of the economy, too. Last year, the UK government, who has firsthand experience with laundry problems, conducted a special study to find out which institutions particularly raise the risks of money laundering. The first two places were occupied by ordinary international banks and offshore service providers like Mossack Fonseca, known for the Panama Papers scandal. Cash won the honorable third place.
Besides, the very owners of large bills do not give the impression of criminals. A study conducted in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston shows that a typical holder of a wallet with hundred-dollar bills is a person over 55 with a higher education. Not the most common demographic group for drug trafficking, for instance.
Are we ready to enter the cashless society?
Experts note that it is meaningless to impose restrictions in individual countries, since criminals operate on an international scale. In addition, new forms of crypto currency, such as bitcoins, are emerging. It is also common knowledge that the level of corruption in Spain and Italy, the countries with acting restrictions on non-cash settlements, is higher than in Austria or Germany.
In other countries, however, cash is losing the battle. Not every Swedish store will accept banknotes and coins. Shops and restaurants, such as Johan & Nyström coffeehouses chain, are refusing cash, and bus fares in Stockholm became non-cash a few years ago.
The number of bank robberies in Sweden fell from 110 in 2008 to 5 in 2012 against this background. At the same time, shops are now attacked more often – the number of armed robberies for the first half of 2015 increased by 50 percent compared to the same period last year. On the other hand, cybercrime rate is growing in conditions of mostly non-cash settlements. According to data for 2013, the number of crimes related to Internet fraud increased by about 40%.
Looking at the example of their northern neighbor, other countries are hesitant to wave goodbye to bills and coins. Oberthur Fiduciaire, a French world-class leader in banknotes printing, conducted a study of developed countries to analyze evolution of the use of banknotes in the last fifteen years. Thomas Savare, Oberthur Fiduciaire’s CEO, says: “We have found that use of banknotes has consistently increased over the last fifteen years, between 50% and 100% … Users start realizing that online and electronic (payments) are not good for every purchase and that there are inherent risks. That is why many people are not willing to give up on using cash“.
This trend is not surprising. A full transition to electronic settlements, and, subsequently, to crypto currency, means the end of the personal freedom for each individual person.
In addition, banks will be able to draw off customer money at any time and in any amount, just like it was done several years ago in Cyprus. Despite the fact that the ban on cash is a world trend, it must be approached with the utmost caution. Given the European experience, people should look at banks and understand that banking operations will be fundamentally different in the cashless society. The concepts of tax collection and control over money operations will upend.
“If governments make cash illegal, the need for cash will not disappear. They will just create a black market. Thus, like the ‘war on drugs’, for example, they will create much bigger problems than they originally had”, says financial writer Dominick Frisby. “The use of cash remains an essential liberty that everyone should be able to have“, agrees Oberthur Fiduciaire’s CEO.
The cashless payments will not defeat corruption and will not destroy the shadow economy, just like introduction of a worldwide system for the exchange of financial information has not helped to solve the offshore problem. Criminals will still look for any loophole (this is how “tax havens” were created), and a simple deprivation of the ability to transfer cash will not become a magic bullet. All ordinary citizens will be the first to suffer from the complete transition to non-cash settlements. And this is a serious reason to think about the correctness of the way to refuse cash.
References
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-14/the-cashless-society-is-a-creepy-fantasy
Source Article from http://www.renegadetribune.com/soon-forced-abandon-cash/
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