
Cash is for criminals: Why we should scrap big notes - randomname2
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-21/world-awash-with-cash-fuels-illegal-activity/7933250
======
jimmywanger
Basically, he's mandating the adoption of electronic currency adaption for
every business, no matter how large or how small. Want to open up a
restaurant? Better accept credit cards and the 1-2% haircut they take off the
top of every sale.

It's also every authoritarian's wet dream.

If everything can be tracked, everything will be tracked.

"Oh, we see you've been buying quite a bit of ice cream on your trips to the
store. Your health insurance rates just went up. In addition, we'd like to
chat with you about the 3 gun magazines you've just bought."

EDIT:

And restricting the denominations of notes doesn't seem to stop cash
transactions. It just makes things into a gigantic pain in the ass. Look at
Venezuela. The highest denominated note is worth ~10 cents, and most
transactions are in cash.

~~~
devoply
It's already like this. They just want more. Because you really can't have
enough control. You want 5,000 in cash? Well let us just report you to a
government agency that will monitor you for the next little while to make sure
you're not doing anything nefarious. Each time I visit A&W and then quit, they
send me coupons to get me back. Same thing with the liquor shop and I drink a
single Crabbies every month.

~~~
jimmywanger
You're missing the point entirely.

> You want 5,000 in cash? Well let us just report you to a government agency
> that will monitor you for the next little while to make sure you're not
> doing anything nefarious.

Bullshit. You can easily change/withdraw money in casinos to your heart's
content, up to either 6k or 10k dollars PER transaction, if you remove more
than that, paperwork gets involved

> Each time I visit A&W and then quit, they send me coupons to get me back.
> Same thing with the liquor shop and I drink a single Crabbies every month.

Yes, do you pay with cash or credit card, and do you use a rewards card? If
you pay with credit card or use a rewards card, that's exactly what you're
complaining about. I pay in cash for most minor transactions like that,
without a rewards card, and nothing of the sort has happened to me. How would
it? They have no information about me.

If you're voluntarily using a credit card or rewards programs to save a few
bucks or build up airplane miles, yeah you kinda made the trade off.

A cashless society legislates the tradeoff for you.

------
autognosis
Singapore has the largest notes in circulation, last i checked (S$8000).

People who want to ban cash don't care about crime. They care about control
and management of things that are (by definition) not their business.

To these people, i say: ban bitcoin and gold, and then i might care what you
have to say.

~~~
mikhailfranco
Your point about the anti-correlation of large denomination notes and crime is
described here by Sovereign Man:

[http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/an-interesting-
perspectiv...](http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/an-interesting-perspective-
on-the-war-on-cash-20526/)

------
ClayFerguson
This is great news for those holding gold reserves. If all the illicit
transfers of funds have to shift to gold then people will have to buy gold in
order to do that, thereby increasing demand and also price.

Unfortunately, a rapidly rising gold price would cause more investors to put
their money in gold rather than other investments, like venture capital, so in
the long run, the net effect of getting rid of large currency bills would be
to hurt the economy itself. This is why FREEDOM is always the best policy.
When governments try to "engineer" a specific outcome they always screw it up,
because they grossly miscalculate the knock-on second order effects of their
policies.

Governments will always screw up monetary policy of every kind. For example,
the only thing that should set interest rates is the market. The federal
reserve has conjured so much money into existence by artificially keeping
interest rates low, that we now sit on a $20T of debt in his country. It's
inter-generational theft plain and simple. We are spending money that doesn't
belong to us. It belongs to the next generation of americans, and you are
complicit in the theft if you voted democrat. Thank god you dems lost the
election you blithering ass hats.

------
anigbrowl
I'm rather astonished at seeing this from Rogoff. Certainly cash does
facilitate crime, but it appears he's overlooking the costs of a society where
anonymous or casual transactions are impossible, or basically saying that the
economic value of privacy is $0.

------
schoen
Upvoted due to strong disagreement, to try to draw more attention to this
view.

~~~
anigbrowl
Likewise. Delegitimizing possession of cash would be an extremely dangerous
step for any government to take.

~~~
ng12
The United States is already uncomfortably close. To pick a news article at
random:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/25/how-
oklahoma-cops-took-53000-from-a-burmese-christian-band-a-church-in-omaha-and-
an-orphanage-in-thailand/)

------
upofadown
>Beyond the more heinous crimes of human and drug trafficking and terrorism,
...

So prostitution and drugs. IOW, black market stuff. Things we are not supposed
to be doing. Social problems that we attempt to resolve through law
enforcement. Oh, and terrorism, even though that doesn't really make any
sense.

> ... some earners hoard their money to avoid tax.

That doesn't really make any sense either. You need to use cash to do
transactions to avoid sales tax and get paid for work in cash to avoid income
taxes.

------
Analemma_
Ah, this is the same Ken Rogoff of the Reinhart-Rogoff fraud. The guy just
doesn't know how to stop being wrong, does he?

------
bobberkarl
The day the easiest way to buy anything will be electronically, is the day
cryptocurrencies will prevail.

------
DrScump
I'm more concerned about counterfeiting. The benefit of new, counterfeiting-
resistant notes is severely limited if you keep accepting the old, now-easily-
counterfeited notes for eternity.

------
flukus
The real reason governments would ever adopt this: to remove the cash-in-hand
economy.

