How Long until the Cash is Gone?

There seems to be many, many insigthful individuals posting here, and I was wondering what sort of information was out in those hands, in respects to Money, and it's possible disappearance.

I also hope, this would be the Appropriate area to discuss this matter. If it should be diverted elsewhere, please advise.

I am convinced, that within the next two or three years, we in North America will see a big transition with our Currency.

Being in Canada, we can see, from a Positive Side, the replacement of Cash with some other medium.

One reason would be to eliminate the underground economy and offer our Federal Goverment the opportunity to collect those missed tax dollars.

Also, we have this problem in Canada with counterfiet money, and waste millions to re-vitalized and embedded security bars, and seals in this paper cash just about every 5 or 6 years. You are frowned upon when offering a One Hundred Dollar Bill for your purchase transactions, and in many cases, stores and business do not accept currency over $50.00 or $100.00.

Sometime in the late 70's or early 80's, we started to secure Debit Cards, which were to be used for point to point sales. We ate these up, to the where it is unlikely that anyone, does not have these today. If Cash, was for the remitting of Payment for Services Rendured and/or Products Purchased, it has come to the point where cash is no longer required.

Although, anyone who drinks Tim Horton's Coffee, must have Cash. That is all they take. (Just having Fun)

These points are not specific to Canada. They are Global in scope.

Other areas of concerns, when looking at the Global nature of this is a Countries ability to support it's debit. Billions are lost annually through debit forgiveness, because economies in some of the less fortunate Countries can not stimulate cash flow due to lack of resourses.

In North America, we SHOULD ALL BE CONCERNED WITH RUSSIA today, and the ability it will have over the valuation of our Currencies. In one day, Russia could erode the American Economic system to pennies on the Dollar.
All Russia needs to do is value it's Oil Resourses in the Euro and Commence trade with those partners they currently provide Oil for in the Euro.

These are just my points of view on things, and the way they look to me today.

I would appreciate to see like opinions, whether yes, cash will be gone, or no, we'll always have it.

There are just too many alternatives for Purchasing today, that make cash un-required.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Ciao

Shane

That's a good question. With electronic money getting more and more frequent I'm absolutely positive that cash will go obsolete eventually. When exactly is a bit hard to pinpoint but it shouldn't take too much longer. It's interesting, a few hundred years ago gold and silver was the currency. REAL money; something with a real physical value. Then came paper money which just represented the gold. Then comes the electronic cash that represents the paper money.

curezone.com...

About 80% of my transactions are non-cash now. IMO there will be a massive precipitating event which will bring in world government and a cashless, global economic system as well as a global 'ethic'. If you want to know what that's going to be like, check out Rev: 13.

I've long thought we need to get rid of cash, good post. In addition to making business in the underground economy very difficult, without cash we wouldn't need to worry about stuff like robberies because people will just put a freeze on their debit/credit cards before the thief is able to use them. There's been talk for a long time about eliminating pennies - who regularly uses them, and who even picks them up if they see them lying around?

Also, whenever I have cash on me I spend it too readily, which is never good, money doesn't disappear from my checking account as quickly because I find it more difficult to justify to myself using "using a card" for that - I don't like dirty looks I get when I pay for my $1.19 20oz coke with a credit card The thing I really hate is having to deal with the denominations of Euro coins - most of us fold up our bills and feel secure that they're in our wallets. Coins don't really work with wallets, so they go in my pocket, where they fall out. If I drop a few nickels, no big deal... But if I start losing a bunch of the two Euro coins... that becomes a problem. And don't get me started on how irritating it is to go between Denmark-Norway-Sweden where they all use Kroners, but not the same damn kroners lol!

Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to argue that cash keeps them anonymous, and requiring "credit chits" will necessarily deny their right to remain anonymous and thus is a privacy concern. I mean, Osama doesn't send his operatives around with Visa cards to buy their weapons, and arms smugglers aren't going to ask for ID.

I use a debit card yeah... but only for online stuff. I carry it around with me only because I use it to get into the cash in the ATM

And yeah.. I have the same problem with spending cash more than debit card stuff. When buying something with my debit card I often ask "Do I really want/need this?" and with cash I'm like "zomg this is so cool!" and it often ends up where I never see it again...

As for coins, I've got a giant box full of coins in my room where I toss my leftover change. I probably have a few bucks worth in there. I remember going through it one time and counting out $20 and bought some groceries with it (luckily I was on friendly terms with the people at that store so they laughed it off )
If coins had more value I'd carry around a small pouch and spend them, but as it stands, I almost never spend my nickels-dimes-pennies. Quarters occasionally, but only when I am seriously strapped for cash.

I think it'll be awhile before we're a cashless society, but I HAVE seen a store that didn't accept cash, and I live in what would be considered a small town, it was kinda a shocker to see that.

I think we are heading for a cashless society in my lifetime....sadly.
Yes it would eliminate any kind of underground economy or black market if you like.

The thing that frightens me is that I'm no longer in control of my finances, while I don't disagree with credit cards and debit cards and the like, I think I like the idea of cold hard cash or that it's there if I need it at least.

Cash wont ever dissapear because every year we produce a ton of it so that greedy politicians can bath in 100 dollar bills. Definetly a huge rise in plastic without a doubt, we have seen that within this decade, but cash dissapearing? Thats a very ballsy assumption. I dont see it happening anytime soon. Credit and Debit are owned by companies unlike cash money which is owned by the person who is holding it backed by the government whom produced it backed by the economy stronghold of the government. If it does happen i will eat my foot. But I doubt it.

Originally posted by nuclearap0x
Cash wont ever dissapear because every year we produce a ton of it so....

I agree, cash will never physically dissapear, just that some law will be passed that it won't be accepted anywhere, however while it may work like that for a time, I think it's doomed to failure in the end, I just personally can't see a cashless society working

Interesting question.
My experience has been that both my wife and myself manage our money better if we use cash for transactions. So we've started carrying the green again.

I believe cash will exist until about 2010ish give or take a few years. it will take a major catastrophe to rid society of anonymous fiat money and go fully digital.

A purely digital money is a very bad idea in every respect and reeks of total control from the top down especially when its controlled or regulated by a government.

But when cash is banned, there are already existing alternatives in the private market that you should be aware of. The digital and physical gold and silver currency market is already transacting billions per year, and this is something that everyone should be aware of:

SILVER:
www.phoenixdollar.com
www.norfred.org

GOLD:
www.e-gold.com
www.goldmoney.com
www.e-bullion.com
www.1mdc.com
www.pecunix.com

There are a few others, but they are not yet worth mentioning.

The real agenda will untimately be to reduce the USA to a socialist dependant society on par with Mexico and Canada and recall all the USD currency and replace with with an "amero" that bridges all three continents. I do not see how they can do this without running up against sovereignty, but people in the USA are fairly blasé these days and that should make everyone scared enough to own some silver and gold.

The Phoenix

[edit on 16-4-2006 by Phoenix_Silver]

[edit on 16-4-2006 by Phoenix_Silver]

The fact of the matter is that the transition between a currency based system and one which uses a different method much as on the later series of Star Trek is academic. Due to the fractured reserve banking system and the fact that our (American) dollars are no longer based on anything of substance as they were when we had a gold standard means that our money only has theoretical value becasue we decide to place a value on it.

Think of it this way, the value of a dollar is an ever decreasing percentage of what used to represent one dollar's worth of gold. A federal reserve bank note such as a single dollar bill used to represent one dollar's worth of gold stashed in Fort Knox. Presumably you were able to take your one dollar bill and redeem it for the dollars worth of gold it represented. Eventually we were put on a reduced gold standard, say 50%, that means that your one dollar is now worth 50 cents of gold stashed in Fort Knox, or in other words you need twice as much money to have the same amount of monetary worth as you did during the 100% gold standard.

Eventually the gold standard was taken away completely and the dollar you hold in your hand is now representative of your good faith in the federal government and it's ability to back up your dollar. (granted some may say we're on an oil standard but that's another post). So basically your dollar is worth absolutely nothing at all, it's little more than a fancy, pretty peice of green paper. Granted it will buy you a pack of Twinkies at your local bodega but if you took it to Yemen they would tell you it's worthless, were it still worth it's wheight in gold this would be a different story.

Before I continue I'd like to touch on the fractured reserve banking system, an evil system if ever there was one. Basically every bank you see that has an "FDIC Ensured" sticker is backed up by the "Federal" Reserve Bank (truth is it's not federal, it's privately owned and chartered by the Bank of England). Anyways, the job of the FRB is to make sure that a bank's costumers don't lose their life savings if the bank goes under as happened in the great depression. (I know there's much much much more to it)

People are talking about credit as the next progression in commerce but if you ask me the whole credit/debt system is the most evil creation in all mankind.

Let's say you go into a bank and ask for a 1,000 dollar loan to fix up your car. Since that plastic card you have says you have 1,000 dollars and it's backed up by your bank which in turn is backed up by the "Federal" Reserve Bank you can use that thousand bucks and buy all the neon, NOS and hydrolics your heart desires. We all know a bank loan is a deal with the devil as you are garunteed to be screwed on the interest and what ever other trick the bank has thought of, but this credit/debt system hides a deeper problem.

For every dollar that your bank loans to you they're only required to have 10% of it in cold hard cash. That means that your 1,000 dollar loan really didn't cost them anything and they only needed to have 100 dollars in the safe in the back to give it to you. However, if you take your loan to Vinnie's Garage and "pimp out" your car Vinnie will know have 1,000 theoretical dollars in his bank account, all he needs to do is hit up an ATM machine to turn it into cash. Sounds innocent enough I suppose but lets break it down:

The bank gives you credit for $1,000 but only really has $100

You spend $1,000 theoretical dollars (theoretical because it's not cash) at Vinnie's

Vinnie goes to his atm and takes out $1,000 in cold cash

You have to pay the bank back of course, we'll say it comes to $1,400 in the end

Do you see what's happened here? Your local bank has just created $1,300 out of the blue, $1,300 that didin't exist before you spent you money at Vinnies. Now according to our laws here in America ONLY the Federal Reserve Bank is allowed to create more money, however with the fractured reserve banking system coupled with our credit/debt system any single bank, FDIC insured or not can create as much money as it pleases. Confusing, I know but I'm getting to the point.

What happens when you create more money? Inflation happens, but inflation is a bit of a misnomer, it's really devalument. Here's an example: Last month Twinkies cost 99 cents, but today, much to your chagrin Twinkies now cost $1.19. It's seems Twinkies have gone up in price but in reality they haven't. What really happend is that the value of your one dollar dropped 20 cents, so you now need 20 cents more to purchase the same amount of Twinkies you got last week.

So what am I really trying to say here? I guess my point is that your money is theoretical, useless, worthless and worst yet, a tool to oppress and control the masses. A tool controlled by, who else, the rich elite. Ever wonder why there are so many millionaires this year? It's becasue a million bucks ain't worth what it used to be. Eventually the American dollar will reach such a point that all other countries will lose faith in it and since it's a faith based currency it won't even be worth the paper it's printed on.

In conclusion, it's not long before cash is gone but you sure as hell better hope we think of somthing else before the dollar takes a swan dive into an empty pool. Personally I can't wait until we abolish all forms of currency and currency based social power structure, I can't stand thinking of wasting another hour of my life away, be it for 7 bucks or 13, doing somthing I hate so I can buy somthing I neither need or want. Money is not only the root of all evil I believe it's the most evil thing man has ever created, it's controlled by the few with te objective of controlling the many. So many countless people have worked and wasted they lives away thinking that if only they had more green peices of paper they'd not only be happier but actually move up in life. How many people go hungry or cold or even die of curable diseases right here in our own country simply becasue we're cruel enough to tell them they don't have enough peices of green paper? People need to wake up and realize that money does not exist, it has no inherant value except that which we place on it and that the only true value is the advancement of the human race as a whole. We should try and live for the good of all and not the corrupt and evil elitist few. High hopes I suppose but remember, even if your body is stuck in a monetary system your mind is free.