18 Comments

1. 1

   must.. resist.. urge.. to go on Libertarian tirade.. on employer’s blog..

   Comment by Pete — December 7, 2007 #

2. 2

   I wish they would do this in the UK also. I’ve just been screwed over by my bank (telling me i had 12 months interest free on purchases when i actually had 0%) I was shocked to look at my statement and see I had been charged interest.

   If people aren’t scamming the tax man they can lower the taxes.

   When you add up tax its painful in this country
   Income Tax:
   first 5,225 - 0%
   next £2,230 10%
   £2,231- £34,600 - 22%
   Over £34,600 - 40%

   National Insurance - 11%-12%
   VAT - 17.5%

   Roughly half of everything you ever earn goes on tax.

   Next mission is to get all of the benefit scammers off their ass and into jobs.

   Good blog josh.

   Comment by John — December 7, 2007 #

3. 3

   I do think that a government-backed electronic payment system is a necessity for long-term economic development, but I don’t think it needs to, or should, come at the expense of hard currency. There must always be an untraceable method of transferring capital from one private individual to another. If the government were to get rid of their own, another one would just pop up… and I don’t think anyone would argue that a privately backed currency would be good for the economy.

   Comment by Dallas — December 7, 2007 #

4. 4

   I hate the credit cards, too. Here, here!

   Visa/Mastercard offer this thing called “Purchase Protection” for the first 30 or 90 days after a purchase. But it’s so useless - it doesn’t cover theft from cars!!! Of course they don’t tell you about this strange exception until your Macbook Pro gets snatched.

   Comment by Julius Davies — December 7, 2007 #

5. 5

   I must say that you have much wisdom sometimes, but privacy is not about getting away with illegal actions - it is about not having your actions watched, tracked, monitored and recorded!

   If you are innocent then you have nothing to hide, right?
   Lets abandon cryptography and cash, let the government listen to all your phone conversations - in fact, why not install a chip in your brain which would record all your thoughts, to make sure you are good! after all, you have nothing to hide!

   As such, I sympathize with the taxi cab drivers, rather then with your words regarding the GPS.

   And electronic cash is even much more serious - I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone to record all my financial transactions - and credit card companies are serious enough, but when someone in the government decides to abuse their power? As if governments, including your own one *right now* don’t abuse their powers - who ever heard of such things?

   Who exactly are you going to sue? Are you even going to know who is responsible for it?

   Not to mention identity theft - with all the digitization of all the records about you, there will come a time where you have nothing but your DNA to prove who you are!

   “So please, Uncle Sam… do yourself, and us, the cab-riding, chinese-restaurant eating, laundramat-using, public a favor and give up on the greenback! Make inefficiency and tax-evasion a thing of the pass, and only those who are inefficient and who tax-evade will miss it…”
   Yes, I’m all for cutting loose the last link to the real, physical world that current money has. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror of living in such a society.

   Remember, your right to privacy IS IN LARGE what makes your democracy so ‘modern, stable, free!’

   Kosta.

   Comment by Kliakhandler Kosta — December 7, 2007 #

6. 6

   Congratulations. You have written the most ridiculous blog post EVER. That is quite the feat.

   Luckily, i don’t base my web host purchasing decisions on whether or not the company has employees that have ridiculous economic theories and blog about them under the company banner.

   Comment by Jason — December 7, 2007 #

7. 7

   Why did we start using money in the first place? Because trading things was too tedious. There was too much friction involved, and a modern economy requires more liquidity.

   Today, paper money is also too tedious. The only reason I personally have bank accounts and plastic cards, is because paper money is too tedious. The only reason people write checks is because paper money is too tedious. For a long time now, everyone but the black market has been avoiding paper money because it’s too tedious and risky. Cities like San Francisco are providing legal ways for illegal immigrants to get bank accounts, because not even they should have to deal with paper money.

   So, I’m all for “E-cash”, although I think it’s entirely unrelated to credit card companies. Credit or e-credit, it’ll still be around, and that’s okay.

   Kosta, every time something new comes along, people like you are ready. I’m sure that when paper currency was introduced someone wondered about the serial numbers. I used to agree with you, but I have doubts. Instead of consistently holding back progress, wouldn’t it be better to spend that energy on monitoring the government? Modern democracies enforce transparency, or at least they should (sorry USA, I know you try). Either way, those who don’t wish to be seen can adopt a different form of currency — as they always have done when they’ve needed to.

   Comment by Mirza Garibovic — December 7, 2007 #

8. 8

   I like the electronic idea, but I like having a choice even more. As an addition to cash, great. As a replacement, no thanks.

   Unless we all start walking around with credit card terminals, I can’t see there being a way to not have cash.

   Plus, it shouldn’t be that easy to completely shut someone down financially.

   Are there any rich people that don’t have a nice little pile of emergency cash? They have credit cards, investments, real estate, big bank accounts… yet there’s still that need for cash on hand that collects dust.

   To me, the possession of that cash shows a total lack of faith in anything that’s no cash.

   Comment by Mike — December 7, 2007 #

9. 9

   > must.. resist.. urge.. to go on Libertarian tirade.. on
   > employer’s blog..

   Yeah, same here.

   It’s funny, though - for all intents and purposes, we already have “e-cash”. You can walk into any bank, set up an account and walk out with a shiny new debit card.

   Sure, they are imperfect (not as many consumer protections as you get with credit cards), but it’s a better start and the infrastructure is already there. And, these days at least, the number of merchants who don’t accept debit cards is dwindling (and the market, should it place a high value on their acceptance, can easily force the hold-outs to come around).

   So, yeah, I think the private market has this one pretty well settled. Plus, for those tin-foil hat types like myself, the option of paper cash is still there, even if we rarely ever use it.

   - Jeff @ DreamHost

   Comment by Jeff @ DreamHost — December 8, 2007 #

10. 10

    Mirza,

    I disagree - I think the only reason people have bank accounts is because it is safer to store money there, and because their employer gives them a check rather then giving you cash.
    The only reason they write a check is because banks have less fees for processing checks compared to cash.
    The only reason people use a credit card is because that’s the only way to pay online, or because you don’t have cash on you wherever you at the moment.

    That did not accurately represent my views, but I wanted to give a counter example which would show that *your* dislike of cash is not universal and the reasons aren’t exactly objective.

    I’m all *for* progress, but sometimes the price is just too much… And the point about the government is not even about the politicians - would you want some clerk knowing all your financial details?

    Comment by Kliakhandler Kosta — December 8, 2007 #

11. 11

    The main point here is tracing every transaction, every single purchase, everytime, everywhere.

    You build such a goverment owned system, who’s to say what the goverment will do with it ? You’d pretty much have to have a very high level of trust in the government honesty wouldn’t you ? Do you have such faith ?

    Let say, I purchase my paper at the store : it’s a left wing paper: red flag in some database.
    Let say I make a small donation to some schmuck collecting money in the street for any kind of cause (red cross, the communist party, who cares) : another flag
    (and how by the way it’s a nice way to get rid of beggars too, unless you provide them with a goverment terminal to beg in the streets mmm ?)

    Let’s say i cheat on my wife (or husband) and pay for a room : a trace (and upcoming alimony :))

    Do you trust ANY goverment enough to give them that kind of power over their citizen base ? I don’t. If a way exists for a goverment to abuse their citizen’s privacy, they will not only abuse it, but overabuse it, disregarding any kind of “protection” and reassurance they will give their law abiding citizens. It’s been done before, it’s beeing done now, it will be done again and again.

    As Voltaire said : “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. So beware of what you wish :)

    PS : I do agree with the fact that this blog is not the place for this kind of debate, still can’t resist the urge to reply to such a misleaded point of view :)

    Comment by Eric — December 9, 2007 #

12. 12

    @Jeff: Yes, definitely, we practically have digital currency now. The government has made an inefficient bureaucracy out of everything they touch. Banks and credit card companies must “do or die.” I’m satisfied enough with the private sector solution that I have no interest in a public replacement.

    Comment by Pete — December 10, 2007 #

13. 13

    Eric,
    Thanks for that comment - it’s exactly what I meant.

    Comment by Kosta Kliakhandler — December 11, 2007 #

14. 14

    Ron Paul would have something to say about this

    Comment by Ron — December 11, 2007 #

15. 15

    Kosta,

    I believe that ultimately all those things come down to paper money being too tedious. Why do you think people can’t store money at home securely? Why do you think banks have higher fees for processing money?

    The fact that you can’t use paper money to conduct online transactions is another example of how paper money is not suited for a modern economy. Of course, you could conduct the transaction and mail the money - but that would be too tedious.

    The fact that you can’t carry all your paper money on you securely at all times is another example of how paper money is too tedious and thus not suited for a modern economy.

    >> I’m all *for* progress, but sometimes the price is just too much… And the point about the government is not even about the politicians - would you want some clerk knowing all your financial details?

    Indeed I would not. But some clerk already knows all my financial details. He’s employed at the bank and I have very little insight into what he does with my information. If he were employed by the government, he would be employed by me, and I would play a greater role. I could for example say that my transactions should be kept encrypted or out of sight unless I personally gave my okay to open them for some purpose. The people could vote to have all transaction records erased after some amount of time. Or we could have a system where you can choose to make certain transactions unlogged.

    All this of course depends on having a fully transparent government under control of the people. That’s something we should be working towards either way.

    Even today, if the government wished to truly turn on us, they could easily force control over private banks and extract all our information. The Bush administration has already done things like that. Thus I think that it makes little difference if they control it directly or not, what matters is how much insight and control the people have over how the government functions.

    If you truly wish to make transactions out of sight, then there are alternative forms of payment.

    Comment by Mirza Garibovic — December 11, 2007 #

16. 16

    > All this of course depends on having a fully transparent
    > government under control of the people. That’s something
    > we should be working towards either way.

    Tell you what - you get that up and running and I and the rest of the tin-foil hat crowd will reconsider ditching paper money. :)

    Until then…

    - Jeff @ DreamHost

    Comment by Jeff @ DreamHost — December 12, 2007 #

17. 17

    Fair enough Jeff. We got some way to go, but it’s nice to try.

    Comment by Mirza Garibovic — December 14, 2007 #

18. 18

    I’m not anti-digital currency, but I’m dead set against doing away with cash.

    I definitely do have privacy concerns. If the author doesn’t, he’s welcome to live an open life and remove his curtains. But he doesn’t speak for me, or a fairly large part of the country. The charge that people like myself use it as an excuse not to pay taxes is a downright insult and lie. Perhaps those kind exist, but all privacy conscious people I know have no issues paying taxes, and don’t complain about them - many want more taxes and have socialist tendencies. Desire for privacy does not equate to libertarianism, folks!

    Comment by MN — January 5, 2008 #

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