by JH 11 Replies latest jw friends
If one day cash would disappear from the stores and banks, and the only way to pay would be with an electronic card, would this bother you?
The government would know everything about your financial situation, and you couldn't hide anything anymore. Everybody would have to pay taxes on every dime they earn.
Do you think we are heading for a complete electronic domination over our lives?
Money was originally a physical substance like gold and silver. It could even be alive, as cattle were one of the oldest forms of money. Today although much of the money used by individuals in their everyday transactions is still in the form of notes and coins its quantity is small in comparison with the intangible money that exists only as entries in bank records. If experiments with various forms of digital cash succeed then perhaps coins and banknotes will become as obsolete as cowrie shells. If that happens the change in the nature of money will surely have significant effects on society. The potential benefits to criminals and tax evaders could be considerable, as illustrated by the quotation on the right. The challenge facing computer scientists, bankers and legislators is to ensure that such changes are beneficial to the law-abiding members of society in general.
So this change should be good for law-abiding citizens, and for the government, whenever it comes into effect.
Very bad for criminals I guess... But even honest citizens I guess would prefer keeping cash the way it is.
We are certainly headed towards a day when our cell phone will not only take pictures, as it does now, but they are already being designed to be a debit card.
As far as electronic money, we are already there. Computers already track what we spend at the market, gas, etc.
Will it replace paper money completely? No.
I actually only use "electronic" money now. All my bills are paid automatically by my bank across the internet and most everything else I use a checkcard to buy. I almost never carry cash anymore, that's when I have any left over in the bank to take out.
In fact, I think I only have about $4.00 in my pocket right now......
I have a very large problem with the idea of total electronic funds transfer for the reasons you have noted. It would be a total violation of privacy. And have you noticed that when the stakes for the gummint are high enough, our rights don't seem to have much power any more?
I feel sorry for the next generation. By conspiracy of the federal government who controls the purse strings, the next generation will not know what their rights are - and you can't claim a right unless you know you have it.
Orwell was right. The future is a hob-nailed boot stomping a human face. Forever.
francois
Well I figure they know just about everything about me anyways
I rarely carry cash and I don't use credit. I mostly use my debit card and pay bills on-line or by phone
Gives me a great reason to say no to panhandlers and anyone else who wants to borrow money that I just know I will never see again
Here in Holland it's easy to not use cash.
A standard bank card will allow you to take money from an ATM, and pay using the same 4 digit code with your card in shops (called PINing). This takes money direct from your bank account. The same cards also have an 'electronic purse' on them, where you can transfer funds from your bank account to the chip on your card, and use it to pay small amounts simply by inserting the card (CHIPing).
I believe that the CHIPing process is quite untracable.... the University I was at was one of the first places in the world where they trialled the Mondex system (similar to CHIP in Holland), and the Mondex machines only kept a record of the past few transactions to allow mistakes to be corrected; other than that, all they did was inform your bank of how much money had been transfered from peoples' cards to your business at the end of the day.
not only is it a violation of privacy, but with the way the world is turning into '1984' at a faster pace than ever, this would be the tool of control.
if you go into petrol station, fill up, and go to pay for the fuel with your credit card, and cashier says that the machine has rejected your card, what do you do? you say no problem i've got some cash, and you pay it that way.
what happens, when there is no cash, and the only way you can pay is by that electronic card? you have no choice. with cash there's only you who can control it. with electronic cash you aren't in control, someone else is.
just another step to the fascist new world order, and it wont be long before it happens.
'To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, their loyalty to family traditions and national identification.'
Brock Chisholm, when Director of the UN WHO
Woah!
Maybe the WHO guy means things like jingoistic attitudes that lead to conflict between nations, vile behaviour like female circumcision, religious sectarianism, socially entrenched racist attitudes and sexism, or bias towards people who just behave differently, albeit in a non-harnful fashion? All of those could be seen as individualism, loyalty to family traditions and national identification, and all of those are BAD things.
I would require more complete quotes before I would make the knee-jerk assumption he wants us to become mindless robots.
Here in the United States we have stores like Sams Club and BJs that sell Gasoline.
If you don't have a credit or debit card you can not purchase gasoline from them at all.
