Why are you so insistent on making life difficult for 14 million people and annoying for millions more? You gain nothing by it since no one forces you to use cash.
I agree that Horse can be intolerant, but the original question was the other way round: should something be done about places that no longer accept cash? I would say no. If a small business doesn't want the hassle that goes along with handling cash, there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be card/contactless only.
I don’t see what I’m being intolerant about. I’m stating my opinion, everyone else is entitled to theirs. I just don’t like the idea that I’m somehow being offensive to the elderly because I am saying we’re catering for their use when in a few years they won’t be around anymore.
One PBer in particular is very fond of accusing those who dislike/reject cash as “morons” who hate the poor and elderly.
Of course, it’s been explained to him several times that there are remedies to digital exclusion and it is these on which we should focus, rather than an anachronistic system of barter via slip of paper and scrap of metal.
I don't think they're morons who hate the poor and elderly, I think they're morons who hate freedom. Alternatively they haven't thought through the implications of your ability to buy food being controlled by a few companies, governed by a secretive regulatory regime designed to minimize accountability.
If we get digital payment systems that have some of the same features as cash: Peer-to-peer, reasonably anonymous, not reliant on centralized parties, then we can get rid of cash.
It's possible that the digital pound could end up with a system like that. This is one of those really important things that will shape the future for a long time, but isn't getting the attention it deserves. It's going to end up making a huge difference which individuals at the Treasury, Bank of England, and the Chancellor are who end up making the decisions.
Why are you so insistent on making life difficult for 14 million people and annoying for millions more? You gain nothing by it since no one forces you to use cash.
I agree that Horse can be intolerant, but the original question was the other way round: should something be done about places that no longer accept cash? I would say no. If a small business doesn't want the hassle that goes along with handling cash, there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be card/contactless only.
I don’t see what I’m being intolerant about. I’m stating my opinion, everyone else is entitled to theirs. I just don’t like the idea that I’m somehow being offensive to the elderly because I am saying we’re catering for their use when in a few years they won’t be around anymore.
One PBer in particular is very fond of accusing those who dislike/reject cash as “morons” who hate the poor and elderly.
Of course, it’s been explained to him several times that there are remedies to digital exclusion and it is these on which we should focus, rather than an anachronistic system of barter via slip of paper and scrap of metal.
Yeah well you are morons because you think everyone should dance to your tune and you refuse to accept there are millions out there who through no choice of their own aren't able to. You try and force the world to be a certain way and just say that those who fall by the wayside are too stupid or old to worry about.
And yet it doesn't actually affect you. You are imposing problems on others just because you happen to have a bee in your bonnet about something millions of people rely on. You are howling at the moon and wondering why others think you are demented.
I am not the one advocating we legislate to force private enterprises to take cash. I think the current system whereby cash is disappearing seems to work fine in practice.
My local pub hasn’t taken cash since Covid. Why should they be forced to if it hasn’t impacted their business in any way?
Re London buses, if they removed paying for bus tickets in shops tomorrow I doubt anyone would notice.
The elderly don’t use it anyway as they have an elderly Oyster equivalent and the young use contactless/Apple Pay.
We’re getting on just fine here. Can you imagine 20 people getting onto a London bus and each paying by cash???
Well quite. It’s been a brilliant change, perfectly executed and with what little resistance there was now the stuff of history. Other bus system in other cities have adopted it successfully. I find the idea of p
Some people like to talk about the concept of "legal tender" without having a clear understanding of what it actually means in the UK.
TBF there is a disconnect between the technical legal definition (settlement of debts in a court?) and common usage (means of payment)
There is a perception that some people have that retailers are obliged to accept this or that, but that perception is false. If a retailer say no, I don't accept cash, you can't use "legal tender" as some magical incantation to change their mind. They're allowed to do this and there's nothing you can do about it.
Retailers don’t even have to sell you anything. You could walk up to a garage with a Platinum Mastercard with a £40,000 credit limit and try to buy a brand new Audi, but if the salesman refuses to sell, you can’t force him.
An unlikely scenario, admittedly, but there is is.
Why are you so insistent on making life difficult for 14 million people and annoying for millions more? You gain nothing by it since no one forces you to use cash.
I agree that Horse can be intolerant, but the original question was the other way round: should something be done about places that no longer accept cash? I would say no. If a small business doesn't want the hassle that goes along with handling cash, there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be card/contactless only.
I don’t see what I’m being intolerant about. I’m stating my opinion, everyone else is entitled to theirs. I just don’t like the idea that I’m somehow being offensive to the elderly because I am saying we’re catering for their use when in a few years they won’t be around anymore.
One PBer in particular is very fond of accusing those who dislike/reject cash as “morons” who hate the poor and elderly.
Of course, it’s been explained to him several times that there are remedies to digital exclusion and it is these on which we should focus, rather than an anachronistic system of barter via slip of paper and scrap of metal.
I don't think they're morons who hate the poor and elderly, I think they're morons who hate freedom. Alternatively they haven't thought through the implications of your ability to buy food being controlled by a few companies, governed by a secretive regulatory regime designed to minimize accountability.
If we get digital payment systems that have some of the same features as cash: Peer-to-peer, reasonably anonymous, not reliant on centralized parties, then we can get rid of cash.
Why throw around words like “morons” at all? Especially when I have already repeatedly said:
a) I would not abolish cash b) we should focus on digital exclusion c) digital cash tech already exists and we should develop it
I’m not wrong. I said London BUSES went cashless in 2014. I made no mention of the other elements of TfL. What’s wrong with you this evening?
In which case your argument is even more stupid and pointless. If people can buy their tickets using cash then the system is, by definition, not cashless. Something that matters to those 260,000 people without bank accounts.
Today's Left: claims to be tolerant, but is actually intolerant in practice.
How are we being intolerant? I’m not advocating any change to the system, just saying cash is on its way out and we should get rid of it. That’s an opinion backed up by the evidence.
I’m not the one who is saying we should tell private companies what they can and can’t take accept as payment. How funny that today’s left are the pro-business lot!
Why are you so insistent on making life difficult for 14 million people and annoying for millions more? You gain nothing by it since no one forces you to use cash.
I agree that Horse can be intolerant, but the original question was the other way round: should something be done about places that no longer accept cash? I would say no. If a small business doesn't want the hassle that goes along with handling cash, there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be card/contactless only.
I don’t see what I’m being intolerant about. I’m stating my opinion, everyone else is entitled to theirs. I just don’t like the idea that I’m somehow being offensive to the elderly because I am saying we’re catering for their use when in a few years they won’t be around anymore.
One PBer in particular is very fond of accusing those who dislike/reject cash as “morons” who hate the poor and elderly.
Of course, it’s been explained to him several times that there are remedies to digital exclusion and it is these on which we should focus, rather than an anachronistic system of barter via slip of paper and scrap of metal.
I don't think they're morons who hate the poor and elderly, I think they're morons who hate freedom. Alternatively they haven't thought through the implications of your ability to buy food being controlled by a few companies, governed by a secretive regulatory regime designed to minimize accountability.
If we get digital payment systems that have some of the same features as cash: Peer-to-peer, reasonably anonymous, not reliant on centralized parties, then we can get rid of cash.
The problem is that, in practice, cash does rely on a few centralised parties, and to most of them, its profitability is heading toward the same door taken by the cheque. If anything, Western governments are working out how to mitigate this rather than ushering it on.
Why are you so insistent on making life difficult for 14 million people and annoying for millions more? You gain nothing by it since no one forces you to use cash.
I agree that Horse can be intolerant, but the original question was the other way round: should something be done about places that no longer accept cash? I would say no. If a small business doesn't want the hassle that goes along with handling cash, there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be card/contactless only.
I don’t see what I’m being intolerant about. I’m stating my opinion, everyone else is entitled to theirs. I just don’t like the idea that I’m somehow being offensive to the elderly because I am saying we’re catering for their use when in a few years they won’t be around anymore.
One PBer in particular is very fond of accusing those who dislike/reject cash as “morons” who hate the poor and elderly.
Of course, it’s been explained to him several times that there are remedies to digital exclusion and it is these on which we should focus, rather than an anachronistic system of barter via slip of paper and scrap of metal.
Yeah well you are morons because you think everyone should dance to your tune and you refuse to accept there are millions out there who through no choice of their own aren't able to. You try and force the world to be a certain way and just say that those who fall by the wayside are too stupid or old to worry about.
And yet it doesn't actually affect you. You are imposing problems on others just because you happen to have a bee in your bonnet about something millions of people rely on. You are howling at the moon and wondering why others think you are demented.
I am not the one advocating we legislate to force private enterprises to take cash. I think the current system whereby cash is disappearing seems to work fine in practice.
My local pub hasn’t taken cash since Covid. Why should they be forced to if it hasn’t impacted their business in any way?
Re London buses, if they removed paying for bus tickets in shops tomorrow I doubt anyone would notice.
The elderly don’t use it anyway as they have an elderly Oyster equivalent and the young use contactless/Apple Pay.
We’re getting on just fine here. Can you imagine 20 people getting onto a London bus and each paying by cash???
Well quite. It’s been a brilliant change, perfectly executed and with what little resistance there was now the stuff of history. Other bus system in other cities have adopted it successfully. I find the idea of p
I’m not wrong. I said London BUSES went cashless in 2014. I made no mention of the other elements of TfL. What’s wrong with you this evening?
In which case your argument is even more stupid and pointless. If people can buy their tickets using cash then the system is, by definition, not cashless. Something that matters to those 260,000 people without bank accounts.
What are you talking about? There are no cash transactions on London buses, and haven’t been for a decade. You can still theoretically by a bus pass with cash in some shops, if you can find one, then show it to the driver (although I have never seen anyone use a paper ticket for years). But the buses themselves are cashless, have been since 2014.
I'm discovering an increasing number of venues and vendors that refuse to take cash.
Something really needs to be done about this. It's not legal tender if it can't be used and cash is starting to effectively become unusable and locking options and people out of the economy.
It's going to become widespread.
I was looking at some data, and the difference in insurance when you are a cashless business and a business that does keep cash on site/take cash to a bank is quite large.
A right to cash needs to be legislated for..
If Labour were serious they would pledge this. It might even win them some votes too.
It would be a strong signal that they are completely out of touch with young people and desperate for the reactionary pensioner vote.
Could very well work.
But it's deeply weird how "the vibe" of this seems to trigger another front in the culture wars, with people lining up on either side of it and then plucking out any argument that suits to fight it, with particular zealotry if it trolls the other.
We all used cash until literally about 5 minutes ago. It's absurd to say it's reactionary or out of touch to advocate for its continued relevance.
Your card machine or signal goes down you have no means to trade, except barter.
We've all been there.
I just like winding older PBers up occassionally
I actually take your point on this - just after I finished the Edinburgh Marathon (humble brag), I tried to buy some food but the telecoms in Musselburgh had been overwhelmed by the thousands of people spamming instagram with their salty faces and throbbing quads.
You can still pay with your phone with no signal - but the burger van couldn't take the payment. This caused me great anguish.
What you need to bear in mind is that in places like China this is already used as a means of societal control. Social credit in combination with a cashless society means that the Chinese Government can and does block those it has a problem with from purchasing stuff.
Now we are a million miles away from that here in Europe but the idea it could never happen here is seriously naive. Bad people do get into power and the trick is to make sure it is as difficult as possible for them to do stuff within the law before they get to the point of simply ignoring the law. It is the ame as any other human rights vs the state issue. Don't give them the powers in the first place and they can't abuse them.
Not totally a million miles from this in the wider west though - isn't this what Justin Trudeau did to striking truckers in Canada?
Also similar to the proposal to take driving licenses away from the environmental protesters - not too hard to imagine it as an add-on to tagging and curfew - not allowed to buy any fags, or alcohol, or pay for any leisure items. Let's sanction benefit claimants by restricting what they can spend their benefits on, etc.
Or as they do in China, not allowed to travel, or buy or rent property.
Try teaching kids about the value of money, counting and savings without cash and places to spend it in.
CASH.
Nah, my eldest turned into Gordon Gekko when he turned 11 and I opened his first bank account and he can see his money on his phone app.
That's summarises why the future is shit.
I don't want my kids glued to their phone. And I also want them to develop good mental arithmetic and a feel for the real tangibility of money.
You're turning into an old fogey pal - give it up, this is a battle you're never winning.
I am not sure that's entirely true. A cashless society (with these Central Bank digital currencies that are cropping up everywhere) is a Davos-driven policy. It's not one of the more unpleasant ones on the face of it (it beats 15 minute cities and mass starvation), though its purpose is clearly an intrusive one - the power to monitor all spending. However, the Davos agenda has become very very exposed. It is entirely possible that in the next few years, public revulsion overturns the entire thing - retreat from cash included.
"A cashless society (with these Central Bank digital currencies that are cropping up everywhere) is a Davos-driven policy"
You got likes for this?
It's a policy driven by the fact that (a) young people like to pay with their phones; (b) small merchants don't like paying big insurance premiums for carrying cash for a diminishing proportion of their sales.
The idea that the people at Davos are conspiring to take your cash away is utterly absurd.
As Mrs Thatcher said, "you can't buck the market", and it is the market that is putting cash out of business, not some globalist conspiracy.
Well, I got no likes for when you said you knew someone senior at Disney who was going to be sacked, and I said I am sure they won't get rid of Mickey, and that was possibly the best thing I've ever said on PB, so just call it karmic justice.
I apologize, but there is no conspiracy.
Banks are profit maximising. Small merchants are profit maximising. That's what's driving cash out of our society, not some shadowy conspiracy.
Now, sure, do some governments like the ability to track transactions - largely for the purposes of minimizing tax evasion? They sure do.
But if tracking us was the sole goal, then Bitcoin and its ilk would have been crimalized on day one, instead of being largely supported by - yes - many of the people who go to Davos.
You are right, there is no conspiracy, there is a highly promoted policy agenda, pushed by an organisation that actively publicises its own reach amongst those with power, particularly political power. That's great news, because public policy platforms and individuals promoting them publicly can be opposed.
Have you actually read any of the World Economic Forum papers?
It is laughable to think that they have one thousandth of one percent of the influence of the guy at Apple who said "You know what, if we put an NFC chip in the Apple watch..."
The guy who runs Barclays bank, you know what he cares about? His stock options. The guy at Apple? His stock options.
People are "pushing" digital payments, because that's how they make more money. Nobody needs a talking shop to be told that. There's no instructions eminating from Davos.
How do you suppose this works? That the people at some bank say: well, the instrucrtions from the Davos committee say this...
Cash? It is in a serious decline, and the people railing against that sound like luddites. It isn't about to disappear overnight, we're going to find ways to bring elderly and disadvantaged people into being able to have equal access to this new digital world, but the digital world IS here.
Cash has very simply become a pain in the arse. I can pay unlimited amounts of money - very large or very small - with a tap of my phone. My "wallet" has all my regular use cards, debit, credit, store etc. It is my phone. And I could buy a smart watch where I tap my wrist instead.
Actually having to get bits of plastic or cupro-nickel to do so takes effort. And for what - our "money" has no actual value, they are just tokens. Businesses who then need to process these tokens sacrifice a chunk of them in their own faff of physically handling and processing these into their banks and balance sheets.
Its not about to disappear completely. But its on its way.
It's Luddite to support reducing choice, so that there is only one way to do something?
Put another way- how much are we prepared to pay as a society to keep the cash pathway open?
At the moment, all that counting, transporting and storing bits of paper and metal costs, and someone is paying those costs. Some combination of businesses having lower profits and customers paying higher prices. But the cost is there- we just don't notice it, because it's always been there.
That might be a price worth paying- for tradition, for inclusion, for privacy. But it's still worth (I think) having a conversation about how many pounds and people could be freed up by making more use of digital money. And whether there are better ways of getting round the disadvantages of getting rid of notes and coins.
As with many other issues in Britain- how serious are we about becoming richer as a nation? Or are we happy to continue drifting into genteel poverty as long as we don't have to change anything much?
This is exactly it. One can complain about hole-in-the-wall cafés that don't take cash, if it's really that important. But if the government puts £2 a month on everyone's bank charges to fund cash in transit, ATMs, and daily or weekly small business transactions, someone else will complain about that too. And that's essentially the route Sweden is going to choose - and they're the most advanced country on the road to the post-cash economy.
Why are you so insistent on making life difficult for 14 million people and annoying for millions more? You gain nothing by it since no one forces you to use cash.
I agree that Horse can be intolerant, but the original question was the other way round: should something be done about places that no longer accept cash? I would say no. If a small business doesn't want the hassle that goes along with handling cash, there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be card/contactless only.
I don’t see what I’m being intolerant about. I’m stating my opinion, everyone else is entitled to theirs. I just don’t like the idea that I’m somehow being offensive to the elderly because I am saying we’re catering for their use when in a few years they won’t be around anymore.
One PBer in particular is very fond of accusing those who dislike/reject cash as “morons” who hate the poor and elderly.
Of course, it’s been explained to him several times that there are remedies to digital exclusion and it is these on which we should focus, rather than an anachronistic system of barter via slip of paper and scrap of metal.
Yeah well you are morons because you think everyone should dance to your tune and you refuse to accept there are millions out there who through no choice of their own aren't able to. You try and force the world to be a certain way and just say that those who fall by the wayside are too stupid or old to worry about.
And yet it doesn't actually affect you. You are imposing problems on others just because you happen to have a bee in your bonnet about something millions of people rely on. You are howling at the moon and wondering why others think you are demented.
I am not the one advocating we legislate to force private enterprises to take cash. I think the current system whereby cash is disappearing seems to work fine in practice.
My local pub hasn’t taken cash since Covid. Why should they be forced to if it hasn’t impacted their business in any way?
Re London buses, if they removed paying for bus tickets in shops tomorrow I doubt anyone would notice.
The elderly don’t use it anyway as they have an elderly Oyster equivalent and the young use contactless/Apple Pay.
We’re getting on just fine here. Can you imagine 20 people getting onto a London bus and each paying by cash???
Well quite. It’s been a brilliant change, perfectly executed and with what little resistance there was now the stuff of history. Other bus system in other cities have adopted it successfully. I find the idea of p
For stating an opinion I’m a moron and apparently ageist.
This site really is the pits sometimes unfortunately. You don’t like my opinion fine but argue with it instead of calling me names.
Good night
The cash-clingers are a weird, intemperate bunch. Cashless bars, coffee shops and buses trigger them to the point of being needlessly rude to others. It’s an odd affliction.
The elderly will be dead soon, what on Earth is controversial about that?
You will be elderly soon.
And I will be dead one day. I’m not offended by that. We all die.
Perhaps this scenario can help you understand how the cash-clingers feel: Imagine if by the time you are elderly, we'll have moved on from mobile devices and young people will all start kitting themselves out with Bill Gates-style chips with the ability to broadcast peer-to-peer, so the government starts ripping out the phone masts.
No I’ll accept things change.
I don’t know why you feel the need to take the piss unless you’ve lost the argument. Do you not agree that infrastructure like masts and FTTP is very important if the UK is to compete?
I agree that we need to invest in infrastructure and shouldn't be afraid of innovation, but we don't need to have a totally Maoist attitude towards the old ways.
The elderly will be dead soon, what on Earth is controversial about that?
Part of the reason I am sat here debating cash is I have been awaiting news whether my elderly and frail dad has made it to hospital still alive on his blue light ambulance run. And I've just heard that he made it. Not remotely out of the woods, but if this is a Stage Gate process he just cleared a Stage...
"People die, so what" is what BR was saying in the early days of Covid. Don't be Bart.
Skimmed the thread this evening and saw umpteen posts angrily debating cash, meh, plus yours, with some important and potentially very good news. All the very best.
"A woman once branded "Australia's worst female serial killer" has been pardoned after new evidence suggested she did not kill her four infant children.
Kathleen Folbigg spent 20 years in prison after a jury found she killed sons Caleb and Patrick and daughters Sarah and Laura over a decade.
But a recent inquiry heard scientists believe they may have died naturally.
The 55-year-old's case has been described as one of Australia's greatest miscarriages of justice.
Ms Folbigg, who has always maintained her innocence, was jailed for 25 years in 2003 for the murders of three of the children, and the manslaughter of her first son, Caleb.
Each child died suddenly between 1989 and 1999, aged between 19 days and 19 months, with prosecutors at her trial alleging she had smothered them.
Previous appeals and a separate 2019 inquiry into the case found no grounds for reasonable doubt, and gave greater weight to circumstantial evidence in Ms Folbigg's original trial.
But at the fresh inquiry, headed by retired judge Tom Bathurst, prosecutors accepted that research on gene mutations had changed their understanding of the children's deaths.
On Monday, New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley said Mr Bathurst had concluded that there was reasonable doubt that Ms Folbigg was guilty.
As a result, the NSW governor had signed a full pardon, and ordered Ms Folbigg's immediate release from prison."
Businesses can refuse cash if they choose. Many in England refuse to take Scottish or NI banknotes, or even BoE notes over £20, and have done so all my life.
They may lose custom by doing so, but such is their right.
Scottish and NI banknotes (or technically banknotes of banks based in Scotland and Northern Ireland) aren't even legal tender. How often do you see a £50 note? Hardly ever I would say. Though I'm told they're popular among the Chinese community where I live.
What is the point of central bank digital currencies? What problem are they solving?
We have one already - the Pound Sterling. Most money exists as digital information in accounts rather than in physical notes and coins. It is virtual - fiat tokens. Especially in Scotland and NI where the banknotes are literally just tokens promising to move the face value digitally from your account to theirs.
So.............
Why is the Bank of England making a big thing of having a 'digital currency'? Reading the press release it seems like they want to expand into the customer payments arena.
The elderly will be dead soon, what on Earth is controversial about that?
Part of the reason I am sat here debating cash is I have been awaiting news whether my elderly and frail dad has made it to hospital still alive on his blue light ambulance run. And I've just heard that he made it. Not remotely out of the woods, but if this is a Stage Gate process he just cleared a Stage...
"People die, so what" is what BR was saying in the early days of Covid. Don't be Bart.
Skimmed the thread this evening and saw umpteen posts angrily debating cash, meh, plus yours, with some important and potentially very good news. All the very best.
Thanks Nick. Now waiting for x-ray and bloods results to come back. But if they're waiting for those, he's no longer seen as at immediate risk...
The elderly will be dead soon, what on Earth is controversial about that?
You will be elderly soon.
And I will be dead one day. I’m not offended by that. We all die.
Perhaps this scenario can help you understand how the cash-clingers feel: Imagine if by the time you are elderly, we'll have moved on from mobile devices and young people will all start kitting themselves out with Bill Gates-style chips with the ability to broadcast peer-to-peer, so the government starts ripping out the phone masts.
No I’ll accept things change.
I don’t know why you feel the need to take the piss unless you’ve lost the argument. Do you not agree that infrastructure like masts and FTTP is very important if the UK is to compete?
I agree that we need to invest in infrastructure and shouldn't be afraid of innovation, but we don't need to have a totally Maoist attitude towards the old ways.
If governments do not protect cash via legislation, it will largely die out.
And by largely die out, I mean, it will be accepted by an ever diminishing number of places, which will have a negative impact on the poorest in society.
No-one, I think, is proposing banning cash payments. The question is the extent to which we wish to protect it.
In the US, the Payment Choice Act was proposed in the last Congress by Rep Donald Payne, and would require businesses to accept cash payments if the sum was less than $2,000. The new Republican Congress has let this wither on the vine, which is odd because Rep Payne is a Democrat, and I thought it was the Dems who were controlled by Davos, but that just shows how sneaky the damn Globalists are.
I'm discovering an increasing number of venues and vendors that refuse to take cash.
Something really needs to be done about this. It's not legal tender if it can't be used and cash is starting to effectively become unusable and locking options and people out of the economy.
Its fantastic news that more and more people are feeling free to move on from the deadly and violent problem that is cash. I once knew a pregnant woman in Liverpool who had a machete held to her throat by armed robbers to compel the manager of a store to open the safe.
If people are locked out then what needs to be done is tackling that and ensuring that everyone has access to digital banking regardless of economic status.
What does not need to be done is compel people to accept or carry cash against their interests and against their own wishes.
I'm discovering an increasing number of venues and vendors that refuse to take cash.
Something really needs to be done about this. It's not legal tender if it can't be used and cash is starting to effectively become unusable and locking options and people out of the economy.
Perhaps a reasonable compromise between the interests of businesses and 'left behind' consumers would be to mandate businesses over a certain size to accept cash payments. Before the trend spreads too far.
I don't carry cash so it doesn't effect me, but the potential for locking people out of the economy is real.
But I suspect the government would secretly like a society where all transactions are more easily monitored.
The more people don't take cash the more I want to bloody well use it.
Coins and notes are legal tender. You trade, you take it.
No ifs, no buts.
Still think below a certain size we should allow card only. Help small businesses reduce fixed costs.
If we are going to go down mandating cash let's make cash more efficient. Remove 1p, 2p and 5p from circulation. They are all worth much less than 1p was back when decimalisation occured.
I'm old enough to remember when businesses didn't take card transactions for less than £5 or £10 due to the bank charges.
It was all the way back in 2017.
Thank goodness we've had progress since then and now card transactions are considerably cheaper than cash ones.
Let responsible traders make responsible choices.
If they think that cash handling will give them more customers, that's their choice. If they don't want the burden of handling cash, then that's their choice too.
If you're worried about people being left behind, then legislate to support people so that they're not. Don't try to roll back the clock to the past.
The elderly will be dead soon, what on Earth is controversial about that?
Part of the reason I am sat here debating cash is I have been awaiting news whether my elderly and frail dad has made it to hospital still alive on his blue light ambulance run. And I've just heard that he made it. Not remotely out of the woods, but if this is a Stage Gate process he just cleared a Stage...
"People die, so what" is what BR was saying in the early days of Covid. Don't be Bart.
Hope your dad is OK.
But for the rest of it: Huh?
I've not even been on this site for a week or so and here you are talking about me behind my back. I must be living rent-free in your head.
Its also not remotely true at all. I accepted the lockdown in the early days of Covid. I accepted mask mandates and other bullshit in the early days of Covid too.
I had many arguments with @TOPPING and others about it in the early days of Covid.
It was long after vaccines came out that I realised I was wrong and I have said that supporting lockdown was on of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. But that was years after Covid and after vaccines too. Not early days.
Whilst speculation is rife about what is undoubtedly the opening part of a notable Ukrainian offensive, a few things to bear in mind:
Only 2 of the apparently 8 or 9 newly constituted brigades has been committed as of today. Much of the push has involved units already on the frontline but rotated and refitted.
That leaves a notable force not yet committed. The Ukrainians are pushing and testing in a number of areas to keep the Russians stretched whilst testing the dam for a crack
There is still ongoing action in Russia proper (with whatever these Russian units in Ukraine's camp really are) still running about in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine. Such inflitration could be seen as forcing Russia to pull forces away to clear their own territory, an objective only partially successful. It could disrupt supply routes. It could also could be serving as part of a plan for Ukraine to deliver a hook by its forces that will take them into Russia itself in order bypass Russian defences.
Meanwhile China appears to be courting a potential succesor to Putin.Always big on succession planning those lads
Successive British prime ministers — there have been three since the war started, all from the Conservative Party — have been of one mind on helping Kyiv claw back territory. The U.K. 's support for Ukraine is unusual in the fact that it transcends party lines in Britain, with the opposition Labour Party being as hawkish if not more so than the ruling Tories.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is almost universally admired for his wartime stewardship of security assistance. In an interview for Yahoo News in May, Wallace’s Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov said that in the UK is the one country whose electoral outcome he doesn’t agonize over, as the “opposition is as strong as the current government in terms of supporting us.”
Such a dodgy barchart it is a wonder it doesn't come from a Lib Dem.
Israel doesn't occupy East Jerusalem, it is a part of Israel and has been for about fifty years now. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan, not "Palestine" before Jordan attempted to wipe Israel off the map and lost, and lost East Jerusalem in the process.
A bit like how parts of modern day Poland used to be a part of Germany. Countries that attempt to wipe others off the map and lose may end up losing land.
Perhaps Russia may end up losing Belgorod to Ukraine when all this is done and Crimea etc have been liberated. Would be karmic justice, a bit like Germany and Jordan losing land they once had.
So Stewart was at a reception hosted by the Bahraini Embassy when he was provoked by this anti Bahrain regime activist to say 'go back to Bahrain' and according to the Police he will thus be investigated for racist abuse
He's been charged now. The attached article is old.
The CPS authorised the police to charge him for this exchange apparently 'Alwadaei is heard asking Stewart about a trip paid for by the Bahraini government in the run-up to its elections, saying, “how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?”
I'm baffled how the decision was made, having watched the video.
If that's the entire basis for the change, absurd. Being a rude pillock isn't yet a criminal offence - and even the prospect of locking up half of Tory MPs does not justify it being so.
Try teaching kids about the value of money, counting and savings without cash and places to spend it in.
CASH.
Nah, my eldest turned into Gordon Gekko when he turned 11 and I opened his first bank account and he can see his money on his phone app.
That's summarises why the future is shit.
I don't want my kids glued to their phone. And I also want them to develop good mental arithmetic and a feel for the real tangibility of money.
You're turning into an old fogey pal - give it up, this is a battle you're never winning.
I am not sure that's entirely true. A cashless society (with these Central Bank digital currencies that are cropping up everywhere) is a Davos-driven policy. It's not one of the more unpleasant ones on the face of it (it beats 15 minute cities and mass starvation), though its purpose is clearly an intrusive one - the power to monitor all spending. However, the Davos agenda has become very very exposed. It is entirely possible that in the next few years, public revulsion overturns the entire thing - retreat from cash included.
"A cashless society (with these Central Bank digital currencies that are cropping up everywhere) is a Davos-driven policy"
You got likes for this?
It's a policy driven by the fact that (a) young people like to pay with their phones; (b) small merchants don't like paying big insurance premiums for carrying cash for a diminishing proportion of their sales.
The idea that the people at Davos are conspiring to take your cash away is utterly absurd.
As Mrs Thatcher said, "you can't buck the market", and it is the market that is putting cash out of business, not some globalist conspiracy.
Well, I got no likes for when you said you knew someone senior at Disney who was going to be sacked, and I said I am sure they won't get rid of Mickey, and that was possibly the best thing I've ever said on PB, so just call it karmic justice.
I apologize, but there is no conspiracy.
Banks are profit maximising. Small merchants are profit maximising. That's what's driving cash out of our society, not some shadowy conspiracy.
Now, sure, do some governments like the ability to track transactions - largely for the purposes of minimizing tax evasion? They sure do.
But if tracking us was the sole goal, then Bitcoin and its ilk would have been crimalized on day one, instead of being largely supported by - yes - many of the people who go to Davos.
You are right, there is no conspiracy, there is a highly promoted policy agenda, pushed by an organisation that actively publicises its own reach amongst those with power, particularly political power. That's great news, because public policy platforms and individuals promoting them publicly can be opposed.
Have you actually read any of the World Economic Forum papers?
It is laughable to think that they have one thousandth of one percent of the influence of the guy at Apple who said "You know what, if we put an NFC chip in the Apple watch..."
The guy who runs Barclays bank, you know what he cares about? His stock options. The guy at Apple? His stock options.
People are "pushing" digital payments, because that's how they make more money. Nobody needs a talking shop to be told that. There's no instructions eminating from Davos.
How do you suppose this works? ...
They meet up at Davos and say 'how do we make more money' ?
LOL Russian spin on the counter offensive us getting sillier. ...The statement said Russian forces had inflicted huge personnel losses on attacking Ukrainian forces and destroyed 28 tanks, including eight Leopard main battle tanks and 109 armoured vehicles. It said total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1,500 troops...
Successive British prime ministers — there have been three since the war started, all from the Conservative Party — have been of one mind on helping Kyiv claw back territory. The U.K. 's support for Ukraine is unusual in the fact that it transcends party lines in Britain, with the opposition Labour Party being as hawkish if not more so than the ruling Tories.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is almost universally admired for his wartime stewardship of security assistance. In an interview for Yahoo News in May, Wallace’s Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov said that in the UK is the one country whose electoral outcome he doesn’t agonize over, as the “opposition is as strong as the current government in terms of supporting us.”
Such a dodgy barchart it is a wonder it doesn't come from a Lib Dem.
Israel doesn't occupy East Jerusalem, it is a part of Israel and has been for about fifty years now. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan, not "Palestine" before Jordan attempted to wipe Israel off the map and lost, and lost East Jerusalem in the process.
A bit like how parts of modern day Poland used to be a part of Germany. Countries that attempt to wipe others off the map and lose may end up losing land.
Perhaps Russia may end up losing Belgorod to Ukraine when all this is done and Crimea etc have been liberated. Would be karmic justice, a bit like Germany and Jordan losing land they once had.
I made those bar charts simply to wind up the PB Corbynistas and @Dura_Ace
Just look at the "area" bar chart! More than 20 times as much territory illegally occupied by their Russian heroes!
My hot take: that length of damage was done purposefully by a demolition team, not by accident via random shelling. As for motive: Russia, to prevent any Dnipro crossing downstream. Another Russia war crime.
My hot take: that length of damage was done purposefully by a demolition team, not by accident via random shelling. As for motive: Russia, to prevent any Dnipro crossing downstream. Another Russia war crime.
It does rather indicate that Russia has given up on saving Crimea though.
"Ukraine shut down the [North Crimea Canal] in 2014 soon after Russia annexed Crimea. Russia restored the flow of water in March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A 2015 study found that the canal had been providing 85% of Crimea's water prior to the 2014 shutdown. Of the water from the canal, 72% went to agriculture and 10% to industry, while water for drinking and other public uses made up 18%."
My hot take: that length of damage was done purposefully by a demolition team, not by accident via random shelling. As for motive: Russia, to prevent any Dnipro crossing downstream. Another Russia war crime.
It does rather indicate that Russia has given up on saving Crimea though.
"Ukraine shut down the [North Crimea Canal] in 2014 soon after Russia annexed Crimea. Russia restored the flow of water in March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A 2015 study found that the canal had been providing 85% of Crimea's water prior to the 2014 shutdown. Of the water from the canal, 72% went to agriculture and 10% to industry, while water for drinking and other public uses made up 18%."
Strategically, yes. But if Russia win, they can rebuild - and Crimea did without that water for seven years anyway. And if they're losing, they've lost Crimea anyway.
But tactically: if the Russians think that they've removed all chances of a Dnipro crossing, they can remove some of the troops guarding that area; it reduces the front line for them.
It makes little sense for the Ukrainians to have done this, especially at this point.
There's also a question about what it means for the nuclear power plant, which allegedly relies on the reservoir for cooling water...
Well, they're called British Glass - what do you expect?
Dear @HumzaYousaf, we refute the claim by @Circ_Scotland that it’s been clear from the start on any plans for a remelt target for glass in the Scottish DRS. Remelt targets are set through the UK-wide PRN system, and the current Scottish DRS is outside this system.🧵1/3
I'm discovering an increasing number of venues and vendors that refuse to take cash.
Something really needs to be done about this. It's not legal tender if it can't be used and cash is starting to effectively become unusable and locking options and people out of the economy.
Perhaps a reasonable compromise between the interests of businesses and 'left behind' consumers would be to mandate businesses over a certain size to accept cash payments. Before the trend spreads too far.
I don't carry cash so it doesn't effect me, but the potential for locking people out of the economy is real.
But I suspect the government would secretly like a society where all transactions are more easily monitored.
The more people don't take cash the more I want to bloody well use it.
Coins and notes are legal tender. You trade, you take it.
No ifs, no buts.
Still think below a certain size we should allow card only. Help small businesses reduce fixed costs.
If we are going to go down mandating cash let's make cash more efficient. Remove 1p, 2p and 5p from circulation. They are all worth much less than 1p was back when decimalisation occured.
It’s the other way round! Because of the fixed charges for small businesses near a bank it isn’t worth taking card below a certain amount.
Comments
An unlikely scenario, admittedly, but there is is.
a) I would not abolish cash
b) we should focus on digital exclusion
c) digital cash tech already exists and we should develop it
I’m not the one who is saying we should tell private companies what they can and can’t take accept as payment. How funny that today’s left are the pro-business lot!
This site really is the pits sometimes unfortunately. You don’t like my opinion fine but argue with it instead of calling me names.
Good night
The world has moved on.
And the intolerant ones are those saying businesses should be forced to accept cash even if they don’t want to.
I say, leave it to them and their market.
It is laughable to think that they have one thousandth of one percent of the influence of the guy at Apple who said "You know what, if we put an NFC chip in the Apple watch..."
The guy who runs Barclays bank, you know what he cares about? His stock options. The guy at Apple? His stock options.
People are "pushing" digital payments, because that's how they make more money. Nobody needs a talking shop to be told that. There's no instructions eminating from Davos.
How do you suppose this works? That the people at some bank say: well, the instrucrtions from the Davos committee say this...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-65806606
"A woman once branded "Australia's worst female serial killer" has been pardoned after new evidence suggested she did not kill her four infant children.
Kathleen Folbigg spent 20 years in prison after a jury found she killed sons Caleb and Patrick and daughters Sarah and Laura over a decade.
But a recent inquiry heard scientists believe they may have died naturally.
The 55-year-old's case has been described as one of Australia's greatest miscarriages of justice.
Ms Folbigg, who has always maintained her innocence, was jailed for 25 years in 2003 for the murders of three of the children, and the manslaughter of her first son, Caleb.
Each child died suddenly between 1989 and 1999, aged between 19 days and 19 months, with prosecutors at her trial alleging she had smothered them.
Previous appeals and a separate 2019 inquiry into the case found no grounds for reasonable doubt, and gave greater weight to circumstantial evidence in Ms Folbigg's original trial.
But at the fresh inquiry, headed by retired judge Tom Bathurst, prosecutors accepted that research on gene mutations had changed their understanding of the children's deaths.
On Monday, New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley said Mr Bathurst had concluded that there was reasonable doubt that Ms Folbigg was guilty.
As a result, the NSW governor had signed a full pardon, and ordered Ms Folbigg's immediate release from prison."
Why is the Bank of England making a big thing of having a 'digital currency'? Reading the press release it seems like they want to expand into the customer payments arena.
And by largely die out, I mean, it will be accepted by an ever diminishing number of places, which will have a negative impact on the poorest in society.
No-one, I think, is proposing banning cash payments. The question is the extent to which we wish to protect it.
In the US, the Payment Choice Act was proposed in the last Congress by Rep Donald Payne, and would require businesses to accept cash payments if the sum was less than $2,000. The new Republican Congress has let this wither on the vine, which is odd because Rep Payne is a Democrat, and I thought it was the Dems who were controlled by Davos, but that just shows how sneaky the damn Globalists are.
If people are locked out then what needs to be done is tackling that and ensuring that everyone has access to digital banking regardless of economic status.
What does not need to be done is compel people to accept or carry cash against their interests and against their own wishes.
Let responsible traders make responsible choices.
If they think that cash handling will give them more customers, that's their choice.
If they don't want the burden of handling cash, then that's their choice too.
If you're worried about people being left behind, then legislate to support people so that they're not. Don't try to roll back the clock to the past.
But for the rest of it: Huh?
I've not even been on this site for a week or so and here you are talking about me behind my back. I must be living rent-free in your head.
Its also not remotely true at all. I accepted the lockdown in the early days of Covid. I accepted mask mandates and other bullshit in the early days of Covid too.
I had many arguments with @TOPPING and others about it in the early days of Covid.
It was long after vaccines came out that I realised I was wrong and I have said that supporting lockdown was on of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. But that was years after Covid and after vaccines too. Not early days.
Warnings of health worker shortage in Africa as UK seeks to plug vacancies
By Micah McLean"
https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/exclusive-news/2023/03/30/more-ghanaian-nurses-in-nhs-than-in-ghana/
Whilst speculation is rife about what is undoubtedly the opening part of a notable Ukrainian offensive, a few things to bear in mind:
Only 2 of the apparently 8 or 9 newly constituted brigades has been committed as of today. Much of the push has involved units already on the frontline but rotated and refitted.
That leaves a notable force not yet committed. The Ukrainians are pushing and testing in a number of areas to keep the Russians stretched whilst testing the dam for a crack
There is still ongoing action in Russia proper (with whatever these Russian units in Ukraine's camp really are) still running about in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine. Such inflitration could be seen as forcing Russia to pull forces away to clear their own territory, an objective only partially successful. It could disrupt supply routes. It could also could be serving as part of a plan for Ukraine to deliver a hook by its forces that will take them into Russia itself in order bypass Russian defences.
Meanwhile China appears to be courting a potential succesor to Putin.Always big on succession planning those lads
Israel doesn't occupy East Jerusalem, it is a part of Israel and has been for about fifty years now. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan, not "Palestine" before Jordan attempted to wipe Israel off the map and lost, and lost East Jerusalem in the process.
A bit like how parts of modern day Poland used to be a part of Germany. Countries that attempt to wipe others off the map and lose may end up losing land.
Perhaps Russia may end up losing Belgorod to Ukraine when all this is done and Crimea etc have been liberated. Would be karmic justice, a bit like Germany and Jordan losing land they once had.
Rishi Sunak’s artificial intelligence chief compares situation to ‘January 2020 moment in Covid’ where ‘exponential’ threat builds suddenly"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/05/ai-threat-artificial-intelligence-rishi-sunak-adviser-warns/
Being a rude pillock isn't yet a criminal offence - and even the prospect of locking up half of Tory MPs does not justify it being so.
Russian spin on the counter offensive us getting sillier.
...The statement said Russian forces had inflicted huge personnel losses on attacking Ukrainian forces and destroyed 28 tanks, including eight Leopard main battle tanks and 109 armoured vehicles. It said total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1,500 troops...
Just look at the "area" bar chart! More than 20 times as much territory illegally occupied by their Russian heroes!
Trump lawyers meet with DoJ to stave off indictment in Mar-a-Lago case
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/05/donald-trump-prosecutor-mar-a-lago-classified-documents
...
"DOJ is said to have found the meeting as rather unproductive"
https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1665833453269417985
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1665907948986458113
Which means Kherson'll flood.
My hot take: that length of damage was done purposefully by a demolition team, not by accident via random shelling. As for motive: Russia, to prevent any Dnipro crossing downstream. Another Russia war crime.
"Ukraine shut down the [North Crimea Canal] in 2014 soon after Russia annexed Crimea. Russia restored the flow of water in March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A 2015 study found that the canal had been providing 85% of Crimea's water prior to the 2014 shutdown. Of the water from the canal, 72% went to agriculture and 10% to industry, while water for drinking and other public uses made up 18%."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_Canal#:~:text=In Crimea, numerous smaller canals,to the city of Simferopol.
But tactically: if the Russians think that they've removed all chances of a Dnipro crossing, they can remove some of the troops guarding that area; it reduces the front line for them.
It makes little sense for the Ukrainians to have done this, especially at this point.
There's also a question about what it means for the nuclear power plant, which allegedly relies on the reservoir for cooling water...
Dear @HumzaYousaf, we refute the claim by @Circ_Scotland that it’s been clear from the start on any plans for a remelt target for glass in the Scottish DRS. Remelt targets are set through the UK-wide PRN system, and the current Scottish DRS is outside this system.🧵1/3
https://twitter.com/BritGlass/status/1665675994139619329?s=20
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