Going cashless was always a scam. Now, the mask has finally slipped.

Remember all the claims about how going cashless was the best thing since sliced bread?

If you went cashless, you’d have less chance of catching a disease (a compelling reason during the Government Mandated Private Sector Shutdown of 2020-2021); the Treasury would save money by not printing paper notes and minting coins; you’d have lower risk of fraud and theft; and the consumer data generated from the cashless transactions would help businesses serve you better.

Of course, The Powers That Be didn’t want you to know all the dangers surrounding The Cashless Society™. And there were more than a few.

For instance, while the consumer data generated would help serve you better, the government having a backdoor through those private systems would deter even the most open, pious citizen. (I’m especially cross about this, as I’m one of those weird ones who like it when my thoughts appear as advertisements on my phone. If it were anyone but Zuckerberg, I probably wouldn’t mind.)

And, of course, they never talked about hacking. Hacking is a menace neither the private sector nor governments can solve. Because if those bureaucrats were as good as the hackers, they’d be hackers. If you - or someone you know - got caught in the Ashley Madison hack, you know what I mean.

However, the big bugaboo is that the people who are the most hurt are the poor. Let’s not go as far as New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who said, “Right now, we have young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don't even know what the word 'computer' is. They don't know these things.” That’s as absurd as it sounds.

However, there is much truth in that most poor people don’t have Apple Wallets. Or even an Android wallet. Or even a cell phone. Governments literally “de-bank” the poor when they go cashless. Incidentally, one of Bitcoin’s claims is its inclusivity. How they get the poor to understand Blockchain and Bitcoin is beyond me, but there you go. But maybe they don’t need to. There won't be any questions if there’s no inflation in the Bitcoin supply.

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

If you want further proof of how important cash is to the poor, take this inadvertently honest paragraph from a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Paper Money Diehards Refuse to Fold.”

Actual cash changes hands in only around 15% of transactions in the U.K., pushed out by the speed and convenience of using a card or phone. In parts of London, cash has become something akin to a prison currency like ramen noodles or cigarettes, circulated among panhandlers or those on the margins of society.

But let’s not get bogged down in the theory. There is plenty of empirical evidence that going completely cashless sucks.

To wit, Iowa Michael and Paradigm Grand Poobah Matt Insley sent me the same Zero Hedge article titled, “It's Just Not Right": Major Venues Now Punishing People For Using Cash Vs. Plastic.”

When two of the most intelligent people I know send me the same article, my antennae go up.

The New Yankee Stadium

I haven’t been there yet. I’m in no rush, as Citi Field is supposed to be much better.

But the Yanks are up to their old tricks again. This time, instead of watering down already watered-down Bud, they charge customers for the pleasure of paying cash.

From another article in The Journal:

When Noa Khamallah recently tried to pay cash for popcorn and soda at Yankee Stadium, his almighty dollars struck out.

The stadium’s concession stands no longer take cash. An employee directed him to a kiosk that could convert his greenbacks into plastic. Khamallah, 41 years old, fed $200 into the reverse ATM, which subtracted a $3.50 fee and spat out a debit card with a balance of $196.50.

Paying for anything in New York is expensive already, said Khamallah, who lives in the city. “If you add on top of that extra fees for being able to pay for food, that’s not right,” he said.

Paying with cash used to be a way to get a discount. These days it can often cost an extra $1 to $6—the sort of transaction fees once limited to swiping a credit card or using an out-of-network ATM.

I certainly sympathize.

You Wanna Pay Rome?

One of my favorite sayings is, “A German will always pay his income tax out of civic duty. An Italian never will, for the same reason.” Italians know anything they send to Rome may as well be burned in their fireplaces. It’s part of the reason why I love this country so much.

The owner of a construction company working on my house in Northern Italy said, “I can create an invoice for you, but then I have to charge you 10% VAT [value-added tax]. If you don’t want the money to go to Rome, you pay cash and get a 10% discount.”

You can guess what I did.

If there were “reverse ATMs” in Italy that charged you money to convert your cash, like in Yankee Stadium, there would be riots.

The Real Problem

Let’s just come out with it: Government is a “reverse ATM.”

You put your hard-earned cash in and get no services worthy of the name. How are those folks in Maui doing?

You spend a trillion dollars on that winged embarrassment known as the F-35, and you get a plane that can’t get off the ground in time for combat.

And, of course, lunatics like Harvard economist Ken Rogoff want to implement negative interest rates. The only way to do that is by eliminating cash. Your money would be “streaming” like Netflix. Imagine watching your balance slowly decline like on a progress bar…without spending any! Talk about “use it or lose it…”

Wrap Up

I’m not against cashless transactions as a means of payment by choice, but I am against eliminating cash.

Between hurting the poor, having our data stolen, and implementing dreadful negative interest rates, we’d be the boiling frog in the pot.

We’d be cooked before we could jump out.