Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
All over the western world banks are shutting down cash machines and branches. They are trying to push you into using their digital payments and digital banking infrastructure. Just like Google wants everyone to access and navigate the broader internet via its privately controlled search portal, so financial institutions want everyone to access and navigate the broader economy through their systems.
Another aim is to cut costs in order to boost profits. Branches require staff. Replacing them with standardised self-service apps allows the senior managers of financial institutions to directly control and monitor interactions with customers.
Banks, of course, tell us a different story about why they do this. I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because "customers are turning to digital", and they are thus "responding to changing customer preferences". I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches.
Source: The cashless society is a con – and big finance is behind it
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:36PM
Same here in California. I've been a member of a coop since it became legal to grow for medicinal purposes, and we've had cash accumulation problems since the beginning. Can't deal with a FDIC insured institution unless you do it under the cover of a front. We've had safes at several locations and created a network of family and friends to launder funds. Some day the Feds will see the light and we can move into the modern world and bank with the big boys but in the meantime we store too much cash, buy precious metals and support retired family members with our cash, and in turn receive recompense from their laundered social security and retirement checks.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge