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: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:27AM
S
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:32AM (9 children)
condemn the homeless to death.
Many arguments may be put forward regarding the loss of privacy in payments, the fragility of a financial system entirely dependent on working power, computer and network infrastructures, etc etc. But just proposing to completely cut the ability of the destitute and the poor to receive money and use it for their very daily survival shows the callousness of those who push for a cashless society.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:50AM (2 children)
The state should give them free eMoney terminals to accept donations of 29cents through credit card.
PS: aiming for a +1 Not Funny ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by qzm on Saturday July 21 2018, @09:50AM (1 child)
In London they are already proudly testing this (and as they often do, making a mess of it) .
In China, beggars with wechat payment stickers have been common for a few years.
Or to you mean in that tech backwater of America?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @12:34PM
If more than 1/100,000 Americans would trust a bum with their credit card info, I'd be very surprised. It would have to be cards, because absolutely NOONE uses their phone as a payment device. We're not technologically backwards, we're just not down with the get down, unless we're the ones getting down. Everyone except hipsters loves cash anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by qzm on Saturday July 21 2018, @09:54AM (5 children)
I heard that in new Zealand, contactless (no pin) payments were free at first, until they reached critical mass..
Then suddenly the banks added a 'convenience fee' for the shops using it..
That is the game they will play, once generic cash is killed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:45AM (1 child)
bingo
of course, there is a deeper aim, cash prevents control. One may argue that cash is handy for the criminals: I argue that big criminals are able to move money no matter what. Any degree of transparency other than 100% full transparency leaves room for malfeasance.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:38PM
The biggest criminals get the laws rewritten so that what they do becomes legal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:02PM (2 children)
People forget that cash isn't free either. You have to pay people to count it, usually several times over, and someone has to be paid to pay it in to a bank account. As long as the fees are reasonable, there is nothing wrong with the banks taking a small fee to cover processing, as it can still work out cheaper than handling cash.
What we need isn't to keep using cash, though I feel it is important to have it as an option, but for there to be regulations to prevent the banks abusing the position they have.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday July 21 2018, @07:59PM
I don't pay people to count my cash. In fact I don't count it at all, just keep most of it in a tin and some of it on me to pay for small things. And I don't pay to pay it into a bank account, I just spend it on things and on balance I need to withdraw cash, not deposit it. If someone has so much that they need to count it (like banks) then thay can make money on it by investing it while it is in their hands. Shopkeepers are the main group who might have cash they need to pay into bank accounts; but while my heart bleeds for them I don't see why the rest of the world has to change their financial system just to save them some banking fees.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:47AM
You are absolutely correct that there is a cost to handling cash - mostly because it it's a very attractive target for sticky fingers, slight-of-hand and plain robbery. That cost simply doesn't exist with "electronic banking". There are indeed associated handling costs - but they are orders of magnitude smaller.
Retail banking (from a bank's perspective) is all about mortgages, credit cards and image. That's all they should care about. Nickel-and-diming by charging for basic transactions is a sure way to lose those big sales. Win the battle, lose the war.
A smart retail bank will keep their customers happy and transacting. In a way, cheap retail transactional banking is a loss-leader - except that the cost of providing "free" transactions is effectively zero. So banks get to provide a public service where it is needed - and get the juicy mortgage and credit card accounts as a reward.
- - -
And... the reason we have to keep using cash has little to do with banks, and everything to do with ensuring our governments don't slide into totalitarianism.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:59AM (14 children)
This is just one more step in making sure no one can buy or sell anything ( including the work of his own hands ) without involving the banks.
Admittedly, I am also guilty of paying people for their services in cash, as I know good and well a lot of these folks do not use banks, and will have a fit trying to get a personal cheque cashed - and will take a big hit for doing so.
Banks hit poor people with a lot of fees. I know that. So if at all possible, I pay cash so they get 100% of what I pay them - so they have something to pay for whatever it was they needed. A lot of tradespeople highly value cash as it is the only liquid container of wealth they can use that isn't fee'd to death by accountants and banks. If they want a beer, so be it. I've seen my share of ATM's charging princely fees just to cough up enough cash to pay a beer tab.
What they seem to be trying to do is kill off a man's ability to go to work by himself if he cannot earn a living wage working for someone else. I will gladly pay a man for a day's work... in cash... but it pisses me off when they think begging is gonna do the trick. But stuff like shutting down cash is only forcing people to work for someone else big enough to work the system... that someone else is now in power to enslave them with ridiculously low wages, but the guy has no choice, its either this or go onto welfare.
And even if he's already on welfare... if he makes any more cash, it just goes to help keep the merchants in my own town in business. I already have plenty of vacant storefronts where I live... Storefronts that used to house businesses that offered services to me and my neighbors, but did not rank as high as keeping taxes and rents paid on people's priorities, given stagnant paychecks and ever increasing prices for rent, fuel, and tax.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:49AM (11 children)
>This is just one more step in making sure no one can buy or sell anything ( including the work of his own hands ) without involving the banks.
Social Security Number is a good doublespeak name for the mark of the beast. Here you cannot open bank accounts without its equivalent, nor you can pay taxes, nor receive money.
The bible also talks about a global economic crisis.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:50PM (10 children)
It also says you can get two purebred white goats to have spotted offspring by making them stare at a stripey stick while they fuck. Oh, and that the end of the world would happen, at the outside, around 120AD at the latest.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday July 23 2018, @05:45AM (4 children)
This one? [biblehub.com]
This is one of several passages which really has me confused. I have never gotten a satisfactory answer for it.
The more typical reaction I get when I ask about it - is more down the line of when Kirk confounds the computer controlling a civilization with a logical fallacy.. like he did with Landrew, Nomad, and Norman. ( TOS ). ( If you are a trekkie, you will know exactly what I am talking about. )
The one that gets me the most are the young earthers... who look me straight in the face and tell me that God is Truth, God does not Lie. Satan is the Father of Lies! God created the earth just as it is. Fossils and physics and all. God made everything to look and mathematically evaluate as trillions of years old, but in reality its only 6,000 years old. beLIEve! And I go off... God is Truth, but yet he created a LIE. Satan is LIE. bzzt! sputter! input error....error....
And as I walk away, there they are, all dressed up in suits, Bible in hand, choir behind them, telling me that they are sorry I have chosen the path to HELL.
If I take those guys too seriously, I will need the services of a mental institution.
A common reaction I get should I press the issue has references to kicking the dust from ones feet and not placing pearls before swine.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 23 2018, @09:28PM (3 children)
All those people ought to be lit on fire for 20 seconds, just to give them some idea of what it is they say they believe. You know, for perspective's sake. The eternal-torment fetishists are amoral monsters. I've no problem with the idea of people paying for their crimes in the "afterlife," and indeed believe strongly that this *does* happen--but, it's just. What you give, you get. Garbage in, garbage out, and if you did something you can't completely atone for in "Hell" you reincarnate, often in the kind of situation you forced on someone else. Infinite punishment for finite crimes is so far beyond justice that anyone who believes in it is, to my mind, no longer fully human.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:38AM (2 children)
Yeh... I have grown to have similar disdain for stuff like that.
It seems more like a computer virus coded for humans.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:00PM (1 child)
The term you're looking for is "memetic kill agent" or "cognitohazard." It is possible to essentially mine the human mind with logic bombs.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:07AM
Thanks, Azuma... closest I had was the mandela effect.
Those are some quite interesting phrases to duckduckgo.
After I peruse those a bit, I think I will recognize it when others are pulling them on me. Seems cults have studied these memes a lot. So have salesmen and leadership types.
You know, if too many people become aware of these tricks, it will be much harder for "leaders" to pull the wool on us. I was only at the first level of parsing businesstalk for undefined variables.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 23 2018, @11:09PM (4 children)
> and that the end of the world would happen, at the outside, around 120AD at the latest
Somebody cut some verses off your bible? keep on reading the whole chapter. We already been through this in some older discussion.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:02PM (3 children)
No they did not, and "we" haven't been through this, since midway through you plugged your ears and stopped listening. The word used in the phrase "...this generation shall not pass away..." is the Koine "genea," which indeed does mean one single literal specified generation.
You're one of the ones I'd like to see lit on fire, and maybe for more than the 20 seconds, since you seem to think you've "already won" and your demonic God is actually going to treat you right if it existed. You, my friend, are going to be very unpleasantly surprised when you die.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:49AM (2 children)
> is the Koine "genea," which indeed does mean one single literal specified generation
the generation that sees all the aforementioned things, no? In one of the earlier passages it says when YOU see these things.
You are taking literally one that said "I will rebuild the temple in three days", yet didn't, yet did. Yet you still have to figure out why the day and the hour CANNOT be known, while the year can because your particular interpretation depends on it.
> since you seem to think you've "already won"
I take things for granted when it suits the discussion. If I am discussing the Bible I don't say "the hypothetical" god.
My comment history is out there, no?
As for winning, I just noticed that the supposedly rational atheist is the most full of sh!t religion imaginable. Give me turtles all the way down anyday.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:48AM (1 child)
I'm a Deist, you auto-fellating jackoff. I believe in God. YOU do not; you've admitted before that your entire religion boils down to might makes right, and somehow it never occurs to you that any being that acts like as much of a monster as Yahweh might not always be good to YOU just because you kiss its ass.
In fact, here's a fun tidbit: the probability of you, Bot, spending eternity in Hell is 100% if your God is real, by simple law of large numbers. As time T approaches infinity, anything that can happen will happen at least once. It is not a logical or physical impossibility for your God to throw you into Hell for any reason or no reason at all; indeed, nothing could possibly prevent it, as your God is said to be omnipotent and absolutely-sovereign. He also answers to no one in terms of morals, so it's not as if even if [you think] he made you a promise not to, he couldn't or wouldn't break it.
You've invented your God in your own image, Bot. Be very, very glad you're wrong.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:45PM
> I'm a Deist, you auto-fellating jackoff.
You already told me. But the context was your assessment of MY faith, you said one thing, I told you I am more of an antiatheist than a follower because they worship logic only to fail its application, badly.
As for the rest, I already told you, I don't care about the consequences as long that I am convinced of what I do. I can add that whatever you are convinced of, it's your business. If your interpretation is not necessarily the one, I point an alternative out, that's all. Good hunt for the truth.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:40PM
...because cash becomes income and sales tax reporting optional.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday July 23 2018, @02:16PM
That absolutely does not have to be the case. I can't recall ever paying a single fee to my credit union (PSECU). They pay me for using their credit card, they pay me for using their debit card, they pay me for having direct deposit, they refund all ATM fees charged by other banks, they don't charge for checks or deposits or anything...they've never even charged a fee for overdrawing my checking account, which I've done a couple of times...I don't pay them; they take my money and invest it for me and pay me a small share of their profits. The only *potential* downside is that the nearest branch is about a thousand miles away...but it's been about a decade since I last needed to visit a branch so that's really not an issue.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday July 21 2018, @09:46AM
knows better [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 21 2018, @12:23PM (4 children)
I was going to respond, but got too depressed.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:44PM (3 children)
Fight the power, use technology to take back control. Blockchain doesn't have to be owned by big banks, everyone can issue their own currency.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday July 21 2018, @02:07PM (2 children)
Anyone for a nice block of Soylent-chain?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:14PM (1 child)
Can you code?
Do you have enough spare time to really contribute to a new project that's not "investor backed"?
Bitcoin itself is mired in big money because of proof of work. The big non-proof of work coins like XRP are mired in investor concerns over ROI. The basic technology can run on a wristwatch and is easily within the financial reach of most people who carry smartphones with a dataplan.
If we made Soylent-chain, we could trade mod points back and forth ;-)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:24PM
This is what steem is for.
https://www.steemit.com/ [steemit.com]
Literally get paid in crypto for likes and upvotes on your content and also for liking and upvoting the content of others.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @02:42PM (3 children)
The legal cannabis purveyors here in Oregon can't use banking so they handle lots of cash. That will continue until the pinheads in Congress change the banking laws, and I will continue to pull several hundred $$ frequently from ATMs for my purchases. But: My local purveyor just opened a new sporting goods store next door, and they are connected. So now I can buy cannabis from a sporting goods store and use plastic. Just got a new MasterCard, first instruction says "don't use for anything illegal". Haven't tried it yet, but it worked with my old Visa debit card. NoCash is going NoWhere until these banking laws are changed.
Anonymous for obvious reasons.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:36PM
I think that if this is the path that banks and the government, which works for the banks, wants to pursue then they might find everyone opts out. Maybe they'll use virtual currencies like BitCoin instead, or perhaps they'll fall back on barter.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Whoever on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:46PM
It's not the banking laws that need to change. It's the ridiculous treatment of cannabis by the Federal government. Really, if there is one thing Obama could have done that would have been relatively easy to do, popular, and not require the approval of Congress, it was to change the classification of cannabis.
(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
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:30PM (4 children)
Every now and then I buy or sell something using Craigslist and cash is what works -- no questions about the buyer passing a bad check or trying to find a place to accept a credit/debit card. I guess there is always the tiny chance of getting counterfeit bills...
We sold a batch of bulky collectibles recently for $15000, the buyers collected their purchase over a couple of days and brought suitable partial payments in cash as they progressed in boxing it all up. While they were working, we briefly discussed banking and cash--they had no problems taking out the cash (two trips to the bank, one day after the other) and we had no problem depositing it in our bank, although it was spread out across a few different accounts that are for different purposes.
I'm sure it would get harder if the amount got larger. How would you handle the private sale of something for even more money--like a new-ish (or antique) car?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:49PM (1 child)
Weren't you taking a significant risk that the cash you received contained forged bills?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:04PM
Didn't seem like much risk of forgery, these collectors are getting close to setting up a small museum for their stuff--so we "know where they live". We dealt with them over several weeks, first showing the goods and getting their bid (had another serious bid as well) and others that came to look knew them too, from previous sales and hobby shows.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:43AM (1 child)
Interesting question. Say you sold your antique car for $50 grand, you can't just walk to the bank and deposit it; you account will be flagged for tax and other reasons (drug money/terrorism/money laundering/etc) which could be a real problem for a long time. Even if you split it into diferent accounts on different banks, each deposit would be large and noticeable.
Of course, you can keep the cash for a while under the bed, but you run a high risk of losing it (and perhaps your life) to robbery or fire.
So perhaps you would resort to bartering, some part in cash some part in goods that easily disposed of. Say jewelry, a car or some such other item that can be traded for cash or other goods later and which can be insured against theft or loss.
Now, if it is a single car, well you take the risks and be done with it. But if you were trading antique cars for cash frequently I would set up a church and just walk into the bank with the cash, it is "donations" and tax free anyway. The feds rarely look into what happens with church money, so you could write checks or wire it or whatever to make payments.
I would make sure the church is "legit" and not the Flying Spaghetti Monster or some such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @07:51AM
The Church of Rodney?
(bonus points to anybody who gets that reference.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:06PM (2 children)
TFA seems to be conflating a couple things. Yes, banks have been closing and consolidating branches for a long time. Ever since ATMs became common decades ago, bank tellers have been made almost obsolete.
I seriously just tried thinking of the number of times I've used an actual bank teller person since the year 2000. And I think there was only once I actually needed them, when a payment was coming due and a hiccup happened with a direct deposit, and the easiest way to resolve this was literally to go to one bank and withdraw a large sum and walk it to another bank. The sum was large enough I couldn't use an ATM. I've used physical bank branches for other services a handful of times -- opening/closing accounts, weird wire issues, etc., but those inevitably were services a simple teller couldn't provide.
Point is: I imagine the need for physical bank locations has become much lower in the past few decades. There are still good reasons to have them around, but I can completely understand the rationale for decreasing them. Hands up -- how many people around here actually use a physical bank location (and not just the ATM in that bank) on a regular basis? (I'm sure there are some, but probably the need is decreasing significantly.)
TFA though seems to combine this long trend with the much more recent trend toward shutting down ATMs. THAT is different and clearly a push away from cash and toward digital currency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @11:16PM
"Point is: I imagine the need for physical bank locations has become much lower in the past few decades. There are still good reasons to have them around, but I can completely understand the rationale for decreasing them. Hands up -- how many people around here actually use a physical bank location (and not just the ATM in that bank) on a regular basis? (I'm sure there are some, but probably the need is decreasing significantly.)"
In truth, I rarely ever use the ATMS anymore. Mostly, I use an ATM to deposit a check; even that, though, can now be done with a smart phone. When I need cash I just ask for $20/$40 cash back when I use my bank debit card at the grocery store.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:18PM
Try getting a back cheque
(Score: 5, Insightful) by leftover on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:16PM
Bankers speak of "disintermediation" i.e. the threat of any commercial transaction occurring without somebody paying them a fee, as a great injustice that needs to be corrected. This, even more than the handling costs, is what they have against cash. Peer-to-peer electronic cash similarly cuts them out of the loop so it is relentlessly opposed.
Apologies if TFA mentions this. Didn't read it due to concerns about my blood pressure.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:23PM
above ground floor of a business are is pathological liar.
Sound familiar...the pee-Resident of the WH on the top floor.
My mom worked in a 2 story bank [in the 50's they were all multi-floored] and 2nd and above was management.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:47PM
The other thing that wasn't mentioned in the article is that the banks would really love to be able to set negative interest rates. Imagine a future where the banks are taking a slice of your money just for the privilege of holding it for you. Over the past 10 years, the banks showed that they can and are willing to set the rates to basically zero, but they can't go below that because people would just withdraw their money and stuff it into a mattress. Take away cash, and that will no longer be possible.