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https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/08/15/come-back-cash-before-too-late/cYvupyWhCjRX3jXJSjv2cO/story.html
Swidey includes the usual goldbuggery (yeah, I know this isn’t about gold, but the language is identical: what if a power outage, what if hacking, cash is real, you can touch it, etc.). That’s sort of boring. He argues that cash is cool — and then quotes a bunch of mobster related movie stuff, and some things involving gas stations and rolls of green paper that make me immediately suspect someone isn’t reporting all of the revenue to the tax authorities. Nowhere in the article does he discuss tax evasion. He does discuss crime, and discounts it, but as near as I can tell, neither he, nor Ou (wow, that’s _twice_ she’s crossed my attention in the last week with some screwball idea) seems to want to talk about the revenue agents.
Look, it is super easy to not report income that appears as cash: he got paid as a teenager (same age as me, apparently) picking something or other in an orchard, in cash and it looks like it wasn’t reported; tips paid in cash are rarely reported (which is why the IRS imputed a certain minimum), and a bunch of domestic occupations (cleaning, child care) are characterized by under reported payments. In cash. I mean, a lot of times people write checks, which as near as I can tell, is outside of the author’s awareness as a payment method anymore, altho it surely must be a possibility for a subscription at the Globe? Attracting that non payment card service fee he is all sad about?
In the end, however, falling short of pesos in Cuba on a family vacation convinced me that actually the option of payment cards is pretty awesome.
Yes, yes it really is.
There are lots of places — Germany arises in the article — where cash payment is still really common, and, outside of tourist areas, kind of hard to avoid. I don’t typically go to Germany, but I have been to the Netherlands several times. I’ve wound up trying to buy things in payment card only places (I wanted some Nobbeltje at the ferry terminal), and failing because it was payment card only AND they weren’t taking US cards. Nice! We had plenty of US cash, however, and the nice gentleman there actually pulled out his personal payment card to run the charge for us and then accepted exact change.
Having multiple payment options is important, and has _always_ been important, anywhere that business is transacted. Period. Getting rid of one is not something to do lightly, altho we have (try paying in gold. Yeah, that just does not work) (and it is uncommon to pay “in kind” or in equivalent livestock and so forth, in the US anyway). It is reasonable to point out to people who have minimized down to one or a few payment cards that having an additional payment method available increases their options when their one payment is not accepted.
But it isn’t a moral choice. It’s a pragmatic one.
ETA: I did not address his arguments about how people spent more with payment cards than they would with cash. This was probably a real phenomenon with people older than the author and me, the first adopters of payment cards who had a particular budgeting style. It is not a real phenomenon with people younger than the author and me, who have grown up with a radically different style of budgeting. People around our age can go either way, finding trouble a la those born earlier, or avoiding it a la those who came along later, depending on which style we went with. If we have a spend-till-its-gone-then-wait-for-more, payment cards are a disaster. If we have a monitor-the-total-and-keep-it-within-a-certain-range, we’re fine, and with easy access and alerts set up, far better off in terms of avoiding fraud and loss.
Swidey also does not delve into the various loss risks beyond over-spending. The way he characterizes debit cards as having fewer protections built in suggests he has never thought them through.
Swidey includes the usual goldbuggery (yeah, I know this isn’t about gold, but the language is identical: what if a power outage, what if hacking, cash is real, you can touch it, etc.). That’s sort of boring. He argues that cash is cool — and then quotes a bunch of mobster related movie stuff, and some things involving gas stations and rolls of green paper that make me immediately suspect someone isn’t reporting all of the revenue to the tax authorities. Nowhere in the article does he discuss tax evasion. He does discuss crime, and discounts it, but as near as I can tell, neither he, nor Ou (wow, that’s _twice_ she’s crossed my attention in the last week with some screwball idea) seems to want to talk about the revenue agents.
Look, it is super easy to not report income that appears as cash: he got paid as a teenager (same age as me, apparently) picking something or other in an orchard, in cash and it looks like it wasn’t reported; tips paid in cash are rarely reported (which is why the IRS imputed a certain minimum), and a bunch of domestic occupations (cleaning, child care) are characterized by under reported payments. In cash. I mean, a lot of times people write checks, which as near as I can tell, is outside of the author’s awareness as a payment method anymore, altho it surely must be a possibility for a subscription at the Globe? Attracting that non payment card service fee he is all sad about?
In the end, however, falling short of pesos in Cuba on a family vacation convinced me that actually the option of payment cards is pretty awesome.
Yes, yes it really is.
There are lots of places — Germany arises in the article — where cash payment is still really common, and, outside of tourist areas, kind of hard to avoid. I don’t typically go to Germany, but I have been to the Netherlands several times. I’ve wound up trying to buy things in payment card only places (I wanted some Nobbeltje at the ferry terminal), and failing because it was payment card only AND they weren’t taking US cards. Nice! We had plenty of US cash, however, and the nice gentleman there actually pulled out his personal payment card to run the charge for us and then accepted exact change.
Having multiple payment options is important, and has _always_ been important, anywhere that business is transacted. Period. Getting rid of one is not something to do lightly, altho we have (try paying in gold. Yeah, that just does not work) (and it is uncommon to pay “in kind” or in equivalent livestock and so forth, in the US anyway). It is reasonable to point out to people who have minimized down to one or a few payment cards that having an additional payment method available increases their options when their one payment is not accepted.
But it isn’t a moral choice. It’s a pragmatic one.
ETA: I did not address his arguments about how people spent more with payment cards than they would with cash. This was probably a real phenomenon with people older than the author and me, the first adopters of payment cards who had a particular budgeting style. It is not a real phenomenon with people younger than the author and me, who have grown up with a radically different style of budgeting. People around our age can go either way, finding trouble a la those born earlier, or avoiding it a la those who came along later, depending on which style we went with. If we have a spend-till-its-gone-then-wait-for-more, payment cards are a disaster. If we have a monitor-the-total-and-keep-it-within-a-certain-range, we’re fine, and with easy access and alerts set up, far better off in terms of avoiding fraud and loss.
Swidey also does not delve into the various loss risks beyond over-spending. The way he characterizes debit cards as having fewer protections built in suggests he has never thought them through.