The far anything can go screw itself, but we definitely need to hold on to physical currency.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Exactly. I was in Sweden recently and it's opressive how difficult it is to use cash. For everything it's only card or apps, I didn't even bother to get any local cash. But I had a few SEK from years ago and I couldn't use them.
In Portugal is not on the constitution but it's law, a business cannot force the client to pay by other means if the client has enough cash to make the payment for payments under 3000β¬ (above this you actually can't pay cash by the same law :P).
What's wrong with the idea?
It's a non-issue meant to deflect from real problems. It's also summer, so there's nothing going on and the news are blowing everything out of proportion.
Analysis of the whole thing (in German):
https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000181809/nehammer-findet-keinen-verbuendeten-fuer-bargeld-vorstoss
There is a lot going on in Austria. It's just that it is climate change related floodings, and far-right people don't like that kind of debate.
It's really disgusting how even the media covered it for only a week and then didnt mention it again. I guess the Ahrtal only became such a big thing in Germany because of the absence of warnings and resulting deaths.
The intention.
Cash has many benefits over cards, like independence from electricity, privacy, accessibility and you donβt have to worry about wether or not a store accepts your cash (at least if you ignore currency meddling).
But the far right does not care about those things. They support the idea because of some NWO conspiracy bs and the law they would propose will probably have some specific details to reflect that, even if itβs just by ambiguity.
The ΓVP has adopted the FPΓ's (far right's) talking point but not the specific law AFAIK. Also, they would probably only pass the law with agreement from their green coalition partners. It might be possible for them to cooperate with the FPΓ in the Nationalrat to pass the FPΓ's idea of the law, but that is extremely uncommon and would be very unpopular with the Greens. This is really only an issue for the next election in about one year.
Cash should never be got rid of entirely, but surely it should be up to the business if they want to take cash and then the free market decides if that decision costs them customers or not?
Citizens should have right to privacy. Cash, monero etc are important.
Then this people that seek privacy can go and shop somewhere that does take cash to maintain it, but if the market shows that they're not the majority they can't expect every shop to cater to them. It's like me expecting all restaurants to go fully veggie because I personally don't eat meat.
More like having a veggie option at every restaurant.
Which most of them do as the market has shown it's worth it. Does the market show enough people want to keep paying cash because it seems to just be nutty conspiracy theorists on twitter moaning about it.
Must be nice living in such a huge city that there are multiple stores for everything. Can't even order online instead, since those shops also don't take cash (obviously).
To be fair, I order most products online anyway and there's a big supermarket round the corner for food. When I do venture into London it's great how much faster it is to use the trains, get a pint, pay for food, etc just tapping my phone on everything.
You never buy anything except food and drink?
No, as I said I buy most other stuff, bar clothing, online anyway, or theyre digital products to begin with like games.
This card-only thing is already happening in some places and it's frustrating. For one, you tend to find out after you're done shopping or while your order is already being prepared, so you're being put on the spot. For two, for the store, it makes sense to go cash-free as long as they lose fewer customer payments than they save on cash-handling β but for those few customers who are caught by this, and who may be unbanked or have an incompatible card or high card fees or are just privacy-minded, it becomes harder/impossible to buy stuff at all.
Fees are standard and handled by the retailer, not the customer, and outside of American Express, what "incompatible" cards are there? Almost every bank uses a Visa or MasterCard which are accepted pretty much everywhere worldwide. I don't know what you mean by "unbanked" as legally everyone is entitled to a basic account, at least in the UK. If you're so privately minded you won't use a card, that sees like a self induced problem with your own paranoia.
Here in Germany, a lot of retailers/restaurants either only accept or massively prefer the local Girocard system and won't accept foreign cards. E.g. a Czech colleague not so long ago failed to pay with their Czech Visa (don't nail me on the card type, may have been Mastercard but definitely was not Amex).
I mentioned in the other comment why being unbanked is an issue.
Also, let me tell, that I pay conversion fees and other random shit even in places like Denmark (which uses DKK not EUR) with my Maestro card.
Sounds like there's national issues that need to be sorted rather than contactless being the problem. I used Monzo MasterCard issued in the UK in South Africa with no issues the other year. Also as I noted, in the UK you can't be "unbanked" as such. You can lose an account with special stipulations like what happened to Farage the other week, but they all have to offer basic accounts.
A cashless society is an obedient society. So you bet that's the future in ten years.
Not sure if smart by conservative party to take away one of the talking arguments of the far-right or a red herring to distract from actual important topics (i.e. climate change).