Author Topic: Cashless Australia  (Read 26395 times)

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Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #100 on: March 12, 2021, 03:48:45 am »
  Calm down! No one said that they could predict the US Gov's future spending. But we do know what their past spending record is like and where most of that money went.  Also I doubt any budget year is a "typical" year. Between wars, hurricanes and other natural disasters, fuel embargoes, inflation, crashing financial markets, massive numbers of illegal immigrants that have to be dealt with and many other unforeseen events, the budget is never "normal".
 

Offline Nusa

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #101 on: March 12, 2021, 05:39:17 am »
Actually someone did, but I guess you didn't read it. Don't worry, I might have been triggered a little by one of our regular conspiracy theorists, but I'm not foaming at the mouth.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #102 on: March 12, 2021, 10:18:30 pm »

Cashless algorithms arbitrarily  taking out debtors deposited money evokes Australia's robodebt debacle for me..

 
« Last Edit: March 12, 2021, 10:28:32 pm by cdev »
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Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #103 on: March 12, 2021, 11:08:57 pm »
   OK, would you care to explain to the rest of us what Robodebit is and how it's relevant? No, I didn't sit thru the whole 18 minutes of two talking heads chit chatting.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #104 on: March 13, 2021, 02:44:40 am »
It's super creepy . My gut feeling is telling me that Its not just coincidence that all this stuff is happening at the same time.
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Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #105 on: March 13, 2021, 02:47:00 am »
@Stray Electron. I am not Australian so I an sure I would leave something crucial out. Why dont you look at some of the dozens of Yountube videos on the Robodebt/centrelink debacle.
   OK, would you care to explain to the rest of us what Robodebit is and how it's relevant? No, I didn't sit thru the whole 18 minutes of two talking heads chit chatting.

Use Youtube's search function.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 03:18:27 am by cdev »
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Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #106 on: March 13, 2021, 07:40:45 am »
Well like with everything there are pro's and cons and it would need implementing very well or it would descend into chaos.

I think a lot will start to hinge on mobile phones rather than cards as a mobile phone being a computer can do so much more like handle transactions without an internet connection because it knows what is in your account and syncs with the bank once it reconnects. Cash and electronic have costs, here in the UK there is growing concern with the amount of ATM's being taken out and banks disappearing from the highstreets so you can't walk in and take cash out at the counter. Now that we live in the panacea of "everything is free" we fail to see the actual costs. I would rather pay my bank a monthly fee rather than be charged by stealth, at the end of the day we must pay somehow. electronic transactions have fees to sellers, so sellers add these to their prices and so the customer is paying the transaction fees but are unaware of it. And this just applies to everything so every time you spend money on your card you are paying to have use that card, not the seller.

Cash costs money to manage as well. The notes have to be printed and coins minted. The notes in particular have to be carried around the country from the mint to the banks to the ATM's and then back to the bank again and then the dealing with notes that need turning in for replacement. Business customers are usually charged to deposit cash now so like with electronic transactions they will have to add this cost to their prices. There is no way out and it's the cheapest and safest that wins out.

The problems will be around the communications infrastructure that will have to be reliable to connect everywhere where money is to be spent and yes there is the problem of people adopting it which is unlikely for many. My father still works with cash and does not have a "smart" phone and I dread to think what a mess he will get himself into with one when he rings me up and reports that emails vanished from his computer whilst he was reading them but not touching anything.....

Cards will certainly work for most of us and if the infrastructure is made more reliable less of a worry, ultimately if there is a total disaster your money may be worthless anyway and still inaccessible as cash unless you are going to walk around with all the cash you own on your person which is impractical.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #107 on: March 13, 2021, 09:45:25 am »
By the time you get to the store to buy some food, the tax office liberated the money from your account, because you owned them.

How can a tax office liberate your money without the court giving them a go, and how can a court give a forced execution of property go without leaving you enough for basic living? Read your laws, there should be something like this somewhere.

If your law does not have this kind of bankruptcy protection, the tax office can technically go to your house with cops and rob you legally with a go from the court, too, regardless you use a card or not.
They send out thousands of traffic violation court verdicts per day. Together with fines. From the speeding cameras.
If you appeal, they have to review your evidence. Thousands a day.
For my last one, I got a canned "nope" as reply, I'm sure they haven't even read what I wrote.

The Dutch government just resigned, because they accidentally bankrupted 20000 families due to some clerical errors. This kind of shit happens every time.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 09:53:38 am by NANDBlog »
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #108 on: March 13, 2021, 10:05:00 am »
Well like with everything there are pro's and cons and it would need implementing very well or it would descend into chaos.

I think a lot will start to hinge on mobile phones rather than cards as a mobile phone being a computer can do so much more like handle transactions without an internet connection because it knows what is in your account and syncs with the bank once it reconnects. Cash and electronic have costs, here in the UK there is growing concern with the amount of ATM's being taken out and banks disappearing from the highstreets so you can't walk in and take cash out at the counter. Now that we live in the panacea of "everything is free" we fail to see the actual costs. I would rather pay my bank a monthly fee rather than be charged by stealth, at the end of the day we must pay somehow. electronic transactions have fees to sellers, so sellers add these to their prices and so the customer is paying the transaction fees but are unaware of it. And this just applies to everything so every time you spend money on your card you are paying to have use that card, not the seller.

Cash costs money to manage as well. The notes have to be printed and coins minted. The notes in particular have to be carried around the country from the mint to the banks to the ATM's and then back to the bank again and then the dealing with notes that need turning in for replacement. Business customers are usually charged to deposit cash now so like with electronic transactions they will have to add this cost to their prices. There is no way out and it's the cheapest and safest that wins out.

The problems will be around the communications infrastructure that will have to be reliable to connect everywhere where money is to be spent and yes there is the problem of people adopting it which is unlikely for many. My father still works with cash and does not have a "smart" phone and I dread to think what a mess he will get himself into with one when he rings me up and reports that emails vanished from his computer whilst he was reading them but not touching anything.....

Cards will certainly work for most of us and if the infrastructure is made more reliable less of a worry, ultimately if there is a total disaster your money may be worthless anyway and still inaccessible as cash unless you are going to walk around with all the cash you own on your person which is impractical.

Yeah I wouldn’t worry about this. Smartphone based payments just emulate actual real cards. They work entirely offline. The only issue is charged batteries.

At this point I don’t carry a wallet any more. I have had zero problems for two years. I have a card as well but i rarely use it. I don’t even remember the last time I made a cash transaction. I think it was for an eBay sale on my door step.

In fact my watch can make payments. It doesn’t have a cell modem in it. It generates a one time card number for the device which you can dispose of any time you wish. So not only is it fine offline but it’s more secure than your usual card which takes 5 days to get a replacement for it it’s compromised.

The big problem as you mention is clearing and processing but I’ve actually seen the stuff that runs this and it’s not something you need to worry about. Literally it has the highest reliability investment in it there is because if it does go down everything goes to shit instantly and the people running it get reamed by the authorities.

As for the usefulness of cash, it’s bits of paper and metal. The contract for validity is entirely informal. If at some point the world collapses it’s bits of paper and metal and that’s it. You have bigger problems to worry about than swapping those for things.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 10:14:25 am by bd139 »
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #109 on: March 13, 2021, 10:15:12 am »
They send out thousands of traffic violation court verdicts per day. Together with fines. From the speeding cameras.

What if you don't pay? Will you come to your bank or your house and rob your money?

In the UK they come to your house and take your stuff eventually. That’s a cashless transaction too!  :-DD
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #110 on: March 13, 2021, 10:16:03 am »
They send out thousands of traffic violation court verdicts per day. Together with fines. From the speeding cameras.

What if you don't pay? Will you come to your bank or your house and rob your money?

Usually debt collector companies are employed, you will probably be paying for their fees as well. They can take your goods away from you but there is a bare minimum that cannot be taken away as essential items like a bed or cooker. This is standard practice in many countries for any form of debt. This is done though under a court order, it's not a free for all, it's the last resort as it's the most expensive payment processing out there to convert the goods back to money.

I invest my money with peer to peer lending. Often a company owner/director will forfeit the advantage of the separated finances between company and personal and give a personal guarantee of repayment on a loan that the company alone did not have the collateral for. Yea, I've cast my vote in the past to seize the family home of the deceased director when the loan defaulted and the wife is protesting on emotional grounds to keep possession of a house worth so much it could be sold to pay off the loan and buy a smaller house. I suspect that if she still refused to budge some sort of enforcement would be employed to remove her.
 

Online Halcyon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #111 on: March 13, 2021, 11:17:14 am »
They can take your goods away from you but there is a bare minimum that cannot be taken away as essential items like a bed or cooker. This is standard practice in many countries for any form of debt.

That is exactly my point. Trusting the bank and the "system" does not mean you will get f*ed if you go bankrupt.

The other consideration is, if you're facing bankruptcy, one should take a good long look at themselves. The individual is almost always to blame, not someone else. Its a tough lesson to learn, but not one that doesn't have light at the end of the tunnel. Bankrupt does not equal homeless, nor does it equal unable to live. In fact, personal insolvency rates in Australia fell by over 23% in 2019-2020 across all states and territories. It's as low as it has been since around 1999-2000. Once the stats come out for this current financial year, I reckon we'd be looking at instances not seen since the early to mid 1990's.

https://www.afsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/annual_personal_insolvency_summary.xlsx
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 11:22:46 am by Halcyon »
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #112 on: March 14, 2021, 01:20:25 am »
Here in the US it varies from state to state. Debtors prisons are coming back in a big way. Generall they want debtors to sell off all fungible assets.

Any car or real property definitely gets taken unl;ess they are in Florida or Texas where all kinds of crooks get to keep up to $10 million in a house. They cant touch it. Then they can sell it later. .

They can take your goods away from you but there is a bare minimum that cannot be taken away as essential items like a bed or cooker. This is standard practice in many countries for any form of debt.

That is exactly my point. Trusting the bank and the "system" does not mean you will get f*ed if you go bankrupt.

It seems likely to me whenever the kleptocracy is rising globally as it is today.
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Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #113 on: March 14, 2021, 01:25:42 am »
They impound cars off the street for unpaid parking tickets. They have an automated OCR car plate reader running all the time digitizing license plates seen by the car and running queries on each of them automatically If they get a hit on any of them they call the tow truck to go get it.
They send out thousands of traffic violation court verdicts per day. Together with fines. From the speeding cameras.

What if you don't pay? Will you come to your bank or your house and rob your money?

In the UK they come to your house and take your stuff eventually. That’s a cashless transaction too!  :-DD
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Online coppercone2

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #114 on: March 14, 2021, 01:41:59 am »
it sucks, those machines have problems. cash is great you have 200$ in your pocket you can do anything you want even in the worst situations.

power outages? network problems? equipment malfunction? simple trade and garage sale? no problem

its like apple, they try to make everything skinny and fit into skinny jeans

the only thing I see when someone is trying to push cashless is some high level bullshit artist telling me how reliable the machines are and that they never heard of a complaint and that its perfect  :palm:

cash is how you don't get mauled by the shops. yea when you buy lunch and you got cash in your pocket you won't do anything stupid because you feel it going down instead of thinking 'whats another couple of dollars'. whos going bankrupt now? usually people that spend way too much with plastic... try pulling a dollar from someones hand

What happens when you go to the bank? you start thinking about money and where you stand, its a reminder. credit card use is practically like a day dream.. where did that $300 go?
« Last Edit: March 14, 2021, 01:53:51 am by coppercone2 »
 
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Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #115 on: March 14, 2021, 02:42:38 am »
I'm very not a fan of the idea of cashless society, but unfortunately I think it's coming everywhere.  It's what they are pushing with agenda 2030, great reset etc...  not only cashless, but 1 world currency ruled by a few large corporations and government (probably UN). 

The issue with this is how they'll be able to track every little thing. Not to mention it will make business inaccessible for very small business as they won't have the budget to setup the necessary infrastructure to process payments.  Ex: needing a credit card processor, merchant account etc... all those things tend to have monthly fees.  Or even simple things like yard sales etc, that's pretty much not going to be possible anymore.  Not to mention since everything will be tracked you'll probably be expected to pay all sorts of taxes on even very minor transactions, where the legwork, accounting etc of paying the taxes would just not make it worthwhile. 

Not to mention all the other things mentioned like power or network outages etc. 
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #116 on: March 14, 2021, 07:54:42 am »
I'm very not a fan of the idea of cashless society, but unfortunately I think it's coming everywhere.  It's what they are pushing with agenda 2030, great reset etc...  not only cashless, but 1 world currency ruled by a few large corporations and government (probably UN). 

The issue with this is how they'll be able to track every little thing. Not to mention it will make business inaccessible for very small business as they won't have the budget to setup the necessary infrastructure to process payments.  Ex: needing a credit card processor, merchant account etc... all those things tend to have monthly fees.  Or even simple things like yard sales etc, that's pretty much not going to be possible anymore.  Not to mention since everything will be tracked you'll probably be expected to pay all sorts of taxes on even very minor transactions, where the legwork, accounting etc of paying the taxes would just not make it worthwhile. 

Not to mention all the other things mentioned like power or network outages etc. 

Both those statements are rubbish! There are no plans for a worldwide currency, we have the Euro fiasco to set us straight there.

Small merchants shut out? really? I'm a tiny business, I have never ever dealt in cash. I'm so small that when card processors contact me offering their services the answer is generally no. I use paypal and stripe or you can do a bank transfer. Bank transfers are free, Paypal charge me 3.4% and stripe charge me 1.5%, without them I would never have started in business, cashless has made my business like many others that would not be operating if it were not for cashless means of payments and the internet. Cash is not free as I explained earlier. Cash machines need making, installing, maintaining and someone has to be paid to come out and fill them up. The notes need printing and distributing and returning and counting, it's a costly pain in the ass. Having a bank you can walk into costs money, you want to pay for all that? be my guest to but don't complain about the cost.

As people do not carry cash so much even small businesses at things like fates can take payment by card, maybe they can now sell larger value items as people don't go to fates with big wads of cash so if you want to sell something expensive you are out of luck if you don't have a card reader.

I think cash should be around for as long as people want it. I generally have some cash on me but generally use card.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #117 on: March 14, 2021, 09:50:23 am »
Yep. There is no chance of a world wide currency.

You can tell which countries they legalised marijuana in.
 

Online Psi

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #118 on: March 14, 2021, 10:46:36 am »
I'm in NZ and I've not carried cash with me for at least 4 years.
I do have some at home and a little in the car just in case, but I don't recall even having to use that in the past few years.

I have 'used' cash in the last 4 years but that was me going to an ATM to withdrawal cash for something specific, not me carrying cash around.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2021, 10:49:37 am by Psi »
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Offline Sigurd

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #119 on: March 14, 2021, 11:24:54 am »
I live in 'straya, I went to a coffee shop today that I had noticed but not gone to before. I took my phone and some money and walked out into the rain, I ordered a coffee, they wanted my name and then they said they took card only. There weren't any other customers around and I had held up a $5 note for a $4 coffee, I wanted to say "I'm the only person here!" and "legal tender!" but I just said ok and rolled my eyes to myself at the ridiculousness of it all. You'd think one of the three perky idiots behind the counter would have wanted my business.

It's what, $10-$30 to put through a bitcoin transaction? Crypto solves nothing.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #120 on: March 14, 2021, 11:30:01 am »
I think cash should be around for as long as people want it. I generally have some cash on me but generally use card.
Yeah, but the USA and Canada, seems to have some sort of backwards ass banking system with check for paying salary, tiny regional banks, magnetic cards, and credit everywhere.
You tell them that we have contactless RFID payment by phone, and its like space technology to them.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #121 on: March 14, 2021, 12:01:23 pm »
but 1 world currency ruled by a few large corporations and government
That has existed for a long time already. At the moment 75% of the world trade is paid in US Dollar or Euro with an almost 50/50 split. IMF is kind of the steering commity which also keeps reserves in various currencies.

Quote
Or even simple things like yard sales etc, that's pretty much not going to be possible anymore.
Ofcourse it is. There are many micro-payment platforms. You can use your mobile phone for that. Over here I can send a payment request from a mobile phone and the other person can pay immediately. The money goes straight into my bank account. I'd say it is more convenient compared to Paypal and no direct fees (the service comes with the bank account and is supported by all major banks).
« Last Edit: March 14, 2021, 12:18:36 pm by nctnico »
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Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #122 on: March 14, 2021, 12:05:06 pm »
You can get a card reader from paypal. It connects to your phone and you can take payments anywhere your phone can get a signal.
 

Offline Sigurd

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #123 on: March 14, 2021, 01:54:50 pm »
Paypal clips the ticket boths ways and aren't to be trusted in general - if you have a problem with them they will just stonewall you.
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #124 on: March 14, 2021, 01:58:18 pm »
Paypal clips the ticket boths ways and aren't to be trusted in general - if you have a problem with them they will just stonewall you.

We are not discussing if the companies that run the technology are any good as companies but the feasibility of the technology.
 


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