Author Topic: Cashless Australia  (Read 26385 times)

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Offline bdunham7

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #150 on: March 17, 2021, 12:33:40 am »
Norbert Haering's report seems to me to have a sound basis in fact.

No, all rubbish.  Why talk about Catalyst and the Better than Cash Alliance?  Who are they?  No mention of PayTM, which had no significant US investment until well after demonetization was over and done?  Neither you nor your source have any idea who the real players are or who is influencing who.  If you think Bill Gates and other US NGOs somehow have a lot of pull with Modi and the BJP, you and Norbert are utterly clueless. 

A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #151 on: March 17, 2021, 01:17:13 am »
Norbert Haering's report seems to me to have a sound basis in fact.

No, all rubbish.  Why talk about Catalyst and the Better than Cash Alliance?  Who are they?  No mention of PayTM, which had no significant US investment until well after demonetization was over and done?

What matters is what they do. Not hat they say.

 Neither you nor your source have any idea who the real players are or who is influencing who.  If you think Bill Gates and other US NGOs somehow have a lot of pull with Modi and the BJP, you and Norbert are utterly clueless.

India's #1 goal is jobs and more business to broker labor on. Or so they say. A third of their GNP cmes from selling 'services' like software, and engineering is one too.

I honestly don't really care that much. I just dont want them behind the scenes lobbying to do something that so obviously seems like a truly horrible policy because of the trade deals that lock all deregulation in which we have signed. Like a ratchet or fish trap. or noose, they lock in. . You didnt know that, I bet.

TISA is even worse. GATS which is already in place is bad enough, but TISA is potentially much worse. and it would lock all this in forever. We could not get rid of it, by voting because voting can't unlock it. ever. Just like the millions of good jobs -It becomes corporations property to make worse and worse forever. High skill jobs that would be gone for good. Its highly undemocratic and unfair. That's the main point.


Haering has a lot more stories on his war on cash.. topic tag

Cash, Kisses and Karaoke: Why the War on Covid must not become a War on Cash
June 19, 2020 | Covid-19 is being mobilised by the financial industry to push their War on Cash even further, leaving us ever more ensnared within their private digital money empire, writes Brett Scott in this guest article.

War on Cash in Germany: Parliament is Looking for Anti-Cash-Experts
February 6, 20202   For its project “World Without Cash”, a Bundestag-committee is inviting bids for an expert opinion that should help pave the way to a cashless future and free the population from their “cash obsession”. …

Anti-cash warrior Summers finally discloses his enormous conflicts of interest
For years, former treasury secretary and Harvard-professor Larry Summers has been the most prominent voice in favor of getting rid of cash. For years, he has ignored all ethics rules of professional organizations, which demand of professional academics to disclose any information about potential conflicts of interest whenever they publish their findings or take a […]

How Mastercard invented the health hazard of cash
12 March 2021 | During the corona crisis, Mastercard has been busy peddling the claim that cash poses a major health threat. But this is a campaign that’s been going on for at least eight years. Hakon von Holst took a closer look at its beginnings. At the center: media that trumpet any interest-driven trash […]
« Last Edit: March 17, 2021, 03:13:16 am by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Online coppercone2

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #152 on: March 17, 2021, 04:47:52 am »
Cash does not pose a health threat, so long you have.. change. If you pay exact you will never receive anything back. Contactless and secure, no need to touch a keypad. The clerk is there all day so he has gloves. And you can always tell them to keep the change if your wealthy.

This is all because people want things to be flat. The bank should sterilize it for you.

A health threat is your bank account going down because you used a credit card for a 5$ transaction in a store and it got stolen.

Constantly being vigilant about a  bank account because you can't keep track of how many places your working with is stressful (like checking another email account, guess what, its proven unhealthy), and it makes investigations difficult in finding where the theft is occurring because there are so many possibilities. The app is stressful too, because you need to manage it, and they can get hacked too.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2021, 04:54:41 am by coppercone2 »
 

Offline helius

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #153 on: March 17, 2021, 04:54:13 am »
If Australia goes cashless, where will all the cashed-up bogans go?
 

Online coppercone2

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #154 on: March 17, 2021, 04:55:25 am »
If Australia goes cashless, where will all the cashed-up bogans go?

like cyberpunk 2077, the bad driving AI is actually programmed to mimic this social group. A sudden interest in computer science from this social group  :scared:

It might pay off to keep the status quo instead of forcing the threat to evolve (you damn well know its not gonna change peoples mentality, they will just adapt), you can say the problem is managed sufficiently right now, this is like forcing forest animals learn how to start fires and use knives. What was growling and urination marks turns into arson investigations. Advanced technology does not seem to effect crime very much (i.e. japan), it maybe just makes it a little less visible.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2021, 05:02:29 am by coppercone2 »
 

Offline TMM

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #155 on: March 17, 2021, 05:16:15 am »
Cash does not pose a health threat, so long you have.. change. If you pay exact you will never receive anything back. Contactless and secure, no need to touch a keypad. The clerk is there all day so he has gloves. And you can always tell them to keep the change if your wealthy.

This is all because people want things to be flat. The bank should sterilize it for you.

A health threat is your bank account going down because you used a credit card for a 5$ transaction in a store and it got stolen.

Constantly being vigilant about a  bank account because you can't keep track of how many places your working with is stressful (like checking another email account, guess what, its proven unhealthy), and it makes investigations difficult in finding where the theft is occurring because there are so many possibilities. The app is stressful too, because you need to manage it, and they can get hacked too.
This is 10-20 year old outdated thinking in a near-cashless society like Australia. No one wants to carry around stacks of coins. If you pay with card then you don't need to worry about giving or receiving change when an item is $9.95, and when the transaction is <$100 you don't need to enter a pin or touch anything. When people give me cash it is like "what the hell am I going to do with THIS?" Most places don't charge for using Visa/Mastercard CC, and the ones that do don't charge for EFTPOS (transaction from a savings account). When businesses don't accept any type of card it's like "what the hell kind of shonky operation is this?"

I used to put all my coins in the ashtray in my car so I could use them to pay for parking, but now almost all carparks use contactless card for payment, so that isn't required any more either.

Have not had my bank account app 'hacked' and I have been with 4 different banks in the last 10+ years of using online banking. Have had 2 cards 'stolen' in that time, and speaking with other people this seems to be on a rise. One card was used on an overseas holiday 2 years prior so I guess it is plausible it was swiped then, the other had no chance of being stolen as it was a debit card I never use in person and only use online via paypal so I would guess it was 'stolen' by someone attempting to put through transactions on random card numbers. I could count the number of times I used those cards to withdrawn cash at an ATM on one hand, and I'm vigilant with checking for card hijackers installed on the atm card slot.
Being out of pocket when your card is stolen is unheard of in Australia. In both cases the bank automatically detected the suspicious transaction, investigated/absorbed the costs of the transaction themselves and sent me a new card in the post. Merely an inconvenience for me. Just used the other card (debit or CC) in the meantime.

Prior to the pandemic I think it was mostly only boomers and older people who primarily used cash and did banking in person at the branch. The pandemic has encouraged banks to push those customers to online banking (since their brick and mortar branches closed during lockdown) and businesses have pushed people to use card instead of cash.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2021, 05:32:57 am by TMM »
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #156 on: March 17, 2021, 07:57:25 am »
Things are indeed different. My card has been "done" 3 times and I never lost a penny. I now have a credit card for online payments or when buying somewhere I don't trust like a petrol station on a major road which is what coincided with 2 if not all 3 instances.

As for it being too easy to spend money on a card versus cash I don't buy this argument either. it's just a matter of understanding and thinking about your actions. With banking apps on phones there is no excuse for not being able to keep track of your money. I don't even do banking on my PC, I just use my phone. My father refuses to do internet banking because he does not understand the internet and how these systems work and seems to think that everyone can see what you do online, the reason for passwords is apparently lost on him.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #157 on: March 17, 2021, 12:45:47 pm »
Prior to the pandemic I think it was mostly only boomers and older people who primarily used cash and did banking in person at the branch. The pandemic has encouraged banks to push those customers to online banking (since their brick and mortar branches closed during lockdown) and businesses have pushed people to use card instead of cash.

I guess I'm an old boomer.
I always carry cash, even in my new slimline wallet I've reviewed.
And extra if I'm going on holiday, enough to get me home if the system collapses.
Not having some cash outside the system is just dumb. I'd recommend at least have enough to get you by for a couple of weeks.
Also extremely handy to have on hand for paying contractors.

 
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Online Halcyon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #158 on: March 18, 2021, 09:28:40 am »
You old fart Dave. ;-)
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #159 on: March 18, 2021, 11:59:54 pm »
Agreed, that is exactly what I do. Old habits die hard.

Prior to the pandemic I think it was mostly only boomers and older people who primarily used cash and did banking in person at the branch. The pandemic has encouraged banks to push those customers to online banking (since their brick and mortar branches closed during lockdown) and businesses have pushed people to use card instead of cash.

I guess I'm an old boomer.
I always carry cash, even in my new slimline wallet I've reviewed.
And extra if I'm going on holiday, enough to get me home if the system collapses.
Not having some cash outside the system is just dumb. I'd recommend at least have enough to get you by for a couple of weeks.
Also extremely handy to have on hand for paying contractors.


"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #160 on: March 19, 2021, 01:03:28 am »
New Youtuber Brett Scott is blogging about the War on Cash.
He points out how we're ceding an essential part of our lives to the banking system, which has all sorts of scary implications.



As Bret points out, Cash does not crash.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:14:12 am by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline Nusa

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #161 on: March 19, 2021, 04:35:13 am »
As Bret points out, Cash does not crash.

Assuming that's how he said said it, he is simply wrong. There are quite a few well-documented cases in history where cash has crashed, very badly. Here's one so recent every adult alive that is aware of world events should already know about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

Video links are wasted on me -- I won't waste my time watching what you don't consider worth summarizing.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #162 on: March 19, 2021, 07:54:13 am »
Yep. Lmao on cash. I have one of these. And yes that’s genuine.

Gold crashes too. It’s just shiny rocks. And it’s bugger all use. What will happen is it’ll have some artificial value until people start getting sick or hungry. Then it’ll taper off fairly quickly.

Always line your risk investments against maslow’s hierarchy of needs. While not scientific it represents our base survival instincts. Providing people with security, food and shelter > shiny rocks.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 08:00:35 am by bd139 »
 

Online coppercone2

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #163 on: March 19, 2021, 08:13:07 am »
the payment machines in food places break down ALL the time. Like last week I ever heard the cashier talking about how the system is down,the boss said just to accept it, then she said well it does not go through all the time, but he said accept it anyway (it was like shady sounding)

I can imagine scams where you take out someones business internet and force em to do a transaction on merit. I think it can only tell if it looks good but since the connection is down.. what is it doing exactly?

'i need to get this to work to get lunch for people' then chuck all that stuff in the freezer

What are they gonna do card you for some sandwiches?

Does anyone know what those machines do when there is no connection? Is it just looking for a plausible real credit card number based on a hash or something like that?
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 08:22:34 am by coppercone2 »
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #164 on: March 19, 2021, 01:09:33 pm »
Usually there's an accepted level of transaction loss. That's why you find that places like that tend to have slightly higher priced items than elsewhere. You end up paying for it. It's a hedge against unreliable customers and unreliable POS kit. At the end of the day it depends on where you are in the world. If your customer is at risk of shooting you (America) then it's probably cheaper to just let them have the stuff and risk it.

The other way is paying for decent POS kit and connectivity, which isn't really expensive unless you life in the third world (America).

Oh there's a theme here. America  :-DD

Here in the UK the customer is told to piss off or the backup POS unit or mobile network connection is used instead...
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:11:38 pm by bd139 »
 

Offline cdevTopic starter

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #165 on: March 19, 2021, 03:35:30 pm »
Read this- an estimate of property losses after a severe solar storm takes down the North American electrical grid .
Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid (Lloyds of London)
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline Nusa

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #166 on: March 19, 2021, 04:15:42 pm »
Here in the UK the customer is told to piss off or the backup POS unit or mobile network connection is used instead...

While some of the 35 countries in America* may be third world, your punch line is apparently not true, given the UK example posted early this this thread:

Quote
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55805777

*I get to interpret your joke, since you used a lazy word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas   "The Americas (also collectively called America)"
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #167 on: March 19, 2021, 04:25:33 pm »
the thing is payment processors are an invisible nuisance. They have nothing to do with the sourcing of the product or the selling of the product. They simply allow it to happen without cash with no added value to the seller or buyer other than making the cashless sale possible. So naturally it's a race to the bottom in an industry that needs rock solid infrastructure and backups which all cost more than the bare minimum required and don't seem to add anything to the service....... until it goes down with no backup.....
 

Offline bdunham7

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #168 on: March 19, 2021, 04:50:00 pm »
Cash crashes with the stock market, or instability of the issuing government, or a war, or just a large natural disaster.

For that, my friend, you need gold.

Cash can get devalued, but it doesn't usually 'crash' overnight, unless the government 'demonetizes' it like India.

If there is a societal collapse so bad that the USD is suddenly not viable tender, then gold won't  be of much use either.  You can't eat it and it won't keep you warm--gold has only been a viable currency where there were actual civilizations.  Post-apocalypse you need goats and ammunition.
A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #169 on: March 19, 2021, 04:55:53 pm »
Money is an artificial construct as is any other token. If i don't need gold in my post apocalyptic life then a single biscuit may be more valuable. The first form of trading was by bartering. When we reached a level of appreciation for gold we came up with convenient measures of it in coinage, the coins were actually worth the metal they were made of, still if the metal was of no use to anyone it would be a worthless token just like our fiat currencies today be they notes and coins or numbers in a computer. You could trade with buttons if everyone agreed to recognise a symbolic value of a button.
 

Offline bdunham7

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #170 on: March 19, 2021, 05:05:05 pm »
You could trade with buttons if everyone agreed to recognise a symbolic value of a button.

One distinguishing feature of viable currencies is the inability to reproduce (counterfeit) the medium.  Gold is scarce and counterfeits can be spotted reasonably easily in most cases. 
A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #171 on: March 19, 2021, 05:09:16 pm »
Yes my example was not meant to include the counterfeiting issue, it's silliness demonstrates how artificial a construct money or any other token system is. Precious metals are only on a higher level as they are natural resources that cannot be faked. A token system is only comparable if it is as hard to fake.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #172 on: March 19, 2021, 05:26:29 pm »
Here in the UK the customer is told to piss off or the backup POS unit or mobile network connection is used instead...

While some of the 35 countries in America* may be third world, your punch line is apparently not true, given the UK example posted early this this thread:

Quote
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55805777

*I get to interpret your joke, since you used a lazy word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas   "The Americas (also collectively called America)"

No I mean the United States of America. You have terrible communications infrastructure outside of cities compared to Europe and the Far East and horrible monopolies running it.
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #173 on: March 19, 2021, 05:39:03 pm »
We have horrible monopolies running our infrastructure. I detest virgin media but I use their service as out of the choice of 2 infrastructure monopolies that we have each running different systems they are the ones that currently have 2 continuous tracts of copper running from my house to their "stuff". My other choice of monopoly is the open reach phone system which is broken and they won't fix it. Despite our semblance of a competitive market in the phone system this is an illusion, I have had about 4 "phone companies" over the last 10 years and non were interested in fixing the damaged line because they just sell one of the two monopolies services, they have no hand or interest in the actual infrastructure.

From the point of view of the actual infrastructure there are only 2. I'm not sure how the mobile system works but ultimately there are not many independent operators of that anymore and no two will build base stations in the same area to cut costs as they then have roaming agreements with each other so there is no redundancy there, if my local mast goes down my phone will loose it's signal, in fact when 2 of the operators merged a "redundant" mast was removed and the quality of phone signal reduced. As it is I have internet off the back of the fact that there is redundancy in there being 2 infrastructure systems. Now if i was a supermarket I would really be playing it safe by connecting to both those systems and using more than one card processor, but why would i have 2 internet contracts and pay fees to 2 card processors just in case one of the card processors and/or internet lines goes down? This is why you have outages. The only way you have a rock solid system is to double up the system infrastructure and costs and have redundancy for a once in a few years event in a system that is not safety critical.
 

Offline Nusa

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Re: Cashless Australia
« Reply #174 on: March 19, 2021, 08:49:48 pm »
Here in the UK the customer is told to piss off or the backup POS unit or mobile network connection is used instead...

While some of the 35 countries in America* may be third world, your punch line is apparently not true, given the UK example posted early this this thread:

Quote
What is exactly the nature of the failure that makes all supermarkets not accept cards, but ATMs work
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55805777

*I get to interpret your joke, since you used a lazy word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas   "The Americas (also collectively called America)"

No I mean the United States of America. You have terrible communications infrastructure outside of cities compared to Europe and the Far East and horrible monopolies running it.
I knew what you meant. But since you were joking, what does it matter? I thought it was rather obvious I was misinterpreting you on purpose. Only fair, right?

However, if you were serious, are you serious? Specifically which horrible monopolies are you referring to? Wait, if it's plural, how can it be a monopoly?
But yes, I will agree that infrastructure is lacking in our extremely rural areas(assuming you use distance as a measure of extreme, the US has lots more of that than Europe does...as for the Far East, I suspect you are ignoring the genuine rural areas in your assessment). But that's not a monopoly issue, that's an incentive to build vs revenue issue.

That said, it'll get better over time. At my sisters house in the boondocks of Missouri (150 miles to nearest metro area), she barely gets cell service. At their other property 15 miles away, they got fiber on the road and to their log cabin last year. Plus Elons starlink service may change everything....sister is on the waiting list for that now.

And don't think I didn't notice you ignored the evidence that the UK reality doesn't match what you said.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 08:56:03 pm by Nusa »
 


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