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Cashless Australia
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Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: themadhippy on March 10, 2021, 04:57:32 pm ---
--- Quote ---Number one reason why a government would prefer a cashless society is that every transaction can be tracked, traced and accounted fo
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And give them control of who spends how much  on what.In the uk its been suggested sevral times to make benefit payments via a card that can only be used for certain transactions in certain shops

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   That did something quite close to that in the late 1970s or early 80s but it didn't work.  The USG issued cards or something of that nature that could only be used in grocery stores but many unscrupulous store owners would simply buy up the cards for CASH and then get the full face value back from the government but they only paid about 30 to 40% of the face value to the poor. Also the "poor" frequently used the cards to buy junk food, beer, cigarettes, etc in grocery stores with their cards.  I used to know a guy that owned a TV shop and poor people would come in and buy a TV and used their cards to pay for it. The way that they worked it was that the shop owner would set a price and then the two of them would go to a grocery store and the owner would pick out steaks or other expensive items equal to the purchase price, and the card owner would pay for all of it using their card.

   
Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on March 11, 2021, 08:57:55 am ---I'm all for keeping cash, mainly because going cashless would severely affect the very poor and homeless often don't have bank accounts.

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  Not really.  The US Gov now issues "EBT" debit cards to welfare recipients and they can use them exactly like any other debit card. They don't need to have a bank account or even a fixed address to use the cards. I'm not certain but I think that many people are also getting their Covid-19 "Relief" payments the same way.

  Also in the US, if you have any kind of regular income, income that you get every month, and you have it Direct Deposited to their bank, many banks will give you a free account.
Halcyon:

--- Quote from: Stray Electron on March 11, 2021, 03:01:37 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on March 11, 2021, 08:57:55 am ---I'm all for keeping cash, mainly because going cashless would severely affect the very poor and homeless often don't have bank accounts.

--- End quote ---

  Not really.  The US Gov now issues "EBT" debit cards to welfare recipients and they can use them exactly like any other debit card. They don't need to have a bank account or even a fixed address to use the cards. I'm not certain but I think that many people are also getting their Covid-19 "Relief" payments the same way.

  Also in the US, if you have any kind of regular income, income that you get every month, and you have it Direct Deposited to their bank, many banks will give you a free account.

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We have something similar here, although I think it's still being trialled in certain areas, but it works (some people are unhappy with it for obvious reasons). Many people who are on benefits have no idea how to budget and are their own worst enemy when it comes to handling money. Hell, even people will full-time employment and earn decent money find it difficult to budget or don't budget at all. But that's on the individual, the system can only do so much to hold the hands of people and frankly, that's the way it should be. However if you're on Government assistance, my view is that how you spend it should be controlled (at least to some degree). Welfare is by far the biggest expense when it comes to where tax dollars go and my opinion is that it shouldn't be wasted on cigarettes, alcohol and other non-essentials when the recipient can't afford it.
james_s:

--- Quote from: Stray Electron on March 11, 2021, 03:01:37 pm ---  Not really.  The US Gov now issues "EBT" debit cards to welfare recipients and they can use them exactly like any other debit card. They don't need to have a bank account or even a fixed address to use the cards. I'm not certain but I think that many people are also getting their Covid-19 "Relief" payments the same way.

--- End quote ---

In my case two different Covid "stimulus" payments were deposited directly in my bank account, I didn't even realize I had gotten them until I happened to check my account at some point. Apparently I earned just below the cutoff in 2019 and that qualified me for a payment. Didn't really make much sense to me, I earned more in 2020 than I ever have before but I wasn't going to complain about getting "free" money.
james_s:

--- Quote from: Halcyon on March 11, 2021, 06:43:38 pm ---Welfare is by far the biggest expense when it comes to where tax dollars go and my opinion is that it shouldn't be wasted on cigarettes, alcohol and other non-essentials when the recipient can't afford it.

--- End quote ---

Is it? In the US by far the biggest expense is military, it absolutely dwarfs everything else. I don't know how much we spend on welfare but I think it's essentially a drop in the bucket.
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