The end of cash?

[teuchter]

No it wouldn't, if the infrastructure crashes on this sort of scale your cash is worthless as everything else follows. Assuming you had more than £50 in cash anyway since you can't get any more, what good is that to a shop that can't access their account to credit or withdraw cash? That can't pay their staff, that can't pay their suppliers? Never mind impacts further up the supply chain.

People's use of cash would depend on how much faith they had that its value would be retained, wouldn't it? So it would probably depend on the exact situation.

If there were some kind of infrastructure disaster but I hoped that the system would be restored in a few days/weeks, and I owned a shop full of stuff, I'd probably accept cash in exchange for what I had there, at least for perishable stuff - what would my alternatives be?

 

[InArduisFouette]

People's use of cash would depend on how much faith they had that its value would be retained, wouldn't it? So it would probably depend on the exact situation.

If there were some kind of infrastructure disaster but I hoped that the system would be restored in a few days/weeks, and I owned a shop full of stuff, I'd probably accept cash in exchange for what I had there, at least for perishable stuff - what would my alternatives be?

exactly that for the perishables , but i suspect if you shop wasa corner shop, you;d also be sending crates of the tinned / shelf stable stuff out to your own storage unless you literally 'lived over the shop '

 

[emanymton]

People's use of cash would depend on how much faith they had that its value would be retained, wouldn't it? So it would probably depend on the exact situation.

If there were some kind of infrastructure disaster but I hoped that the system would be restored in a few days/weeks, and I owned a shop full of stuff, I'd probably accept cash in exchange for what I had there, at least for perishable stuff - what would my alternatives be?

A couple of days maybe, but how are you getting a float each day? Or are you just negotiating a price for each item? How sustainable is that? And once most people have run out of the cash they have on hand how worth is it to stay open? This is of course assuming you don't just get looted.

At the end of the day the best thing for dealing with major infrastructure disruption is a stockpile of tinned food rather than cash. Although admittedly cash is easier to store.

 

[hash tag]

 

[weltweit]

I like cash

Cards have their place, but nothing beats having £50.00 in notes in your wallet!

 

[marty21]

Spent cash today , at the Barbers , for a sausage sarnie & a tea at a nearby cafe, and at the Dry Cleaners. Felt good tbf.

 

[marty21]

I like cash

Cards have their place, but nothing beats having £50.00 in notes in your wallet!

Surely having more than £50 in your wallet beats that?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Spent cash today , at the Barbers , for a sausage sarnie

i did as well, but in my case for a haircut

 

[smokedout]

No it wouldn't, if the infrastructure crashes on this sort of scale your cash is worthless as everything else follows. Assuming you had more than £50 in cash anyway since you can't get any more, what good is that to a shop that can't access their account to credit or withdraw cash? That can't pay their staff, that can't pay their suppliers? Never mind impacts further up the supply chain.

There's a lot of cash out there, short term it would probably increase in value and all those with their life savings stuffed in a suitcase would be millionaires, for a while at least depending how things panned out. What else is the shop keeper supposed to do, establish an elaborate system of bartering in the middle of a disaster?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

This. It's also the easiest and most trustworthy form of instant remuneration. Send someone down the shop with a tenner. Go halves on a takeaway. Tip your hairdresser. Etc

Of course, all of these things can be done via a bank transfer or revolut or whatever the local version of venmo is but physically giving someone cash feels nice. It's tangible. It's not just some digital number. Also you get to feel like Del Boy or Arthur Daley when you crack out a wad of notes. Not that I do that often, but its one of the reasons I prefer to only carry fivers. And why I get pissed off I have to physically go to the bank to get £10s and £20s changed into fivers. Fivers are great. They should also have £1 notes and get rid of coins. IMHO.

I think the splitting a bill is a great advert for bank transfer. 3 of us want to split £37. Who has the change? It could with being slicker, but isn't hard on the app. And of course once they are added it's easier still.

 

[klang]

37/3 only proves that equal splits are usually unfair.

 

[Cid]

There's a lot of cash out there, short term it would probably increase in value and all those with their life savings stuffed in a suitcase would be millionaires, for a while at least depending how things panned out. What else is the shop keeper supposed to do, establish an elaborate system of bartering in the middle of a disaster?

Why would that happen? Past a certain point, yes, of course you'll get barter. Or you'll get looting. Monetary crises (I'm probably mixing my terms a bit here, but whatevs) afaik have invariably devalued currency. You could assume a case where a specific attack disrupts only the cashless payments system but wider banking, systems of government etc remain untouched (i.e it's a specific systems crisis rather than a monetary crisis as such). Then you'd probably see a temporary rise in demand for cash, but without a suitable replacement/increase in supply that would break down very quickly. And I mean VERY quickly; see opening days of lockdown.

Conversely I think covid etc shows that some level of food prepping probably is worth it. Bit harder in terms of storage space, and has to be stuff you actually use. But you can eat food, and if I have beans and you have a tenner, but I want £20... Well, your tenner's not worth beans.

e2a: caveats of course, I mean with population displacement of course mobile assets are useful (if extremely risky). They're just not going to increase in value.

 

[lazythursday]

My friend with a shop who was robbed recently now has a large sign up asking people to pay card if possible, and has been busy explaining on local facebook groups and the like that dealing with cash actually costs her more than card both financially and physically / emotionally in terms of the journeys and stress involved. Much to the surprise of some people who just assume cash is better for small businesses, and to the anger of a vociferous conspiracist minority.

 

[rasputin]

becasue of the intrinsic value of gold ( or other high value metals such as silver) ...

Money and cash in all its forms is entirely artificial. There is no "intrinsic value."

Water and food can be argued to have intrinsic value because they sustain life. Money does not have intrinsic value. What it does have is the trust of a community of users that it can be exchanged for something desirable or useful.

This is as true for gold and silver as it is for any other form of money. Gold was just another metal until Kind Croesus started using it to mint gold coins around 600 BCE. It now commands trust in its value among a wider community of users than any form of money (probably) but that's not the same as intrinsic value. If you were stranded out at sea or in the middle of a desert, a gold bar would be of no intrinsic use to you.

 

[og ogilby]

Much to the surprise of some people who just assume cash is better for small businesses

My customers occasionally tell me they've been to the bank to get the cash to pay me. I really do appreciate them trying to help but it doesn't. I just have to take the cash back to the bank.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

37/3 only proves that equal splits are usually unfair.

only if all 3 of you are too tight to add an extra 4 pence tip (6.66666666666 pence each) to the bill to make it an even split

 

[klang]

only if all 3 of you are too tight to add an extra 4 pence tip (6.66666666666 pence each) to the bill to make it an even split

not 'you'. 'them'.

 

[mwgdrwg]

View attachment 444540

I am bemused at why this type of thing appears to be trying to put a positive and colourful spin on giving your patrons less options.

 

[InArduisFouette]

I am bemused at why this type of thing appears to be trying to put a positive and colourful spin on giving your patrons less options.

from a business point of view cash is hassle after hassle

charged to pay it in the the bank,
charged to get it from the bank,
charged again to get specific float make up of cash
charged for the security van if you use them
money laundering regs if you sell stuff that crosses the boundary set by HMRC
unless you are in the last chance saloon with suppliers they'd much rather deal with sales on account and settle by BACS /CHAPS at the end of the month

 

[brogdale]

from a business point of view cash is hassle after hassle

charged to pay it in the the bank,
charged to get it from the bank,
charged again to get specific float make up of cash
charged for the security van if you use them
money laundering regs if you sell stuff that crosses the boundary set by HMRC
unless you are in the last chance saloon with suppliers they'd much rather deal with sales on account and settle by BACS /CHAPS at the end of the month

Yes, those are clearly business costs, but if you're business can't cover it's costs there isn't a viable business there.
I agree with mwgdrwg signs like those shown would be more honest if they stated that in an attempt to lower business costs we've restricted your payment options and insist on one type.

 

[Winot]

Yes, those are clearly business costs, but if you're business can't cover it's costs there isn't a viable business there.

The same is true for card charges.

 

[marty21]

I was just thinking of olden times - (the 1980s) when I worked for a bank and cash was king - I was in the backroom, we called it the machine room, counting deposits of cheques/cash and making sure they tallied (it was a right arse-ache when they didn't) but we also had to sometimes carry cash between branches - we had messengers who were employed to do this, and one of us usually had to accompany them , sometimes with £20k in a little bag! I doubt that needs to happen much now.

 

[InArduisFouette]

Yes, those are clearly business costs, but if you're business can't cover it's costs there isn't a viable business there.
I agree with mwgdrwg signs like those shown would be more honest if they stated that in an attempt to lower business costs we've restricted your payment options and insist on one type.

the purpose of a business including shopsattached to museums and institutes is to generate an income for the organisation

 

[brogdale]

the purpose of a business including shopsattached to museums and institutes is to generate an income for the organisation

Yeah, I get that; I was responding to your point “from a business point of view”.

 

[Serge Forward]

I was just thinking of olden times - (the 1980s) when I worked for a bank and cash was king - I was in the backroom, we called it the machine room, counting deposits of cheques/cash and making sure they tallied (it was a right arse-ache when they didn't) but we also had to sometimes carry cash between branches - we had messengers who were employed to do this, and one of us usually had to accompany them , sometimes with £20k in a little bag! I doubt that needs to happen much now.

Back in the late 70s I worked for furniture shop in Salford unloading and delivering furniture and setting up stuff for the showroom. At the end of the day, they'd send me off to the bank's night safe, on foot through the precinct with these big leather wallets (obviously stuffed with cash and cheques) to put in the night safe. Fortunately, I knew most of the local scallies back then so I came to no harm. But I did worry about anyone I didn't know who looked the slightest bit iffy. I was literally shitting myself every evening I had to do that little errand.

 

[skyscraper101]

I was literally shitting myself every evening I had to do that little errand.

Must've been awful.

 

[Serge Forward]

Must've been awful.

It was... ahem... character building.

 

[og ogilby]

Biggest cash operation I ever witnessed was on the baccy run in the mid 1990's, just over the Belgium border from France. The operation was run out of one of the first properties you came to when you'd driven over the border, it wasn't much more than an old shed. There was a constant queue of scallies handing over wads of cash in exchange for boxes of baccy and this was going on all day, every day. They probably took around 5k while I was there, all cash. It all looked so amateurish considering what was actually going on.

 

[mwgdrwg]

from a business point of view cash is hassle after hassle

charged to pay it in the the bank,
charged to get it from the bank,
charged again to get specific float make up of cash
charged for the security van if you use them
money laundering regs if you sell stuff that crosses the boundary set by HMRC
unless you are in the last chance saloon with suppliers they'd much rather deal with sales on account and settle by BACS /CHAPS at the end of the month

"Won't sombody please think of the businesses! (and fuck the disadvantaged)."

This forum is rotten, and has been for a long time.

 

[kabbes]

"Won't sombody please think of the businesses! (and fuck the disadvantaged)."

This forum is rotten, and has been for a long time.

So you agree that businesses should be forced not to be cash only?