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Comment by askyourmother | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you 200% here, but the HN crowd don't seem to be able to even conceive that once cash is gone, it only takes a glitch, a bug (in software? Surely not!), or a malicious action by bank or state, and then you are left in a rather desperate state.

Today the bank can, and had recently, make mistakes, but o can still buy food on the way home thanks to cash.

Life can go on, even when "computer says no".

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Beyond mistakes - consider political persecution.

Have an unpopular opinion about the current governing political party? One click later a bank account might experience a "technical difficulty." Named to an unofficial secret list of troublemakers (e.g. "no fly list") by a faceless bureaucrat? ditto.

This applies not only to individuals but also to corporations. The ability to freeze (or "disappear") a corporation's finances with a keystroke could be a powerful political weapon.

From Apple to the EFF to Amnesty International... and the faces that represent them, this could open an entirely new political warfront.

Exactly, and already happening in China.

Bank secrecy was here for a reason.

Not even malicious. Just a mistake or law misinterpretation. Banking software systems may seem relatively logical (spoiler: they are very NOT), but legal structure around payments, compliance, taxes, insurance etc. is a mess. Tax returns are commonplace (this means that mistakes in taxation happens all the time).

Currently, if there a mistake, you can challenge it, then pay. What governments want is taking money first, then you can try to challenge it. I'd say no thanks.

Swede here – it's national news whenever any of the payment systems go down. In particular the big bank initiative Swish, which seemingly tend to not cope well with high density situations such as concerts and festivals, garners criticism whenever it goes down since it's advertised as "the alternative to cash." What scares me the most about it is that the system is designed to have you give up control, under the guise of "making your life easier." Tin-foil hat warning perhaps, but fact of the matter is that these institutions (in which I include the government) have shown over and over again why they can't be trusted, not least because when they "make a mistake" it's always the rest of us that end up in the shit for it. You're asked to just deal with it, with little recourse.

I'm all for abandoning physical cash, but we're nowhere near having solved all of the questions, and the current alternatives available in Sweden are demonstrably worse than cash – despite the latter's shortcomings.

Another thing people overlook is that when all peoples money is in the bank, then banks are free to raise all the "fees" they need to "handle" your money.

Also if all peoples money is in the bank, then government can choose what ever tax rate they please and just take the money by simple transaction.

Some great examples of this are the several occasions UK banks have screwed up and left people without access over weekends or just after payday [1]

[1] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-worst-bank-history-natwest...

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