Comment by nck4222 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nck4222 | Hacker News Reader

I was ready to be annoyed at government blocking popular progressive changes, but this changed my mind:

>In New York City, the majority of the nearly 12 percent of unbanked and 25 percent underbanked residents are people of color. Close to 17 percent of black New Yorkers and 14 percent of Latinx New Yorkers are unbanked, compared to just 3 percent of white New Yorkers.

I had no idea that many people didn't use banking services, which probably says more about me than anything.

Not to get too political, but this reminds me a lot of the coal vs renewables debate. I'm 100% on the side of transitioning away from coal, towards renewables, the same as I am in favor of ditching cash. But people who still depend on the coal industry, and using cash, can't just be forgotten about because "cashless is better".

Places should be forced to accept cash until everyone can go cashless (within reason obviously, there needs to be some sort of line drawn here, but those percentages show we're not there yet), and the government should support/retrain coal miners who lose their jobs due to energy transitions.

> Places should be forced to accept cash until everyone can go cashless

But if places are forced to accept cash, people who haven't adhered to cashless forms of payments have no incentive to swap. If it is a significant part of the market, then cash-accepting places should still out-compete cashless. If being cashless is such an advantage that the reverse is true, then people should be given incentives to change. This feels to me like a government action that goes against economic interests (whether or not it should still be done is another question, but I'd personally vote against this regulation if given the option).

I find a more interesting argument against this to be the fact that cashless payments actually depend on a corporation or third party entity doing the payment for you. Which, lacking appropriate regulation, would give them the power to ban certain people or business from doing transactions altogether (think China social credit systems).

edit: Regarding the first point, I just mean the government seems to be taking action in the wrong area just for appearances, when the issue would be investigating why people don't have cashless payment options and promoting change there

For me, how much action government should take in these transitions comes down to how much societal benefit comes from having the transition take place.

With energy transition it's obvious: cleaner environment/planet, new industries with safe jobs, elimination of a dangerous job, a healthier population. So it's beneficial for the government to help make the transition happen quicker, and support the people negatively affected by it.

If there are societal benefits towards getting everyone to be cashless (I'm not an expert in this, I simply choose cashless because it's more convenient for me, although I suspect there are larger benefits), then the government should take the same role. Help the transition happen, and support those that will struggle with it. If they're not going to help the transition, or if there are no larger societal benefits with the transition, then the people that still depend on the older option should still be able to depend on it.

> With energy transition it's obvious

Is it obvious though? I find it's more ideological than an actual well thought out plan: https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th...

Which to me seems to be the case for most scenarios where government adds regulations on the market for the "greater good". In general I favor letting the market decide where things should head.

I'm not against government intervention to help those affected by changes catch up and adapt (even though I often disagree with the policies put in place to achieve this). But I do tend to oppose when the government tries to force the market's direction instead. If people drive the market to want to go cashless, the effort should be in helping everyone do so.

Cash levels the playing field. You don't have to ask a 3rd party "pretty please, let me make this purchase, Visa" (credit) in order to use it. You don't have to pay monthly fees to a bank for a checking account (debit) to use it. You don't need an app and smartphone to use cash. Cash is better for your privacy, it minimizes the paper trail about what you buy where, which is really nobody's business but your own.

I've done a 180 on this one. Used to use a credit card for everything, now using cash more and more whenever possible. Credit is convenient, often provides valuable benefits (miles, cash back) and gives you a nice convenient summary of your monthly spending, but in exchange you're inserting an un-wanted 3rd party into every transaction who skims off value for themselves and then turns around and sells your private data all over the place. This trade-off is making less and less sense to me.

I also take issue with the third party in the middle. But in the end, if everyone wants to go that way, and you're adding extra costs by not doing so, why should everyone else have to pay for it? Ultimately there could be less cash-accepting places and driving higher costs than their cashless counterparts. You would still be able to use cash, but you'd be the one paying for it to exist, and not everyone else who has opted for cashless. Which seems fairer to me.

Unless we collectively decide to take action against giving payment providers that much power and private data, but I don't think that was the driving force behind this policy.

Adding extra costs by using cash? Credit card companies take %3 of every transaction.

Adding costs doesn't mean it is more expensive to you specifically. Just for the economy in general. There are advantages to having cashless payments only. One that comes to mind would be for places in dangerous neighborhoods (which affect low income households more)

>But if places are forced to accept cash, people who haven't adhered to cashless forms of payments have no incentive to swap.

And why should they swap? What advantage cashless brings instead of being a solution in search of a problem (and facilitating total surveillance)?

They shouldn't unless it becomes an economic advantage to do so. That's the point of the free market. I don't think it's the government's place to force it in either direction.

What prevents a large player forcing their hand on the "free market"?

Cashless would be nice if it weren't for the fact that it comes with a 2+% tax to the CC makers. And they decide if you are permitted to do business. Make porn? CC companies often decide you don't get to do business. Can the CC companies decide a person may no longer do any trade by denying them all access to the cashless society's goods?

The cashless society represents a fundamental danger to liberty.

Cashless transactions (including credit card, debit card, NFC, etc) may include fees of around 2%, but those can be easily exceeded by all the fees and costs of using cash. This is the extra time and training required of employees, hardware and space for big registers, risk of robbery, employee error, cash handling fees by financial institutions - no mode of payment is free. Why not let businesses decide which payment methods are more economical and competitive for their own needs?

Businesses that offer customers a discount for paying in cash are more likely to be saving that money because they're dodging taxes, not because they're dodging CC fees.

As a private business owner I should be able to choose what products are sold and how I wish to receive payment of those products. This is purely heavily government overstep without giving the people who run and own the businesses and services the right to choose. This isn’t going to help the “under banked” but rather just give them a crutch and a bandaid. Giving people the right to choose and helping those that don’t have bank account be able to get one is a far better option in terms of time, resources, and efficiency of combating this issue. When a government begins to use force for non health related issues you know longer began to have a free society.

> Places should be forced to accept cash until everyone can go cashless

Places should be forced to accept cash AND I'd suggest people never go cashless.

Once people surrender the right to anonymity, we might never get it back.

The question is, why are they un or under banked? What or who creates those conditions? One doesn't see much diversity in or competition in banking products or terms, so it's not likely that anything is going to change.

I think it's a combination of factors. Distrust of the system, lack of steady cash flow, lack of local offerings.

High cost (fees are proportionally much more expensive), shady practices[1], accounts frozen by creditors.

Poor people are making completely rational decisions when choosing not to trust banks, and it's patronizing to assume they simply don't know better.

[1] banks re-ordering transactions to maximise overdraft fees.

So there's an opportunity it sounds like. Why are no services stepping in to capture all those potential customers?

Oh there are, all those cheque cashing places for example, and they're under-regulated, so not too great either.

Still paying a larger fee to cash a cheque sure beats having all your assets frozen entirely.

Check cashing isn't banking though. I mean why aren't there banks that can be sustainable without overdraft fees? I get the idea of a fee if they cover a charge in which funds aren't available. But can't a debit card simply decline if no funds are available - hence the bank never covers an unfunded charge and thus never charges overdraft fees? Are there not other ways to monetize banking for low cash flow individuals?

In addition to overdraft fees, banks charge monthly fees if you don’t maintain a high balance or regularly make direct deposits. This is how they “monetize” poor people. In reality the result is that these people go unbanked and simply keep cash.

Banks don’t really exist to help people save money anymore. For the most part, they exist to extract fees from people who keep money there and from borrowers.

- Living off the grid

- Illegal presence in the country

- Concealing income from taxation/child support order

There is decent data that people spend more than they intend with cashless over just spending physical cash. So poor people are making a rational decision.

banks have minimum balances for them to not charge a fee.. not having good credit and not having money for the minimum balance on a checking account tend to go hand in hand.

Why is that persuasive?

If I showed you that a greater percentage of $BELEAGUERED_GROUP liked to go around without a shirt/shoes, would that be a convincing argument for prohibiting stores from having a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy?

Yeah but be careful with that comparison. Using coal harms the well-being of the billions of the humans that aren't coal miners. If anyone, credit cards only harm the people who use them.

I have a cash back credit card. Companies pay a fee to do credit card transactions. Everything in the store costs the same if I use a credit card or cash. The company raises the price to cover transactions, I get that transaction fee paid back to me by my rewards card. Essentially, people who pay cash or use non rewards cards are paying for my credit card transactions.

Wouldn’t the answer be some kind of government-backed digital currency?

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