Another reason to keep a stack of cash out of the bank.

[Zooy]

A check, 3 years old

Do you guys still use checks in the US?

If you look up the home page of Donald Knuth (the famous computer scientist who lives in California) he explains that he does not pay by check anymore and why. According to him if criminals get to see a copy of your check(s) they can empty your account. This then causes a lot of work for the bank, because they have to correct it. It is after all their system. Apparently it has happened to him a few times.

[Tinker D]

Crypto coins???
Like Bit Coin???
I lost ten bit coins, about $130.00.
No, I’ll stick to cold hard cash, thank you.

[Zooy]

If you want to understand the differences between USA banks and European banks you may want to read the article in https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/...12jaya.pdf
One of the sentences that explains a lot is
"As recently as 1975, no state allowed out-of-state bank holding companies (BHCs) to buy in-state banks, and only fourteen states permitted statewide branching."
This means that basically each county had its own bank (or maybe even more than one). This made paying across county boundaries quite bothersome. I always wondered why a bank in California was even willing to accept a personal check from my Indiana bank in the 1970s. It was this fragmented banking, of course, that made the invention of the credit card a necessity.
In Europe, we skipped that mostly by working with debit cards. Of course, the shopkeepers have to pay their bank a fee for it, but that is a fixed rental and much cheaper than paying the credit card company a percentage over the amount paid.
In the Netherlands, there are shops that will not accept cash. Most notably Marqt which is an ecological supermarket.
If you go to Zürich and you want to take the bus, you pay your ticket with your plastic at the bus stop. All are equipped with the facilities for it. No cash.
Before Covid Germany was still mostly cash, but apparently Covid has changed that a lot. In Spain, it is mixed. I usually pay with my (Dutch) debit card. Very convenient. Also, many vending machines now take debit cards. This will invalidate the philosophical statement: "Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine".

[Tinker D]

Yes, know about the banks in the UK and EU. And again, I understand the reason you all want a cashless system. But to go all in or one size fits all attitude just sets one up for a major disaster.

Let me back up a bit…. Back to 2008. We had a wildfire in my home town of paradise. Yea, we got evacuated, but the town was sparred and all was sort of good. Yes, we lost homes, but for the most part, we’re alive and good.

Bear with me…..

A few months later, a lady driver missed a curve and crashed her little car into a telephone pole, causing a small fire. No big deal, fire trucks came, put out the fire and towed the car away. The only thing left was this telephone pole with this one little cable, and it got cooked. Or melted, fried, roasted, whatever you want to call it.

BANG……
Banks are gone, credit and debit cards not working, no 911, no calls to the outside world. The whole ridge, and 4 towns went to cash only.
Sure, we can still make calls on our cell phones and all, but the net disappeared and all outside services were….. GONE. It’s cash only for the next two days.

Remember that cable that burned???
That fiber optic cable, as it turns out was the only connection from our town to the outside world.
Of course, it got repaired, and now we have multiple cables, but it’s best to have more than one option.

Read FIRE, It’s all gone.
There was no text, no reverse 911, no warnings.
And people died.

One size bows not fit all.

[Tinker D]

Last note.
I use cards, a lot. I have Direct Deposit, my pay is automatic ( except today ), but let’s see you run your little shop when your card reader goes dead and your on hold to tech support and you can’t make a dime.
Sorry, but I’ll still deal in cash along with my cards.
Paying cash? I’ll give you a discount. Paying by card? $0.35 processing fee please.

[Anne]

Here in Belgium there are multiple ways to use your phone to pay, as a customer to a business or even person to person for small amounts like chipping in for a present. I pay my barber by scanning a qr code. As long as there is network all is well. When the network is down there is still the option of cash but in my small-ish town I had multiple occasions in the past where the payment system they used back then was down and they were like "pay me next time".

[Tinker D]

Ahhh, the Honor system. Use to have it here in the U.S.
But that has gone by the wayside.
Except for the regulars. We do run a tab service at times, but even that gets abused.
I always pay my bills and tabs.
Most just skip out.

[Lancer]

Yes, know about the banks in the UK and EU. And again, I understand the reason you all want a cashless system. But to go all in or one size fits all attitude just sets one up for a major disaster.

Let me back up a bit…. Back to 2008. We had a wildfire in my home town of paradise. Yea, we got evacuated, but the town was sparred and all was sort of good. Yes, we lost homes, but for the most part, we’re alive and good.

Bear with me…..

A few months later, a lady driver missed a curve and crashed her little car into a telephone pole, causing a small fire. No big deal, fire trucks came, put out the fire and towed the car away. The only thing left was this telephone pole with this one little cable, and it got cooked. Or melted, fried, roasted, whatever you want to call it.

BANG……
Banks are gone, credit and debit cards not working, no 911, no calls to the outside world. The whole ridge, and 4 towns went to cash only.
Sure, we can still make calls on our cell phones and all, but the net disappeared and all outside services were….. GONE. It’s cash only for the next two days.

Remember that cable that burned???
That fiber optic cable, as it turns out was the only connection from our town to the outside world.
Of course, it got repaired, and now we have multiple cables, but it’s best to have more than one option.

Read FIRE, It’s all gone.
There was no text, no reverse 911, no warnings.
And people died.

One size bows not fit all.

Heh. Doesn't even take an incredibly risky situation for critical stuff to go down hard. When the freeze hit my state, all non-backup powered sites flickered off and along with them downed every single internet/phone system except for a few cell towers and backbone sites that still had power and all communications were reserved for emergency and government uses. Went nearly a week with all cards and payment systems stone-cold.