What If the US Went Cashless? The World? link to this post

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Laws of Finance does it...SingleMa does it, and I do it. So why doesn't everyone do it? I'm not sure. Hard to break old habits I guess? I love change--for the most part anyway. The idea of a cashless society intrigues me, almost as much as national sales tax. The reasons are many, but here are some I've thought of. It would have a huge impact on society, a positive one I think. Of course we eliminate some evils, and we introduce some new ones, but hey nothing is perfect. We just strive to be. PROS + Imagine all those tax dollars saved because we no longer have to print out money. Nor do we have to save, store, destroy old currency. + It will probably reduce petty crime. Stores can no longer be robbed for money. Drug deals would have to become more sophisticated. Prositution would be a little awkward. Illegal purchases made by younger kids could be automatically declined. Couterfitting will probably be eliminated, uhhhh, since there's no money to counterfit! + No more handling paper money means a much more hygenic society. Money has traces of bacteria, drugs and a host of other germs. Take a look at this...Dirty Money. CONS - Government/Companies running cashless systems would have a tremendous amount of information on individual habits. NEUTRAL - Affects on industries could be huge. Banks could change dramatically, retail would be simplified, coins would no longer have to be counted. The list can go on for miles. Society will change drammatically. This could be a pro too, but the impact on careers will be mixed. We can dream can't we? Bold moves like going cashless, a national sales tax, green cars, smaller portion sizes at restaurants, smokeless society, changing to metric, investing in medical research all takes, as SingleMa points out, vision. I hope I get to see a few of these introduced before I die. So pick something folks and go for it!

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