Why cash is losing its currency

Jared Fliesler uses "Card Case" all the time - he works for the company that invented it, Square, named for the other nifty gadget it came up with that allows anyone to swipe a credit card into their smart phone or iPad.

All this easy mobile money flying through the clouds has some a little leery about security. But Fliesler said the protections built into the system are far better than cash.

"It's actually an added layer of security," Fleisler said. "Every transaction has your photo right next to your name. So if somebody else walks up you're going to know instantly as a merchant that that's not the person who owns that phone or who has that Card Case."

And it's not just Square - everyone from Apple to Google to Visa and most major banks are looking to change the way we pay, and the number of mobile money transactions is going through the roof.

Sam Shrauger is vice president of global product and experience for PayPal, one of the pioneers in e-money way back when checks were still commonly used.

He told Cowan that PayPal went from processing $140 million in 2009, to $750 million in 2010, to $4 billion in 2011. "We expect that we'll see $7 billion this year," Shrauger said.

PayPal believes this is the future of shopping - no wallet, no cash, just a mobile device with an app that combines all your credit and checking accounts, along with coupons and other offers.

"Anyone who has a wallet can use a digital wallet, more easily than they can use a physical wallet," Shrauger said. "I think money can be better in a digital world. It can move more easily. It can be more flexible. It can actually be smarter."

Lost in all of this, of course, are the poor with no access to phones or fancy tablets. And there are those who DEPEND on cash, like waiters, parking valets, skycaps and baby sitters, none of whom are anxious to see cash disappear.

"Don't we lose a little of the nostalgia of having actual money in our wallet and coins in our pockets?" Cowan asked Reich.

"We do lose something if we don't have the money, the cash, the coins," he replied. "When it's all digital, it's a loss of a lot of icons, a lot of symbols about who we are, how we're doing and what we value things for."

But that mobile money train has already left the station. Most agree a cashless society is not only inevitable, for most of us, it's already here.

For more info:

• robertreich.org
• creditcards.com
• "The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers - and the Coming Cashless Society" by David Wolman (Da Capo Press)
• david-wolman.com
• saltanddtraw.com
• Square: Card Case
• paypal.com
• The cost of manufacturing a penny (Snopes.org)

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[wwiii]

I implement this software and product in the Tampa Bay Area. If you need help setting this up for your business, please let me know. Walter 727-493-4807

[wwiii]

I implement this software and product in the Tampa Bay Area. If you need help setting this up for your business, please let me know. Walter 727-493-4807

[jono032954]

If you cannot hold it in your hand you don't own it!!

[Kabbalah1976]

old school comment get into the current age! thx loveugodbless tj kabbalah matthewshepard madonnalicious

[mgmtbboy]

We are sorry but we cannot find you in our database, so you do not exist. Please wait 8 to 10 months in order for us to investigate this, however, since you do not exist, you cannot work or buy anything until we get this straighted out. Have a nice day.

[Kabbalah1976]

dumb comment full of fear and ignorance! thx repent loveugodbless tj kabbalah matthewshepard madonnalicious

[s33k3er]

The central bankers want this because as they inflate and devalue their already near worthless federal reserve notes soon you will not be able to carry enough of them to buy a loaf of bread.
A card will not take the place of your wheelbarrow, used to stoke the warming fires with worthless inflated currency. Billions left destitute by the policies of the corrupt private central bankers.

Me, I will be able to trade an ouch of silver for a wagon full of groceries while you sheep squabble for the scraps from the tables of the rich.

[Kabbalah1976]

wrong--it's all forward into the future--repent your horrific descriptions of this card money, etc loveugodbless tj kabbalah matthewshepard madonnalicious

[ss98981]

There is no doubt that cash is on the demise - In the last 12 months numerous start-ups have launched apps for mobile devices and tablets to allow traders to accept cards and run their business's. This revolution with tablets will power the demise of cash in the high street.

The tablet makes a perfect cash register. Although the iPad is gaining great pace in this field in the long term tables prices will just keep falling. The android will no doubt gain great pace in the field. The beauty of the tablet is it's lack or wires and clutter. You can serve on the go, at a table, in the sales space with a customer. The built in touch panel makes them a breeze to operate in comparison with old style key based pos. By nature of the design they are cloud connected and offer simple scalability to retailers. Cash drawers, receipt printers and bar code readers are easily connected - without wires! I saw a demo of a tablet cash register www.Tillify.com - it was brilliant. Simple, elegant yet amazingly well thought out and powerful.
Any retailer now should be heading for the bin with the cash register and looking at using a tablet/mac/pc based cloud solution. It is the future.

[Bojax39]

"Wolman says cash is also the currency of crime - drug deals, bribes, and bank robberies."

Digital money is too, my friend. Once all currency is so much magnetic ink, the theft of it by corporation and government will be ever so much easier.

Ask all the banks who use all those "secure" little ones and zeros to make interest rates and banking fees so fluid and hidden that they can bilk billions of dollars out of our accounts and our economy a few cents at a time.

Only difference is these criminals use computers instead of guns.

At least with legal tender you can hold a dollar bill in your hand nobody can deny it is in your possession. Besides, if I have cash in my pocket I can usually spend it at a store even when the power is off or the computers are down.

[cdmiller02]

And for a company to have a monopoly on the business and provides a service to the public, and receives Federal funding, Grants, Federal loans, Etc., it should have to accept cash if that is the way the customer chooses, you cannot shop a utility company but must accept whoever is in your area.
They are taking away are civil liberties rights (freedom of choice)
I get to see firsthand on a day to day what it does to the citizens that this affects. My Church feeds around 250 families' a month not counting the families that call on us weekly so they can have enough food to feed their families. Most of them do not have transportation, or they are out of work or cannot work because they are disabled or on a fixed income for whatever reason. And most of these citizens pay their bills with cash.
I beg of you to help with this matter we need to change this law to protect our citizen's and our freedom.
You can contact me at [e-mail] at facebook Denise Miller In Tallahassee, Florida You can go to Pleasetakemycash.org and sign the petition I have already went to my Congressman in Washington and they are aware of the concerns you need to stand up a let them know how you feel about this matter do not just take it. US Congressman Steve Southerland Phone number 202-225 5235 in Washington, DC

[cdmiller02]

Across the country "no cash" policies for businesses are becoming increasingly popular. And this trend is catching on here in Tallahassee and Leon County.
According to Merchant Account Guide, experts contend that cashless -- or electronic -- transactions are becoming more popular with consumers and vendors. Furthermore, this online publication asserts that making purchases with credit cards or debit cards has become the rule for fast, secure Internet transactions as well as brick and mortar businesses.
My question and concern is what happens to those citizens that do not have credit or debit cards? Or those who live on fixed income and cannot afford to lose their hard earned income on purchasing money orders to conduct business?
Money is the sign and measure of values, because it is known, acknowledged and accepted everywhere. It is a universal commodity, while it at the same time affords each country its local instrument of purchase and sale and of remuneration for both public and private services.
Paper currency or legal tender is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. It is accepted all over the world, and written on the bills is "Legal Tender for All debts public and private". By removing currency there is a danger from that very moment that by calling to its aid "the magic of credit", (whose power people are inclined to exaggerate.)
Business monetary transactions diminish in proportion as civilization advances, and credit is extended.
Let us, by an extreme hypothesis, suppose ourselves in a society from which the use of the paper money has entirely disappeared. If we should go beyond this, as paper money does not unite in itself the characters both of sign and of pledge, and as it does not become a commodity when it ceases to be a means of discharge from debt. The danger exists even when a private institution is granted the dangerous privilege which excuses its use as payment.
Today, I paraphrase a quotation from Copernicus who wrote in the beginning of the sixteenth century, upon this important question in a treatise that is almost unknown:" However innumerable the scourges or problems that ordinarily lead to the decline of kingdoms, principalities and republics, the four following are, to mind, the most formidable: discord, pestilence, barrenness of the land, and the deterioration of money. As far as the first three are concerned the evidence is such that no one is ignorant of them. But as to the forth, if we accept a few men of superior intelligence, very few concern themselves about it; and why? Because it does not ruin the state at a single blow, but little by little, by a sort of hidden action."
The diversity and variation of moneys was one of the causes that led to the establishment of banks of deposit, which reduced these uncertain signs to a common denomination, by creating bank money fixed and invariable, which took into consideration the value of the specie deposited, The notes issued were fully represented by the specie deposited in the banks; to convenience and accuracy they joined the most complete security, and soon gained universal favor.
Never more than in these later times have we seen numerous states applying the dread remedy of credit upon a great scale.
The measure is already full, and cannot be increased. The common efforts of all civilized nations are directed toward a reduction of the amount of paper money. But should not this unnecessary reduction of Legal Tender render those more circumspect who would run the risk of destroying the necessary equilibrium between business and money?
Minorities with lower incomes, do not have a bank accounts for one reason or another. These families live paycheck to paycheck some only live day to day and relaying on other means as Payday loans or Pawn shops or even Title loans to have means for their families to survive.
The survey found that over a quarter 25.6 percent of households don't have a checking accounts or savings accounts at all.
These "unbanked" households are disproportionately low-income and minority.
According to the Federal Reserve, about one in 12 families do not have a bank account. The number is higher for the poorest---nearly a quarter of families earning less than $18,900.00, the Fed said, citing 2004 data. This a lot higher Today! In 2004 28 million people did not have a checking account in the United States.
Poverty levels in the United States for people over 65 years of age only make around $10,000.00 a year, under 65 they make around $11,000.00 a year up to $25,000.00 year with 2 parents and 2 children. 36 percent of children in the United States were poor.
These people cannot afford the extra fees for money orders that lilltle bit of money they spend on these little things add up for that person.

[xFiFtyOnEx]

LOL! This is a great idea CBS! Who needs all the barriers to hyperinflation caused by paper fiat! Let's just do away with that pesky middle man(paper money)completly then the banks and elites can rob us blind without even a hint of a paper trail! You guys are always thinking! It's just crazy that MSM is trying to do the opposite of what alot of Americans are wanting now, a commodity backed currency(gold, silver, diamonds...who cares).