The sad demise of cash.

[The Tall Luthier]

most governments, even democracies, can turn nasty against honest but "annoying" people.
The US and UK persecuted Julian Assange just by using the law and the police.

And in many places, being annoying can turn nasty...
Gunmen tried to assassinate a Tanzanian opposition politician after a telecoms company secretly passed his mobile phone data to the government, according to evidence heard in a London tribunal.

Firm disclosed phone data of shot Tanzanian politician, UK tribunal hears

Tigo’s former investigator claims he was unfairly dismissed for raising concerns over 2017 attack on Tundu Lissu

www.theguardian.com

An apocriphal quote of Thomas Jefferson famously goes:
"When people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

I like that quote a lot. I worry that populations that have society pretty well organised can take things for granted and lose the instruments that protect them.

In this case, the freedom to use cash invisibly from computers. In other cases those that would seek to remove our International human rights protections. In previous cases our rights to live in other countries.

Cash does give us liberty, that’s fundamental to our happy existence perhaps.

 

[pjm-84]

No of course no-one would say you're an idiot, or a crook. If you're not attempting to evade tax or otherwise commit crime, you're pefectly entitled to run your business however you want.

At the same time it would be spectacularly naive to assume that a great proportion of the businesses that choose actively to take cash are doing it for the same legitimate reasons as you. I'm sure we've all been asked for cash by tradespeople, for a "discount" that happens to be similar to the VAT amount that would otherwise be chargeable. The Institute for Economic Affairs estimated the loss to us, UK taxpayers, by cash-in-hand tax evasion as being many billions a year.

Cash-in-hand payments: how much lost tax do they really account for?

David Gauke, exchequer secretary, has criticised cash-in-hand payments as morally wrong, but just how much of the UK's tax gap do they account for, and where is the rest of our unpaid tax lost? Get the data

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sean Fallon]

You still need 1€ for the shopping trolly

Or €2

 

[The Pox]

What's cash? Who uses this stuff? Not used cash since 2019.