No Ordinary Counterfeit

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

i share the privacy concerns because, although i trust the constitution, i don't trust the individuals in government. nixon [illegally] had the tax returns of his "enemies" pulled and examined. our current administration has used its illegal tracking of domestic communications for the benefit of its security, not our security, by trying to track not terrorists but people who have leaked embarrassing information to the media. of course they say their rationale is national security, but so did big brother if you recall the book. [that's why loosening of pollution regulations was called the clear skies act.]

jk,

There is some sort of dichotomy between trusting the constitution and not trusting the individuals in government. Considering what you wrote, I think a constitution is good and necessary , but it is the individuals that we in a"free democratic" society elected, or at least a majority elects, that are the problem. What you wrote all are examples at the highest level of government of dishonesty (Nixon's many antics, those who despite their justification leaked embarrassing information about Bush's administration likely broke some employment oath--my speculation, and probable dishonesty too on the part of Bush or his designees to carry out illegal communications tracking if all you suggest is true) I take your examples to be condemnations of the corruption that exists in our "democracry."

I do not take them as necessary condemnation of the possible values of a cashless society. If fact from what you cited as examples, one could more easily condemn democracy than anything to do with a cashless society. One possible benefit of a cashless society could be its effect on bribery of public officials at all levels.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Jim - I completely agree with your points about a cashless society. I'd also add that it might resolve some of the issues around illegal immigration, welfare, and government services spending as I think many cash earners still take advantage of unemployment, food stamps, etc at taxpayers expense.

But I also agree with JK, especially in light of certain events the last 6 years.

I think Ben Franklin got it right when he said "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."

Sean, above I mentioned the "innumerable" benefits that I believe could come, or will some day come, from a cashless society. You enumerated five potential benefits. Good.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Cashless society, no petty cash crime, that's all great.

Explain how a cashless society would have prevented my brokerage account taking a small hit from Bulgaria last week. Someone used my debit card number. No cash involved.

By the way, in a cashless society, how do I manage to enjoy my victimless vices? I might like to get a little high or might want to seek god by opening the drug pathways to higher consciousness?

Bill

Bill,

That someone illegally used your debit card in Bulgaria is unfortunate, but that is part of other problems, i.e. internet fraud or either stupidity of the part of some merchant if he allowed whoever abused your account to walk in to his store and punch in numbers for a debit transaction rather than having a card to swipe. I doubt the latter example is valid. At any rate, your example is not a valid argument against a future involving biometric identification money cards. What your example points out is a need for some type of biometric identification system that could be used for internet transactions.

When all illegal activity that now occurs online using credit cards (it has happened to me on three occasions--one from Spain, a year after I was there, and two from Indonesia and I have never been there) is controlled no doubt the benefits will be transactions will cost stores less and credit card rates will diminish, and pigs will fly.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

A neighbor worked for a company for 10 years, retired and tried to collect his $30,000 pension from a fund into which he had paid for 10 years. The company said, "We're not going to pay you." My neighbor said, "Why not!?" They said, "Because we don't have to. You can hire a lawyer to try to get your money but we'll make sure it costs you at least $30,000 to do so, and you may lose. We can afford it, can you? Have a nice day."

Let's take this one step further. Let's say the company says to a retiring employee, "You owe us $30,000." "For what?" the employee asks. "For this and that. You can either give us the $30,000 or spend $30,000 on a lawyer to avoid paying us. We can afford it, can you? Have a nice day."

The first case sounds far fetched but it's true. The second case is even more far fetched, but don't count it out. In that case, it'd nice to have some cash someplace where no one can "legally" steal it.

EJ,

Let's imagine that every citizen of the US has an electronic bank account. Now the biggest part of such a scheme for a cashless society is to prevent some of our fine citizens from scamming innocent citizens--this would by definition include all those who evade income taxes at the expense of those innocent citizens who pay their taxes. Had such been extant in your neighbor's instance and were it the law of the land that financial benefits paid by employers be held in the accounts of the employee, then your neighbor would not have been scammed.

I have a bit of cash hidden in case of some electical failure in some sort of catastrophe. But for what might be a middle class American who only has accummulated $30K in a pension plan, how capable are many Americans, with all the debt that they are attributed to having incurred, of actually stashing sufficient amounts of cash to make up for something like a $30K loss? So in the event of a natural disaster, my house might blow over onto the spot where I have my greenbacks and gold buried, so a lot of good the hidden assets would do me. Also, if the destructive event were a tornado as we have here in TX, then my wallet and my bio-id cash card might be in the next county. How might such be handled? If I could find a transaction center that was working, I might fill out a form electronically and report my card as lost, and request that I be able to carry out needed transactions just using my iris and finger print for a week until I can obtain a new bio-id cash card.

To me the reliability of the electric grid is a bigger issue against bio-id cash cards than are issues of privacy. With so many people of the mentality of "nimby" and "banana" **when it comes to expansion of our electrical and fuel infrastructures, to me this is a real concern. Perhaps adequate battery systems will develop so that in times of a power grid failure, stores selling necessitities would have on-site power provisions to allow electronic transactions via satellites--such already exists except for likely adequate battery backups.

I think all these problems could be worked out when and if there is ever a need to the extent that it is forced upon the law makers of the land, just as in the same way present laws come into being.

** nimby:not in my back yard. banana: build absolutely nothing anytime near anything.

[EJ]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

EJ,

Let's imagine that every citizen of the US has an electronic bank account. Now the biggest part of such a scheme for a cashless society is to prevent some of our fine citizens from scamming innocent citizens--this would by definition include all those who evade income taxes at the expense of those innocent citizens who pay their taxes. Had such been extant in your neighbor's instance and were it the law of the land that financial benefits paid by employers be held in the accounts of the employee, then your neighbor would not have been scammed.

I have a bit of cash hidden in case of some electical failure in some sort of catastrophe. But for what might be a middle class American who only has accummulated $30K in a pension plan, how capable are many Americans, with all the debt that they are attributed to having incurred, of actually stashing sufficient amounts of cash to make up for something like a $30K loss? So in the event of a natural disaster, my house might blow over onto the spot where I have my greenbacks and gold buried, so a lot of good the hidden assets would do me. Also, if the destructive event were a tornado as we have here in TX, then my wallet and my bio-id cash card might be in the next county. How might such be handled? If I could find a transaction center that was working, I might fill out a form electronically and report my card as lost, and request that I be able to carry out needed transactions just using my iris and finger print for a week until I can obtain a new bio-id cash card.

To me the reliability of the electric grid is a bigger issue against bio-id cash cards than are issues of privacy. With so many people of the mentality of "nimby" and "banana" **when it comes to expansion of our electrical and fuel infrastructures, to me this is a real concern. Perhaps adequate battery systems will develop so that in times of a power grid failure, stores selling necessitities would have on-site power provisions to allow electronic transactions via satellites--such already exists except for likely adequate battery backups.

I think all these problems could be worked out when and if there is ever a need to the extent that it is forced upon the law makers of the land, just as in the same way present laws come into being.

** nimby:not in my back yard. banana: build absolutely nothing anytime near anything.

Agreed. Hard to buy stuff electronically when there's no electricity. But as one who went on record in 1999 that the whole Y2K thing was BS, I'd say that lack of access to computers for transations will be the least of a person's problems if the power stays out for long, especially in a cold climate in winter.

I'm refering to a different problem, where laws are selectively enforced, as in the case of my neighbor, or for the 9,600 home appraisers who for years on end have faced the choice of either committing felonies or losing their livelihood. Or the credit card borrowers who thought they might escape their debts via bankruptcy, only to find the door slammed behind them by new bankruptcy laws enacted by legislators who were elected via credit card company lobbies after more than 5,000,000,000,000 credit card solicitations were sent to their homes annually.

There is a pattern of corruption here that needs to be heeded, and a move to a purely cashless system can leave the average citizen with fewer avenues of escape.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Cashless society, no petty cash crime, that's all great.

Bill,

I meant to respond to your first and last statements in the other response I posted, but I got distracted. Sorry.

I believe a cashless society would have far ranging beneficial effects against all crimes that involve greenback dollars, or exchange of stolen goods, merchandise for greenback dollars. "Petty cash crime" is a gigantic deal if some crazy fool kills you, your wife, your children, your parents over $10, or kills anyone for any amount of money.

By the way, in a cashless society, how do I manage to enjoy my victimless vices? I might like to get a little high or might want to seek god by opening the drug pathways to higher consciousness?

Supposedly we live in a "free society." But I maintain we live in a society, which because of unending poplulation growth becomes more and more complex and because of the influences at play when electing public officials, that in fact becomes more restrictive weekly or monthly. If one were to accomplish what may be impossible and actually count the number of new laws at all levels of government that are enacted each year, I think my contention would be borne out.

Abortion rights, gay-marriage, euthanasia, stem-cell research, marijuana use, hard-drug use, alcohol abuse and tobacco sales. I guess those are some issues which upon serious open discussion would cause a lot of adrenalin secretion in a lot of people. In a free society none of those eight issues would be an issue. Because all of them are issues and five out of the seven are generally outlawed and 6 or 7 of 7 or 8 are contentious, I conclude we in no way live in a free society right now.

Whatever was the predominant moral composition of the founders of this country, today I believe the moral composition of the entire population is significantly more diverse. However, today there are influential segments of the population that by sheer numbers attempt to have, and to variable degrees succeed in having, laws passed that impinge on the real freedom of some segments of the population. The laws that repress real freedom are invariably, to my perhaps biased recognition, based on a perception of morality by what at most times succeeds in being a majority of voters. If the Constitution was and is intended to provide freedom to all the citizens of the United States, then there is some significant violation at least of the intent of the Constitution when some laws are devised to mollify the moral considerations of a segment of the population.

Lets take your simple example, which probably enjoys some moderate degree of popularity across the country, your so-called "victimless vices." I am going to assume smoking marijuana as an example. Were that to be your "vice" I imagine you are rational enough to determine that for you there is nothing physically or morally wrong with your use of marijuana. If our society were in fact a free society, there would be no stigma or illegality attached to your use of the drug, but there is a moral majority who through the "democratic process" see it as "wrong" and by virtue of its voting power, subjects you to its moral code--a code which is probably faith-based in origin, and thus has no more basis in fact than me believing we are the only inhabitants of the universe. So for some important things, there is no freedom for individuals regarding some issues, because the contituency of those elected to make laws have a different moral compass. This argument applies to abortion (even though it is legal at this moment), euthanasia, stem-cell research, gay-marriage, soft and hard-core drug use, but not so much to alcohol abuse or tobacco.

A cashless society should not be aimed at determining who is buying marijuana, cocaine, pornography, or women or guys of the night, but at insuring that those who sell such products pay their taxes. If one were a married man and all of his financial transactions could be scrutinized by his wife at home with 5 kids, then he might think twice before spending less money on his family than he is spending on women of the night or his honey at work. "Freedom" as some of us now feel we enjoy is often just an opportunity to do things that at times of greater rationality we would be better off not doing.

Now when does cocaine, heroin, and alcohol or tobacco use assume a proportion that society must act to define their usages? Society should act to protect the freedom of all people to stay alive when such freedom is threatened by people who abuse mind altering drugs. I doubt there would be a single law against drunk driving if drunk drivers always killed themselves and only destroyed their own properties when the "freedom" of our society allows them to drive drunk. There same would be true for speeding in cars.

Those citizens who have some moral conflict with marijuana are totally free not to use it, and the same for cocaine, heroin, alcohol, tobacco, not subjecting themselves to abortion for women, entering only heterosexual unions, not seeking medical aid to end one's life, not choosing to benefit oneself from anything therapeutic that evolves from stem-cell research. People should appreciate their right to see morality as they have been indoctrinated or on some level at which they have arrived out of intellectual exercise, but equally they should respect the absolute right of others to see things differently. Until such actually should happen in this country, "freedom" is a misnomer for actions that exist for all people now versus those that should exist for all people at some time in the future--probably way in the future.

Now if every person in America who "hides" "victimless vices" behind cash transactions had to accept that it was no longer possible to hide the transactions, then perhaps the outcries would bring about some realistic laws as they concern true freedoms. Such could be another advantage of moving to a cashless society.

I apologize for being so "long-fingered."

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Agreed. Hard to buy stuff electronically when there's no electricity. But as one who went on record in 1999 that the whole Y2K thing was BS, I'd say that lack of access to computers for transations will be the least of a person's problems if the power stays out for long, especially in a cold climate in winter.

I'm refering to a different problem, where laws are selectively enforced, as in the case of my neighbor, or for the 9,600 home appraisers who for years on end have faced the choice of either committing felonies or losing their livelihood. Or the credit card borrowers who thought they might escape their debts via bankruptcy, only to find the door slammed behind them by new bankruptcy laws enacted by legislators who were elected via credit card company lobbies after more than 5,000,000,000,000 credit card solicitations were sent to their homes annually.

There is a pattern of corruption here that needs to be heeded, and a move to a purely cashless system can leave the average citizen with fewer avenues of escape.

EJ:

You make good points and valid considerations. However, if this society is to continue (which it may not) becoming more and more complex, then something has to change to insure against these things happening. If the power goes off in MA for six weeks in the dead of winter, probably granted the only ones who might escape are those with financial capabilites and some luck to remove themselves and families to some other locale, but for the masses if governments are doing what they are supposed to do, steps have to be taken to insure the necessary utility power for survival. That probably could be done except for the willpower and question of whether or not enough profit could be generated by whoever did it--it might be like your big tunnel fiasco in Boston. Lots of money spent, little doubt lots of profits booked, but the citizens are left sucking wind.

I think everything in your second paragraph again points to the area of corruption in our "democratic society." And what you suggest as the answer is that the monetary system needs to provide people protection FROM the government, and actually that is contrary to how things are supposed to be, but your point is taken as valid presently.

I would suggest a more tenacious frame of mind and substitute the word "ended" for your word "heeded" in your closing sentence.

You know our country is really a mess. Besides doing things to protect oneself and family from all the corruption that seemingly exists everywhere, does any one care to suggest how possibly some day this country might get back onto an even keel, if it ever was?

[SeanO]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

I think everything in your second paragraph again points to the area of corruption in our "democratic society." And what you suggest as the answer is that the monetary system needs to provide people for protection FROM the government, and actually that is contrary to how things are supposed to be, but your point is taken as valid presently.

You know our country is really a mess. Besides doing things to protect oneself and family from all the corruption that seemingly exists everywhere, does any one care to suggest how possibly some day this country might get back onto an even keel, if it ever was?

I think one of the things that makes America great is our constitutional protections FROM government. Clearly that was at the forefront of our founding fathers minds, so I don't see it as contrary to how things are supposed to be at all.

I personally believe the only road back to an "even keel" is to re-establish the concept of accountability. It appears to have been completely lost. In individuals, communities, business and government. Even the mostly deeply religious seem more willing to use God's name as an excuse for their actions, then to think about how they may ultimately be held accountable for them.

I think if you analyze any perceived wrong it comes back to this simple concept. When we actually get tough on an issue (say drunk driving), the results can be impressive.

Unfortunately I think it will take a Great Depression like event to be sufficiently disruptive to enable that level of change.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

I think one of the things that makes America great is our constitutional protections FROM government. Clearly that was at the forefront of our founding fathers minds, so I don't see it as contrary to how things are supposed to be at all.

I personally believe the only road back to an "even keel" is to re-establish the concept of accountability. It appears to have been completely lost. In individuals, communities, business and government. Even the mostly deeply religious seem more willing to use God's name as an excuse for their actions, then to think about how they may ultimately be held accountable for them.

I think if you analyze any perceived wrong it comes back to this simple concept. When we actually get tough on an issue (say drunk driving), the results can be impressive.

Unfortunately I think it will take a Great Depression like event to be sufficiently disruptive to enable that level of change.

Sean,

Ultimately you guys in CA get the last word because 1AM comes much later there, can't let that happen too often.

You are correct, the Constitution is to protect us FROM government, but it is not doing that, because it is a lifeless, powerless piece of paper. It isn't anything about the Constitution that is at fault, it is the government that has resulted from special interest groups powers to elect people who one way or another put their interests (the politician's) and their elector's interest above the whole of our population.

I strongly agree that something calamitous must occur to wipe out all the ills that have slowly grown like a cancer to negatively affect the situation we now have politically. I guess it is like a child that direly needs its butt spanked or something to jolt it into reality.

Who is John Galt?

Good night.