Do you think cash should be abolished nationwide? Why or why not?

30 comments

1. No, because it’s a bad idea.

2. No. Not everyone can get access to a debit or credit card.

3. No.

   *If* cash is going to “go out of fashion” it’s best to just let it happen on its own.

4. What? No?

5. Why would we even do this? What benefit would this have?

6. no, credit should be abolished nationwide, because Americans have proven they’re incapable of using credit cards responsibly

7. On a scale of 10 to 11, how high are you right now?

8. No the fuck?

9. No?

10. Why in God’s name would we do this, and you do realize within 10 minutes of it being announced counterfeit cash and alternative bartering notes would be printed at lightening speed, correct?

11. Absolutely not. Plenty of people, most of them already disadvantaged, would be immediately much worse off.

    I would support getting rid of pennies and maybe even nickels though. I believe Canada phased out their pennies and it’s worked out well.

12. No. Why on earth would we do that?

13. Hell no. Cash is how I budget.

    100% prefer it over debit and prefer it a trillion times over credit.

14. Cash should never ever be abolished. Please mind that when you shop with credit, 20 different companies analyze your spending habits and in the event of a societal breakdown banking systems will go down taking all your savings with it.

15. No, the free market can address this. Individual businesses are free to decideif they want to accept cash, checks, cards, crypto, trade/barter, or whatever they feel like.

    We also would be leaving behind a lot of unbanked and underbanked individuals by making cash harder to obtain.

16. Tons of people already have their access to banking restricted via ChexSystem. Build up a short history of overdrafts because you’re living paycheck to paycheck and suddenly you can’t open a bank account anymore. This leads to a bunch of predatory cash checking business people have to take their paycheck to, for a fee, that suck even more money out of people who are already disadvantaged and encourages them to engage in cash-only employment (if you know what I mean).

    I only use cash for my barber, so I get that it’s easy to think it’s outdated. But this is one of those things where we’re living in two Americas, and the erosion of cash acceptance in society negatively impacts the poor a lot worse than you might imagine at first.

17. No. Cash is still used more than cards in some places. Going card only also excludes anyone who can’t get a card for one reason or another.

18. Give some suggestions on what should replace it? I recently had to pay apple so that I could pay my job so that I could go to my job. That was pretty annoying.

19. No. I’m glad NJ is one state requiring (most) businesses to accept cash.

    I don’t want to pay the credit card companies. I know unbanked people.

20. No. The role of cash has diminished greatly over the last 10 years and we have become much more digital with our currency. But I don’t think we are on a slope toward cashless and we have about reached the plateau of digital transactions.

21. I don’t think the government should abolish it as it has its uses. However, I do think a mostly cashless society would be better.

22. No. I don’t think it’s even possible. The government can stop printing cash but people will just replace it with some other private medium of exchange. That’s a whole other set of problems.

23. No. What would be the point of that?

24. No I think abolishing cash is a garbage idea. It’s flexible and convenient in a way card just can’t replicate.

25. Sometimes but it would never fly here. Too many fundamentalist Christians who believe that UPC/bar codes are the mark of the beast/satan. This is why Hobby Lobby refuses to use UPC codes – all label maker stickers for them. These religious types are not the majority but they have enough groups backing the lobbyists to make a difference. Not to mention they would scream religious freedom.

26. No. There are a lot of people who work in the gig economy who rely on cash as an important part of their income.

27. The internet goes down and suddenly it’s lord of the flies

28. No, it would give immense power to the government.

29. No for many reasons but it’s good to have an analog backup in the event of a disaster where the internet goes down (EMP attack, extreme weather event, etc). All it takes is the internet to go down to render digital payments useless.

30. No. About 5% of Americans are unbanked. This would hamper their ability to participate in the economy.