# Ending Ca$h: The Public Benefits of Federal Electronic Currency **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264 "2011-02-22T18:56:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/21 "2011-02-22T23:28:26Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > This isn’t like taxation because you are talking about taking net earnings (which have already been taxed once) not because those net earnings have been used in a transaction, but because it _has not_ been used in a transaction. That’s not like any tax that I know of. What about property tax? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/22 "2011-02-22T23:36:12Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Ghandi, and the Reverend had to eat. Marches had to be organized, promoted, etc. As I’ve noted before, we have a little something called “The First Amendment” in this great nation. There’s nothing illegal about marching for change. > [@](#): > > There was that whole suing black people for not riding the bigoted buses thing too. How might collection on that judgement had gone if it could be done via software? Cite that this actually happened? ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/23 "2011-02-22T23:59:17Z")
I don’t buy the “it will reduce crime” argument. Bernie Madoff and the other Wall Street cheats dealt in electronic currency, not singles and twenties. Besides, how am I supposed to tip someone at the nudie bar while using a smart phone. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/24 "2011-02-23T00:07:55Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I don’t buy the “it will reduce crime” argument. Bernie Madoff and the other Wall Street cheats dealt in electronic currency, not singles and twenties. > > Besides, how am I supposed to tip someone at the nudie bar while using a smart phone. 😃 Like many government programs, it targets the poor criminal and leaves the rich criminal untouched. 😉 Hell for allowances with kids. We moved my kids to cashless allowances, they have check cards - but they are tweens - wouldn’t have worked at 8. Also, I have a few hundred boxes of girl scout cookies in the basement. I’m not sending out six year olds with credit card machines. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/25 "2011-02-23T00:23:51Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I don’t buy the “it will reduce crime” argument. Bernie Madoff and the other Wall Street cheats dealt in electronic currency, not singles and twenties. > > Besides, how am I supposed to tip someone at the nudie bar while using a smart phone. 😃 [NFC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication) Just wave your phone with an inch of her hoo-ha and it’s automatically debited from your account. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/26 "2011-02-23T00:42:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It would make small, person-to-person transfers much harder. Now, admittedly, some of those are criminal, but many are not. Example 1: A couple of friends are watching a football game, and place a couple of dollars on the outcome. Now, this could be handled via smartphones, I suppose, but it’s a lot easier to just put a couple of bills on the table, and not everyone has smartphones, anyway. > . trinkets - or tradegoods, however you want to look at it. a baseball card, a baseball cap, a t shirt, a bracelet charm, stuff you can buy with your plastic. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/27 "2011-02-23T01:40:59Z")
I think we’re being unfair to the OP. Digitizing currency would wipe out pickpocketing, just like digitizing music wiped out illicit dub CD’s & saved copyright holders a lot of headaches. Compared to stealing a wallet & whatever cash was in it, it should be, oh, a thousand times harder to steal a debit card off someone’s person & hack his identity for all his money. And there would be no need in a digitized-dollar landscape to keep foreign hard currency or bullion in safety deposit boxes as a hedge against grand theft. And this would in no way take power from the average citizen & put it in the hands of banks & hackers. Anyone who’s against this _just hasn’t thought it through._ * * * Bizarro-Idiotsonepoundfivepee #252, who doesn’t think this is at all the same kind of glib thoughtless gullibility in the face of malevolent sophistry that props up the Fair Tax movement. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/28 "2011-02-23T01:54:10Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > His thesis is that eliminating physical currency (dollar bills and coins) and making all monetary transactions electronic will vastly reduce crime. I’ve found this argument to be very convincing. Nope. It would just change from blue collar crime to white collar crime. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/29 "2011-02-23T02:06:42Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Nope. It would just change from blue collar crime to white collar crime. I see no reason why white collar criminals will increase their crime rate just to keep the averages up. 😃 Total crime will be reduced, especially the kind involving violence (or threatened violence). This is a good thing, even if it doesn’t solve all of our problems. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/30 "2011-02-23T02:11:18Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I don’t buy the “it will reduce crime” argument. Bernie Madoff and the other Wall Street cheats dealt in electronic currency, not singles and twenties. That’s because our federal regulators were asleep at the switch, not because Madoff’s fraud wasn’t easily discoverable. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/31 "2011-02-23T02:41:23Z")
Wouldn’t work. In prison, access to cash is restricted. So the economy works in cigarettes, which acquire a value much greater then they would have outside once they become the medium of exchange. In the early days of Australia, there was a period when there was no sensible currency - unsuccessful attempts were made to remint Spanish dollars, and so on. For a significant period, the currency was rum. Druggies use department store gift cards as currency here. I imagine that is what would become black market currency if there was an attempt to defeat crime this way. THat, or casino chips. I can’t see gambling working with touch cards, so I expect there will always be chips. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/32 "2011-02-23T02:45:26Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Every time a thief buys so much as a stick of gum with someone else’s hijacked account, there will be a record of it. Which is a pretty heavy blow dealt to the privacy of honest people, too. Not everybody wants The eMoney Company knowing exactly which books they read; where they’re going; or where they were on day X at time Y and so on. Especially if The eMoney Company is the government. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/33 "2011-02-23T03:30:23Z")
While it’s true things become trackable, right now there is a huge problem with companies not bothering to track. I got my wallet stolen and around $2,000 was charged. The credit card company simply wrote it off. Did they look for the thieves? Probably not. I ordered $250 from JC Penny and they said, my package was at the door, I never got it. I called JC Penny and in 2 minutes they issued me a refund. Amazon did this TWICE for things I ordered and never got. They just issued me a credit. Did they bother to look for the person who took the package? I doubt it. The problem is it’ll most likely drive up prices as companies aren’t going to pay people to look for theft as long as it’s small. They’ll write off any suspcious charge and make it up by jacking up interest rates Then there is the whole issue of identity. People are so paranoid on this. Some people don’t want to make it known they are renting porn or buying Depends. It’s a nice thing to look at but simply never do-able. And if something isn’t do-able it’s just fiction. It’s like saying, we could lower the crime rate by asking everyone to simply stop committing acts of crime. That would work, but it’s not do-able. How about asking everyone with HIV to stop having sex, never share needles, not have babies, not have give blood, etc and in a generation or two AIDS would die out. It’ll never happen. People like cash. And remember whatever can be PUT INTO an account can be reversed. So the person really has no control over his/her money. You can make all the laws saying banks or cards have to be accessable 24/7/365 but if the bank doesn’t, then you’re out of luck. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/34 "2011-02-23T03:31:39Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > As I’ve noted before, we have a little something called “The First Amendment” in this great nation. There’s nothing illegal about marching for change. Why should I have any faith in amendments considered the way they’ve been gutted lately? Or are “Free Speech” zones, NSA security letters, sneak and peak “warrants”, DMCA fines for academic research, and the like the intended results of these amendments? China has guaranteed free speech too, but god help you if you say anything “subversive”. Apparently it doesn’t cover that. I don’t see what value American Free speech has if any movements to preserve or reestablish it can be bankrupted with a tyrant’s click. Let’s say I wish to reveal that if you have a copy protected pdf with security features, that allows printing you can create a virtually identically file through this procedure. Maybe you’d like to encode the file for text to speech or braille output for blind or visually disabled people, or simply enable clipboard access for a datable you’re working with. Install an [XPS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_XML_Paper_Specification) print driver. Print the PDF to an XPS file. Then print the XPS file to a PDF. All the data, and data structures will be preserved. This means if the originally PDF had text the new PDF will too, as will images. However file metadata will be lost. You’ve made a nearly duplicate file that has no copy restrictions. You will have circumvented a copy protection scheme as defined by the DMCA. This post commits the same crime [Dmitry Sklyarov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov) of [ElcomSoft](https://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-elcomsoft-sklyarov) was arrested for. Clearly if this post is illegal than I don’t have a legally protected freedom of expression, but a prvilidge of expression on government regulated ideas. [ElcomSoft verdict: Not guilty](http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-978176.html) > [@](#): > > The company faced four charges related to directly designing and marketing software that could be used to crack eBook copyright protections, plus an additional charge related to conspiring to do so. The jury acquitted the company of all charges. > > Jury foreman Dennis Strader said the jurors agreed ElcomSoft’s product was illegal but acquitted the company because they believed the company didn’t mean to violate the law. That’s the snipped version. In the full version I saw zero indication it was rejected based on the Bill of Rights, but of the law it’s self. Clearly American Free Speech has limits defined by the American government. Not much of a guarantee. > [@](#): > > Cite that this actually happened? Okay maybe my initial claim was a bit much. However what happened is still pretty bad. [http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc\_montgomery\_bus\_boycott\_1955\_1956/](http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_montgomery_bus_boycott_1955_1956/) > [@](#): > > In early 1956, the homes of King and E. D. Nixon were bombed. King was able to calm the crowd that gathered at his home by declaring: ‘‘Be calm as I and my family are. We are not hurt and remember that if anything happens to me, there will be others to take my place’’ (Papers 3:115). City officials obtained injunctions against the boycott in February 1956, and indicted over 80 boycott leaders under a 1921 law prohibiting conspiracies that interfered with lawful business. King was tried and convicted on the charge and ordered to pay $500 or serve 386 days in jail in the case State of Alabama v. Martin Luther King, Jr. Despite this resistance, the boycott continued. Let’s say the Wisconsin Union Busting law gets passed, and public workers decide to meet in secret to establish union functionality anyway. Meetings cost money, communicating between members costs money. They won’t “collective bargain”, but they’ll all not show up unless certain conditions are met for everyone. Why should the Wisconsin tyrant governor be able to bankrupt their efforts with a click? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/35 "2011-02-23T03:35:49Z")
All coins and currency in the US are still valid and still would be. This would probably make private minting a business and be a windfall for numismatists, of which I am an amateur. I’m all for it. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/36 "2011-02-23T04:07:41Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > All coins and currency in the US are still valid and still would be. **Blalron** elaborated on the OP thus, > [@Blalron](#): > > Let’s suppose that Congress declared that by January 1st, 2020, all physical cash must be redeemed or else it has “expired” and is no longer valid legal currency, and furthermore the posession of these expired dollars will be a crime subject to forfeiture. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/37 "2011-02-23T04:17:05Z")
The reality is some company would issue currency, or another nation’s currency would become the standard. The US is in a great position being able to issue currency, and have its debt in US dollars. That would disappear. You would also have credit card companies and banks skimming a few percent from every transaction. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/38 "2011-02-23T15:16:57Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > All coins and currency in the US are still valid and still would be. This would probably make private minting a business and be a windfall for numismatists, of which I am an amateur. I’m all for it. Why bother with private minting? If you need to get paid off under the table, you could just use a foreign currency which hasn’t gone all electronic, like the euro, the yen, the ruble or the rupee. It isn’t illegal to accept foreign currency as payment; I understand that there are some shops in New York and other places that accept euros. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/39 "2011-02-23T15:24:24Z")
Hey, it might get gold and silver circulating again. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264/40 "2011-02-23T15:26:43Z")
I’m inclined to believe that the whole idea has problems nobody has thought of yet - but it’s a nice plan in theory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ending-ca-h-the-public-benefits-of-federal-electronic-currency/572264.md?page=3)