on_one_wheel wrote:Every dollar taxed, traced and accounted for... crime simply couldn't exist
and imagine all the money they wouldn't have to print if we were cashless and the government went into full blown quantitative easing,
Going cashless is in the government's best interest unless your the government that wants to implement it, it won't go down well with the voters.
Did you know that the RBA is a profit making enterprise. Every year it pays a substantial portion rather huge dividend to the federal government from the profits it made.
Obviously how do they make these profits, what are they selling?..... MONEY... actually physical money.
So they buy metal make lots of coins... then these coins are sold to the banks at face value. Most of the last decade the actual value if the metal in coins is less than the face value of the coin...aka a $2 coin costs less than $2 to make.
Similarly notes, infact here they make lots more profit, as a note might cost them 50c to make but they can sell the note for $20 or $50 or even $100.
Also note printing Australia, the subsidiary of RBA that prints our notes also prints notes for other countries and they obviously make a profit on that enterprise.
So part of what you are saying is unfortunately a misconception... and probably a hysterical misunderstanding. I did economics long time ago in uni but i don't think you understand the concept of quantitative easing. But please don't let me lecture you.
Qualitative easing is not just one thing but a raft of measures taken. Which could include printing even more money than normal..... this devalues our currency (similar to decreasing interest rates) but might be better as decreasing interest rates creates an obvious side effect of a housing price bubble.
Banks probably since almost forever haven't held physical money as reserve in their vault that was deposited. So your logic of a cash ruin could happen in 1960s... same as today.
We already are pretty much primarily a cashless society, almost everyone gets paid their wages by EFT, every business accepts a EFTPOS or credit card now a days. Most young people are going towards not even taking credit cards... just phone with electronic cards. It doesn't require electricity or a generator in your backyard..... lol