Resist This Dash to Kill Off Cash

 

NIALL McCRAE

PARDON the expression, but they are taking the piss with your privacy. Visit any of the royal parks in London and you will find several conveniences and cafes, but you can ‘spend a penny’ only if you give access to your bank account.

Here, and throughout the public lavatory estate of Westminster Council, the 50p slots have been replaced by a digital card/screen reader. Users must assume that the debited amount is 50p: no receipt is issued. Whether the council makes any money out of this cashless imposition is dubious, as credit card companies make a charge of 75p per transaction to independent retailers, although larger chains and Westminster Council may be given a preferential rate.

As well as trust and privacy, this policy is discriminatory against the elderly or any other elements of society who do not always carry mobile phones or bank cards. The establishment, in collaboration with corporate businesses, clearly wants everyone to pay by contactless internet connection. Covid-19 was a giant stride towards this (although the gullible masses still believe that this was an out-of-the blue pandemic).

I remember when card payment first crept into the pub, about two decades ago. Paying in this way often irritated other waiting customers due to the delay caused. Now the default is reversed: bar staff reach toward you with a digital reader that takes your money immediately, and are surprised when you hand them a note instead.

Increasingly, restaurants, pubs and shops, particularly in London, are refusing cash. This is an aberration. Customers should have choice, and my reaction whenever I’m told that my cash doesn’t count is to walk out. We must boycott such businesses.

For sure, it’s getting harder for cash users. In my Sussex town, all four main banks have closed their branches in the last three years. Literally, it’s a bank holiday every day. The Post Office provides a basic banking service, but with long queues. The ‘hole in the wall’ disappeared at the same time as the banks shut their doors, leaving sporadic automatic teller machines (ATMs) outside supermarkets. In rural areas, shop and café owners must travel further to deposit their takings.

This is all by intent. Governments around the world are working towards introduction of a central bank digital currency. This will be a radical change from the money in your hand. CBDC will be programmable, facilitating a social credit system which rewards and penalises citizens. Good people will get discounts and wider access to desirable goods and services, while those who make bad choices will be charged higher prices or find their options limited. This is already happening in China, that great laboratory for technocracy, where a person of low credit score may be barred from buying tickets for travel.

The younger generations are taught that notes and coins are relics of their parents’ or grandparents’ time. They do everything on their smartphones: it’s convenient, minimalist and cool. But there are things that even the teenager would regard as sensitive and which the state or corporations should not know about them: a pregnancy test, for example. Sadly, younger people do not seem to value privacy.

Businesses take a risk when they abandon cash. Already they are losing takings to the banks for card payment fees. They could be held to ransom by the two major American payment processors Visa and Mastercard once cash is taken out of circulation. Physical money is a vital contingency should a local, national or global cyber shutdown occur. Sometimes, computer says ‘no’. Recently I was in a cash-free pub (not my choice) and the bar closed temporarily due to a connection problem – excuse me for gloating!

Cash is the currency of freedom. Insisting on using it wherever and whenever you can is to defy, at least for a while, the Great Reset. Don’t rely on politicians to protect your money – we must do this for ourselves. However, MPs and councillors are not completely deaf to constituents’ concerns, and we must take the opportunity given by a parliamentary call for evidence on retention of cash.

Submissions are accepted until December 2, 2024. With enough of us making our voices heard, the British government could be encouraged to emulate Norway, where the option to pay cash is now mandatory for purchases up to £500.

Looking further ahead (although not many years), the CBDC will be launched and we will be given a deadline to exchange our notes and coins for digital coupons. We need not comply. Those polymer notes are durable, and a resistance network could maintain an off-grid means of transaction immune to inflation (and dare I say it – the tax used for wars and oppression).

Keep cash – stay free.

This article (Resist this dash to kill off cash) was created and published by The Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Niall McCrae