Trash the Cash
About 6,000 years ago, before money, banks and greed, people bartered by exchanging a chicken for example, for a bucket. However, in the fullness of time, obvious impracticalities with this system propelled mankind into the institution of money. I suppose, strictly speaking, there is still bartering going on today, when career-determined women offer their intimate ‘talents’ for a hike up the political ladder, which all transpires without the bother of exchanging money. However, I digress.
Soon, money became legal tender and the accepted method of accessing your requisites, and it saved the bother of lining up live animals by your front door. In 1946, the first credit cards were invented, and together with the hallowed cheque book, people could avoid carrying around large amounts of money. Now, in this millennium, we have become slaves to the credit card; our easy, speedy and preferred method of payment. Flashing the card in electronic form is very convenient, ergo, the textbook solution for simple transactions.
In the meantime, the world has moved on and the rich have become much richer and more influential. They don’t hold back when they once get the hang of power, so some of them have decided that we plebs should no longer be allowed to spend our hard-earned money with obscurely-acquired cash. It would be agreeably transparent if we were forced to pay via an electronic system which could be monitored by groups of authorised snoops to keep an eye on us. I titter at the thought of a billionaire taking an interest in my weekly family shopping. They claim it would prevent the sale of drugs and stop any transactions on the black market, which, by definition makes us all appear to be potential criminals. An untimely problem occurs when the entire electronic system crashes, as it sometimes does, leaving you empty-handed, and subsequently somewhat hungry.
Now we all have bank accounts and most of us make regular payments for our bills via e-banking. One day, I happened to look at my bank account a little more closely and I saw that with the click of a button, some IT-freak at the bank had installed a page on my account with statistics of what and where I spent my money. I could plainly see how much I had spent in a month, in restaurants or at the hairdressers. In fact, seemingly all categories of my purchases were covered by this technical spy and they had indeed been very diligent and thorough. I was so disgusted at having to pay bank fees, for them to be spying on my lifestyle, that I went into the bank shortly afterwards. I asked the young fellow at the cash desk, (hardly old enough to shave) why they needed to waste time and money creating these statistics, and for what/whom. He then expounded, unabashed, that the bank was helping their clients to keep a grip on their finances. I was flabbergasted. Since then, I milk my money from the cashpoint and pay for everything with cash. And I will continue to do so until some billionaire gets his way and eliminates cash altogether. After all, where would we be if Granny couldn’t slip her grandchildren some pocket money for some little treat, and had to make a bank transaction out of this simple process, each time?
I recently sold something to a neighbour, who is a keen aficionado of cash, along the lines – you see it, you feel it and you can almost smell it. She paid for it with an attractive 1,000 Swiss franc note. Unaccustomed as I am to becoming the beneficiary of such a formidable symbol of wealth, I was in for an extremely rude awakening. My local large supermarket, with a daily intake of many thousands of francs, was not willing to accept the 1,000 Franc note in exchange for my large purchase. I bore the reprimand with hushed irritation since it was totally unpredictable, so I tried my luck at the next retail outlet, with the same result. It’s not just the fact that the sales personnel are wagging their virtuous fingers at me, as if I were some kind of felon. It’s rather more the humiliation of being suspect in some dubious money-laundering scheme. Thus, I took the ‘offending’ banknote to my bank, to exchange it for smaller notes, asking myself at the time, how it was possible to feel guilty, when I was making a perfectly innocent and legal transaction. My conscience was clear, but conscious that there has developed a new fuzzy limbo between what is assessed as lawful or unlawful.
When there were large but peaceful demonstrations in Canada recently, by farmers, desperate to prevent the government from closing their successful farms, they spent many days out on the road with their trucks. During this time, they couldn’t work and didn’t earn their ‘daily bread’. Many good folk, donated money electronically so that the farmers and their families could eat. When Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau discovered this, he had the bank accounts of those people who had donated to the farmers’ cause, blocked. This was the perfect proof, of how ‘those in charge’ could penalise those who rebel against the regime, at will. It should act as a warning to us all, to fight staunchly to preserve our cash, which is legal tender, before it becomes extinct.
In recent times there have been increasing mutterings by those who like to dictate our way of life, that cash will soon be defunct. To quote a memorable line from the Bible: Hold fast to that which is good!
Photo: pexels/ Maitree Rimthon