I Guess that leaves me with the rest of the unwashed heathen on Tri-Rail
Brightline07:40 PMToday
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Apparently this is the way the country is going. I saw a news item on the TV the other night that indicated that certain New York City restaurants no longer accept cash. Credit or debit cards only. Oh well, more Guest Rewards points for me.
Because even with the 3-4% hit on a credit card transaction, the cash is in your bank account the day after the transaction occurred. With a cash transaction it is whenever the business gets around to doing a cash deposit. Further Big Banks assess a fee now for excess cash deposits over 4-6 a month on a Business account because it costs them more money to process cash than it does a CC transaction.
According to an article in the paper this morning, American Airlines does not take cash in Miami, DFW, Laguarda, etc.
As far as I know, most of the airlines don’t take cash for on-board services. Most of my flights are on Southwest; they have not taken cash for on-board services for years.
I began my business career with a Wall Street bank in 1964. We were talking about a cashless society then. We have not gotten there yet; we probably never will be 100 percent cashless, but we have come a long way since 1964.
It is pretty hard to imagine buying stuff, including travel, on-line without the ability to pay for it electronically.
Paying for transactions with a credit card, debit card, smart phone, etc. is efficient, effective and safe. But not 100 percent safe! I always carry a little cash just in case, but paying for goods and services electronically is a better outcome.
A 100% cashless society could occur once crypto-currencies are widely accepted.
But at the cost of marginalizing certain people. Poor people have no credit cards, debit cards require a bank account many of them do not have. Many of them have no internet connection, no smart phone. I have enough credit cards in my wallet to get in trouble, I could buy a Mercedes with them, but I do not carry a smart phone. Smart phone means an account somewhere, costs money.
This post has been spammed as I replied to it in the General Thread, I’ll reply to it here. The issue here are costs. Ticket Kiosks that take cash: Cost money to be services, cash removed, change added The are magnets for thieves, The mechanical parts to make cash acceptance and change return are additional failure points. Further, the reduction in paper tickets reduces costs for that paper as well as reduces waste on site. Smart phones are generally a sunk cost. I would not be surprised if, in the future, Brighline tickets could be bought at local supermarkets and the like where they would take cash. That would pass the infrastructure costs on to others.
I’ve noticed that the “value” of a Bitcoin has plummeted by 50% over the last few days. The value of a cryptocurrency unit is based on how much suckers are willing to pay for it.
That’s true though for regular currency too. And Gold and anything else you’d care to base your monetary system on.
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Doing everything electronically also makes it much easier to track, if the powers that be so desire.
Actually nowadays even homeless people can be found with cell phones as it gives them something to do.
That is true for any currency, but as crypto currencies become more widely accepted/used the value will probably level out, much like any currency that we use today.
The price of a cryptocurrency behaves a lot like a commodity. While there is a supposed limit on the number of Bitcoins in existence, there is apparently no such cap on the number of units of other cryptocurrencies. How is this any different from legitimate currencies?
What would lead you to believe there aren’t caps on ‘legitimate currencies’, even those unsecured by specie? Hint: M1 and M2. Other central banks regularly undertake operations to establish limits on circulating money (problems usually arise elsewhere, as in the years when “petrodollars” became an issue) if for no reason other than to address reasonable expectations leading to inflation.
The days of John Law and the idea of the Banque Générale aren’t quite dead, of course, especially when well-meaning governments misconstrue Keynes, but it doesn’t happen often as a free upside of unsecured printing of paper (or other low-marginal-cost instruments) … or cryptocurrencies, for those who buy into the ‘ideas’ … without consequences.
Well, the homeless and plain old poor around here often have cell phones. And, one can buy a VISA debit card at the supermarket for cash. I used to work for a bank, and sure enough, they held the right to charge business customers for frequent and large deposits of cash. Furthermore, as some have mentioned, there are costs involved in servicing ticket machines that collect cash. The cash must generally be picked up by an armed service of some kind, counted by the customer and the bank, usually by hand, etc. Brightline is somewhat of a specialty service, so I have no particular problem with them not taking cash. Mass transit outfits, like the Los Angeles MTA, SEPTA, Washington Metro, San Francisco Muni, CTA, etc. are in a different position and should have a cash option available, as, I think they all do. Heck, these days, the parking meters take American Express…brave new world.
MBTA is introducing a system where you pay with your phone for everything from Ferry to Subway to Light Rail to Bus to Commuter Rail.
And, if you want to ride, but do not have such a phone?
Eleven years ago, my wife and I rode the ACE deom San Jose to Stockton. There was a machine to sell tickets in the station, and there was an ACE employee by it; he sold me the tickets. I do not remember now whether I paid cash or used a credit card.
By the way, what is ticket v
Think of validation as another way to produce grounds to criminalize ‘farebeating’ and thereby excuse fascist enforcement against otherwise law-abiding or unwitting citizens.
The kiosks sell you tickets ‘good for one fare’ but, as with MetroCards, they don’t always expire the day of issue. A potential farebeater – and in California any rider is prejudged to be a potential farebeater – might keep using the same ticket until ‘caught’ by one of those periodic pass-law-like police sweeps through the train, but evade his just prosecution by claiming ‘here’s my valid ticket’. Therefore comes the additional step that the rider has to date, and therefore cancel, his own ticket by sticking it into a verification device before he boards – this is the thing the sweeps look for, as well as the ticket they’re printed on, and the absence of which can get you hustled off the train and into a cruiser if you can’t explain it adequately.
This policy doesn’t make me ‘not ride light rail’ when I go to San Jose for tech conferences, but it makes me profoundly depressed that we can evolve such a system in the United States of America.
Thanks, Overmod. Obviously, I seldom ride such forms of transit.
I do not remember any form of proof of purchase when my wife and I rode Skytrain in Vancouver 15 years ago, and the only other form of local transit since that trip to Stockton was riding up to Antioch from Chicago and back about four? years ago to enjoy some time with Carl and to ride a new section (for me) of track, and a ride, also from Chicago, to Lisle and back to vist with a nephew and his wife three years ago. On the last two trips, I had printed tickets that were taken up by a conductor.