The pandemic could accelerate the removal of cash

How often does it happen; we enter the shop, fill our basket, and when at the cashier, we have to leave some goods behind, because we find out, that we don’t have enough cash in our wallet. Another scenario are queues at the ATM, and in the worst case, the AT Machine just ran out of money. And finally, cash fell out of our pocket, we get cheated with the change, and the tip of the ice berg maybe, we receive fake cash.

How much easier are the other options then? Credit cards, PayPal, GCash, Google Pay, Debit cards or simple cash cards. All those providers promise us convenience, security, and even points, cash back or discounts and freebees.

But what they will never tell us are the negative effects of those options, the most basic and even obvious sacrifices and losses we will experience – our freedom, our privacy, our data!

As soon as we sign up for any of those options, we hand over our data, our personal information, we agree to being tracked all the time, be it where we went, what be bought, at what time and date, and worse of all, we lose our freedom to buy anonymously.

Focus, a German publisher, wrote on the 19^th of April 2020, that the Germans used 47% cash for their spending. Due to the Corona crisis there is a prognosis, that by the year 2025, only 20% of German spending could be through cash. The reasons for using electronic payments now are hygiene and a broader acceptance of digital money.

Another danger is the interest rates set by the central banks. As we are now hovering around 0 – 1%, there is a possibility of minus interests, which is already on the way. For now, we can quickly withdraw our money and hold it in cash, but when cash has gone, we can’t escape, we are doomed to see our hard-earnt money become less and lesser, the longer we keep in in our bank accounts. Now we may go and increase our spending, buy mobile and immobile goods, just for the sake of saving our money.

The more we look at the mentioned scenarios, the more we know where we are heading to; a world of full observation, less freedom and even dishonoring of our own earnings.

We are looking towards a horrific new word, new world order one may say, where mask wearing people, who have to stay 1-2 meters apart from each other, are tracked and traced and fined as high as ever for breaking the suddenly new laws and rules. Our money will disappear faster than we can earn it, and lose value faster than we can value it.

And the worse scenario is yet to be mentioned… The big black out. What if suddenly our power supply stops, out of what reason ever? What if the internet no longer works, out of what reason ever? What if official hands can put their hands into our wallets, for what reason ever?

The perfect world is not for us, or is it?

By Thomas Fleckner