According to the Houston Herald, paying with cash can cost you extra. What? How could that be? Well, it was news to me, but it turns out that there are some places that simply won't take cash. If you want to buy something in a place with that kind of a rule, you will have to convert your cash to "plastic," and it will cost you some money to do that. Take Yankee Stadium! Apparently, that's an example! Click that link in the first line to find out all about it. As the Houston Herald tells us, there aren't any federal laws that require businesses to accept cash, and while bills were introduced in Congress to change that, those bills haven't passed.
Personally, I like paying for things in cash, and if you can believe a book recently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, there are some very good reasons for us to carry cash. Jay Zagorsky's book, The Power of Cash, argues that cash still matters, with his argument falling into three broad categories:
First, there is a national security issue. Mr. Zagorsky notes that “a cashless society stands on three legs: a continuous and stable supply of electricity, communication networks working all the time, and secure computers.” If an earthquake strikes, or a foreign enemy takes down the communication and banking systems, you might be in big trouble, if you don't have any cash at hand. Solar flares might have the same impact.
Second, Mr. Zagorsky says that "when people spend cash, they tend to feel the cost of their purchase more acutely than when they pay electronically. Handing over notes triggers a different set of reactions in the brain than merely swiping a card. We feel the loss more, and become more attached to what we buy when we pay in cash. Banks and credit-card companies know this, and encourage us to swipe because we are likely to spend less carefully."
Third, according to Zagorsky, there is a social-justice issue. The unbanked poor still depend on cash, as do people who beg for money on the street. Cash does not require an immigrant or tourist to read transaction documents in a foreign language. It also cannot be arbitrarily cut off by autocratic governments.
I think that the third point I have listed is important, and I agree with Zagorsky on the "social justice" argument in favor of cash. Point number one, though, also seems important to me. What Zagorsky is saying about the possibility of various kinds of "system failures" is "right on the money." A society that relies on "technology," with no non-technology backup available, is almost certain to get into trouble. There really is a big difference between our world "online" and what we still, at least sometimes, call the "real world."
I have commented before on the "precarity" of our "online" reality, and conservative commentator Ross Douthat has even suggested that the transfer online of normal, "human" activities, including everthing from food purchases to sex, may be the slippery first step on our way to "extinction."
My advice? I'm with Zagorsky. Let's not allow ourselves to slip into a "cashless" world!
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