It’s entirely true that handling cash costs money. Banks charge a pretty penny for graciously accepting a river of coins and notes from a business account for example. But that’s not the same thing as saying that going digital payment only saves money. For there are benefits to handling cash as well as costs:
… See MoreBritish retailers could save more than £7m a year each by ditching cash and accepting only card and digital payments, a study claims.
Our word isn’t this a real surprise? And a turn up for the books. It’s turns out that Omar al-Bashir, the dictator of Sudan, might have been corrupt! Possibly, even, guilty of money laundering. And isn’t that just a flabberghast then?
Suitcases packed with more than £100m have been found by security services at the home of Sudan’s ousted president, it has been reported. Omar al-Bashir is now being investigated over alleged money laundering after the hoard of cash – in US dollars, euros and Sundanese pounds – was discovered while he was under house arrest.
This might not be the most surprising finding ever but if you make formerly illegal things legal then you reduce the size of the illegal economy. The only real surprise here is that it’s a large enough effect to be seen in the demand for cash:
Canadian legalisation of cannabis reduces both cash usage and the ‘black’ economy
Charles Goodhart, Jonathan Ashworth 22 January 2019
Canada is the first major developed nation to have legalised recreational cannabis use.…
See MoreNarendra Modi is suggesting that India should make itself richer at zero cost by making simple cash payments to farmers instead of the multiple and varied subsidies available. Of course, it would be better if there were no such payments, no such subsidies at all, so that India would get on with the job of having fewer farmers altogether, but this is still a step in the right direction and something that will make India richer as a whole.…
See MoreSpear-fishing, potholing, free climbing, potatoes.
All used to be high-risk activities, back before we used money.
Potatoes were particularly risky – growing them was bad enough, what with blight and crop failure and storms and floods. But once they were out of the ground, the fun and games really began.
Because they don’t last long, potatoes – you need to find someone quite quickly who wants a potato.
And the guy who wants your potato…….well, he needs to have something you want in exchange.…
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