Searching around in your pockets? Looking for cash?
You might need it for a parking meter, for small change for the school lunch or to buy a quick cup of coffee.
It would be easier if we abandoned cash altogether, as several states have for road tolls.
But are you ready?
Cash has a hold on us. We'll abandon it for some things, but could we ever be ready to abandon it altogether?
The idea's been given a push along by a new paper from the US National Bureau of Economic Research entitled "Costs and Benefits of Phasing Out Paper Currency".
A recent article about it asked whether our grandchildren would one day look at us and ask "“…are you serious? You used to use bits of paper as money?"
Are we ready...
12 minutes, play or RIGHT CLICK to download mp3
Reading:
. Izabella Kaminska, Negative interest in cash, or goodbye banknotes, FT Alphaville, May 20 2014
. Kenneth Rogoff, Costs and Benefits to Phasing Out Paper Currency, NBER Working Paper 20126, May 2014
. Kenneth Rogoff, Paper money is unfit for a world of high crime and low inflation, Financial Times May 28, 2014
. Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association, The End of Paper Money, June 8, 2014
. Ken Banks, The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mobile Money, National Geographic, July 4, 2012
Related Posts
. Why do we have so many $100 notes?
. The grey economy. Might pensioners have those $100 notes?
. The cashless society... the paperless office: we're rolling in it
