Do you think this pandemic will herald the end of cash as we know it? TPTB have long dreamed of a cashless society where your every purchase can be tracked and catalogued..and frozen without recourse. Until bitcoin came along there was almost zero ability to sidestep these gateways in a significant way. I mean seriously..how many kilo's of PM's do you really want to lug around on a given day?
We have beat this horse quite thoroughly in the past but do you think corona has brought new urgency to this debate? Could this be a(nother) positive for bitcoin and how best to exploit it?
Please discuss.
Fuck their cashless society bullshit.
Where I am here, nobody has a bank account or credit card, nor wants one. Everything is cash in pesos. No dollars please.
Merchants accept only cash but may extend credit depending on how well they know you. Major purchases like furniture, land, tools, or vehicles are often priced with credit costs included. Discounts are offered for paying cash at the time of sale.
I live on the cash I brought from Canada in pesos and US dollars which I bought directly with Bitcoin, anonymously, OTC in Toronto. No banks involved.
Since Covid-19 has hampered the delivery of many commodities, money included, I've found Bitcoin to be an easy, cheap, and secure way to move money. I had someone in Canada transfer 3 bitcoins to an address to which I held the keys with me here. I can now use these coins to transfer money elsewhere as needed.
I don't have a bank account and I have no desire to get one. I do have a credit card but I don't like using it except when it's absolutely necessary, such as for airlines and some hotels that don't accept cash (but they're not anonymous anyway). I try to always keep a small credit balance on it. I hate owing money and absolutely refuse to pay interest.
Screw the banks and their privacy-invading corporate buddies, including governments. My own government I can live with. Foreign governments and other corporations can fuck off.
Sometimes it's hard to imagine that Americans once weren't taxed at all.
I remember as a kid in the 1950s going into a store in Detroit and putting down the exact amount (in US coins) of the price as marked.
The shopkeeper yelled at me about where was the tax. Tax? I was a kid from Canada. We didn't pay sales taxes.
Here in Mexico we own 5 properties (including 3 houses) and pay zero taxes. Any taxes we do pay (alcohol, gasoline, etc) are included and hidden. No taxes are paid upon checkout at stores.
I suppose the closest thing to taxes here are bribes.