"But the banks are ahead of us. Last September, the Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, openly pondered ways of imposing negative interest rates on cash – ie shrinking its value automatically. You could invalidate random banknotes, using their serial numbers. There are £63bn worth of notes in circulation in the UK: if you wanted to lop 1% off that, you could simply cancel half of all fivers without warning. A second solution would be to establish an exchange rate between paper money and the digital money in our bank accounts. A fiver deposited at the bank might buy you a £4.95 credit in your account.
Why would a central bank want to eliminate cash? For the same reason as you want to flatten interest rates to zero: to force people to spend or invest their money in the risky activities that revive growth, rather than hoarding it in the safest place." (AtW's comment: yeah, feck off, really! They want people to blow their money on risky activities, hands off stuff that ain't yours! Encourage people to invest with low taxation, otherwise FOAD!!!)
Source: Crime, terrorism and tax evasion: why banks are waging war on cash | Paul Mason | Opinion | The Guardian
Why would a central bank want to eliminate cash? For the same reason as you want to flatten interest rates to zero: to force people to spend or invest their money in the risky activities that revive growth, rather than hoarding it in the safest place." (AtW's comment: yeah, feck off, really! They want people to blow their money on risky activities, hands off stuff that ain't yours! Encourage people to invest with low taxation, otherwise FOAD!!!)
Source: Crime, terrorism and tax evasion: why banks are waging war on cash | Paul Mason | Opinion | The Guardian
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