This Harvard Economist is Trying to Kill Cash

Kenneth Rogoff has an interesting résumé: international grandmaster of chess, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, professor at Harvard University. And he is now—unofficially—the No. 1 enemy of cash.

"I'll admit, it's a very quirky topic," Rogoff said at a press lunch on Tuesday put together by the publisher of his new book, The Curse of Cash. But he insists that a country without most cash is an idea whose time has come.

Law-abiding citizens rarely have need for $100 bills, yet there are 34 of them in circulation for every woman, man, and child in the U.S. That suggests the bills are circulating mainly in the underground economy. If the biggest bill were worth $10, rather than $100, delivering someone a million bucks under the table would require a 220-pound chest rather than a 22-pound briefcase. Forcing people to use smaller bills, Rogoff argues, might make crime more conspicuous and less convenient.

Rogoff also contends that suppressing cash would make it easier for the Federal Reserve and other central banks to boost economic growth by pushing interest rates into negative territory. That's the strange world where you pay to keep money in the bank and get paid to borrow it. The theory is that negative rates will induce people to save less and spend more, which will revive growth. Savers won't tolerate negative interest rates on their savings as long as cash is an alternative. Why not simply withdraw stacks of $100 bills and keep the cash in a mattress or a safe?

or


Rogoff says he doesn't want to get rid of cash all at once. First, he would phase out 100s, then 50s, then 20s, leaving smaller bills in circulation for the foreseeable future. "I want to have a less-cash society, not a cashless society," he said.

Law enforcement officials are among Rogoff's biggest allies in the war on cash, he says, and some central bankers are also interested.
WAT? No more civil forfeiture!

The front of his book carries a blurb from former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who calls the book "fascinating and important" and the argument "compelling and wide-ranging." Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Citigroup Chief Economist Willem Buiter have also endorsed the idea, which Rogoff first broached in a scholarly paper in 1998.

Some conservatives, on the other hand, detest the idea, fearing that getting rid of cash will make it easier for government to monitor and control citizens' behavior. The anti-cash ideas of Rogoff and Buiter "are now the foundation for the new age of Economic Totalitarianism that confronts us," foreign-exchange analyst and blogger Martin Armstrong wrote last year.

OOPS?
Rogoff doesn't view totalitarianism as much of a threat. He does worry just a bit that getting rid of cash could make it harder for central banks to control prices because of an "extremely interesting and provocative conjecture" of economist Neil Wallace, who taught at the University of Minnesota and is now at Penn State. The details are complicated, but the concept is that monetary policy only works if bonds are different from cash, and if cash became electronic it would act just like bonds.

In his research, Rogoff decided that central banks can probably avoid the problem Wallace raised, but he admits to uncertainty on this point. He imagines someone telling him, "Oops! The Fed can't control prices anymore. That was a theory. Didn't you think about it?"

Oh boy, someone else to tell me what I need or don't need.

Get in line.

Eliminate cash just makes control easier; that's the number one reason. We can't have people pulling out their money if interest rates go negative.

How about fugg-off, control freak and enemy of freedom.

They cops are using card readers to seize money from pre-paid cards now: http://www.popsci.com/card-reader-allow-oklahoma-cops-to-seize-suspects-money

When was the last time a hurricane or tornado knocked out the ATMs at Harvard?

Statist.

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Cashless means the Fed Res can devalue your $$$ and you can't do sh*t about it.

Pot industry is 100% cash here.  Is he trying to kill the pot?

Fuckhead, I always have a $100 in my billfold and several $20's to keep it company.

Oy Vey!

Pattern Recognition

Electronic currency or card based currency will not solve any of this guy's perceived problem with cash.  It will not because people (crooks) will figure out a way around them.



As an example, EBT cards are a form of currency.  Years ago, the products an EBT could buy were limited mostly to food.  As time went by, EBT became the main form of currency in the inner cities.  That's because you could buy anything at the corner stop & rob with them.  That, despite the fact that it was illegal to buy beer & cigarettes.  The less than trustworthy stop & rob owners simply rang up the purchase (all of them) as some sort of food that was eligible for EBT.



Now, you can buy nearly anything with that EBT because good ol' uncle sugar doesn't want to take the corruption out of that form of currency.

Suddenly I feel better about exchanging some spare cash for an arisaka.

Thats true...
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If you are five years old!
I usually have around 500Euors in my wallet, just in case. That about 560 USD.


FerFAL

Yeah, so kill off garage sales, flea markets, etc.

Tards

Then how would Uncle Sam give pallets of money to asshats across the globe?

If we replaced the income tax with a consumption tax, and stopped the worthless war on drugs,

most of those underground illegal deals would die of natural causes. But we cant do that because

the real goal is more control, not less crime and tax evasion.

Hey now!  That one hits close to home.  I buy most of my clothes & tools at garage sales.





As a side note, we helped a family clear an estate over labor day weekend.  The guy was a bit of a hoarder.  We sold off $5500 worth of stuff in 4 days & should gain another $500 in just scrap metal.  We traded stuff for green folding money.  Not one debit, credit or EBT was needed.  Though my wife was prepared to use Square to make a transaction happen.



 

Look under the August 30 posting of armstrongeconomics.com.  The Europeans are gobbling up new 1000  euro notes like mad.  The hoarding of cash has begun and the IMF, along with the European Central Bank is scared the game is changing.

Yep. Fuck that scumbag.

I was calling the Harvard guy a tard, I like garage sales and flea markets.

This. Any "economic" argument in favor of a cashless society is just a smoke-screen.

Mark my words. It's only a matter of time until cash is completely eliminated, replaced by a BitCoin-like govt digital currency. It will allow the govt to monitor, tax and, w/access to all your medical/social/govt records, approve/disapprove every financial transaction you make (Want candy? Medical records show you're obese, transaction denied. Want guns/ammo? Govt/social records show you're a white/Christian/heterosexual male, transaction denied. Etc...)

It's all about control.

Like the Harvard Crimson was all about killing Cambodian children?

I wonder if he thinks folks need guns.

This.

Negative interest rates don't mean shit if you're sitting on hard cash stuffed into your mattress.

When banks start charging to hold your money, at your own risk (including the now legal bail in's), people will run to physical cash......

So, they simply must get rid of cash.

Easy peasy.

How much money was in the case in "No Country for Old Men?"

Take him out back and... welll... you know. have him dust the chalk board erasers or something safe for him to think about.

 

Pretty much this. Curtailing any means or avenue of individual avoidance of control.


There's an end contemplated there.


And it isn't to the benefit of the individual.

Indeed. Imagine all that tax free purchasing going on now at these illicit markets that could be brought into the coffers.

Cash is king, it's also a lot harder to trace.

Is it time yet?

LINK for the search challenged

We all 3rd world now

"Forcing people to use smaller bills, Rogoff argues, might make crime more conspicuous and less convenient"







Really no joke our Liberals wont be happy until the west becomes a 3rd world shit hole. Sad thing is some of our conservatives will fall for it because 'though on crime'.  

Well bless his little heart.

This Save-Spend cycle they foist on people is neurotic.

Keeping government spending more in line with revenues might be a good strategy roo.

Maybe we wouldn't get to negative interest ates, but I digress.

It's horseshit.  They just don't want you to have control of your own money.



If your money is in a bank, the bank can take it and invest it and gamble your fortune.  I forgot the ratio of money on hand banks actually had to pay customers back, but it's real low, like 20% or less.

LOL, do you even Bitcoin, Bro?

Fractional Reserve Banking
The dollar you deposit in a bank can be loaned out over and over, subject to Central Bank reserve requirements. The FRN stuffed in your mattress can't be loaned out x10.

Which brings up something  that happened to me not long ago. Got a call from my bank. Gal asked if I would be interested in starting a savings account to, "put some money to work". ME: what's the interest rate? HER: not much. (I kid you not, her words.). Later I noticed I couldn't initiate an ACH transfer from my checking account as in the past. (I can still go to the Citi site or a brokerage account and have them transfer funds from my checking account. Apparently it now requires TWO accounts at my bank in order to transfer funds .)

That's weird.  I really wish the ATM at the bank had the option of dispensing $100 bills.  Do they know how much of a pain it is to buy a used car with $20s?  I always have to go inside and make the withdrawal with a teller, which means I have to be there during bankers hours, when is hard when I work myself.



And thanks to inflation, the $50 is the new $20.  

From the department of People Who Don't Give a Single Fuck About Average People.

I think it would be interesting if we could deflate our currency by 10x.

Then pocket change could buy you a decent meal again! It would be interesting if coins were worth more than just some left overs you throw in a jar until its full then go deposit at the bank.

Deflate by 10x prices go up 10x

Equillibrium always wins.

Yes, you are correct. I started a thread last year about how cash will be obsolete. I calculated that by ~2040, at our current rate of inflation, it will become impracticable to carry cash (assuming no bill larger than a Benjamin).



 

Some people here (laughed at by others here too) simply call it, the mark of the Beast. And as it would be a thing world wide, it certainly has it's features. Meaning one can neither buy nor sell without it.

So, tell me more about Bit Coin again.....

Will be killed when the feds get quantum computers.



 

I have a friend that believes that not only should there be no cash, but you should have to use a government issued and monitored "money card" for all transactions so that the government doesn't get "cheated out of their taxes".  

He also believes that prices should be controlled by the government across the board.  Also, doctors should be forced to treat all patients regardless of whether or not they can pay for it, or face arrest.


He strongly disagrees with my assessment that he is a communist.


Many people want to give up all control to the government.  I truly can't understand it.  

for a supposedly "smart" person he sure is dumb.

I have come to realize that one of the things the founders had intended was economic freedom. And the older I get the more I realize, that is the most important freedom to have. Because money talks. It encourages innovation, causes motivation, ends starvation and desperation.

This is also why in my opinion governments should have the means to make currency. Not the Banks. The Fed is a private Bank.

Yes! More centralized government control. Brilliant!