The responses to last week-and-a-half's Fun Online Poll were as follows:
For how many hours should larger stores be allowed to open on Sundays? (The current limit is six in England and Wales) None at all - 21%
Less than six hours - 3%
Six hours is about right - 30%
More than six hours - 31%
Other, please specify - 15%
So there appears to a slight majority in favour of increasing the hours, should we just go to seven i.e. open at 10, shut at 5? They've got all day trading in Scotland and the world hasn't collapsed or anything.
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On the topic of shopping, does anybody use actual cash (coins and notes anymore) to pay for stuff? The only times I've paid in cash this year were at our local Chinese takeaway, where they don't accept debit/credit cards.
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Monday, 21 March 2016
Fun Online Polls: Sunday opening hours & Paying in cash
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18 comments:
Have to say I use cash for pretty much all everyday purchases except for petrol. If nothing else, it makes budgeting a lot easier. You get £100 out of the hole in the wall and you can easily see how much you've got left.
And your average pub isn't too keen on people using a card to buy a pint.
C, I use contactless at my regular pub, I asked them last week and they said that they preferred contacless to cash as it's the quickest.
Governments are working towards a cashless society not for our benefit but theirs. Want extra tax revenue then employ negative interest rates want a tool to fight organised crime monitor their every money transaction, want to keep tabs on your citizens same thing. We of course will find it convenient but the price is that big brother finds it more so as they can step up their surveillance of us.
I don't want to bang on (What me? Never!)but there is a convincing Positive Money piece on the Net entitled "We used to have debt free money" which argues that the increase in card usage has seen the proportion of debt-free money in circulation drop from 46% in 1946 to less than 3% now.
In my experience, the moment the banks got control of everybody's money was circa 1983 when the Tory stooges abolished the age-old Truck Acts which empowered workers to be paid in cash.The pretext then and now was criminal activity (in those days the golden age of armed robbery which I thought at the time was organised by the banks)but the result was that the banks got to own everybody's wages as well as an increasing number of mortgages which you could formerly pay in cash using a pass book down the full reserve Building Society (probably set up to get workers the vote).
Never mind, all those heavy bank ledgers show Assets and Liabilities in exact balance (because they made up both sides).
I pay in cash whenever offered the opportunity to evade VAT. Otherwise use cards.
"full reserve building society"
I don't see that the loans and deposits process of a building society is fundamentally different to a bank.
A traditional building society would have its entire loan book secured on property.
Din and C, correct, no fundamental difference.
OK DBC Reed I’ll bite. "We used to have debt free money”. Striking article with good historical data about M0 money supply. I did try to discuss myself recently about definitions of money. I have no problem with calling M0 notes and coins ‘Debt free’ in a PM context (meaning bank debt free money: their legitimate and stated concern). But I don’t get the whole wave of recent articles at PM arguing that accounting/ maths identity is 'just made up', not a reliable method of recording transactions. PM does not see itself in the politics/ tax reform business. Perhaps that is why blog contributors there not feel the need to explain if you can conceptually have ‘debt free taxation’ on the other side of the government books! As I am involved and interested in PM, Labour Land Campaign, Robin Hood (Tobin)and alternative currency I find this perplexing.
DBCR, Mike W: Please can someone explain what the concept of "debt-free money" means. I understand that there is a concept and that concept does not literally mean debt-free money (it can't because all money is debt).
Out here in the sticks, I still use a lot of cash. Generally, if it's less than £10, I'll pay cash, unless I'm in a supermarket.
Bayard, agreed 'all money is debt'. As I said above, I am perplexed. A few months ago I was happy with narrow Positive Money 'debt free money' meaning - not bank credit money invented into existence with interest attached. But recently there seems a whole wave of 'debt free money' articles meaning, it seems, that base money circulates perpetually and does not appear on the liability side of the governments balance sheet?
IMHO, Most of the 'disturbance in the force' seems an after effect from Randall Wray arguing that Bitcoin was not money, was highly volatile, and relied on a greater 'Dufus' to buy into it. When I saw this at Christmas, I thought a shit storm is a coming! I suggest this is what is taking place at the moment on the PM blog.
DBC, MW, of course there is no such thing as debt free money, as B explains.
PM are probably correct to say that it would be less damaging to the economy if all "money" were backed by the govt (i.e. a liability of the government) than if nearly all "money" is created by banks and backed by private debts secured on land. But they don't seem to really understand it properly.
MW yep, it was not the critical first part of PM (what the banks do that harms the economy) that I ever saw as a problem (we all agree), nor money is an asset or a liabilty depending on whose balance sheet you look at(we all agree).The real issue, as you have been discussing since 2012 is: are (1)the reforms possible and (2)will the banks get around the pure PM version.But I have your material and I am attracted to your recent(split off altogether) NS&I lending solution. Also another poster here has proposed a 'Prudential' model that I like the sound of. Nothing is fixed in my universe at the moment.
The recent crypto/Bitcoin/MMT debate above spilling over the net made me revisit the basics. That's all.
Most of the schemes for debt-free money are given on Wikipedia under Monetary Reform apart from the "controversial" Labour Treasury Certificates introduced in Hitler's Germany by Hjalmar Schacht which Ellen "Public Banking" Brown sees a lot of good in.
Also there are schemes like Silvio Gesell's demurrage or velocity money which doesn't increase the volume of money but increases the velocity of existing money making it promote more economic activity.Gesell realised that money being invested in land would paralyse monetary velocity so suggested what JM Keynes described as Henry George measures.
Can anyone suggest a good article on "How eliminating cash will increase the government's control over you"?
Curmudgeon go onto the Cafe Hayek and Mises Daily sites they have plenty on it. All confirming that view.
OK, but it would be nice to have *one* article to link to. I've shared this poll on my blog and am now looking to summarise it.
I've now summarised this poll on my blog here.
Mark may get a few more responses, but the conclusion is still much the same.
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