Austrian Leader Proposes Enshrining the Use of Cash In His Country's Constitution (apnews.com) 73
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Austria's leader is proposing to enshrine in the country's constitution a right to use cash, which remains more popular in the Alpine nation than in many other places. Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a statement on Friday that "more and more people are concerned that cash could be restricted as a means of payment in Austria." His office said that the "uncertainty" is fueled by contradictory information and reports. "People in Austria have a right to cash," Nehammer said. [...]
The chancellor's proposal, according to his office, involves a "constitutional protection of cash as a means of payment," ensuring that people can still pay with cash, and securing a "basic supply" of cash in cooperation with Austria's central bank. Austria is one of 20 countries that are part of the euro area. Nehammer said he has instructed Finance Minister Magnus Brunner to work on the proposal and plans to hold a round table with the ministries concerned, finance industry representatives and the central bank in September. "Everyone should have the opportunity to decide freely how and with what he wants to pay," he said. "That can be by card, by transfer, perhaps in future also with the digital euro, but also with cash. This freedom to choose must and will remain."
Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl accused Nehammer of stealing his party's ideas and argued that the chancellor's "suddenly discovered love of cash" was meant only "to secure his political survival." The biggest opposition party in the current parliament, the center-left Social Democrats, has called for at least one ATM in every municipality and accused Nehammer of "pure populism." "Even if we write the word 'cash' into the constitution 100 times, there won't be a single ATM more in Austria," said the head of its parliamentary group, Philip Kucher.
The chancellor's proposal, according to his office, involves a "constitutional protection of cash as a means of payment," ensuring that people can still pay with cash, and securing a "basic supply" of cash in cooperation with Austria's central bank. Austria is one of 20 countries that are part of the euro area. Nehammer said he has instructed Finance Minister Magnus Brunner to work on the proposal and plans to hold a round table with the ministries concerned, finance industry representatives and the central bank in September. "Everyone should have the opportunity to decide freely how and with what he wants to pay," he said. "That can be by card, by transfer, perhaps in future also with the digital euro, but also with cash. This freedom to choose must and will remain."
Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl accused Nehammer of stealing his party's ideas and argued that the chancellor's "suddenly discovered love of cash" was meant only "to secure his political survival." The biggest opposition party in the current parliament, the center-left Social Democrats, has called for at least one ATM in every municipality and accused Nehammer of "pure populism." "Even if we write the word 'cash' into the constitution 100 times, there won't be a single ATM more in Austria," said the head of its parliamentary group, Philip Kucher.
ATMs are irrelevant (Score:3)
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I agree with your statement, but it doesn't really support the assertion "ATMs are irrelevant" that you made in your subject line. If you can't see how ATMs are a vital component in the cash circulation ecosystem you probably have had the luxury of making all your purchases digitally your whole life.
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I agree with your statement, but it doesn't really support the assertion "ATMs are irrelevant" that you made in your subject line.
That's because a subject line of "The number of ATMs is irrelevant to the desire to make cash a required payment option" is a bit too long.
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Austria is kind of a special case, it's the most cash-bound society I know of, outside of the cities you can find it almost impossible to pay with anything other than cash. Coming from a country where cash is more or less extinct this is a huge headache, you can't just pull out a card or phone and pay for dinner because they won't accept that as a form of payment.
So this just seems to be fearmongering, "if we go more or less cashless like other countries have.then we'll get human sacrifice, dogs and cats
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So this just seems to be fearmongering, "if we go more or less cashless like other countries have.then we'll get human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, just like those other countries that rejected cash did".
Much like Oregon and pumping gas.
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A bigger headache is not having a bank account or credit card in a cashless society, suddenly you can't buy anything unlike you who only needs to visit an ATM.
Then there's the problem of how slow non-cash is with people trying different payment methods as they've overdrawn their cards, which is one of the reasons for the cashless push, make it easier for people to screw up their finances, people who are right on the edge to begin with, which is a surprisingly large number of people around here.
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And then we have credit cards effectively collecting sales tax for themselves. Only they actually go to great lengths in their contracts with merchants to hide even the existence of that tax from consumers. And of course, unlike government taxes, you don't even theoretically see a public benefit.
It amazes me to see the same people who wail and rend garments over a 1% local option sales tax for public transportation seem to think nothing of a $0.30 + 1.9% "sales tax" going to the credit card company.
Alternat
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Another advantage of mandating accepting cash everywhere is that it prevents traders from excluding members of society who for some reason or other can't or won't use a bank account.
Also, a lot of "business" & "political" activity takes place in cash for obvious reasons. I can't see it going away any time soon.
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Is this about physical vs electronic, or really about being able to make anonymous transactions?
Then is digital cash OK? You can have an anonymous pre-loaded debit card that is purchased with physical cash. (or bitcoin or whatever) Then you can use that for lots of small transactions. Benefit:
- you don't have to worry about collecting or counting fiddly small change.
- shops save expense in handling physical cash. The local 7/11 can avoid physical cash altogether, and not worry about robbery.
I guess that
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Personally, I don't want to give any money to the banks if I can help it. What would be the fee for that digital debit card and what is the fee the seller has to pay?
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What would be the fee for that digital debit card and what is the fee the seller has to pay?
In Australia, it is currently around 0.5% average for debit cards. So 10c for a $20 transaction.
Digital cash would have less overhead to the bank for merchants. Less worries over fraud & charge-backs, as a physical card is needed. But there may be some cost to the consumer for cash recharges. Handling cash always comes at a cost to somebody.
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Fairly cheap there then. Not sure if it would be the same in Canada, our banks are very profitable.
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It shouldn't be about the proliferation of cash, but the people's ability to use it should they desire. The state shouldn't interfere with the transaction between the buyer and seller... if they prefer digital transfers or physical transfers, it should be their choice alone.
Authorities in human societies have been interfering with transactions between people since there have been transactions. During the Middle Ages the Carolingians, in an effort to re-establish a money based economy, passed laws stating that no merchant could refuse payment in 'good coin' (i.e. non-forged or non-debased currency). We would not have had a money based economy in Europe until much later if the Carolinginan state hadn't enforced it back then because they knew it would stimulate trade. Not that I
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The problem with limiting payments to plastic or electronic form, is unless every citizen is guaranteed a bank and an associated bank card, then you are risking creating a system where only those who can afford to be in the system can play.
Other than people below a certain income, then there are also people too young to be allowed an account, but legally permitted to make a transaction. Consider a kid going to buy food or sweets.
Another situation is someone coming from out of country with cash, but then den
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Very valid point even if you have parents permission due to all the data gathered in the U.S.A. on a card and you have to be at least 13 years old to transact.
in response to:
Right thing for the wrong reasons? (Score:4, Insightful)
Without cash there's no way to make payments without technology - or as part of an act of civil disobedience. Governments would be all too happy to get rid of the peasant's untraceable payment system.
I mean it's not a pressing or urgent issue compared to everything else happening right now, but not a bad idea...
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Transcendent value (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a very pressing issue ... Americans are wrong. They think that all other rights stem from the barrel of a gun (2nd Amendment). In reality, they stem from anonymity and privacy.
No, we believe that rights come from the transcendent value of the individual. In other words, everyone is created equal and you go to a neutral 3rd party to get grievances addressed.
The 2nd amendment doesn't imply transcendent value, because without transcendent value you could still have guns for duels, blood feuds, internecine slaughter, and so on.
Transcendent value is the basis for rights, in the line "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
The 2nd amendment is the means to enforce transcendent value, not the cause of it.
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Are you going for a funny mod or do you really believe that in a country where the Constitution had some people worth 3/5ths of a person.
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All people are equal, but some people are more equal than others.
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This has been well documented and explained so it almost isn't worth responding to.
The 3/5 compromise was solely for the purpose of appointing members of the House of Representatives and for taxation. Slave holders WANTED to count enslaved individuals as full persons because they would receive more representatives giving them more political power.
Not to mention that slave holders did not consider slaves as humans persons. If this is hard to understand, it is very similar to the abortion argument of today.
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That's the flaw that makes it BS that Americans are so equal and free, just adjust the definition of people. We see it in removing children's right to freedom of expression by threatening teachers and librarians with prison under the idea that children are property instead of beings with rights.
How about just the wrong thing? (Score:3)
Without cash there's no way to make payments without technology - or as part of an act of civil disobedience. Governments would be all too happy to get rid of the peasant's untraceable payment system.
I mean it's not a pressing or urgent issue compared to everything else happening right now, but not a bad idea...
To bolster that thought, note that during the Canadian trucker protest the Canadian government froze some of the the banking accounts of prople related to the protest. I read that people *donating* to the cause had their accounts frozen, in addition to some of the protestors, but I'm not fully informed on the issue.
(Apropos of this, Jordan Peterson claims that the Canada - not the Canadian administration or the Canadian government, but Canada itself - lost a lot of esteem in world financial systems over thi
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(Apropos of this, Jordan Peterson claims that the Canada - not the Canadian administration or the Canadian government, but Canada itself - lost a lot of esteem in world financial systems over this. I don't know if there will be any consequences, but this is strong evidence of it.)
This is the same guy who blamed the Candaian government [twitter.com] for not letting him enter the U.S. for his daughter's wedding. Read that again.
This is also the same guy who has said women haven't been oppressed throughout history. Take w
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Without cash there's no way to make payments without technology
Not every transaction needs to be cleared straight away. I had no problem getting and paying for petrol the day credit card systems were down and I had no cash. Well days, plural, since settled the bill the day after.
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When Rogers went down here in Canada, it was mass confusion with most card readers offline. Unless you were lucky and the petrol station gave you credit, it was a mad scramble to find a working ATM to get cash, and the line ups at those working ATM's were not short.
I keep cash around in case of disaster, whether natural or man made.
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Actually there's no evidence of any ancient society having a widespread barter economy, or that currency was invented as a replacement for it. That theory of history was entirely imagined by Adam Smith based on his axiomatic belief that every human who ever lived was as much of a deal-loving hustlebro as he was, and for some reason this theory got repeated in every first-world high school classroom without any skepticism. Probably because it's convenient not to let today's kids know that many ancient societ
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Actually there's no evidence of any ancient society having a widespread barter economy
That's hardly surprising since bartering does not leave behind any physical record. However, there was widespread trade in e.g. the Neolithic and zero evidence of any currency in many places so how do you think the trade worked if not through bartering?
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Weird-ass wife-swapping parties were one way:
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu... [theatlantic.com]
Even this isn't good enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Merely mandating access to cash isn't enough. The government can still limit the face value to such small denominations that it is impractical to use cash for anything significant, as India has done. Even the United States has done this to a degree by not circulating anything bigger than $100 bills. You could buy a car in cash without too much trouble. You could reasonably carry enough cash to buy a house in some markets. But for almost all the transactions big enough for the IRS to care about, cash is really cumbersome -- by design. If it's not cumbersome enough now, a couple decades of inflation (without changing the denominations) should take care of it.
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and they could probably make the argument that restarting production (which is on individual central banks)
No they can't. There's no such thing as a 500EUR banknote in the current series, and individual country central banks are *not* allowed to restart printing of the previous series of banknotes. On top of that the previous series is slated to be removed as legal tender meaning no one will need to accept a 500EUR note and it'll be useful only for exchange at your central bank. Not that anyone actually accepts it right now anyway. Many places don't even accept the 200EUR note including in Austria.
You will absol
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Germany had a 1000 Mark note, hence the 500 EUR note of a similar value. Great for smuggling untaxed money to Switzerland. Or buying cars with cash, I guess
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Yes they did. But past tense isn't helping a discussion on current political and social policy. The thing is, while smuggling works well, buying cars does not. Even high value items rarely will accept cash for such transactions due to the risk it presents.
The fantasy that you can just walk in with a suitcase of 500EUR bills and walk out with a Ferrari is just that, fantasy. If anything you're likely to have to wait longer than normal for your car and go through an additional background check. The EU Anti-Mo
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That is so nowadays, but back when Germany insisted on the 500 EUR note creation, buying cars with cash like that was still a thing.
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It was pretty common here in BC up until less then a decade ago. There was even cases of people buying houses with suitcases of hundreds (thousands were rare as they were being removed from circulation for quite a while). Seems purchasing a luxury car with cash does not (did not?) require reporting
Mostly money laundering but the car dealers didn't care though most of the laundering was done through the casinos.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
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On denominations I have said this in the past: There probably should the discontinuation of the one cent penny. Still could price things by the penny but round the total to the nearest nickel. Over a hundred years ago there was a half penny but never a tenth of a penny and that never stopped a retailer in somewhat recent years from charging down to the tenth of a penny for cotter pins and rounding the total to the nearest penny. It now should be done to the nickel. Gas prices are another e
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Canada got rid of the penny a decade ago. We also switched to a dollar coin about 1987 and a few years later, the same with the $2 bill. Your dollar coin is compatible with ours (vending machines) as well.
Really it is getting to the point where the nickel and dime are mostly useless as well. Lot of resources wasted coining small coins and bills.
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I do recall seeing dollar coins years ago in Canada by someone other than me circulating the coins back us. Some peop
Tourists need cash (Score:2)
A tourist from China will need cash, because Austrian shops usually don't accept Alipay or UnionPay.
I suppose you could get around it with prepaid cards, but it would be a hassle.
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Is a one-time prepaid Visa any more hassle than exchanging cash at a currency exchange or bank?
As someone who has travelled a lot - yes, yes it absolutely is. Exchanging cash is as trivial as picking up your luggage at the airport. The only tricky thing about it is making sure you get a somewhat ok exchange rate.
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Yes. prepaid cards are a hassle when you need to top them up, or cash them in when you leave the country. So much easier to withdraw cash from ATMs (which often accept UnionPay).
Last time I went to China, no small shops accepted Visa, and I couldn't use Ali/We pay without a Chinese bank account. So I had to use cash - which I bought from a co-worker before I left Australia. Not ideal - the leftover cash got used up on unnecessary snacks at the airport - but at least it worked.
Totally agree (Score:2)
There are many situations in the USA where you have to submit your credit card before you can make a purchase. Hotel rooms are one, and many other forms of lodging and transportation. All of this can easily be tracked by the financial institutions and whoever they share their data with. That's bad, and it could get worse such that everything requires the plastic.
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Not the Answer (Score:2)
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Standing in the way of technology and trying to turn back the tide is never the way to go.
That's the "disruptive tech" attitude of Silicon Valley that has been shown time and time again to NOT WORK outside of tech.
You may consider not dying in a plane crash some form of "more primitive technology", but the vast majority of us prefer that these safety inspections and regulations are in place, thank you.
There are tons of benefits to cash. Many of them are not immediately obvious, until they are gone. There are also benefits to electronic payments. It would be nice to have both options available an
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You may consider not dying in a plane crash some form of "more primitive technology", but the vast majority of us prefer that these safety inspections and regulations are in place, thank you.
That is not an example of standing in the way of technology but of making the use of that technology safe. The equivalent of mandating a cash option would be mandating that a train and/or boat travel option for the same trip always be available for those who did not want to risk flying. How effective do you think that approach would have been?
And if you think that will happen, you've been living under a rock for the past 20 years or so.
Really, because from under my rock there seems to be lots of central banks looking into such technology. This is especially true in Europe, Canada and elsewhere wher
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The equivalent of mandating a cash option would be mandating that a train and/or boat travel option for the same trip always be available for those who did not want to risk flying. How effective do you think that approach would have been?
In terms of climate change - it's exactly what France is doing now. No short-haul flights where a train connection exists.
But no, you missed the point. If we let them, I'm sure someone in Silicon Valley will re-invent the airplane - just less safe.
Really, because from under my rock there seems to be lots of central banks looking into such technology.
Yes, I know.
there are concerns about how much data on citizens is being collected by foreign companies like Google and Apple.
See, I doubt that. Sure, they say that in their PR material. But honestly, I think their main worry is not data being collected, but that someone else has all this sweet data. As I said before: Everyone and their dog is trying to get into the payment g
Nothing to see here! (Score:1)
As a native Austrian I have to tell you that this whole story is based on a curiosity in Austrian law. In order to overcome political struggles the Austrian constitution has been amended numerous times with questionable regulations. For example part of the Austrian constitution states that carriages pulled by animals are not regulated by the government but by the states. Nowadays such constitutional regulations have been regarded as ill deceived and are rarely used.
So all of this boils down to a conservativ
why? (Score:2)
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If it is so popular and prevalent why enshrine it in the constitution?
Because more and more places are going card-only. What good is cash for if nobody accepts it?
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You realize that you are explaining exactly why regulation is necessary?
I enjoy paying contactless with my phone. I really do, and I do it a lot. However, I definitely do want to maintain the ability to pay with cash whenever I choose.
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No, you don't even understand why your argument works opposite what you think.
Your argument: "The markets will manage"
Your ACTUAL argument: "There's not enough economic incentive to keep this thing around that we generally think should be there, so we must mandate it by law if we want to have it."
Helpful recovery content (Score:1)
Re:Damn (Score:2)
Where are mod points when you need them...
Just a Publicity Stunt (Score:2)
Re: Just a Publicity Stunt (Score:2)
Re: Just a Publicity Stunt (Score:2)
Do they also... (Score:2)
...remove the serial numbers from the money?