"By 2020 Australia could be cash free" The propaganda is ratcheting up

Discussion in 'Currencies' started by SpacePete, Feb 2, 2017.

  1. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    I hope not.

    The article rolls out the usual "benefits", plus a new one: it is apparently frustrating to stand behind someone paying for their coffee with coins.

    It sums up with a claim that there simply can be no objection: "... all that would be hindered now are under-the-table tax dodges and criminal enterprises. Those are plainly indefensible."

    And of course, a pot of gold for the budget: ".... with a material reduction in the budget deficit, and probably organised crime, as dividends. What's not to like?"

    From the AFR:

     
  2. yennus

    yennus Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    What the author fails to understand is that the government has a spending problem. It doesn't matter how much more money the government can claw back from criminals, tax evaders, etc - because they are addicted to spending other peoples money.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IECY6LgqE0[/youtube]
     
  3. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    Can someone provide an alternative link to the AFR article please?
     
  4. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Significant benefits for who exactly? Given that the vast majority of people in Western civilisations don't trust or believe the political class and don't think that they are competent or honest why would handing over complete control and surveillance of ever transaction to them be considered beneficial to anyone other than the politicians and the banksters?




    ^
     
  5. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    When a news link stops working or hits a paywall, a valid workaround is to google the exact headline in quotes. In this case, try "why a cashless society is coming".

    I see the article is an opinion piece by a UNSW economics professor and you can also read it here: http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/why-cashless-society-coming
     
  6. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    The author is either an isolated ivory tower academic, or alternatively he knows all about the real issue with the government and has written this as a propaganda piece to sell it to the public.
     
  7. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Hence all the propaganda, all the talk of criminals and average Aussies getting ripped off, and now the subtle digs at "those people" who are annoyingly "paying for their coffee with ten cent coins."

    They'll keep at it and the rhetoric will get more insistent. People will believe it.
     
  8. sammysilver

    sammysilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    It's starting to hurt my head.

    Should I sell my metal now and put it into allocated?

    If I don't pay the loan shark, does he send so one around who breaks my keyboard?
     
  9. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    The author is an advocate of central planning, arguing that market failure justifies government intervention into the economy. For example, his view on childcare* is that given a free-market system (ie unsubsidised) where parents have a choice of either earning an income and sending their children to child care paying for that cost with after-tax $, or remaining at home and looking after the kids themselves doing away with any need to pay tax and childcare fees, parents would most likely favour looking after kids themselves - meaning less participation in the workforce and a host of other social issues he's concerned with. He considers this to be an unsatisfactory outcome that tilts the "playing field" of childcare in favour of parents doing it themselves rather than paying someone else to do it for them. He argues that it is the responsibility of governments to provide a "basic" level of services and child care should be amongst them. His solution, is to allow child care to be tax deductible. Strikingly, his views on housing affordability are the opposite, meaning he considers the tax deductibility of investment housing drives up the price of housing. Presumably, this would not happen with child care, according to the Professor.

    But individual policies aside, his more insidious crime is the belief that rather than an invisible hand guiding the countless thousands of daily economic transactions individuals rationally engage in, is that a select group of experts somehow know better and should be entrusted to make those decisions on behalf of all of us. :rolleyes:

    Back on to the topic at hand, his comment:
    is actually incorrect. The Australia Institute report he cites did not come up with those figures at all, the AI simply reported the ATO's own figures, citing an article that is no longer available, but the gist of it is probably similar to this http://www.smartcompany.com.au/fina...llion-through-cash-economy-and-gst-crackdown/.

    I'm not sure how the ATO arrived at these figures, but if it's anything like the rest of their revenue forecasts eg MRRT, they simply extrapolate their figures. Assuming future revenue from current known economic behaviour without taking into consideration the altered behaviour of individual players as a result of the introduction of new government legislation or policy. Bordsilver may know better how the ATO arrives at it's projected estimates. All I know is that the government usually runs out of money.

    The article is typical scaremongering, especially his comment about crime and $100 bills, after all, unless you're in retail or merchandising, most people will not see many $100 bills on a weekly basis. But with the odd reference to "experts" and "sound statistical evidence", naturally, it will win the day. Unless we have a Trump or a John Singleton moment in politics.

    PS: if you ever read anything citing The Australia Institute, read it to be The Advocates of Wealth Re-distribution Institute.

    * https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/Opinion/Pages/Childcare-should-be-tax-deductible.aspx
     
  10. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    It is curious that he cites the RBA* on $100 bills but then strangely leaves out the bit where the RBA flatly disagrees with his argument on the high-denomination bills.

    *Invoking the RBA name adds an authoritative feel, a technique which subtly magnifies trust in the legitimacy of what he is saying.


    The recent RBA paper on cash is here: http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2016/dec/pdf/rba-bulletin-2016-12-the-future-of-cash.pdf


    And a summary news article:

     
  11. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    Back on the estimates used to arrive at the $3.3 billion in lost revenue each year, the smartcompany.com.au article was released in 2010, but the Australia Institute cites a 2012 study by EMC as to how the figures were arrived at, and as I said above, the reference to the smartcompany article cited in AI's report is no longer available. So I'm confused.

    But basically what they did (confusion over dates aside) is took the figures that about 5% of employees get paid cash-in hand, multiplied the estimated number of workers working cash-in-hand by the estimated income of those workers to arrive at the total income received by workers as cash-in-hand, then they were able to calculate the lost income tax revenue as a result of this hidden economy, but they also took into consideration the lost tax revenue from superannuation contributions and then they assumed that businesses paying workers in cash would also be under-reporting their sales resulting in a loss in GST revenue.

    Apparently, they didn't bother calculating the lost revenue in PAYE (????) or corporate taxes from individuals and businesses under-reporting or not declaring a portion of their earnings. Presumably because by then the statisticians at EMC had a migraine trying to arrive at the type of figures the ATO were after and the tax officers were happy to call it a day and head down to the pub to celebrate.

    http://tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/TB 17 Cash in hand means less cash for states_4.pdf
     
  12. JulieW

    JulieW Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    I see the cashless welfare card is getting lots of good propaganda - oops - press, and there is a push to roll it out across the welfare system: "No smokes for you lot on the couch. No beer for you bludgers down the beach."

    Working well. Time to introduce the PAYE spending card. We'll take the direct wages bill from the company and allocate spending ability to the staff. Don't worry. It will be great for Australia.
     
  13. barneyrubble

    barneyrubble Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    It also offers complete control in the event of a financial melt down. There can be no run on the banks without cash. What are you going to do? Hoard your digital dollars.

    Jim Rickard provide a decent explaination of his concerns both of a digital/ cashless economy and the financial issues presented in the world in his book "The Road to Ruin".
     
  14. goldenspike

    goldenspike Member

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    Your typical centrally planned leftist academic type. Track every movement of the citizenry.... Mao & Goebbels would be proud.

    Cash is a dirty 4 letter word these days apparently. I pay for nearly everything in cash and its kind of funny when you go into a petrol station to pay say a $50 or $60 for your fill up the attendant is always getting the eftpos machine into position expecting a card and is kind of surprised to see the banknotes.
     
  15. barneyrubble

    barneyrubble Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    In my experience this is mostly due to the stress of cash for attendants. Going to call out our education system here, the stress is caused when the amount comes to $62.10 (for example) and you hand them $100 plus a $2 coin and a 10c coin. They have absolutely no idea what change to give.
     
  16. alor

    alor Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    the machine can not receive higher denomination note >100

    so the operator should just key in received 62.10 and hand over 40

    or just received 100 and give change and do the exchange later :)

    with the auto program into the system, usually if items are bought 2 items, there is small discount as compared to two items paid separately.

    paying with card may get x% of discount etc, usually for petrol
     
  17. Ag bullet

    Ag bullet Well-Known Member

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    no, gold
     
  18. Roswell Crash Survivor

    Roswell Crash Survivor Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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  19. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Now they are removing high denomination Euros and eventually other countries will follow. It will take a coordinated effort by multiple countries and I bet their are conversations happening on this behind the scenes.
     
  20. projack

    projack Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    The problem with the AFR article is that very one sided way to try to influence peoples opinions, without even bothering to ask opinions from the other side to let the people decide whose view is more valid, or credible. So here is one from the other side.

    Cashless
    These guys just don't get it.
    Cash isn't about tax evasion or illegal activity.
    It's about having a choice.
    Any rational person who actually looks at the numbers in the banking system has to be concerned.
    In many parts of the world, banks are pitifully capitalized and EXTREMELY illiquid.
    This is especially the case in Europe right now where entire nations' banking systems are teetering on insolvency.
    In the United States, liquidity is also quite low, and banks play all sorts of accounting games to hide their true financial condition.
    Plus, never forget that the moment you deposit funds at a bank, it's no longer YOUR money. It's the bank's money.
    As a depositor, you're nothing more than an unsecured creditor of the bank, and they have the power to freeze you out of your life's savings without even giving you a courtesy call.
    Physical cash provides consumers another option.
    If you don't want to keep 100% of your savings tied up in a system that's rigged against you and has a long history of screwing its customers, you can instead choose to hold physical cash.
    There's very little downside in doing this, especially since most people are barely making any interest in their checking accounts anyhow.
    Physical cash means there is no one else standing between you and your savings.
    But your government don't want that.
    They want a massive, centralized bureaucracy to have control over your savings.
     
    SRK1 likes this.

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