If all 'monetary' transactions can be traced because there is no cash surely another physical method will be used, particularly for the more sly purchases.. go back to utilising barter systems? one chicken for your 20 Apples? Get paid in Rum? History has a habit of repeating itself.
Cash wouldn't go anywhere if common people had any say. The government only need more than 50% supporting cashless transactions for them to stop production of notes, and coins. Many countries don't even need that. The dollar doesn't need to implode for them to remove physical cash from circulation. There will always be other forms of transacting, and black markets. Even if/when cash is abolished.
The biggest racquet for tax evasion & fraud is in politics. They won't ban their easiest route for the supply of off-the-books payments.
Do you really believe politicians are running around with bags of cash? This isn't the 1970s, there's plenty of ways to milk the system and bribe people without using cash. Just ask many politicians.
Well I do live in Qld Scott Driscoll recieved cash, gordon nuttal got cash... those FIFA scamsters were receiving cash....arthor sinodinos... cssh... even julia gillard's contentious home renovations were paid for with cash yes I do believe they're walking around with big bags of cash!!!
Plenty of non-cash alternatives for politicians: a nice bottle of Grange, a scholarship for the kids, promise of a cushy directorship after retirement...
... and for everything else, there is the U.S. $100 bill. This is why I think it will be difficult to eliminate USD at least: Index Currencies "The $100 bill is the world's bitcoin" - the USD & the future of money http://forums.silverstackers.com/to...ld-s-bitcoin-the-usd-the-future-of-money.html "What makes a viable currency is trust in order for people on both sides of a transaction to use it. The Illegal transactions, the arms transactions, the drug transactions that take place all over the world... take place in dollars. The US dollar is not just a petro dollar, it is also an illegal transaction currency that speaks a lot towards how much people trust the US dollar." (From the short video clip 'Gold and oil and guns' in the article.)"
The unions certainly do. And they own and operate one of the major parties. It would really cramp their operational procedures if they had to conduct business without brief cases full of cash.
"Any inference made vis-a-vis any donation being related in any way to seeking influence is to me highly offensive, scurrilous and defamatory." ~ Amanda Vanstone, then immigration minister, commenting on the overturning of a deportation order for an alleged mafia figure after a mafia-linked businessmen made large cash donations to the party, much of it in small amounts to escape the $1500 disclosure threshold. http://www.smh.com.au/national/mafia-cashforvisa-scandal-20090223-8eoz.html
Cash won't be dead. Look at CBA today, its eftpos and netbank systems are down for certain accounts. I want to wire up some funds to buy something, I can't even do a basic transfer. Pretty scary when your savings are literally at the mercy of electronics and them working. Slam
