Saw a “no cash” sign at a bakery. Conversation went like this:
me: So, no cash? What’s going on there?
cashier: Yeah, we’re not allowed to accept cash.
me: Isn’t it the other way around? Isn’t there a legal tender law in #Netherlands?
cashier: Yeah, we’re not allowed to refuse cash.
me: So this sign posting says loud and clear “we are breaking the law”, in effect, no? Is that not being enforced?
cashier: That’s right. It’s unenforced in Netherlands.
The same thing is happening in #Belgium. This kind of forces me to revise my understanding of European culture & norms. In both the US & Europe there is a culture of certain laws (rightfully) going unenforced against individual natural people. E.g. small amounts of marijuana possession. But I previously thought when it came to moral/legal people (businesses), they simply complied with the law in Europe to a great extent.
IOW, companies complied with laws in Europe. Contrast that with the US where corporations small and large will blatantly disregard any laws that interfere with profit based on the calculated risk of getting caught and risk of penalties.
I just wonder if Europe is being influenced by cavalier US corps and changing to comply only when penalties are likely. Or is this something I had wrong all along.. that EU companies were always loose with compliance?
#WarOnCash
Another thing to consider is when you pay by card, there are fees. You don’t see the fees but the merchant does. The merchant receives less money than you paid. That profit margin goes to the same segment of the financial industry that is attacking the cash option. So IOW, it feeds the adversary who works against us (the consumers).
I started off with the realization that when I pay my accountant, I want her to receive 100% of what I pay because she does good work and she deserves all of it. Thus cash, check, or anything that does not diminish her share is doing her a favor at no cost to me. Almost like giving her a tip at no cost to me (except maybe postage - but that’s still money better spent anyway). Well that idea extends to other businesses as long as you’re not shopping at a scummy shop like Amazon or Walmart. You probably want to support the businesses you choose to patronize if you choose ethical vendors to start with.
I used to shop using a rebate card. I eventually decided the ~1% kickback is prostituting myself cheaply. I gladly gave up the rebate to take back my privacy (and thus control). I made the same decision with grocery loyalty cards. the 1% savings is not worth the data they fully exploit. So I ditched the loyalty cards & pay cash.
This week I've been paying by cash, and I noticed a few things.
One thing is that there is a lot of people paying with cash that are doing so because they do not have another option. Some of them are simply tourists without a working card, but I suspect some of them might really have no card at all.
The other is that the people at the shop do notice when a long line of buyers stand to pay with cash. I have seen cashiers struggling to get someone to stand on the second cash register to offload some customers.
As for the ethical vendors... I struggle with this. It is just so much more convenient to go buy from the Albert Heijn that's right under my apartment. I tried the shops around, but they rarely have what I want, products are often more expensive, and lower quality. I also don't know how to tell whether specific small vendors are ethical vendors or not. So, for now I just go to AH for most of my purchases.
Indeed unbanked people exist. I’m working on getting to that point deliberately (or nearly so) but many people are trapped by unfortunate circumstances. The unbanked population helps keep cash alive. This is precisely why #BillGates and the #betterThanCashAlliance are working so hard to get banking service to everyone who is unbanked. Once they succeed, it’ll remove a significant hurdle to a cashless society. They really play it up to try to make the public think they’re working to help needy people of course. When really they crave that control they will have over people when cash is gone.
That seems to be a deliberate part of the #warOnCash. For a while there were self-scan kiosks for cash payers. Then they removed them. They want to punish cash payers. This only inspires me further to dig my heels in and wait in line. Too much of that and I’ll just bounce to another store.
I don’t know much about AH in terms of ethics. But I see that they are quite big, if not the biggest in some regions - which is often synonymous with lousy ethics. I have the same struggle in my area. The big chain grocers often have an anti-food-waste program where they mark down food that is near expiry. So I buy the marked down stuff to both help fight food waste and keep profit margins down. I guess smaller grocers just end up wasting whatever expires. Aldi & Lidl seem like a good balance. Smaller than the big chains, cheaper, and also have some kind of anti-waste program.