April 30, 2020
The Long Haul
Day 42
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley.
Who are they? Presidents of course! But their mugs adorn our paper currency, specifically the $1, $2, $5, $20, $50 and $500 bills.
To the extent that Americans know what these guys looked like, it is because they stare quickly at their faces before paying for a gallon of milk, a six pack of beer or Ben and Jerry’s latest. We do not want to mistake a $20 for a $1; George keeps us from making that costly error!
You are out of my league if you pass over a William McKinley to pay for a pint of Chunky Monkey. You are out of my league if you have ever seen a William McKinley. You are either a banker or a drug dealer if you have ever seen a William McKinley!
We learned about the presidents in school but most of us know these guys because we carry their image in our wallets, purses and pocketbooks. Will our grandchildren know these presidents? Will they know what paper currency is?
The coronavirus has hastened the demise of paper currency worldwide. Many of the few retailers and businesses allowed to remain open during the shutdown are refusing to take currency. It is credit and debit cards everywhere outside the home and it has been that way since mid-March when we raced east along Interstate 10 hoping to get home before the country shut down.
Cash is still widely verboten. Last week I filled my pickup truck with gravel at at local quarry, a $16 purchase. No cash allowed. At a gravel pit. Imagine!
Covid-19 is speeding up the switch in the retail world from paper to plastic to contactless currency. No business-to-business transactions or even large retail transactions are made with currency anymore. Oh yeah, drug dealers still pay cash for their Mercedes and Rolexes.
Humor aside, the world may soon be a place where only criminals and the poor pay with currency. Illicit cash, dirty money, is much harder to trace. It does offer all of us, not just criminals, a degree of privacy. Many do crave that anonymity.
There is dirty money and well dirty money. And this is where Covid-19 rears its ugly head. The virus can live on currency.
Scientific American reported years ago that “the fibrous surfaces of US currency provide ample crevices for bacteria to make themselves at home.” An NYU study found that 3,000 different bacteria can live on money.
Earlier this year the Federal Reserve Board began quarantining all currency coming to the US from Asia for seven to 10 days to slow the spread of the virus.
There is considerable debate and not much agreement about how long Covid-19 can live on different surfaces. The World Health organization issued a simple warning telling consumers to wash their hands every time they use currency.
The cashless economy is not without risk. The virus can live on credit and debit cards and consumers have been warned regularly that it can reside on keypads at well.
The message there: sanitize everything.
Venmo, PayPal and Bitcoins are our safest option.
What a world!
Hard, precise data detailing how much of our economy is cashless is elusive. Each year central banks issue more currency than the last. So there is still a lot of it out there. Exactly where the cash ends up each year is hard to know. One thing we do know, if you are poor you probably pay in cash. There is an entire “unbanked” group of consumers out there who must use cash, “dirty money” to pay their bills because a contactless payment is only available to those with a bank account.
Once again the poorest among us face the greatest risk in a time of great crisis.
Covid-19 is speeding up the process but the shift away from cash has been underway for some time. A year ago Elon Musk predicted definitively: “Paper money is going away.” Twitter Tsar Jack Dorsey went further: “The world will ultimately have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe it will be bitcoin.”
Earlier I asked whether my grandchildren will even recognize paper currency as it exists today. Probably not! Even the most ubiquitous items are here one day and gone the next.
Ask yourself if your teenage children would know how to use a rotary phone. There is a very funny ”You Tube” video and also a episode of “Ellen“ in which 17-year-olds try to unravel the mysteries of the rotary phone. Their fumbling efforts are hilarious.
Touch tone dialing was invented in 1963. By the 1980s pulse dialing had disappeared in most if the country. By the new millennium it had become a distant memory. Cell phones began to replace landlines and now the home phone is an antique.
Al Bell we hardly knew ya!
Will a cryptocurrency sporting an image of Bill Gates replace the father of our country as the face of our currency?
Let’s hope not but as Sam Cooke famously warned in his 1964 hit single: “A change is gonna come, oh yes it is!”
Be safe!
The Long Haul
Day 42
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley.
Who are they? Presidents of course! But their mugs adorn our paper currency, specifically the $1, $2, $5, $20, $50 and $500 bills.
To the extent that Americans know what these guys looked like, it is because they stare quickly at their faces before paying for a gallon of milk, a six pack of beer or Ben and Jerry’s latest. We do not want to mistake a $20 for a $1; George keeps us from making that costly error!
You are out of my league if you pass over a William McKinley to pay for a pint of Chunky Monkey. You are out of my league if you have ever seen a William McKinley. You are either a banker or a drug dealer if you have ever seen a William McKinley!
We learned about the presidents in school but most of us know these guys because we carry their image in our wallets, purses and pocketbooks. Will our grandchildren know these presidents? Will they know what paper currency is?
The coronavirus has hastened the demise of paper currency worldwide. Many of the few retailers and businesses allowed to remain open during the shutdown are refusing to take currency. It is credit and debit cards everywhere outside the home and it has been that way since mid-March when we raced east along Interstate 10 hoping to get home before the country shut down.
Cash is still widely verboten. Last week I filled my pickup truck with gravel at at local quarry, a $16 purchase. No cash allowed. At a gravel pit. Imagine!
Covid-19 is speeding up the switch in the retail world from paper to plastic to contactless currency. No business-to-business transactions or even large retail transactions are made with currency anymore. Oh yeah, drug dealers still pay cash for their Mercedes and Rolexes.
Humor aside, the world may soon be a place where only criminals and the poor pay with currency. Illicit cash, dirty money, is much harder to trace. It does offer all of us, not just criminals, a degree of privacy. Many do crave that anonymity.
There is dirty money and well dirty money. And this is where Covid-19 rears its ugly head. The virus can live on currency.
Scientific American reported years ago that “the fibrous surfaces of US currency provide ample crevices for bacteria to make themselves at home.” An NYU study found that 3,000 different bacteria can live on money.
Earlier this year the Federal Reserve Board began quarantining all currency coming to the US from Asia for seven to 10 days to slow the spread of the virus.
There is considerable debate and not much agreement about how long Covid-19 can live on different surfaces. The World Health organization issued a simple warning telling consumers to wash their hands every time they use currency.
The cashless economy is not without risk. The virus can live on credit and debit cards and consumers have been warned regularly that it can reside on keypads at well.
The message there: sanitize everything.
Venmo, PayPal and Bitcoins are our safest option.
What a world!
Hard, precise data detailing how much of our economy is cashless is elusive. Each year central banks issue more currency than the last. So there is still a lot of it out there. Exactly where the cash ends up each year is hard to know. One thing we do know, if you are poor you probably pay in cash. There is an entire “unbanked” group of consumers out there who must use cash, “dirty money” to pay their bills because a contactless payment is only available to those with a bank account.
Once again the poorest among us face the greatest risk in a time of great crisis.
Covid-19 is speeding up the process but the shift away from cash has been underway for some time. A year ago Elon Musk predicted definitively: “Paper money is going away.” Twitter Tsar Jack Dorsey went further: “The world will ultimately have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe it will be bitcoin.”
Earlier I asked whether my grandchildren will even recognize paper currency as it exists today. Probably not! Even the most ubiquitous items are here one day and gone the next.
Ask yourself if your teenage children would know how to use a rotary phone. There is a very funny ”You Tube” video and also a episode of “Ellen“ in which 17-year-olds try to unravel the mysteries of the rotary phone. Their fumbling efforts are hilarious.
Touch tone dialing was invented in 1963. By the 1980s pulse dialing had disappeared in most if the country. By the new millennium it had become a distant memory. Cell phones began to replace landlines and now the home phone is an antique.
Al Bell we hardly knew ya!
Will a cryptocurrency sporting an image of Bill Gates replace the father of our country as the face of our currency?
Let’s hope not but as Sam Cooke famously warned in his 1964 hit single: “A change is gonna come, oh yes it is!”
Be safe!
Comments
Post a Comment