Have any of you gone shopping for things when you have no paper money on you? It's so much easier to write a check, swipe a credit card, even a debit card. If paper money is eliminated, sure it's less to deal with, but I think people will start spending their cash and draining their savings. Just look at credit cards. Before credit cards, credit problems didn't exist. You could only spend the money you actually had. Now, if they eliminate paper money in exchange for cards storing credits, people will just draing their cards so fast without thinking. They'll put more on them, then drain them again. It's great for the economy, but do you think we're really ready for this kind of responsibility? The amount of credit card debt says no.
The flipside of this is of course that the rise of credit was excellent for the economy and (excluding people who blew the lot and went bankrupt) quality of life. In countries without functioning credit systems, only people with access to large amounts of cash can buy houses, cars etc and this increases divisions in the society.
Perhaps the end of paper money will have similar positive effects; it will make robbery and drug dealing very difficult, for example.
No cash = rampant spending (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No cash = rampant spending (Score:1)
Perhaps the end of paper money will have similar positive effects; it will make robbery and drug dealing very difficult, for example.