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Cash on hand in a supermarket checkout
Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa
In Berlin you are no longer allowed to pay cash to the bus driver.
He only takes cards or cell phones with a money app.
To make it quicker to get on, say the Berlin transport company.
Rarely laughed so much.
But maybe the old, the poor and the suspended will walk in the future instead of being snapped at on the bus for stopping the business.
Now I don't want to deny that there is a lot of catching up to do with digitization.
But does it help the citizens if the coins and bills are the first to fall by the wayside?
In many town halls and municipal offices, cash payers are now undesirable, as well as at parking machines and in some lending libraries. Development has accelerated due to Corona. Cash has been suspected of spreading the virus for a while. That's why there is a "No Cash" sign at the vehicle registration office and people are typing on the sticky PIN keypad with their fingers. When was the last time these things were cleaned?
A few days ago the EU Commission presented its cash control plan. In future, invoices should only be paid in cash up to 10,000 euros. Exceptions should only be made for business between private individuals. In Brussels it is said that the upper limit for cash is necessary in order to find out about fraudsters and money launderers, which of course can be doubted. In Italy, for example, a limit of 2,000 euros already applies today without fundamentally shaking the mafia's business model. And in the case of the payment service provider Wirecard, it might have been very good in retrospect if a few real banknotes had been collected instead of digital air bookings.
In circles that consider themselves to be particularly progressive, people like to gossip about people who still have a wallet with a coin pocket instead of a card wallet. If someone then complains that the European Central Bank no longer issues 500 euro notes, while there were even thousands in the D-Mark era, it can only be a disguised AfD voter. But there are rational reasons for the cash. If you keep your savings at home, you will at least not pay negative interest.
In an ideal world, credit cards and payment apps are fast, convenient and practical.
In countries like China, they lead to total surveillance and behavioral control.
By and large, I trust our state, but I wouldn't be so sure about Apple and PayPal.
Too many companies are dying to know what we are spending our money on.
Cash is easy and safe.
It works without electricity or internet.
It guarantees anonymity and protects our secrets.
And it gives us the freedom to digitally disappear.