Cashless society?

Yes and yes. It has been planned for many, many years. It hasn't been that long ago when $1,000 and $500 bills were in circulation in the U.S. These ceased to be on the excuse that it made it to easy for drug dealers to do big cash buys and pay outs.

Now we have $100 in cash or less and it seems tellers carry fewer and fewer hundreds and more and more 20 dollar bills. Ask for $500 and they may give you two hundreds and the remainder by twenties if you do not specify.

The economy is down to the point now where banks and credit unions are just an unnecessary expense.used to track the subjects of the silent dictatorships currently in operation; sustain a few big mortgage companies and auto manufacturing necessary to maintain the demand for oil.

If many people on fixed income had their government checks sent directly to a grocery store, Wal-Mart, or similar, (and could draw slightly larger amounts of cash), they wouldn't even need the Federal Reserve System. If these stores offered new cars too, it would end the need and income of many banks and credit unions. Still of course supporting the income from oil.

Checks are already a one way street and all but gone. The big boys of course will always have big bills and certificates but you and I don't see any of that now!

I guess I am to particular. You wouldn't need to send my check to the grocery store. Taco Bell would be fine.

I'm an atheist so I don't believe in the "god" and "antichrist number" crap. However, there are three valid concerns that already exist when using your ATM card to buy things.

1. You are paying money to pay money.

When you use your ATM card, you have to pay a fee for every such transaction. If you pay cash, there is no fee, so the banks make money by having a cashless society; we are being nickled and dimed out of our nickels and dimes.

That is obscene - it's MY money, and I'm not going to give a bank a dollar, or 50 cents or even ONE lousy red cent for the ability to access my money when I'm paying. If society goes "cashless" then I am damn well NOT going to pay any "service charges". I'll club the bank manager for his wallet to get that money back if I have to.

ATM cards should function in the same exact way that "rechargable" public transit cards do: you put money on the card and you can buy things with the card without service charges. The card should function exactly the same way that cash does, with NO service charges for using it.

2. Businesses are monitoring your purchases.

I don't mean any sort of "big brother" crap, but I am talking about junk mail and advertising. The bank that gives you the ATM card has your address, and the store you are buying from has a list of what products you bought. If they collaborate, they will sell each other such information and start sending you more junk mail without your permission; "He bought this no name product, let's send him a coupon to buy this higher-priced name brand!" Do you want banks and companies trading your private information just so they can advertise MORE?

If you think that won't happen, it _already_does_: when you get a supermarket "club" card, they require you give them your address. (I gave a fake name and address when I signed up.) The supermarket then sells your name and purchases to the manufacturing companies who know what you buy. (The UPC numbers are tracked by computer when they scan in the product.) The big companies buy this information (which SHOULD be private) so they can target their marketing on a one-person basis by mail instead of loosely targeted TV and print advertising.

Banks have already been caught selling private information to corporations on more than one occasion: MasterCard sold credit card info to GM and Ford even though it is illegal for corporations to do this.

3. If there is any valid paranoia about governments monitoring people, it is those who would like to track what you buy under the false pretenses of "national security". Whatever happend to "innocent until proven guilty"?

A person could get picked up, held without charge and tortured as an alleged "terrorist" for buying "bomb making equipment" when all the person did was buy a lot of "cold packs" for his baseball team. (Cold packs mix ammonium nitrate and water to create instand cold; ammonium nitrate is the same stuff Timothy McVeigh used to make his bomb in Oklahoma City.)

Or paranoid governments might start monitoring mailorder and credit card purchases. In some US states, the fundamentalist christianazis have made it illegal to own sex toys. Should you be arrested and labelled a sexual predator, your name and career ruined, just for buying strawberry flavoured lubricant to rub on your husband or wife?

If you anyone is dumb enough to think government snooping is acceptable to "save us from terrorists", I give you the words of Benjamin Franklin, a man severely opposed to government oppression:

"HE WHO WOULD GIVE UP FREEDOM FOR SECURITY DESERVES NEITHER."

Welcome to the US Department of Homeland Security, where EVERYONE is a suspect, even after they are proven innocent.

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Not totally!

It always feel good and gratifying when you can feel the green and crispy bucks in your hand after a hard day's work.

yup...gotta be blind to not to see it around the corner one day.

and you wil need to get a computet chip in your hand or on your forhead to keep track of your identity and pesonal info