Why We Must Fight To Keep Cash
Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA
I had an exciting moment the other day.
I popped into a shop.
I had to queue to get in, of course, because there were already two people in there.
And to be honest it wasn’t too exciting.
It wasn’t a bookshop or an antique shop or one of those lovely establishments that used to be called junk shops but which are now called something rather posher, depending upon the whim of the proprietor.
It was a greengrocer.
Cabbages, carrots, potatoes – the usual sort of thing. And walnuts. The squirrels who live in our garden and have their dreys in our trees love walnuts and now that cinemas, theatres, restaurants, pubs, amusement arcades and bowling alleys have all been forced to close we get a lot of excitement and fulfilment from watching squirrels crack open a walnut shell and enjoy the nut inside. We all get our thrills where we can.
So, there I was - in the greengrocers. I had no mask on because I wasn’t planning to rob them but I was wearing a Panama hat which I consider far more useful protection since it provides protection against the sun, the rain and the seagulls.
I was standing behind a line painted on the floor, as they like you to do these days, keeping the legally acceptable distance from the till but just close enough so that I could just reach the counter if I stretched out. I put down my purchases, reached into my pocket, took out my wallet and removed a note.
The assistant behind the till looked at me as though I were about to hand her a grenade with the pin removed. She wore plastic gloves and a mask but no hat or goggles. I don’t know about her feet. She may have been wearing galoshes.
`Cash?’ she said.
`Yes!’ I replied brightly. It seemed an odd question but these are strange times.
`People keep giving me cash,’ she complained. `You’re the third in a row.’
`That’s nice,’ I said, handing her the note.
`You should pay with a card,’ she said, sternly. She reluctantly took the note between finger and thumb, as though it might explode.
A bomb disposal expert would have accepted a pinless grenade with far less fuss.
She hurriedly stuffed the note into the till and threw some coins down as my change.
`They should make cash illegal,’ she said, as I picked up my charge and my purchases. `It’s dirty and spreads disease,’ she said. `It kills people.’
I tried to offer her some reassurance. I pointed out that it has always been known that real money can carry bugs but that it’s not really dangerous as long as you don’t eat it. Washing your hands will get rid of any bugs.
She didn’t want any reassurance. She had been terrified by the Government’s brainwashing techniques and by the fake news spread by the mainstream media. I could have talked to her for an hour and not soothed her terror.
(There’s an irony for you. The biggest source of fake news these days is the Government. The main stream media spreads more dangerous, fake news than the internet. There was a story in the papers about a taxi driver who had allegedly caught the coronavirus from a note he had handled. How could anyone ever know that?)
Getting rid of cash is, of course, another of the Government’s many hidden agendas. And their dream will soon come true; they are getting closer to achieving a cashless society.
An increasing number of councils are installing machines in their car parks which insist that motorists pay via an App – whatever an App might be. They don’t want you to pay with cash anymore.
I hate council run car parks.
First, they insisted that you key your car number into the machine before you could pay. I can never remember our car number and I always have to trudge back to the car, write down the number and trudge back to the machine (where there is inevitably a queue) before I can pay. They want your car number for two reasons. First, so they know where everyone is and because they know you aren’t at home they can send someone round to steal your television set. Second, so that if you have some time left on your ticket you cannot be a bit of a good Samaritan and give the ticket to a motorist just arriving. Isn’t that just the meanest thing?
I must stop rambling.
A cashless society won’t be much fun. No sixpences under the pillow from the tooth fairy. No giving a few quid to a homeless person so they can buy a pair of second hand shoes, a charity shop jacket or a bottle of cheap plonk. No crisp note tucked into a birthday card. No saving coins in a piggy bank. No excitement from a half a crown tucked into a hot little hand by a loving grandma. No tips slipped into the gloved hand of a hotel doorman. No coins tossed into a hat for a busker who gives life to a dull street or underground railway station. No coins for an arcade machine. No coins in a wishing well. No three coins in a fountain.
A cashless society will be duller in a thousand ways. Giving money digitally is no fun. And if you don’t know and trust the recipient it is risky too.
Cash helps children learn the value of money. Cash helps stop people getting into debt. Credit cards, on the other hand, encourage uncontrollable debt.
The woman in the greengrocer’s, falsely terrified into believing that my plastic £20 note was going to kill her, probably didn’t realise what she had been manipulated into wishing for.
Credit and debit cards enable governments to track our every move. And they enable the card holding companies to record everything we buy. Use a card at a supermarket and they know exactly what you buy. I know a woman who stopped buying tampons in her weekly shop. She was suddenly bombarded with advertisements for baby clothing and prams. Her husband wanted to know why he found that he was about to become a father through their shared email account.
Cash gives a sense of the reality and importance of money.Plastic encourages waste and unsustainable expenditure.
Cash can be stolen, they say.
Yes, it can.
But you can only lose what is in your wallet or purse.
Lose your plastic and you can lose everything you have and some you don’t have. Bank fraud is growing and it is no fun. We had a bank account emptied by a thief through no fault of ours and it wasn’t very enjoyable.
Finally, they can cut off your money in seconds with a few key strokes. If you speak out and cause trouble they can and will close all your accounts just to shut you up.
If you don’t obey the social distancing laws they can turn you into a beggar overnight.
You think I am exaggerating?
You don’t think they’d do that?
Let me tell you something about smart meters for electricity – those absurd little machines which the trusting and the innocent and the too honest have allowed their power company to instal.
The UK’s absurdly fashionable Department of Energy and Climate Change has boasted that if people have smart meters then energy supplies can be cut off if they are using too much electricity and only restored if their energy consumption becomes more conservative. (I have no idea who decides how much is `too much’.) With a smart meter they can also cut off your power, and therefore your phones and wifi, if you put unauthorised messages on the internet.
They don’t tell you this stuff when they try to persuade you to have a smart meter fitted. They just tell you that it will help you save nine pence a year.
So, next time you go into a shop and they don’t want to accept cash, put your purchases down on the counter and tell them you will go somewhere else – where they do take cash. That’s the only way we can fight back. Use cash as much as you possibly can.
Copyright Vernon Coleman June 3rd 2020
Vernon Coleman’s book How to protect and preserve your freedom, identity and privacy is available as a paperback on Amazon.
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