Cash Loses Another Battle

8.9.23 - Cash Loses Another Battle

Gold last traded at $1,915 an ounce. Silver at $22.69 an ounce.

Cash Loses Another Battle -Daily Reckoning

Cash Loses Another Battle The elimination of cash payments and transactions has incredibly far reaching consequences we would all be wise to consider.

by James Rickards

When I talk about the war on cash and a cashless society, some people think I'm exaggerating the threat or they don't take it seriously.

But I'm not exaggerating the threat. It's here, it's growing and it'll only get worse. Just look at a nation like Australia, a Western-style democracy similar in many ways to the U.S.

It provides a cautionary tale to Americans about where the war on cash is heading.

A few months ago, one of Australia's four major banks announced that it was limiting cash withdrawals and deposits at several of its branches.

Over the past year, $1 billion in bank notes have been removed from circulation in Australia.

And according to a March bulletin from the Reserve Bank of Australia, the percentage of retail payments settled in cash fell from 70% in 2007 to 27% in 2019.

That number is even lower today, as COVID further eased the transition away from cash in 2020. Remember when they were telling us to avoid cash because it might be carrying the virus?

Well, as of last year, the percentage of Australian retail payments settled in cash fell to just 13%. How long will it be before cash payments are eliminated altogether?