The Fed likes to tax people with higher commodity pricing. What a fools errand.

Americans are trapped by housing inflation, by renters inflation, and so, if we got real inflation on real goods, it would destroy main street. On the other hand, negative rates will soon destroy main street as well. Problem is, too much money at the top. It has skewed everything and has destroyed the other classes.

Tesla owner Musk has said twice now that manually driven cars will be outlawed once self driving cars are perfected.

Clearly, banks are first. I wrote a little article about it that posted today. I would appreciate your comments. It is hard to say where it all is going, Moon.

On the other hand, I view the push to self driving electric cars to be a greater threat to personal freedom than the internal combustion engine.

One of the reasons JFK did not live a long life was that he wanted to cut back oil subsidies. That could have affected Texas in a big way. And since my uncle worked as an executive for a major oil company in California, I know that margins are pretty thin as to profits, and those subsidies let oil company executives sleep better at night. I think they think they are farmers!! But they aren't. I don't hate most oil companies, although Condi Rice had an oil tanker named after her at Chevron, prior to her appointment as one of the chief architects of the evil Iraq War. I just don't like Texas politics at all. They are mean at heart.

I doubt if New Monetarism is socialistic. However, the Fed is constantly planning the survival of the banks. It doesn't care much about the survival of the rest of us, unless it starts impacting the banks.

Based on reading Stephen Williamson's blog, I don't think they much care, Chris. He seems to be unworried about negative rates, but he talks mostly about small negative rates. When they go deeper, you would think the Fed could be more concerned about unintended consequences.

I would like to add a couple of more points. The title is pros and cons of a cashless society. Few cons were given, but really only that there is some resistance. Also, negative interest rates and a cashless society have unintended consequences.

1. How far negative do you have to go to make stimulus work?

2. How many people will fall off the digital grid, and even experience weather emergencies leading to having no way to pay for anything?

3. How will banks be perceived if negative goes too negative, as thieves, when they already are perceived that way by millions of Americans?

We cannot be sure how people will act. Buying gold or other valuables will not boost the economy in any real way. Those purchases are a vote against the economy. But people will be driven to buy them if rates go too negative.

Wow, Stratfor is a very unfortunate think tank that starts out with the crime issue, when the real issue is the negative rate issue for cashlessness. Stratfor is way over its head here. The Germans want large bills because they are easier to hide. That means less crime, not more. Cashlessness will be resisted by cash substitutes. And Scandinavia has a very large safety net, that other nations toying with the idea of cashlessness simply do not have. This makes cashlessness dangerous to the poor, and to travelers, and ultimately could impact everyone. Hackers will concentrate on shutting down payment systems. That should be fun, right? Stratfor is clearly in the big bank camp, but what did anyone expect otherwise?