Thanks a lot Jordan. I was about ready to go to sleep and you drop an idea on me. So, my friend Jordan and I were talking and Jordan brings up his idea of eliminating physical currency to reduce crime. Keep money, just make all transactions electronic. This has many benefits but also many downfalls.
#1- Drug Dealers would not be able to do business, because they would leave a money trail. Okay this is true; however, there is nothing stopping them from simply bartering goods. One hit of meth for your watch kinda deal. Also, small transactions would be very hard. COnsider trying to sell a book to your friend. It would be very expensive to install and maintain a debit machine in your house, and very time-consuming to do funds transactions online. Also, what about those people without access to internet, or ready access to a debit machine? They're SOL when it comes to small purchases.
#2- People can't kill me for my money anymore, cuz once I'm dead, my PIN is gone. Sure, this makes life a little more valuable when a mugger stops to think about it. He can either give up and go home, torture the guy for his PIN, or shoot him and accomplish nothing. Obviously straight out murder for no reason is really stupid, risky and not many lunatics would kill without any motive. This is a valid point'however, you wear valuables still. A greater value is placed on life, yes, but the stealing of material goods like jewelry and electronics is now going to be a lot more common. Trade goods would be how the criminal world would operate.
As far as I see it, completely electronic money is a bad idea. Crime won't get reduced, it will get redirected. Digital fraud and theft will be incredibly more frequent, to make up for the inability to steal cash. Criminals who can't steal digitally would operate on a barter system using valuable goods. Small time street shops would be choked by the inability to easily transfer funds. And life would become needlessly more complicated as every time a purchade would be made it would require a plug in to the net. Also, financially dealing with people who have no access to electricity or the net would be near impossible and would be reduced to the barter system. So in conclusion the evolution of completely digital money, is actually a de-evolution into a less effective hybrid barter-debit economic system.
But that's just my opinion, I'm sure Jordan disagrees. lol.
Well I was happy to see that Doug brought up some interesting points about my eliminating physical currency idea. I think it�s a thought that scares people initially, and one would probably quickly think about fraud and electronic crime. I will try to address these issues in the hopes that people can keep an open mind. If you don�t like the idea then please send an email to Doug and explain why, I�m sure we both want to hear it. It takes debate to make things work effectively, and I think we can all agree that if we can come up with a way to reduce crime it is well worth it.
Doug addressed my issue of drug dealers not being able to sell drugs for money anymore. Electronic money really makes this impossible for them as it can leave a direct trail of the transaction. If the government sees somebody is receiving thousands of dollars a day for no apparent reason doesn�t that raise eyebrows. It wouldn�t take them long to launch an investigation. So this does eliminate the direct method of cash for drugs. But like Doug said, what about an indirect method of bartering goods. Again it all falls back on the beauty of the system. Somewhere down the road the dealer will be selling these goods. The drug market registers in the billions, so just think how much a dealer would be selling each day. Don�t you think if the government sees a ton of sales transactions happening daily from an individual it would look a little funny? Again, an investigation could be quickly launched. The key to the success of the system would be accounting for everything that is sold and flagging suspicious activity.
Now yes Doug, there is a cost of installing the system. But doesn�t creating physical currency too? Heck it costs more to make most coins than what their even worth. We spend countless millions of dollars of creating money each year. All we have to do is shift that to creating this technology. Look at some places in Japan, they carry a card on them, they walk through the door of a movie theatre and the money is taken out of their account automatically. If they can have this, then surly we can adapt something to this effect for us, obviously with proper modification so that it can safely and securely work for us. Plus it costs less to maintain the technology than it does to constantly create new money. Money gets torn, beat up, etc and it runs a very short life cycle, this is costly to Canadians. Not to mention we can not deny that the elimination of physical currency will reduce crime to a great degree, that is billions saved in our Justice, Jail, and policing system. Plus don�t forget the billions saved in the reduction of theft. Remember over 90% of theft is drug related.
We give criminals no reason to stick a gun in someone�s face for cash. I was personally held up by gunpoint where I work over a year ago. The robber wanted the cash in the till, and for as far as we know was willing to kill me if I didn�t give it to him. No cash = no hold up and essentially no reason to kill. Pretty simple, and I think Doug even agreed with me on that one. His only reply was about holding someone up for valuables opposed to cash, remember over 98% of goods stolen are sold for cash. Tracking sales through the electronic system would be the helper with this. I�m not saying that it will work 100% of the time, but it will help bring it down. Most often police get suspects quick, it will just be a matter of watching those suspects financial transactions. I know it is far from perfect, but you have to agree it�s better than our current system.
Finally we all think about digital fraud. I personally think this isn�t something that can happen. Think about it, everyone is tracked. You steal money, you can�t go to an ATM and withdraw it 5 mins later and run off. You are stuck with those funds in your account. It doesn�t take the police long to figure out that if Joe had $5000 go missing from his account, and Tom magically got $5000 inserted in his account at the exact same time that Joe�s money went missing who committed the crime. The key to opening to this system is realizing that mass majority of crime is drug related. Especially theft. Sure theft can happen if Sue saw clothing see wanted from a store and took it without paying but this is pretty minor when you look at the big scale of things. Well I am starting to fall asleep now cuz it�s 4am. Hopefully Doug will give us an interesting reply, I�ll be ready for it.
Jordan