Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Welcome everyone to the Forward Thinking Podcast, where
Speaker 1: we talk about different aspects of the future and what
Speaker 1: it means to us. I am Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Vogldon,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And Lauren and Joe. Today we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about cash, cash, money, Who's making
Speaker 1: all the cash, who's carrying the cash, who's rolling Apparently
Speaker 1: you are know, I not not nearly as much as
Speaker 1: I would like people who couldn't see he was making
Speaker 1: the little fingers fingers yeah, yeah, but so, but so
Speaker 1: why does this why is this important anyway? Why is
Speaker 1: there a culture about who has cash? And why we
Speaker 1: don't know why? And why do we even have cash? Well,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's let's think a little bit about
Speaker 1: about the concept of value. All right. So, in the
Speaker 1: concept of value, we're talking about things that people need
Speaker 1: or want, really want, proceeds need because you may both
Speaker 1: want it and need it, or you may just want it.
Speaker 1: Either way, you consider that something has value because you
Speaker 1: want it. Correct, all right. So, Now, if we go way, way, way,
Speaker 1: way way back, human beings might be very good at
Speaker 1: doing certain things, and they're good enough so that it
Speaker 1: helps them, and maybe they're so good at it that
Speaker 1: they can help other people. So, for example, Lauren, turns out,
Speaker 1: you're really really good at hunting mammoths. That is actually
Speaker 1: a science fact. I am Lauren, who is how tall
Speaker 1: are you? Lauren? Five to? And she can take down
Speaker 1: a mammoth no time flat, Whereas I am terrible at
Speaker 1: at at hunting mammoths. However, it turns out I've got
Speaker 1: a mean hand with a brush, and I make the
Speaker 1: most amazing cave paintings. They are phenomenal, and Lauren really
Speaker 1: wants to deck out her her cave with some great
Speaker 1: pains of a five foot to pixie taking down a
Speaker 1: mammoth with nothing but a stone knife. However, she can't
Speaker 1: draw at all, so she and I work out this
Speaker 1: this arrangement. I'm going to draw some stuff for her.
Speaker 1: She's going to give me some tasty mammoth meat to
Speaker 1: help me tied over those long nights where I'm starving
Speaker 1: because I can't catch anything. And we have worked out
Speaker 1: this system of trade, wherefore a certain amount of work
Speaker 1: she gives me a certain amount of food. And that
Speaker 1: was kind of the way things worked. It was sort
Speaker 1: of a barter system. But then let's bring a third
Speaker 1: person in Joe. Now, Joe, Uh, what's your amazing talent
Speaker 1: in this crazy world? Or do you want me to
Speaker 1: just give you one. I'm really good at setting things
Speaker 1: on fire, right, I have the secret from the gods,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to tell anybody else what it is. Right, So,
Speaker 1: Joe has discovered the secret of fire, which both a
Speaker 1: mazes and frightens Lauren and myself. Now now Lauren, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, she really would like to have cooked
Speaker 1: mammoth meat. But Joe, however, has somehow fallen onto a
Speaker 1: store of salmon. It's just a huge amount of standing.
Speaker 1: He has no need for mammoth meat. However, Joe would
Speaker 1: like some some cave paintings at some time. But me,
Speaker 1: I happen to like my mammoth tartar, so I don't
Speaker 1: really care about the fire thing. I'm okay, So you
Speaker 1: can't have any So, so we we've got these three people.
Speaker 1: Various people could really benefit from other folks uh contributions,
Speaker 1: But but there's no incentive to contribute. However, if we
Speaker 1: created some form of object that represented value, so that
Speaker 1: we would say x number of this is equal to
Speaker 1: one cave painting, or one portion of mammoth meat, or
Speaker 1: one magical creation of fire. Then we could end up
Speaker 1: using that as a method of exchange between one another,
Speaker 1: and this would allow us to have to to uh
Speaker 1: to give each other the things they need without it
Speaker 1: actually being an altruistic gift. We're actually getting something back
Speaker 1: in return, and that's a representation of value that we
Speaker 1: can then use with someone else to get something we want.
Speaker 1: That's the basis of cash, right, sure, well you so
Speaker 1: you're talking about the creation of an economy, But of
Speaker 1: course an economy exists before cash does, and cash is
Speaker 1: not necessary to have an economy. That's true, Um, but
Speaker 1: what does what exactly does cash do? It makes everything
Speaker 1: more convenient. By establishing one thing that everybody wants you,
Speaker 1: you cut way down on the amount of you know,
Speaker 1: middlemen you have to go through to make all the
Speaker 1: trades you need, especially an allergen of society. I mean,
Speaker 1: because this is a very relatively simple, little example example
Speaker 1: that we've come up with here, but once once you,
Speaker 1: I mean, these days, if I want a new car,
Speaker 1: then how many chickens is that? Yeah? And I don't
Speaker 1: really grow chickens mammoth. I I edit things, and so
Speaker 1: you know how many how many papers? Is that? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: it definitely definitely gets more tricky as it gets more complex.
Speaker 1: So I've got a question here, Um, when we think
Speaker 1: about cash, we think about usually little physical objects that
Speaker 1: you have a quantity of, and each one represents a
Speaker 1: unit of wealth. How did we end up representing things
Speaker 1: that way? And how did we pick the things that
Speaker 1: we were going to use as as money as cash.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because if you look at the early forms
Speaker 1: of currency, they tended to be things that were uh,
Speaker 1: found in nature already. But we're really really nice or
Speaker 1: pretty to look at. So like cowary sells, Right, what
Speaker 1: is a cowary shell? Well, it's a little calcium nugget
Speaker 1: that grows on the back of a snail in the ocean, right,
Speaker 1: Why why is that worth something? So because they're pretty, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're kind of pretty. Yeah, I mean these are the
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, you've seen calary shells. Like,
Speaker 1: like you said in the script for the Deo, we
Speaker 1: did like on on bracelets and necklaces. I mean people
Speaker 1: make jewelry out of it. Yeah, I actually did the
Speaker 1: the hang ten sign I did. Yeah, Hey, I love Hawaii.
Speaker 1: I love Hawaii. But yeah, so these things no intrinsic value, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like water or meat or seeds anything that
Speaker 1: has like a really practical use, is it. No? No,
Speaker 1: it's it's something again that just people wanted it. They
Speaker 1: thought it was pretty, and then it ended up being
Speaker 1: the representation for things that have direct value to us.
Speaker 1: And of course there's kind of uh when you think
Speaker 1: about how the first currencies get started. There has to
Speaker 1: be kind of a follow the crowd thing going on,
Speaker 1: doesn't there that? Um, only a critical mass, like a
Speaker 1: certain amount of the population has to decide that they
Speaker 1: all want something before everybody wants it. Be cause, if
Speaker 1: I don't know what that number is, say maybe sixty
Speaker 1: sevent of people can be guaranteed at all times to
Speaker 1: want cowry shells, Well, then if you're part of that
Speaker 1: other thirty percent, you'd be stupid not to want them,
Speaker 1: also because you could trade them to all those people
Speaker 1: who do want Right. But if it's only five percent
Speaker 1: who find calory shells to be really pretty, then there's
Speaker 1: no value to them to the larger society. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if for example, the United States suddenly decided that dollars
Speaker 1: and coins really didn't have any value to them whatsoever.
Speaker 1: We would be in an economic crisis. It's kind of
Speaker 1: crazy when you think about that, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a belief system almost more than a more than
Speaker 1: anything else. It really is. It really is when you
Speaker 1: think about that, I mean, it's a popularity contest for
Speaker 1: little objects. Yeah, and you know, in the United States historically,
Speaker 1: be quite a few years ago now actually, uh, the
Speaker 1: dollar was based off the gold standard, meaning that a
Speaker 1: dollar bill represented a certain amount of actual gold, so
Speaker 1: that that you can actually take it to the government, right,
Speaker 1: you can go to them and say give me my gold, right, yes,
Speaker 1: Because it was essentially a note that said this is
Speaker 1: worth this x amount of gold, and the gold was
Speaker 1: in some reserves that were in the United States. We
Speaker 1: got off the gold standard, and some people got upset
Speaker 1: about that. I think that's really funny because the only
Speaker 1: reason gold has any value is because we think it's
Speaker 1: pretty and it's hard to get to That's the only reason. Right.
Speaker 1: There's nothing about gold itself that makes it a valuable
Speaker 1: thing in the sense of if I have gold, my
Speaker 1: life will be better. Because it's only because everyone else
Speaker 1: has agreed that gold is awesome. I mean, chemically it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. You can do some really interesting things with it,
Speaker 1: typically if you have the wherewithal But there's a practical scarcity.
Speaker 1: I think people who advocate gold say like that at least,
Speaker 1: like it's actually hard to get certain amounts of it
Speaker 1: right right, whereas printed money is you can just print
Speaker 1: as much as you want, right, which can cause some
Speaker 1: problems right when you relations Isn't that why I read that?
Speaker 1: So the first paper money showed up in in China, right,
Speaker 1: I think in seventh century in the Tang dynasty. Um,
Speaker 1: And if what I've read is correct, like it got
Speaker 1: very popular, but then it went out of style because
Speaker 1: the paper money led to massive inflation. Right. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: if your answer to there's not enough money is to
Speaker 1: print more money, there's a problem because money represents wealth,
Speaker 1: and you don't actually create more wealth. When you create
Speaker 1: more currency, you devalue the currency that you have. You
Speaker 1: can't create wealth in that way. Right. The way that
Speaker 1: the way that banks create wealth is through loans. They
Speaker 1: loan out money and then they charge interest, and in
Speaker 1: that way wealth is created. But without that you're not
Speaker 1: creating wealth. You have an x, you have a certain
Speaker 1: amount of wealth that this is representing, and then you
Speaker 1: just print out the currency and that devalues the currency.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're not creating more things that are actually
Speaker 1: valuable like food and electricity and etcetera. Right, So, right now,
Speaker 1: I've got some US federal bank notes in my pocket.
Speaker 1: All right? Um, actually I don't I have none at all.
Speaker 1: But let's say for the one summer the purpose of argument,
Speaker 1: why would you just offer me money? I'm a little
Speaker 1: creeped out. Now there going to be somewhere in this
Speaker 1: building there's some bank notes, right, It's not just credit
Speaker 1: cards everywhere. Um, so, uh, why these things? And is
Speaker 1: it a is it a good idea to keep these around?
Speaker 1: Or is this good currency? Well, it's definitely convenient. So
Speaker 1: convenience is a big issue, right, you know, and we've
Speaker 1: even seen people resist things that would be more convenient
Speaker 1: for one side of the equation than the other. Like
Speaker 1: in the United States, we have dollar coins, but there's
Speaker 1: there's a big resistance to move to the dollar coin. Uh.
Speaker 1: It turns out that if your government does not give
Speaker 1: you the does not does not remove the option to
Speaker 1: stick with the old system. People will just stay on
Speaker 1: the old system. You pretty much have to stop making
Speaker 1: and circulating dollar bells if you want people to just
Speaker 1: rely on the dollar coins. Seems aren't there like huge
Speaker 1: basements full of dollar coins with armed guards right now?
Speaker 1: They are just sitting there because nobody wants them. Why
Speaker 1: would you need an armed guard if no one wants it? Well,
Speaker 1: clearly somebody would want items a pretty big waste of resources, Like,
Speaker 1: here's the stuff nobody wants. Guard it with your life. Well,
Speaker 1: there are different there are different ways of saying how
Speaker 1: it's wanted, though, right, because clearly people would want dollar
Speaker 1: coins if they could get them easily. Um, and if
Speaker 1: if they had no other choice that you can. You
Speaker 1: can still always take them to a bank and get
Speaker 1: them redeemed for the paper cash that you do want.
Speaker 1: Doesn't want seems to mean people don't want to carry
Speaker 1: them around in their pockets. They don't go. Coins are heavy,
Speaker 1: they're they're cumbersome, they make little jingling noises when you walk.
Speaker 1: It's you know, dude, I like to jingle jangle when
Speaker 1: I look. That's why I wear spurs and carry pocketfuls
Speaker 1: of coins. It's just more of the more science facts
Speaker 1: that we are dropping on you guys today. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: to answer your question about you know, the you know,
Speaker 1: why would it be why why should we not want
Speaker 1: cash or physical money? Uh? So it's convenient because we
Speaker 1: can easily hand this stuff over to someone else. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are all There are also some tax reasons I
Speaker 1: can get into. But um, you know, the downsides are
Speaker 1: things like, well, currency is something it's since it's physical,
Speaker 1: it can actually be damaged and even destroyed or stolen
Speaker 1: or stolen. Most people don't know this, but I think
Speaker 1: the federal uh you know, the mint, the U S Mint,
Speaker 1: they spend a lot more money um or actually I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's the mint, whatever produces dollars and
Speaker 1: coins they spend. They spend more money producing paper money
Speaker 1: than than coins. And that seems counterintuit because like coins,
Speaker 1: so they're made of metal. You'd think that that's got
Speaker 1: to be more expensive than paper. But the coins stick
Speaker 1: around much longer, I think, so they don't need all
Speaker 1: that fancy like digital ink and water marks and crazy
Speaker 1: little electronic strips and all that sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: goes into the paper. Yeah exactly, Well, it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot harder to counterfeit a coin than it is to
Speaker 1: counterfeit paper money. So there are a lot of reasons
Speaker 1: why it's easier to make them. The paper money is
Speaker 1: also just it's flimsier. It just dies sooner. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's like it's your pet sea monkey instead of your
Speaker 1: pet dog. You know. It just yeah, it only lasts
Speaker 1: a short while and then and then it needs to
Speaker 1: be replaced. And in fact, that happens all the time.
Speaker 1: And and that's one of those things is that if
Speaker 1: it's going to cost you money to produce and circulate
Speaker 1: the currency, like if if it's going to cost wealth
Speaker 1: to do that, then that's not an incredibly efficient system.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you know, and your research you found
Speaker 1: that it cost uh was in it cost two cents
Speaker 1: to ment a penny and more than ten cents to
Speaker 1: mint a nickel, which means you're losing money making the
Speaker 1: currency and uh and so you know that that's a
Speaker 1: big drawback. And then counterfeiting, of course huge drawback. If
Speaker 1: if the money you make the currency you make, rather
Speaker 1: if it's replicable, then people can make counterfeit versions of it,
Speaker 1: and then that either ends up devaluing the currency overall,
Speaker 1: or someone's just defrauding everybody until someone gets caught. If
Speaker 1: you think about just all the hoops we jump through
Speaker 1: just to make banknotes hard to copy. I mean, like
Speaker 1: we're putting holograms on things, or maybe not us, but
Speaker 1: you know some some countries, well not the United States,
Speaker 1: some countries they put holograms on their money, holograms. It's
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not a Star Wars action figure
Speaker 1: packaging materials, exactly, why is there a hologram on this?
Speaker 1: And it's because they're always desperately searching for a way
Speaker 1: to make these things harder to fake, right, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have to stay ahead of the counterfeiters who turn out
Speaker 1: to be pretty you know, crafty people. So things like
Speaker 1: water marks and the micro printing stuff that's really difficult
Speaker 1: to replicate on at least a you know, a small scale.
Speaker 1: You usually have to have a pretty you know, sophisticated
Speaker 1: operation to be able to replicate currency in a way
Speaker 1: that will actually fool people, right, and also to make
Speaker 1: it affordable. I mean, if you're spending way more money
Speaker 1: than you would just you know, going out and buying
Speaker 1: a dollar from, right, it's spending more money than you
Speaker 1: would like, or you're spending more time and effort than
Speaker 1: you would if you just went out and got a job.
Speaker 1: Then you'd be like, why am I? Why am I
Speaker 1: doing this thing? Where it's like it's like the Supervillains,
Speaker 1: where like, you know, your plan is so inefficient. If
Speaker 1: you can make more money investing in coffee beans and
Speaker 1: just get like a franchise of a fast food restaurant
Speaker 1: or something you're gonna be, that would have been I
Speaker 1: would have been a really boring episode of Pinky in
Speaker 1: the Brain. Yeah, well I'd still watch it better than
Speaker 1: most stuff anyway anyway. So yeah, I mean, so we've
Speaker 1: got the counterfeiting problem, We've got the fact that it
Speaker 1: costs money to create and circulate. How about this, it's uh,
Speaker 1: if you'll ever seen an armored car, Yeah, those are big,
Speaker 1: they're intimidating on the road. Yeah, you've got to think
Speaker 1: that these things are not cheap to operate, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not cheap to build, they're not cheap to operate,
Speaker 1: they're not cheap to maintain. Right, So somebody figures that
Speaker 1: they are going to lose less money paying these armored
Speaker 1: car operators than they would if they didn't go through
Speaker 1: all these precautions. So what what would we say physical
Speaker 1: currency is easy to steal? Yeah, yeah, it's easy to steal,
Speaker 1: and it costs money to move it around like in
Speaker 1: bulk anyway. You know, if you're talking about a few dollars,
Speaker 1: then obviously it's not that's not an issue. But you're
Speaker 1: talking about lots and lots of dollars, like like the
Speaker 1: amount of dollars that a business gets within a week
Speaker 1: or two weeks or whatever whenever the armored car comes around.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm paying attention, Uh, don't put me on
Speaker 1: a list. Wouldn't it be great at that scene and
Speaker 1: heat where they bust open the armored car and it
Speaker 1: just all these cowry shells pulled. Yeah right, that would money?
Speaker 1: That would be That would be pretty cool. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are reasons why why cash is is problematic. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not an ideal means of of of
Speaker 1: exchange in the sense that it's actually costing you money
Speaker 1: to keep it going, to keep the system going. So
Speaker 1: that kind of leads us into the discussion about the
Speaker 1: cashless transactions, and uh, there are a lot of cashless
Speaker 1: transactions that take place all the time. In fact, There
Speaker 1: are a lot of huge cashless transactions that take place
Speaker 1: at the corporate level, where you're talking about wiring money. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you're wiring the promise of money between companies. But on
Speaker 1: the smaller level, like on the personal level, we're getting
Speaker 1: into a lot of cash less payments, whether that's with
Speaker 1: a credit card or debit card, or with something like
Speaker 1: an e wallet that you might have as part of
Speaker 1: your smartphone if it hasn't enough c chip, which stands
Speaker 1: for near field communication. I think even a check technically
Speaker 1: counts as cash there you go to. Yeah, not as
Speaker 1: convenient because you're still carrying around a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: home but but near field communications stuff, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. It's the this little radio transmitter that's
Speaker 1: inside um, your your smartphone if you have a smartphone
Speaker 1: with NFC enabled device in it. Uh, and it only
Speaker 1: works at very very short ranges, so it's not like
Speaker 1: you are broadcasting out your payment plan or whatever. As
Speaker 1: soon as you walk through the door to buy, you know, cheetos.
Speaker 1: But you wouldn't accidentally pay for something, right you were
Speaker 1: just by walking through a store and be like, exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, why did I buy five copies of Time magazine.
Speaker 1: You're right, Yeah, you wouldn't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: What would happen is that, you know, you would get
Speaker 1: rung up at the cash register, just like you would
Speaker 1: if you were using any other form of payment, and
Speaker 1: there would be a little pad there for you to
Speaker 1: tap a phone or or whatever. You could have a
Speaker 1: tablet that has these two I have both. I've got
Speaker 1: a tablet and a phone that both have NFC in them.
Speaker 1: And uh, normally there's some form of verification that you
Speaker 1: have to enter before you can actually make a payment.
Speaker 1: So it's usually a pin and that you have to
Speaker 1: enter as well, because you know, they people worry like
Speaker 1: what if someone just came up to you and uh,
Speaker 1: what if your phone accidentally tapped against something? Would you
Speaker 1: accidentally pay for something? No, you have to actually actively
Speaker 1: say I'm going to pay for this with this method
Speaker 1: some kind of digital signature, right yeah. Yeah. So once
Speaker 1: you put that in, then the transaction is complete. Your
Speaker 1: the money is deducted from your account. And the nice
Speaker 1: thing about a lot of these programs, like the Google
Speaker 1: Wallet programs a great example, just because it's one of
Speaker 1: those that has a lot of the features built into it.
Speaker 1: It has things like coupons built into it. It has
Speaker 1: a loyalty program stuff build into it, so that if
Speaker 1: the vendor uses Google Wallet, if they accept this form
Speaker 1: of payment, then you can automatically not just pay for
Speaker 1: whatever it is you're getting, you can get those extra
Speaker 1: rewards that way too. Like you get the coupon discount
Speaker 1: automatically applied, you can get the loyalty visit automatically applied.
Speaker 1: And uh, it means that you don't have to manage
Speaker 1: that stuff on your own as much. Um there are
Speaker 1: a lot there are people who worry about it. There's
Speaker 1: worries that, you know, you might be able to hack
Speaker 1: a system. It's a little challenging because again it's near
Speaker 1: field communication, but the security is always an issue. And
Speaker 1: then there's just a fact that not that many vendors
Speaker 1: offer this right now, especially in the United States, and uh,
Speaker 1: some vendors are um reluctant to enter into it one
Speaker 1: because there's not a standard version of this that's out
Speaker 1: there that everyone's using yet, right, So so the vendors
Speaker 1: then like, well, then which one do I go with?
Speaker 1: If I support one, is it going to support the other? Uh?
Speaker 1: The other versions and if it doesn't, then you know
Speaker 1: what percentage of my of my customers are actually gonna
Speaker 1: be able to use this versus the ones who are like,
Speaker 1: well I would use that, except I have a totally
Speaker 1: different wallet. Sure. Yeah, it's not as clearly pretty and
Speaker 1: desirable as a cowry shell, for example. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a little more complex. So and and
Speaker 1: also it just costs money to throw to put those
Speaker 1: systems into place, So vendors have to have to believe
Speaker 1: that it's more valuable to offer the service than the
Speaker 1: cost it would it would require them to install it. Right.
Speaker 1: So if they're like, yeah, I could install this, but
Speaker 1: the number of customers I get who would use it
Speaker 1: would would not even justify the cost of installing it,
Speaker 1: then they're not going to do it. One thing to
Speaker 1: consider is, uh, I don't know if there's been any
Speaker 1: research in in this area or not, UM, but surely
Speaker 1: there will be certainly market research UM to find out
Speaker 1: if if the pain of paying thing affects digital payments, right,
Speaker 1: because that seems to me like that could motivate vendors
Speaker 1: to adopt the system of they they if they think
Speaker 1: your buyer doesn't feel the pain of paying by tapping
Speaker 1: the phone in the same way he or she does,
Speaker 1: by removing the money from the wallet right where where
Speaker 1: you would you would get that. Uh you know that
Speaker 1: that spontaneous purchase would happen more frequently if people weren't thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to take some of my dollars from my
Speaker 1: wallet to do this, and now I have fewer dollars
Speaker 1: in my wallet than I did when I walked in here.
Speaker 1: I mean that there's something psychological to that. There is,
Speaker 1: but i'm you know, according to an extremely small and
Speaker 1: unscientific study of a few of my friends talking about it,
Speaker 1: so not scientific site, this is anecdotal, but that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's some people, I think, find giving up
Speaker 1: the money a lot more uh uh weighty. And some
Speaker 1: people check their bank accounts every day all the time,
Speaker 1: once every few hours even, and make up crazy spreadsheets
Speaker 1: for that kind of thing, and therefore have a bigger
Speaker 1: problem giving up money digitally because they're like, no, every
Speaker 1: time I swipe a credit card, I get a notification
Speaker 1: on my phone and I'm aware of it. If I
Speaker 1: have twenty bucks in my pocket and I spend it,
Speaker 1: then I just get cool stuff. Well, and then again
Speaker 1: that brings us to the tax thing as well. That's
Speaker 1: one of those other things. I I even hesitate to
Speaker 1: bring it up, but I know people who like to
Speaker 1: do a lot of their transactions in cash because it's
Speaker 1: not it's not there's no trace of it. Mafia friends, Uh,
Speaker 1: I will say that. I will say, they're in a
Speaker 1: family business. Why are you, Joe, don't go digging where
Speaker 1: you don't want to find stuff? Okay, you don't. You
Speaker 1: don't want to take off the renaissance fair mafia. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that they have quarter staffs. They are serious.
Speaker 1: They may wear tights, but they are they are tough people.
Speaker 1: I can't say that, actually no, but there are there
Speaker 1: are plenty of vendors out there who, like I have
Speaker 1: run into vendors who will tell you that the price
Speaker 1: for something is one thing for cash, but another thing
Speaker 1: for a card because again the card leaves you know.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, I can't there's no way to cook
Speaker 1: the books. If there's a if there's a record of
Speaker 1: the transaction, but if it's if it's cash, then who
Speaker 1: knows what happened? And also if you know, for a
Speaker 1: small independent businesses like I'm sure that people have noticed
Speaker 1: that a lot of coffee shops and etcetera will have
Speaker 1: have a no cards under five dollars because of the
Speaker 1: because of the fees that they're charged by the credit
Speaker 1: card companies. Which is another problem with the entire digital
Speaker 1: cash thing is that you know, most of these things
Speaker 1: are just getting more and more complicated and involving more
Speaker 1: and more third parties, four fifth parties. Right, you have
Speaker 1: transaction fees that that that either one part of the
Speaker 1: one of the two or maybe both parties has to pay. Uh,
Speaker 1: And thus you have just you know, complicated matters even
Speaker 1: more so, um, there could we could come to a
Speaker 1: point it's it's it's feasible, or at least it's it's
Speaker 1: something we can imagine getting to a future where physical
Speaker 1: currency no longer exists. But there there seems to be
Speaker 1: a psychological barrier to that as well. You know, people
Speaker 1: like the idea of I say people, some people like
Speaker 1: the idea of being able to hold a physical representation
Speaker 1: of their wealth in their hands, right. I mean there's
Speaker 1: some people who don't even use banks. They put all
Speaker 1: the money under the mattress or yeah, definitely, and then
Speaker 1: there's uh, I mean there's the example I gave, which
Speaker 1: is that we all secretly geet down would love to
Speaker 1: be able to convert all of our wealth into coins
Speaker 1: so that we could swim in them. Scrooge McDuck, by
Speaker 1: the way, don't actually try to do that, because if
Speaker 1: you dive from like twenty feet into a pile of coins,
Speaker 1: really you're just gonna go splat. Yeah, it's not if
Speaker 1: even if you managed to get under the coins, I
Speaker 1: would think the weight of them would crush you. Well,
Speaker 1: I can tell you from personal experience that it is
Speaker 1: not nearly as much fun as screwch McDuck made it
Speaker 1: look like in in duck Tails or any other cartoon
Speaker 1: that they showed up in an others sad, sad fantasy
Speaker 1: of mind dashed by reality. But anyway, one one of
Speaker 1: the other things we were going to mention, just very
Speaker 1: briefly to kind of wrap this up, is the idea
Speaker 1: of what if we moved into a future where, because
Speaker 1: we have solved problems like where do we get our
Speaker 1: energy from? And where do we get our food and
Speaker 1: water from? Let's let's assume we've we've entered into this
Speaker 1: world where three D printers can make anything that we need,
Speaker 1: and that essentially all of our needs and wants are
Speaker 1: catered to because we have technologically solved the problems in
Speaker 1: that world, Does money even make sense? Well, it seems
Speaker 1: to me that wealth is a product of scarcity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's no scarcity right Well, I mean so if
Speaker 1: you just imagine, what are the core ideas behind economics,
Speaker 1: it's supply and demand. If you're living in a world
Speaker 1: that is infinite supply, Um, how do you, I mean,
Speaker 1: what role do is wealth even play? It makes It's
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine because I mean it's even in
Speaker 1: even in Star Trek, there are still wealthy people. I mean,
Speaker 1: and hypothetically that society has done away with with money
Speaker 1: and clothes that aren't jumpsuits, but but you know, but
Speaker 1: there's still people who intrinsically are running around with I
Speaker 1: don't know, fancier spaceships or right. Well, that it seems
Speaker 1: to me that even if everybody has everything they could
Speaker 1: ever need and there's just just plentiful resources, lots of
Speaker 1: people are still gonna want to maintain their status, so
Speaker 1: they'll seek I think, uh, symbols. You know that that
Speaker 1: wealth will become a thing about ways of buying things
Speaker 1: that show your wealth. Essentially, it's a you know, it's
Speaker 1: just a circular feedback loop. Well, I mean the example
Speaker 1: I gave before we started talking on the podcast was, well,
Speaker 1: we were still going to have artistic expression, right, We're
Speaker 1: still gonna have people who can who can create things
Speaker 1: artistically that other folks will find value in and that
Speaker 1: it brings them some sort of emotional response, whether it's
Speaker 1: joy or sadness or whatever. And if you're living in
Speaker 1: a world where the artist doesn't need anything, we don't
Speaker 1: have the poor starting artist anymore. Right, that that trope
Speaker 1: is gone because all resources are plentiful, then what is there?
Speaker 1: First of all, is there incentive to create art? I
Speaker 1: mean I would argue yes, because as someone who considers
Speaker 1: himself an artist with a lower case A, uh, that
Speaker 1: that what what drives me to create art is not
Speaker 1: uh not the hope for monetary gain, but it is nice.
Speaker 1: But if you remove the incentive, will people still create art?
Speaker 1: And if they do, then is there any form of exchange?
Speaker 1: And the and I said, well maybe it'll come down
Speaker 1: to Lauren ends up making a beautiful sculpture and I
Speaker 1: make a gorgeous painting, and I really like her sculpture,
Speaker 1: and she really likes my painting. We decided to trade
Speaker 1: the sculpture for the painting because there's no other thing
Speaker 1: that we can really do anymore, because you know, money
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. Other resources don't matter, which means that
Speaker 1: we get back to bartering all the way back to
Speaker 1: what we started with. Yeah, because I would hope, I
Speaker 1: would think that that everyone would in that kind of
Speaker 1: situation create art or invent gorgeous new things of one value.
Speaker 1: I can imagine the currency of the future is clearly
Speaker 1: the most beautifully embroidered jumpsuits. Right. Well, I was thinking
Speaker 1: that Lauren would make a statue of a five foot
Speaker 1: two tall woman killing a mammoth, and I would make
Speaker 1: a painting of a guy painting a cave wall, and
Speaker 1: we would exchange, and the gods would tell me the
Speaker 1: secret of creating space fire. In fact, can it's gonna
Speaker 1: it's gonna be it's gonna be like the Star Wars crawl.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be really small text Well, anyway, that that's
Speaker 1: kind of it brings us full circle, but it also
Speaker 1: brings us to a close on this discussion about the
Speaker 1: cash less world and what cash represents and what we
Speaker 1: can expect from the future. Uh, I'm I'm curious to
Speaker 1: see how many countries start to move more and more
Speaker 1: toward a cash less world and uh and whether or
Speaker 1: not the various people's will accept that. Uh. It's I'm
Speaker 1: genuinely curious. I can see us going just from my
Speaker 1: own personal behavior, I can see us going more and
Speaker 1: more cash less, but I definitely see resistance amongst certain
Speaker 1: members of the population. Anyway, if you guys have any
Speaker 1: anything you want to chime in on with this discussion
Speaker 1: or even other discussions, if you have suggestions for things
Speaker 1: that we should talk about in future episodes of Howard
Speaker 1: Thinking I highly reckon and you get in touch with us.
Speaker 1: You can go to f W Thinking dot com for
Speaker 1: the main website, and there you're going to find links
Speaker 1: to everything. We have links to the video series, to
Speaker 1: the to this podcast. We have links to our blogs.
Speaker 1: We've got links to all of our social media so
Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us via Twitter or
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Speaker 1: in touch with us. Let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening, and we will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon for more on this topic
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