People in his party are known for receiving suitcases of cash (here, search for suitcase). Of course, they want to protect that.
By the way, Grasser was never sentenced for that, because while it’s fishy as hell, it’s not illegal, as long as the money can’t be traced in either direction. At least he got thrown into jail for other corruption offenses in 2020, after about 15 years of court proceedings.
The attachment to cash is something I’ll never understand.
It’s easy - tax evasion, money laundering, secret financing of things you wouldn’t want others to know. All perfectly fine reasons to fight for.
Cashless society is a controlled society. While some may misuse cash for illicit activities, many prefer it to protect privacy, maintain personal control, or avoid digital vulnerabilities. Dismissing cash usage solely for nefarious reasons overlooks legitimate concerns and individual freedoms, and equates privacy with wrongdoing, a perspective that might inadvertently erode fundamental rights and personal autonomy.
This is all technically true but cash is not the answer.
Right now there are so many easily accessible ways for governments to spy on people (cell phone geolocation, call metadata monitoring) that I’m not sure that for the purposes you think of you aren’t screwed already anyway. From this perspective fight for cash use becomes a bit theoretical.
The only people that I know of personally that are strongly for cash are either people that frequently skirt around taxes (“minor” stuff like car repair shops) and unfortunately conspiracy nuts. Genuine privacy oriented people exist but realistically the majority will be there for selfish reasons.
The societal cost of tax evasion, money laundering and financing organisations that legally require transparency (political orgs, NGOs etc) are massive and immediate.
What we really need is strong oversight of institutions, government transparency, rule of law and healthy democracy. Those are the things you want to enshrine in your constitution.
I prefer cash in situations where alcohol is involved. I can decide in advance a cash amount and when that’s done I’m done. That’s not easy counting up receipts. If you even get them as om noticing a trend were in a load of places if you don’t ask for one you don’t get.
Not really.
I go out like once every 2-3 months tending to be in big groups where its easy to lose track.
Also the price of a pint in Edinburgh is ridiculous you can easily be £100 a round when the whole team is there
Edit. I see where uour coming from without context but it’s a simple case of “I don’t have to worry about it” if I have paper over plastic
Research Central Bank-issued Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and specifically the so called “programmable money” parts of them. Central Banks and states are creating stuff like money that has an expiration date or that can only be spent on certain approved products and services.
Cash is privacy and no one can estimate your “climate footprint” based on its use while their class keeps on riding their private jets to World Economic Forum and other oligarch conferences.
This is not some futuristic stuff. All big countries are heavily invested in CBDCs, have pilot programs and some are already using them.
I mean, that’s a thing for quite some time, except now it’s moving digital. Here we have something like food tickets (can’t think of better translation now) which are untaxed and can’t be used for stuff like cigarettes, alcohol, gambling etc. And they have an expiration date. Every company here has to provide its employees with either a company cantina (is that the correct word?) or the “food tickets”.
What’s creepy and disgusting now can quickly turn absolutely dystopian soon. Image states pairing up these systems with social/climate credits and possibly AI. I don’t get why this is mainly debated in loony right-wing circles when it’s clearly something that’s technically feasible, and if not yet, then it’s just a matter of time.
I think that implementing food tickets, unless there are significant environmental concerns such as war, post-war situations, or famine, could have various benefits. But I see no benefits for the receivers of these food tickets. Unless if they are horribly underpaid which is actually a bigger issue.
While I do agree that cash is very handy, that sort of thing doesn’t belong in a constitution.
Have you got any examples? I checked the Spanish and Portuguese ones (because I can read the original text) and the Swiss one (which seems the most likely to do that sort of thing) and they don’t mention something like that.
For example the Swiss one includes this:
The Confederation shall ensure the adequate, universal and reasonably priced provision of postal and telecommunications services in all regions of the country.
So similarly it could say:
The Confederation shall ensure the adequate, universal and reasonable availability and acceptance provision of cash in all regions of the country.
Or let’s look at this one:
[The Cantons] shall ensure the provision of an adequate basic education that is available to all children. Basic education is mandatory and is managed or supervised by the state.
Which could similarly read:
[The Cantons] shall ensure the availability of adequate forms of cash that is available to everyone. Acceptance of cash is mandatory and is supervised by the state.
There are also several articles where the Confederation shall encourage things (e.g. education in music and sport) or promote things (e.g. research) so it could also say to encourage/promote usage/acceptance of cash.
Anyway, we can write into our constitutions pretty much whatever we like. Unlike in the US where the constitution is considered untouchable, we essentially treat it like just another law book.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
BERLIN (AP) — Austria’s leader is proposing to enshrine in the country’s constitution a right to use cash, which remains more popular in the Alpine nation than in many other places.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a statement on Friday that “more and more people are concerned that cash could be restricted as a means of payment in Austria.” His office said that the “uncertainty” is fueled by contradictory information and reports.
While payments by card and electronic methods have become increasingly dominant in many European countries, Austria and neighboring Germany remain relatively attached to cash.
Protecting cash against supposed threats has been a demand of the far-right opposition Freedom Party, which has led polls in Austria in recent months.
The biggest opposition party in the current parliament, the center-left Social Democrats, has called for at least one ATM in every municipality and accused Nehammer of “pure populism.”
“Even if we write the word ‘cash’ into the constitution 100 times, there won’t be a single ATM more in Austria,” said the head of its parliamentary group, Philip Kucher.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is a very good idea, I’m completely on board with this in my country as well.
