How many of us use our cards routinely to buy just about everything, while barely giving it a thought? Once we were seduced by being offered frequent flyer points and receiving rewards for our customer loyalty.
Many of us were shocked to see what happens when a major outage occurs, when people in distress couldn’t even dial 000 let alone use their cards.
The Optus outage affected ten million customers for over twelve hours. Many businesses couldn’t operate.
We’d had a prior taste of that during our local flood crisis, and the vandalism of the Mullumbimby Telstra tower.
People are now talking about how much money is whittled away with each card transaction. Average credit card processing fees are 1.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent. The cost of a coffee using a card is not the advertised $5, but at least $5.15 and sometimes more.
A $50 note, on the other hand, stays at $50 every time it changes hands.
A local supplier of pottery materials estimated she was losing $150 a week simply by customers using cards.
She held up a $50 note and declared: ‘If you were to pass this through 17 transactions on a card, it would be reduced to nothing.’
Another supplier told us it would cost $48 extra to pay by card over the telephone. We paid cash and saved the charge.
The Covid pandemic accelerated the use of cards, as people were wary of cash carrying the virus. Market stallholders suddenly all had card facilities.
A stallholder at the Mullumbimby Farmers Market said people using cards spend more. She’s happy enough for her customers to use cards. Several shopkeepers said more people are using cash again. One said cash use had doubled recently.
Apart from the real risk of systems going down, from sudden wild weather, and not being able to buy essentials, there is also reason for concern that every purchase is being monitored and recorded.
That surveillance will no doubt accelerate with the use of AI.
We are losing privacy.
Who knows how all this data will be used/abused in future?
If we switch to cash we will save businesses hard-earned dollars, and we too will be saving money.
It all adds up.
We used to have purses with loose change and they’ll likely see a comeback. How many of us have jars with coins ranging from five cents to two dollars sitting in them?
Those coins can now go back into circulation.
Not everyone is happy about this return to cash, especially credit providers. All those tiny charges add up to billions of profit.
Before Christmas, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Michelle Bullock, mused on the idea of people being charged extra when they use cash! How on earth she thinks that could be acceptable and implemented is beyond comprehension.
Could anyone seriously imagine Treasurer Jim Chalmers floating the idea of legislating to charge people who use cash?
The Labor Albanese government won’t even consider making changes to the Stage Three tax cuts, costing Treasury an estimated $20bn. That would have the support of most Australians and enable the government to assist battlers through this cost-of-living crisis.
Mind you, not every Australian is suffering financially.
In the last three years, the combined wealth of the three richest Australians, Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Harry Triguboff, has more than doubled. Gina’s wealth has increased from $23.5bn to $40.6bn, Andrew’s from $12bn to $33.2bn and Harry’s from $11.3bn to $23.3bn. Australia now has 141 billionaires.
According to the 2023 Oxfam Inequality report, the world’s billionaires have increased their wealth from a combined $6tn in 2012 to about $14tn in 2022. Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries where no taxes are paid on inherited wealth. Trillions will be passed on tax free.
Billionaires gathered at the current World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland are asking to have a wealth tax introduced, but not one that will impoverish them, just a modest couple of per cent.
Global wealth tax
They say a tipping point has been reached and there’s an urgent need to address growing inequality.
‘The cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe’.
A global wealth tax would liberate hundreds of billions of dollars to feed the starving, house the homeless and help mitigate the disaster of the climate crisis.
While most Australians are counting their pennies and cutting back unnecessary expenditure, the super wealthy are laughing all the way to the bank.
Anthony Albanese is calling MPs back to Canberra two weeks early to discuss the cost-of-living crisis. It’s clearly panic stations. It’s time now for serious tax reform Albo, including a wealth tax.
Time to prove you really do lead an authentic Labor government.
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is now a ceramicist.
“Cashies” abound Richard, but I guess that’s tax avoidance, and that affects us all who pay for roads, schools and hospitals, etc. As an ex-pollie you know this all too well.
However cash is not without cost.
Ask any small business owner who regularly fronts the bank to deposit their cash earnings or the companies that still truck cartloads of cash around.
But I guess we should all “eat the rich” as too little trickles down.
I refuse to pay the card fee, on principle. If a business does not accept cash, I don’t go there. I take cash out weekly to avoid using my card, to keep it circulating. We all need to do this. Cash is king!
Yep…. Cash is King!
We have exactly 1 ATM in our town and no personal banking. In the last 6 months, they have been letting the ATM run out of cash for a week at a time. You will have no choice, peasants.
What will be your whipping boy Richard, now that the government is proposing very significant changes to the stage 3 tax cuts? There was plenty of time and it was always on the cards they’d change them. Why give the opposition and media the advantage of extra years of whinging politicking?
The hurdle now will be to get the changes past the grandstanding Greens.
Lizardbreath, the always in-touch, finger on the beating pulse, Greens / Adam Bandt are always there leading the nation.
This is on news.com,
‘Anthony Albanese under pressure over his plan to rework stage three tax cuts ahead of by-election
Peter Dutton has unleashed on the Prime Minister over his tax cut backflip, claiming the move was a “betrayal” of an election promise.’,
Courtney Gould, January 26, 2024 – 9:00AM NCA NewsWire –
Greens leader Adam Bandt said he wants Labor to go further, suggesting high income earners shouldn’t get a slice of the tax cut at all.
“Our view is that if we’re going to change what was a fundamentally unfair package to start with, then we should make it fair,” he told ABC radio.
“We will be pushing Labor to do better because in the middle of a housing and rental crisis, we think that the government can do better.”
This on Greens website –
‘THREE TIMES THE AVERAGE WAGE EARNER’S TAX CUT GOING TO BILLIONAIRES, CEOS AND POLITICIANS: GREENS
2024-01-26’
Responding to Labor’s reheated Stage 3 tax cuts announcements, the Greens – who have opposed the Stage 3 tax cuts package since their inception – have said Labor has failed to deliver fairness for low and middle income earners and that the Greens would fight for further changes to the package.
Comment attributable to Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP:
“In a housing and cost of living crisis, Labor’s offering people on middle incomes an extra $15 a week while giving $4,500 a year to politicians and billionaires. Is that really the best Labor can do in a housing, rental and cost of living crisis?
“Labor’s giving the very wealthy three times as much as the average wage earner.
“The Greens have kept up the pressure on Labor’s unfair original tax plan from day one, and as this legislation works its way through Parliament, the Greens will fight for more for low and middle income earners who are struggling under Labor’s housing and rental crisis.
“Why is Labor expecting people to be happy with an additional $15 a week, when rents have gone up by about $100 a week under Labor’s housing and rental crisis and mortgages almost $200 a week?
“Labor claims there’s only $15 a week extra for middle Australia, no money to raise the rate of Centrelink and no money to get dental and mental health into Medicare, while forging ahead with a $4500 tax cut for every billionaire and politician.”
But of course Team Albo won’t need the Senate Greens and Cross bench support because Lord Dutton will do his own backflip and pass the Albo Stage 3 2.0 taxidermy.
When would the Greens ever not want more? When would they ever say: yep, much better, well done, congratulations!
You and Adam Bandt do know don’t you, that when you compare weekly with annual income you have to multiply by 52? It will still seem quite different but we do still have – and now will keep – a progressive tax system, so if you’re in a higher bracket, any reduction will seem a lot more than someone paying 19 cents in the dollar. All this is about tax policy, percentages and marginal tax rates. Perhaps best you don’t go there.
You and Bandt do also know don’t you that the Greens’ thought bubble about demanding a lift in the tax free threshold comes with implications? Low income households are not the only ones who benefit from the tax free threshold. What about all those nasty retired boomers living on their super?
Taxation policy is important but not the sole component of just and equitable society. However ours is now much better.
Not a bad idea Ronny, I would advise people who can to keep a stash of cash for when the likes of China or others decide to hack our entire financial payment systems.
Not a bad idea Ronny, I would advise people who can to keep a stash of cash for when the likes of China or others decide to hack our entire financial payment systems…
Greggy the Bot, you need to check your algorithms, your repeater postings all over The Echo is a vey bad look for you.
Don’t be fooled people into this ‘internet-of-everything’, it will come and there will be no reversing it! Withdraw cash weekly, keep it circulating. Businesses, keep using it! Don’t fall for the tap tap tap. Don’t be lazy! Or ATMs will close, banks will close, tills will close and everything will be digital. Remember Optus going down and everyone scrambling? Everything you do will be monitored. Keep CASH circulating. CASH IS KING!
Use it or lose it, don’t let the likes of the socialist elites tell you you can’t have cash, tell them where to insert their cards, Ouch…
Joachy. guru of everything green and knower of all, it’s not a bad look for me old sock, it served it’s purpose to which you will never know. I think I can hear someone calling you, goodbye.