splash the cash
I don’t often read fiction. Fact is my bag and the more black & white the better. Consequently, it was a bit of a departure that on my recent jaunt to the US I slipped a pulpy ‘dick-lit’ paperback into my hand-luggage, and a right rollickingly good read it proved to be. For the record, it was the first of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and without giving the game away too much it’s about counterfeiting. And, surprise-surprise, the first thing I get handed upon my return, is one of the new ‘Lady-Godiva’s’, that I knew nothing about, and menacingly interrogated the offending barista.
So, how much cash do you have? No, not how much money do you have, how much actual hard cash? I suspect, like me, you’ve perhaps got a hundred quid, maybe fifty in your wallet and the same in the bedside table in case of an emergency. When you tot-up what you’re ‘worth’ it’s obviously a lot more – a mortgage and a bit of equity, a car, a pension plan or two, life assurance, a couple of credit cards – and you sound almost wealthy. But you’ve only a few folded bills in your grubby mitt.
The story went on to explain that, irrespective of an individual’s worth, which is represented on paper & ledger, the actual cash-in-hand was tiny ($750 per head in the US), and if everyone drew out their allotted $750 the economy would run out of cash in the blink of an eye. More rapidly than you’d ever think as most of it isn’t even in the banks but ‘cash intensive’ areas such as the racetrack, casinos and the bookies.
Here in the UK we’re far more cautious that our cousins over the pond and there’s £1200 per person but the current debate is that cash has had its day and should be phased out without further ado. It argues that those ‘loadsamonies’ with actual spondoolies are invariably involved in nefarious tax-dodging & illegal activities and should be mitigated. Furthermore, in today’s increasingly cashless society taking coins & folding as change is actually a bit of a pain and does no more than weigh you down when running for the bus. Cash, at a national level, is certainly tied-up with potentially ingrained feelings of sovereignty and identity, and it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon, but the writing’s on the wall. And I’d put money on that!
