And for pretty good reason, at least it seems to me. Doing business with physical currency is not just objectively worse than digital transactions under most circumstances, it’s also increasingly untenable for more and more of life.
Banking services basically are so successful they became a necessity for the vast majority of people who can access them—you have to have money storage, as a prerequisite to moving money you can’t or don’t wish to store. I can’t think of a reason I should pay a bank for the privilege of access to paying some of my own money to another party.
On the other hand, I think this is just as good an argument that the kind of banking I’m describing should be a public good rather than a part of the services provided by investment firms. I even think there’s fairly good precedent for that argument, albeit at a drastically larger scale and with an unfortunately storied history of fraud and abuse.
As a public good you want all money to be invested. Money that is under lock and key is dead money. So having the bank lend your money IS a societal good. That it generates cash flow is just a bonus.
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And for pretty good reason, at least it seems to me. Doing business with physical currency is not just objectively worse than digital transactions under most circumstances, it’s also increasingly untenable for more and more of life.
Banking services basically are so successful they became a necessity for the vast majority of people who can access them—you have to have money storage, as a prerequisite to moving money you can’t or don’t wish to store. I can’t think of a reason I should pay a bank for the privilege of access to paying some of my own money to another party.
On the other hand, I think this is just as good an argument that the kind of banking I’m describing should be a public good rather than a part of the services provided by investment firms. I even think there’s fairly good precedent for that argument, albeit at a drastically larger scale and with an unfortunately storied history of fraud and abuse.
As a public good you want all money to be invested. Money that is under lock and key is dead money. So having the bank lend your money IS a societal good. That it generates cash flow is just a bonus.