THE ABOLITION OF CASH is Released

SANTA ROSA, Calif., Oct. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire-iReach/ Readers wary of bankcard security will find The Abolition of Cash: America's $660 Billion Burden (July 2015) controversial, if not disturbing. Yet, author David R. Warwick makes a persuasive case for ending the US cash system. "With his book's extensive documentation (over 550 footnotes), sharp presentation, and solid reasoning, readers might have a hard time disagreeing."Kirkus Reviews.

The cashless society is still decades away in America, according to cited data. For many who believe cash is safer than digital money, that's a good thing. Warwick notes that Americans are aware of a dark side of cash, such as its role in muggings and drug dealing; but, that they're accustomed to it and see only a tip of the iceberg.

He attributes America's inattention to a staggering cost of cash to a blindered focus on cyber crime and on an exaggerated threat of a surveillance society that paralyzes would-be critics of cash. Abolition of cash is a politically radioactive topic. Economic and social research on its potential is non-existent.

As an independent researcher the author extrapolates $660 billion costs of cash from its role in various crimes, tax dodging, inefficiency and administrative outlays a sum he calculates as five times the cost of cybercrime to individuals and industry one that approaches outlays for old-age Social Security and averages over $5,000 per household.

Warwick analyzes cashless issues ranging from power outages to payment privacy. He explains benefits to the poor. He anticipates how tax evaders and the illegal-drug world might react to cashlessness; and dispels that gold, foreign currencies or digital currencies would substitute for cash. "In fact, his discussion of Bitcoin's deficiencies is among the more informed and revealing on the subject." Kirkus Reviews. Cybercrooks themselves depend on cash, per the author.

The author points out the interrelationship of cyber and cash crimes by highlighting the unattended 24/7 ATM (which would disappear) as a juncture of the two a place where crooks use "skimmers" to siphon off patrons' bankcard and PINs and where "carders" use phony bankcards implanted with hacked card numbers to steal cash. It's also where 7,500 Americans are robbed each year and where fifty times a day 'crash and grab' thieves ram stolen vehicles into buildings and cart away entire ATMs.

Becoming cashless, emphasizes Warwick, isn't just a cost-saving affair. America suffers some 1,000 homicides and tens of thousands serious injuries in cash robberies each year. Victims include pizza deliverers, retail clerks, tellers and gas station attendants. 'Serious' per the Department of Justice, can mean teeth knocked out, bones broken, shot, knifed, rendered unconscious, or worse, such as being blinded or permanently paralyzed. All of these would be prevented, says Warwick, in addition to over 550,000 of the nation's 3.2 million burglaries as well as the great majority of its 136,000 purse snatchings.

This thought-provoking book makes a good read. "[A]n intriguing, balanced study of a future cashless society" Kirkus Reviews. Amazon: print $19.95 or Kindle $9.95.

David R. Warwick is an attorney, businessman and writer. He also wrote "Ending Cash, the Public Benefits of Federal Electronic Currency" (Quorum Books, 1998) and numerous articles on the benefits of transitioning to digital money.

Media Contact: David Warwick, David R. Warwick, 707-545-9898, drwarwick@comcast.net

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SOURCE David R. Warwick

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