THE ABOLITION OF CASH is Released

SANTA ROSA, Calif., Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-iReach/ A provocative new book The Abolition of Cash: America's$660 BillionBurden urges an end to "the staggering damages that America suffers from a payment system it no longer needs."

Scandinavia will be cashless within a decade. A chorus of nations around the globe declares the same goal. Yet, America remains dead silent about cash a strange circumstance, says author David R. Warwick, for the birthplace of the credit card, home of the world's dominant payment-card companies, headquarters for digital innovation, and where virtually everyone uses bankcards.

This is an easy-to-follow but well-documented 204-page work that illustrates profound economic savings and social benefits of a cashless America. It tackles a range of issues beginning with what happens when power fails and ending with the future role of virtual currency.

The cashless movement hasn't gained foothold the US, contends the author, largely because of a perceived threat to and emphasis on data anonymity and privacy, as well as by angst over cybercrime. The idea is "politically unwelcome." American economists and the sociologists distance themselves.

Thus, it's not surprising that this book is written by an outsider like Warwick, who is a businessman and independent researcher.

Progress is further hindered, he asserts, by official policy that treats the evolution and digitation of money as exclusively a private-sector process. The Fed and Congress abstain and merely regulate bankcards and mobile payment from the sidelines. This, says Warwick, contrasts with official encouragement and intervention abroad and it defies common sense.

By the Fed's Vice Chairman Fischer own admission, quotes the author, cash will remain popular in the US "for a very long time." It's ironic, he observes, that officials struggle with narcotrafficking and money laundering; age-old cash-driven street crimes; an underground economy that saps 8% of the GDP; terrorist funding and a host of other antisocial activity - while stubbornly ignoring the historic opportunity to take advantage of a highly effective remedy.

He leads the reader through the various ways that this 'remedy' would work. He first points out why crooks and terrorists would be unsuccessful in replacing cash with barter, gold, foreign currencies or digital money.Interestingly, he brings out the fact that cybercrooks themselves rely on cash in their schemes.

He depicts today's unattended 24/7 ATM as a microcosm of cash crime a place where 7,500 Americans are robbed each year; where crooks use "skimmers" to siphon off patrons' bankcard and PINs; where "carders" use phony bankcards implanted with hacked card numbers to steal money; and wherefifty times a day'crash and grab' thieves ram stolen vehicles into buildings and cart away entire ATMs.

As for identity theft and cybercrime, the author demonstrates statistically that the overall cost of cash is four to five times more damaging. He stops compiling cash costs at$660 billion roughly equal to annual federal outlays for old-age Social Security costs represented in goods and services and inflated income taxes deducted from paychecks.

He addresses loss of cash's payment anonymity by perusing typical legitimate payment scenarios in which one pays in cash for secrecy scenarios that he categorizes as comparatively trivial. He denounces the claimed utility of anonymous cash as defense against Orwellian governance as hopelessly inadequate citing North Korean as an example. To the contrary, he adds, democracies are constantly undermined by the use of cash in corruption citing a finding that one in seven Americans bribed an official.

The author underlines benefits of cashlessness to the poor. He reveals collateral damages of anti-money laundering regulations (domestically and internationally). Curiously, in discussing a potential blow todrug cartels the author raises the distant possibility of a cashless Mexico!

This book is filled with statistics and examples: Over one thousand Americans are killed in cash robberies each year while tens of thousands more are seriously injured. $40 billion in cash (yes that's a "B"), per a university survey, is stolen from businesses each year. Pizza-deliverers are regularly murdered for their paltry cash. Fifteen banks are robbed every day. Over 35,000 Americans die from overdoses of drugs each year, nearly all paid for with cash.

This is thought-provoking good read. Available at Amazon in print and Kindle.

David R. Warwicklives in California. He also wrote "Ending Cash, the Public Benefits of Federal Electronic Currency," published in 1998, and numerous articles on transitioning to digital money.

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

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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