It's kind of strange how little cash is used in the US, probably because everybody uses credit cards. Back when I was living in Germany, on one visit back to the US, I was surprised to find out that it's damn near impossible to use a $100 bill. On the other hand, for example, in Japan, you could use a 10,000JPY bill and not raise a single eye brow, even if you're just buying a 200JPY stick of gum. Heck, one time I bought a 310,000JPY PowerBook all in cash. It was kinda scary to walk around with close to $3000 in my pocket, but the shops gladly accept cash (and in cases, even cut you a deal, depending on what you're buying and where) when you pay in cash (because it's real tangible money).
On the other hand, over here in the US, they would prefer that you pay for big items with a credit card, even if you have thousands of dollars in debt. That makes no sense to me. I don't understand why they'd want to take "virtual" money from someone who's broke, than take "real" money from someone who has it. I mean, from a strictly economical perspective, it makes sense. Give someone plastic and she'll shop until she drops. Businesses can claim more revenue, and who cares if the consumers are broke? But that just adds to this whole evil (wasteful) cycle they call a "consumer economy" that doesn't seem to have any merit other than to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Conclusion: Capitalism sucks. Someone needs to come up with a better system. I mean, c'mon, we've been doing this capitalism thing for a few centuries now. Doesn't it kinda seem old to you? Okay okay, I know there's no logical grounding for my conclusion, but I had to throw in an anti-capitalism rant in there somewhere.
Posted Fri, May 9, 2003 19:13 by dirvish http://3fingersalute.net
That is scary. Another attempt to get citizens to police each other.