The War Against Cash
The plot to empty your wallet and own your financial future – and why you MUST fight it
By Ross Clark
The War Against Cash
The plot to empty your wallet and own your financial future – and why you MUST fight it
By Ross Clark
Jacket text
We are constantly being told that we are on the cusp of a cashless society. The financial services industry would certainly like to see it that way. We are being enticed with contactless cards, mobile phone payment apps, and methods of bank transfer: all, apparently, for our convenience.
But as Ross Clark argues in this compelling new book, it is not in our interests to surrender the right to use cash. Commercial interests want us to pay electronically in order to collect valuable data on our spending habits, while governments would love us to move to cashless payments in order to control the economy in ways which suit them, not us.
If we choose to pay electronically, that is one thing, but we will regret it if we do not defend the right to pay with cash.
About the author
Ross Clark is a journalist who writes extensively for the Spectator, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and for many other publications. For many years he wrote the Thunderer column on the Times.
Ross is also the bestselling author of How to Label a Goat: The silly rules and regulations that are strangling Britain, The Road to Southend Pier: One man's struggle against the surveillance society, A Broom Cupboard of One's Own: The housing crisis and how to solve it, and The Great Before, a satire on the anti-globalisation movement.
Reviews
Mr Clark’s interpretation, if enough people pick up on it, might just stop the world being changed for very much the worse.
The message and the takeaway [in The War Against Cash] for programmers, arguably, is… think just a little more about the extreme long term effects of creating a networked IT framework that completely digitises our world, because some of the consequences may end up on our own doorstep.
Media coverage
From The Spectator:
So, if we can be persuaded to think that cash is spreading coronavirus, someone’s going to be coining it in. Never mind the poor, the 10 percent of the population who don’t have a bank account, the elderly who find it difficult to use smartphones and so on — let’s frighten the world that cash… Read more »
From The Telegraph:
Drive cash out of the economy and it will be a feast day for some. It is time the government spotted what is happening and put outa universal service obligation on the banks to provide us with free access to our cash.
From The Guardian :
In Sweden, where 81% of all payments are digital, VAT receipts are up 30% in five years. But, says Ross Clark, author of The War Against Cash, that argument is just another bogus way in which cashless is presented – by banks and governments, but also by Mastercard, Visa and others chasing a fees bonanza… Read more »
From Coins Weekly:
The fight against cash money is quite bizarre – Ross Clark shows just how bizarre. He is an extremely successful journalist in Great Britain who has made nonsense of many modern myths in different books. His bestseller ‘How to Label a Goat’ reveals some of the preposterous legal requirements of Great Britain in plain language.… Read more »
From The Times:
… The huge lobbying operation to create a cashless society – David Cameron considered announcing that Britain would become a cashless society by 2020 – is heavily inspired by the desire to make money from data on our shopping habits. At present, nearly half of all purchases are still made with cash, which creates no… Read more »
From Almaktoum Initiatives:
“It is inevitable, in the Middle East as in the rest of the world, that consumers will gravitate towards cashless payment systems where they find them more convenient and are happy that they are secure. There is nothing wrong with that. But for a society go the full way and remove the option of paying… Read more »
From FT Adviser :
Mr Clark’s impeccably-referenced 177-page work took me a weekend and was worth every minute invested. … Mr Clark’s interpretation, if enough people pick up on it, might just stop the world being changed for very much the worse.
From MoneyWeek:
Book of the week Governments and experts keep telling us that the future is cashless. But would doing away with physical money really make our lives easier? Or is it intended to help firms and governments stick us with transaction fees, monitor our spending habits and even raid our savings in the event of another… Read more »
From Professional Adviser:
Warren Buffett, ESG and the end of cash: This year’s best Xmas reads Lawrence Gosling’s top financial books Stuck on what to buy the financial services professional in your life for Christmas? How about an investment book? Lawrence Gosling picks out his favourites from the titles that have hit our desks this year. … One… Read more »
Contents
About the Author
1. My Little Car Park Problem
2. When Cash Stops Flowing
3. A Matter of Choice
4. The Cashless Nightmare
5. Crime
6. The Big Guys
7. Who Would Trust a Bank?
8. Tax Evasion
9. Dependency
10. The Negative Interest Rate Trap
11. Snooping On Our Shopping Habits
12. Finding Guinea Pigs in the Developing World
13. Cashless and Unfree
14. What Would a Cashless Society Really Look Like?
Conclusion
| Published: | 13/11/2017 |
|---|---|
| Edition: | 1st |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Formats: | paperback - ISBN 9780857196255 ebook - ISBN 9780857196262 |
If you’d like to get in touch with the author for interview or comment, or you’d like a review copy of this book, please contact us at pr@harriman-house.com or call +44 (0)1730 233870.
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