It finally caught up with me. I got hit with waves of cashless people. They just kept coming. It was like the end of society.

Zombies with no greenbacks, no money, no cash. And they all wanted my honey!

We are streaming towards a cashless world. I was watching this regrettable trend gain momentum through the Covid period as more and more customers at the corner Mobil station paid for their sundries with a credit card rather than cash. I mean a can of Red Bull and a pack of gum – pay by card! Allow me to observe it takes longer! Takes longer to complete the transaction than just handing over cash. I drum my fingers on the tiny bit of glass countertop that is not smothered with products for sale -- like vaping implements. It cannot go unobserved that the larger the vaping section becomes, the more people pay with credit cards, pay for four- and five-dollar purchases. Ok, vape is a lot more expensive than that, but they promise 3000 totes. More vaping, less cash. This is an observable pattern worthy of graduate study, even though I am much more comfortable believing in coincidence than conspiracy.

I’ve been trying to avoid this day. I was at Barton’s Orchard over across the Hudson at a big shindig - their Beer, Whiskey and Wine Festival - with free tastings (if you buy a ticket) and music on a fine breezy fall afternoon. At my booth, I offer free samples. Our honey is unique; I give my spiel. They reach for their wallet. Their fingers begin to retract a plastic card.

“Sorry, cash.”

“Cash?”

“Yes, sorry, cash only,” I say.

“Oh, I don’t have cash.”

Some add, hopefully, “Maybe my friend has some.” Others ask, “Is there an ATM machine?” Still more comfort themselves, “Wow I didn’t even think.”

But then there are those few who want to blame me because they have no money. Like it’s my fault. Like I am so far behind the times I might as well just stay home on the farm and dig bulbs and play in the bees, which, believe me, is what I would like nothing better.

Then there was the one young woman who loved the honey so much she was angry. She was upset. She was blaming me and as she walked away, in a circling spiral, she yelled, “Cash only! Cash only!” Flailing her arms, she felt the need to add, “And money is DIRTY!”
“Not as dirty as your iPhone, studies show,” I thought quietly. “And even the SARS-CoV-2 virus smeared on money, under the most optimal conditions, is dead after three days,” I recalled, “and I sure hope the bills are in my wallet a lot longer than three days,” I said, talking to myself, again, but sorry, nonetheless, for her distress.

Yet, I like people. I like getting out amongst them, seeing what’s up. I am afraid this is an unstoppable cultural and economic trend. I am not a prepper, not a doomsdayer, but there is a profound lack of caution abroad when people lose the connection to cash. Money was invented for a purpose, and it serves us very well.

There is a concerted movement by many in government, in the banking sector, and the credit card lobby, to eliminate cash entirely. Former treasury secretary, Larry Summers, Harvard economics professor, campaigns for a cashless society. I like Larry. I like listening to him with his odd-accented, slow, precise, analog-signaled, androidal delivery. And, on most topics, I usually find myself agreeing with him. But not this one. Yes there will be less tax fraud, maybe, and national economic accounting will be simplified for the big federal bankers, but so much more will be lost.

The dollar already comes in many forms: dollar bills, coins, and the virtual. Not many people see writing a check, or transferring money between accounts, as virtual money, but almost never are the real physical bills transported between banks for any one transaction. What these central planners don’t want is a sea of untraceable cash washing around the system. However, it can be argued, it is exactly this cash which kept the whole system afloat during the last banking crisis, the Great Recession, when the banks were bankrupt, so overleveraged with imaginary securities that, under recall, the underlying value was diluted to the point of worthlessness. The government had to make up nearly one trillion dollars to make it all flush. It’s like clockwork. Now go back to the Savings and Loan Scandal. People who still had cash could get by. When there is a “run on the banks” it’s because people want cash. My grandfather told me all about the bank closures during his time. People demanding their money, their cash. 9000 banks failed during the 1930’s.

So much can go wrong in a world without cash. Think about it. What good is a gold coin in crisis? Gold is not a currency. You can’t cut off a piece of it to buy something. Its high value makes it useless. Bitcoins?

Unmanageable. What happens in a world without electricity? Think of Ukraine, a society where 40% of their electric grid has been obliterated by one madman. How can credit cards work if there is no electricity? How easy is it for Putin to remove all of Musk’s satellites? One solar flare in the right direction can fry the entire grid and the telecommunications that go with it. Look up the Carrington Event of September 1859. A credit card is reduced to exactly what it is, a piece of worthless plastic. Have a ten-dollar bill, on the other hand, and maybe I’ll sell you some honey, or a bag of garlic.