Thin end of the wedge

[onetrack]

On the subject of numeric illiteracy, a couple of instances come to mind.

 

One - an old Indigenous woman, a truly tribal Aboriginal woman, fronted the Lotto counter in a Kalgoorlie newsagency with a winning "Scratchie" lottery ticket.

The staff member behind the till was stunned to see the ticket was a Scratchie that had won the major prize - $50,000!

 

Any prizes over $500 here are unable to be paid out in cash by the Lotto retailer, the winner has to either give a bank account and BSB number, and have the payment made into it electronically, or attend the LotteryWest office to collect a cheque.

 

So the staff member was trying to explain to this old Indigenous woman that she couldn't pay her her prize money - which the old Aboriginal lady thought, was just $5.00!! She only recognised the dollar sign and the "5" in the figures.

She started to get angry and abusive, saying, "You gimme my fibe dollar now, stop trying to steal from me!"

 

This went on for quite a few minutes until staff were able to make her understand she'd won a lot more than $5, and she had to wait for the money to be paid from LotteryWest head office.

I guess part of the problem too, was that like many "bush" Aboriginals their concept of time is different from whites, and with their child-like outlook, they want instant gratification.

 

And Two - I used to totally flummox youngsters on tills when I bought something for say, $1.30 - and having inadequate small change on me, I'd give them a $10 note and 30 cents in coins.

They would be absolutely stunned trying to figure out what I had done, what I wanted to do, and how much change was needed.

 

Some would wake up to the answer technologically with the more advanced tills, and punch "$10.30" into the till, whereby the correct change figure of $9.00 would appear for them.

But a lot would still be confused and apprehensive as they tried to mentally calculate the change. What a difference between modern education methods and the ones drilled into us!!

[old man emu]

6 minutes ago, onetrack said:

What a difference between modern education methods and the ones drilled into us!!

And we learned to make change  of pounds, shillings and pence in our heads.

[red750]

Think of how many businesses now rely on self-serve registers - Coles, Woolies, Bunnings, KMart, Target, etc. etc. And 75%of them are Card Only.

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

I wanted to infer that people would abandon supermarkets because of the inconveniences you point out, and go to the small retailer whose business inventory control did not rely on digital inputs.

It would be good if we could economically shop more with those small retailers. One problem is the small retailers who can trade in cash in a digital outing are getting smaller and smaller. One of the local health food stores I go to has signs up actively promoting the use of cash. Their theory is if we don't use it, we'll lose it.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Also, it is easier to hide from the ATO. I knew a cash business owner who's motto was declare enough not to raise a suspicion.

 

There is a Chinesse takeaway not far from here and they only take cash. These are often high-margin family owned and operated (as in most of the family work in the business). Can easily hide moeny and make enough money to let the Revenue think they are declaring more or less the right amounts. All orders and receipts are hand written - no computers withon coo-wee of their business.

 

I am not, by the way, suggesting they are fiddling the books; they may prefer to take all of their revenue then hand it off to the banks (which is sort of a furphy because banks here do charge businesses for more than a token number of cash deposits/withdrawals at the bank itself.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

Alert!

 

I am not saying that our entire digital world is hanging by a fraying thread.

 

I am suggesting  that there are a couple of unlikely digital world failure events that could, in the worst case, paralyse our economy.

 

And I cannot see a disaster management plan to deal with it, otherwise  the Optus outage would have been  mitigated promptly.

 

Cash as a fallback would be nice, but many businesses already prefer to close the door snd go home if the EFT system goes down.

[Marty_d]

It's a free market thing. The cost of doing things properly - security, purging unused personal details, backing up,  proper software deployment to name a few - may cause a dollar less to the shareholders dividend so a "risk assessment" is probably undertaken and these extra costs avoided. 

But hey, the market is always right isn't it? Especially when companies are "too big to fail" so governments will chip in with good ol' upper class welfare when it all goes wrong.

[facthunter]

If there's a way to screw you they will try it someway, especially if some kind of monopoly exists. Why do Bank CEO"S get paid so much? Large cash flows make it easy to talk about small %'s but that is what they do and most of it is digitally done. You don't need tall buildings in the most expensive Part of Capital cities and secure Bank Vaults.  Nev

[red750]

Some bank CEO's, if not all, have their head up their clacker. A couple who have defended their bank's high profits, claiming customers are not doing it so tough.

[facthunter]

Interest Rates are a problem but the Banks "self Interest" is worse. Record profits at the worst possible time. Nev

[red750]

[nomadpete]

My egg supplier is strictly cash only.

 

They don't put EFT POS machines on roadside honesty boxes......

 

Yet

[facthunter]

Most of them work for chicken feed.  Nev

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Most of them work for chicken feed.  Nev

 

That's the cluck of the game.

[Marty_d]

We've got to beat the crows in order to get eggs.  I swear the buggers swoop in 2 seconds after the chook stops cackling.

[onetrack]

Stepdaughter and her partner built a "Chicken Taj Mahal". It's roofed, the mesh is buried 500mm into the ground, it's possum proof, fox-proof, and hawk and crow proof.

The only problem stepdaughter found, was she left the chook pen door ajar during the day when the chooks were free-ranging, and a bobtail goanna (blue tongue skink) walked into the chook pen and started helping himself to chook scraps, such as old cabbage! She turfed him out and locks the door now. He was probably heading for the eggs, but got distracted.

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

I absolutely love chickens.. we are having a chicken roast today. Boom-boom..

 

Seriously, we inherited some when we took our smallholding and they are great pets, produce food without having to kill them and cheap as chips to run. If we needed to replace any, a trip to the battery hen farm up the road - $1 per checken - still laying.. picked and scrawny, but after a week or so, filled out and the eggs were yummy.

 

Sadly, there is a covenant on the current property that forbids livestock, of which chickens are classed.

[spacesailor]

WELL , I and a lot of other's ( lots of customers ) went to the bank to Fill our pockets with . ' CASH ' .

Then went and spent heaps at Aldi's by way of '' EFTPOS '' .LoL

spacesailor

[red750]

It occurred to me today when I was preparing to go to the fete (see my post in the Random Thoughts thread), that such functions would be greatly inconvenienced by a cashless society. Although the hamburger stall had a tap and go machine, I doubt that smaller stalls such as hot chips, jams and preserves, used book stall, kids bouncing castle, lob-a-chock (toss a small hoop over a block of chocolate to win it), and the like would each have a tap and go machine. There were usually 35 - 40 stalls in operation on the day. Smaller fetes at other parishes and schools would find it harder. A large percentage of the patrons are primary school kids who wouldn't have credit or eftpos cards. Who would want to use a card for a $2 cup of hot chips?

 

I worked in the counting room at the fete tallying stall takings for 20 odd years prior to the pandemic, haven't done so since. In those days, daily takings of up to $50,000 were not uncommon, and that was prior to inflation. Heaven only knows what it is these days. 

[facthunter]

It's a great betrayal to deny us the use of cash. The banks will love it so that's proof it's a bad idea.  THEY have a vested Interest. Nev

[old man emu]

I filled my car today. As I was doing it I read the notice on the pump that said what the surcharge would be for using certain cards, like American Express, Fleet Card etc as well as Visa and Mastercard. The notice said that there would be no surcharge for Visa and Mastercard. We all know that every transaction on those cards has been coping  a surcharge for a couple of months now. Should I threaten the petrol station with a visit from Fair Trading if I find that there was a charge for using my Visa card?

[facthunter]

Depends on whether you consider it as the most pressing of the Injustices that merit your attention and if you think your intervention will have any effect. What you walk past, in a sense, you accept. Someone should do it. Maybe you are THE MAN on this occasion.   Nev

[old man emu]

9 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Depends on whether you consider it as the most pressing of the Injustices that merit your attention and if you think your intervention will have any effect. What you walk past, in a sense, you accept. Someone should do it. Maybe you are THE MAN on this occasion.   Nev

Those notices have been on the pumps for donkeys' years. I realise that they were probably never noted in the past by users of the fuel cards (or had obtained the information from the card's Ts&Cs. I only made the comment to rotate the fundament.

[red750]

The thin end of the wedge cuts a little deeper. You used to be able to go to a self serve checkout at Woolies and simply draw cash. With more and more people using cards, this has put a strain on the cash out machines receiving cash. You can still withdraw up to $200, but now you must make a purchase. Cash out only has been withdrawn. Closing bank branches, disappearing ATM's and closing post offices is making it harder to get cash. This just tightens the screws just that little bit tighter. There is no minimum purchase (as yet), so you can buy a Kit Kat and draw $200, but for how much longer?

[facthunter]

The BANKS want complete control. Just cream of a % tage and no one will mind. Suckers We'll donate to both Party's Nev