In A Cashless Economy, Your Money’s Never Idle Money
By Lauren Wright
ActivistPost.com
APRIL 13, 2017
The global financial crisis opened the world’s eyes on how dependent we were on the big banks. Today, we could be held as much hostage to the banking system as we were before, if not much more. As several countries push for a dematerialization of payment means, have we already forgotten the lessons learned after the crash?
Many of the major banks in the U.S or in Europe still haven’t recovered fully from the multiple crashes and the collapse that shattered the system worldwide. At the time, many citizens realized how fragile the banking system was and they lost their trust. After Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy many swore that never again they would allow the banks to play with their money like they had in the past. At the time, masses of several countries rushed to their banks to withdraw their assets and keep it in the form that seemed safer to them: cash.
Today, however, the prophets of media and governments around the world have asked us to start saying goodbye to physical money. They want to go cash-free. The idea seems wonderful, no more heavy coins in our pockets and no more ‘cling cling’ sound from the laundry machine. Instead of it; cards, mobile wallets, e-payment systems. We would live in societies where all of our assets are kept in banks, but not physically.
“When we deposit money in a bank, we are making a loan”(1) says Anat R. Admati professor of finance and economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, had $2.4 trillion in assets as of June 30, and debts of $2.2 trillion: $1.2 trillion in deposits and $1 trillion in other debt. It was notable for surviving the crisis, but no bank that is so heavily indebted can be considered truly safe (…) outside of banking, healthy corporations rarely carry debts totaling more than 70 percent of their assets. Many thriving corporations borrow very little,” he added.
After the crisis we received implicit guarantees from governments that the banks would not be allowed to continue such practices. Today “the tendency is go the same way that we were going before but with some speed limits” says Stephen Olaffson, professor at the University of Reykjavik.
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