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Life imitating art

Just like the Visa commercial depicted below, the seemingly efficiently flowing checkout line, Edie and I were standing in at our local Costco today, came to an abrupt stop, when the couple in front of us, decided they would pay cash for a $900 Visio LCD TV.



Now while these people did not appear to be criminals or otherwise trying to evade paying taxes, non the less, when someone pays cash for a TV worth $900, it sure raises suspicion with me.

It obviously raised suspicion with the Costco personnel as well, since the cashier had to call for a supervisor to approve the transaction.  Not only that, but the cashier inspected each bill to ensure it wasn't counterfeit, after which both individuals (the cashier and supervisor), counted the payment at least 3 times, to be certain of its accuracy. Then the cashier had to close his register, while the supervisor collected the cash to transfer off the floor, before reopening the register, to check out customers in what now had become a pretty substantial line.

Haven't these people ever heard of a credit card? You get to use the banks money, at least for a little while for free, and many times you get points which can be exchanged for cash, trips and many other different things.

I just don't understand why the government doesn't mandate the use of debit or credit cards.

At a minimum, it would speed things along at the check out counter, do away with the underground economy, make the IRS's job of collecting taxes much simpler, eliminate losses due to counterfeiting, and it would do away with the need for the US Mint, all of which would save the government countless billions of dollars.

It might even save the government enough money to provide health care for everyone living in the US [like in every other civilized country in the world].

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Claude (France) said…
Hi Marc,
I agree fully with you, in France it is worse !
some pay taxes and other throw the money by the windows !
Keep riding,
Claude
6:43 PM
Alan Posner said…
Marc,

While I always use credit cards (for the reason you mentioned), keep in mind that merchants pay the credit card companies 2% on each transaction. Who do you think really pays that 2%? It's an extra 2% tax on the consumer, even if he uses cash.

Bottom line is that the Credit Card companies are sucking 2% of our consumer economy.

Alan
9:14 PM
Becky said…
I always use cash at Independent Stores for books, music or yarn, or write a check rather than use my debit card. And when John does a side for someone that we don't know very well, we cash the check at the bank where the check was issues from and then just use the cash. It's a pain in the butt to go inside TWO banks and I don't trust an ATM with large sums of cash. Some people have bad credit and don't have credit cards and some people like my mother buys everything with cash because she doesn't believe in credit cards. You should have seen the greenhorn salesman when she paid cash for a brand new car.
3:21 AM
Marc said…
Alan, while I do agree there is a direct cost to the price of goods, the indirect benefit received from the elimination of the untold billions of unpaid taxes, due to the underground economy, and the elimination of losses by businesses due to counterfeiting, far out weighs any such cost impact.
4:30 AM
Marc said…
Oh yeah and Becky, if we did away with cash, John wouldn't have to cash a check, the money would just automatically be deposited in to your account, and you wouldn't even have to go to one bank.

It will eventually happen, just probably not in my lifetime.
6:00 AM
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