The Treasury may be printing fewer dollars, but I’m going all cash.
by Brett Arends
The dollar bill needs you.
A growing number of merchants won’t accept cash anymore. That includes a lot of airlines, which insist you pay by credit card if you want to buy a drink or a sandwich on board. And now comes news that the U.S. Treasury is printing fewer dollars, as we move towards an all-plastic economy.
Great news for the banks. Great news for the card companies. Great news for the marketing establishment, which can now pore through our transactions and our personal lives in greater and greater detail.Me? Call me a contrarian, or just call me ornery, but I view this with gloom. This not a step forward. It’s a step backwards. Personally, I’ve been moving the other way. I’ve cut down on my use of credit cards and debit cards. The latest news is the final push I needed to get them out of my life completely. I’m going all cash.