Posted on 10/20/2011 2:52:25 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Cold hard cash. It's good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything.
But that's not the case here in Louisiana now. It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session.
House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don't even know about it.
"We're gonna lose a lot of business," says Danny Guidry, who owns the Pioneer Trading Post in Lafayette. He deals in buying and selling unique second hand items.
"We don't want this cash transaction to be taken away from us. It's an everyday transaction," Guidry explains.
Guidry says, "I think everyone in this business once they find out about it. They're will definitely be a lot of uproar."
The law states those who buy or sell second hand goods are prohibited from using cash. State representative Rickey Hardy co-authored the bill.
Hardy says, "they give a check or a cashiers money order, or electronic one of those three mechanisms is used."
Hardy says the bill is targeted at criminals who steal anything from copper to televisions, and sell them for a quick buck. Having a paper trail will make it easier for law enforcement.
"It's a mechanism to be used so the police department has something to go on and have a lead," explains Hardy.
Guidry feels his store shouldn't have to change it's ways of doing business, because he may possibly buy or sell stolen goods. Something he says has happened once in his eight years.
"We are being targeted for something we shouldn't be."
Besides non-profit resellers like Goodwill, and garage sales, the language of the bill encompasses stores like the Pioneer Trading Post and flea markets.
Lawyer Thad Ackel Jr. feels the passage of this bill begins a slippery slope for economic freedom in the state.
"The government is placing a significant restriction on individuals transacting in their own private property," says Ackel.
Pawn shops have been forced to keep records of their clients for years. However under this bill they are still allowed to deal in cash.
The article states that garage sales are exempt.
I’m not stupid and you made me cry..
I would just like to see criminal activity stop.
With all this talk about 9-9-9, and tax fairness,
and everyone on freerepublic so angry over all
the injustice that occurs (money for shady deals slipping through everyone’s hands, illigals that don’t belong here,
people driving in escalades getting food stamps,
people on disability walking around without a care,etc.)
I liked the concept of no money. Let me clarify, I don’t agree with this law for just this state and this
business ONLY. If something like this is done - then it’s
done for ALL.
I am freedom loving and JUSTICE FOR ALL...
Our financial system is corrupt and needs changing.
How are we going to get a handle on it?
Get your first cup of coffee and give me your idea.
Numbers are the only way for accoutability. If you
don’t keep track of things then there will never be justice.
Very soon the definition of “dumb” will be “citizens who pay taxes”...
I’m confused. My money says “This Note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”
How can a state law over rule a US law?
No one wants to make anyone cry
However you support something that makes people less free. When the governoment has total controll of monies, there are no freedoms. We are heading into totalitarian govenment at warp speed. You are willing to give up basic freedoms and criminalize what is now normal in some perverse idea of freedom.
Freedom is freedom from being watched, good or bad.
Freedom does come with some downsides, but it is freedom. And that is worth it. One does not have to criminalize everyone in order to catch graft and dishonesty. What you do not understand is that our government does not want to catch the welfare queens and grafters at all levels. The government is corrupted and one does not give the corrupt more power.
I’m just trying to think outside the “corrupt box”.
Just for fun play along and imagine no cash.
It would only make the dishonest less free.
Drug dealers, hookers, pimps, government, big business,
illegals - how are they going to make transactions?
Let’s say I make 40K, and whatever I purchase is done
through my card (housing,food,utilities,flea markets,etc),
how does that change government controlling my money?
It doesn’t.
Now think about those dishonest people out there.
They buy the escalades and big ticket items and it’s
cross referenced at tax time (oh, that person is unemployed,
or they are an illegal, or congressman so and so didn’t
make that much to afford the house on the beach, etc..)
When you said, “When the government has total control of
monies, there are no freedoms”. That is exactly right, and
that is what they have now, thus our totalitarian government
at warp speed. This is why we the people need to set up,
better control and accoutability of dishonest, corrupt transactions. I want freedom from injustice...
I would like to see cash go away
What happens when you lose your card?
If I lost my cash on the street, someone bends down and picks it up “Oh happy days”.
If I lost my card, which by the way would have my picture
ID on it, with multiple passwords for access - oh well,
good luck with that...
Later during that segment they said two Tea Party senators joined on this. I thought they said it was an unlikely pairing, but that doesn't make sense. Last name of Lee, I don't recall the other one.
Yeah I couldn't believe it either!
because the government can track you and track what you do. Good or bad. Freedom is about not being watched. Freedom is about having privacy.
Some people may do bad things with privacy, but not most. I refuse to be treated like a criminal becasue there are criminals. Bad people will always get theirs. EBT is all graft and yet that is tracked the way you say you want things to be tracked.
There is no freedom from injustice, instead it is just a different injustice.
So....in your world, the neighbor kid I give a $10 bill to to cut my grass is going to need a credit card reader? Or should I just go to the store and get a money order every time I want him to do some yardwork?
Debit card transaction: $0.22 (was $0.44, difference in process of being recovered)
Credit card transaction: 3%
Square transaction: 2.75% + cc transaction
(”Square” is the cheapest & easiest no-brainer no-extra-cost way for individuals & very small businesses to accept “plastic” payments.)
Buyer: “I’d like to buy that widget.”
Seller: “OK!” [hands over widget] “You owe me $X.”
There you go. It’s a debt, buyer owes seller something.
The seller may refuse cash, but the government can’t say he cannot accept cash if he will accept it.
A similar time ago, I tried to pay my property tax with cash. They refused, saying if I wanted to pay cash I’d have to take it to bank XYZ. I refused, saying I had no business with that bank, only with the municipality. If they were to refuse my cash payment, they would need to issue me a written statement of the reason (I noted that I could lose my home if they refused payment).
They took the cash.
Last year it was discovered that a billion dollars' worth of $100 bills were defective (very subtle defect, but significant once you figured it out). Frantic re-printing followed.
Semi-precious metals would indeed become currency there & then.
Just like they did with gold. Made an alternative so convenient, and the “good money” so inconvenient, that nigh unto nobody noticed when the “good money” disappeared.
Ya know, makes me think that may be one reason for the legislated reduction in debit card fees to $0.22 from $0.4X: the cheaper they make transactions, the easier to persuade people to use virtual money and abandon physical cash.
You miss the point: you lose your card, YOU as a legal entity are lost. The physical you become an anonymous, unregistered, illegal being. You cannot so much as buy a bottle of water without proving your identity to a government bureaucrat following a litany of arbitrary rules for issuing a new card; you might not be detained (but you might “for your own good”), but you become dysfunctional in society.
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