David Wolman – The End of Money

domenica, 24 giugno 2012 — borislimpopo

Wolman, David (2012). The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers – and the Coming Cashless Society. Boston: Da Capo Press. 2012. ISBN 9780306819469. Pagine 240. 12,83 €

The End of Money

ebooksreview.org

Una delle prime cose da dire su questo libro, è che il titolo è un po’ fuorviante. Non si dovrebbe chiamare The End of Money, ma The End of Cash – Non La fine del denaro, ma La fine del contante: questo è quello che l’autore ha fatto (con successo quasi totale) per un anno intero, e questo è il tema che sviluppa nei diversi capitoli.

C’è un sentore di gonzo journalism nel libro: ogni capitolo è segnato dall’incontro con un personaggio, spesso (ma non sempre) un estremista fanatico, detrattore o profeta di un futuro senza contante. A tratti, David Wolman sembra un Hunter S. Thompson senza additivi chimici.

Direi che è piuttosto chiaro che a Wolman il contante non piace – è proprio la fisicità del danaro che gli fa un po’ schifo. A me fa venire in mente un carissimo zio, morto ahimè da quasi vent’anni, che faceva il farmacista in un paese della bassa, che raccontava che la sera del martedì, giorno di mercato, giorno dunque di massimo affollamento della farmacia e dunque di maggiore incasso, gli piaceva prendere dal cassetto le banconote stropicciate e aspirarne l’odore. «Puzzano proprio di merda,» mi diceva, tutto compiaciuto (perché a lui i soldi piacevano anche nella loro materialità). E non pensava certo a Freud (che sicuramente non aveva letto) e nemmeno alla ragione più ovvia (quelle mani di allevatori che le avevano toccate mandavano un inesorabile odore di merda di vacca e concime, che non andava via neppure dopo accurati lavacri): pensava piuttosto a un mistico richiamo allo “sterco del diavolo” della tradizione cristiana (anche se mi sembra che sia una definizione di Martin Lutero).

Scrooge McDuck

wikipedia.org

Il libro di Wolman è piacevole e si fa leggere volentieri (qualche momento di stanchezza e qualche ripetizione c’è, a ricordarti che l’industria culturale statunitense ha delle regole inesorabili).

L’elemento di maggior interesse, per noi, è che contribuisce a chiarire i termini del dibattito che in Italia si è aperto quando il governo Monti ha (re)introdotto un tetto alle transazioni in contanti, che il governo Berlusconi aveva invece innalzato (una dei primissimi provvedimenti dopo essere tornato al potere nel 2008 dopo la breve parentesi di Prodi). Naturalmente – in Italia come negli Stati Uniti – un cavallo di battaglia della destra è che il contante è libertà economica (e anzi libertà tout court, quanto meno nell’accezione di “libertà di fare quello che ci pare e piace”) e che gli altri mezzi di pagamento, più agevolmente “tracciabili”, sono un gravame sul libero scambio e soprattutto un’incarnazione tra le più odiose del “grande fratello” nella sua versione stalinista. [Dave Birch, direttore di Hyperion Consulting ed evangelista delle transazioni elettroniche, dice la parola definitiva sull’argomento: «People say anonymity is an advantage of cash, but what they really want is privacy.»]

[Va da sé che stiamo anche sommersi dalla fuffa e dalle lacrime di coccodrillo: tutto per farci credere che le vere vittime delle restrizioni nell’uso del contante erano i pensionati. Mentre Wolfan ci illustra molto chiaramente che in realtà il contante è un nemico dei poveri – lo chiarisce molto bene nella video-intervista che riporto sotto.]

Una seconda, apparentemente più meditata, linea di opposizione a ogni limitazione delle transazioni in contanti faceva leva sull’argomentazione che i mezzi di pagamento digitali costano: il riferimento era, per esempio, alle commissioni bancarie e a quelle applicate alle transazioni con le carte di credito. E naturalmente, la confusione (e non si sa mai se creata ad arte, per influenzare il popolo bue e ignorante, o se veramente i nostri giornalisti e politici sono così sprovveduti) era tra i costi e i benefici economici, e tra chi li pagava e ne godeva. Perché il costo delle commissioni è il risultato della forza contrattuale relativa della banca o dell’operatore finanziario, da una parte, e del cittadino o dell’impresa, dall’altra. Mentre il costo “reale” dell’uso del contante sopportato dall’economia e dalla società nel loro complesso è molto elevato. Wolman lo spiega molto bene in questa conversazione pubblicata da Gizmodo (Let’s Kill Cash: Q&A With Author David Wolman on Our Moneyless Future):

Everyone always thinks cash is cheap and fast and safe. It’s not cheap, and it’s not fast, and it’s not safe!
It can seem to be fast. If I owe you a ten dollars lunch and we’re sitting right there, and I give you the ten dollar bill, that is fast. But if you unpack that a little, to do that you have to make that ten available in an ATM from which you withdrew it, you have to secure the building that has that ATM and to make sure that money is circulating back to a place where it can be inspected so ensure it’s not deteriorated too much and has to be pulled from circulation. Every concentric circle outward, there are all these greater and greater costs. Distributing, inspecting, securing, reinspecting, threading, reissuing. And then eight years later, say we need some souped up security features. So let’s redesign and then we can reissue and reprint and reinspect and ship it all out again in our Belgian cash trucks. It’s one of those things—and that was why I wanted to do this project and the kind of writing I’m excited about—that’s staring you in the face and hiding in plain sight.

E per chi vuole approfondire l’argomento, segnalo l’articolo del 2004 di Daniel D. Garcia Swartz, Robert W. Hahn e Anne Layne-Ferrar, The Economics of a Cashless Society: An Analysis of the Costs and Benefits of Payment Instruments.

Se volete vedere che faccia ha David Wolman, ecco una sua intervista di presentazione del libro:

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Qualche citazione. Il riferimento è come di consueto alle posizioni sul Kindle:

In God we better trust. [399]

Cash is a black hole for tax revenue. [854]

Noncompliance, or taxes not paid, can result from underreporting (accidental or intentional), underpayment (accidental or intentional), and nonfiling (accidental or intentional […] [876]

The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2010: “Gangsters, drug dealers and money launderers appear to be playing their part in helping shore up the financial stability of the euro zone. That is thanks to their demand, according to European authorities, for high-denomination euro bank notes, in particular the €200 and €500 bills. The European Central Bank issues these notes for a hefty profit that is welcome at a time when its response to the financial crisis has called its financial strength into question.” Banking executives as mainstream as Citigroup’s chief economist have taken note of the euro’s role as “currency of choice for underground and black economies.” [922]

One such forger was William Chaloner, an enterprising seventeenth-century British charlatan and sex-toy salesman. After his capture and conviction by Sir Isaac Newton, then head of the Royal Mint, Chaloner was hanged, drawn, and quartered. [1009]

That warring countries try to exploit paper money’s fragile worth is a reminder that without a supply of authentic cash—and trust in it—countries fall apart. Most money may be digital nowadays, but I don’t think anyone wants to run the experiment of obliterating the integrity of the greenback with a massive flood of fakes to see just how uncritical paper money’s trustworthiness has become. Do we really want to eliminate one of the last remaining tactile symbols that ties us together as one nation, under God, transacting peacefully? [1042]

The technology quest must be fun for the engineers, but I feel sorry for the cops and central bankers who have to spend their careers speaking out of both sides of their mouths. They have to make us simultaneously vigilant about counterfeits and ignorant of them. Put another way: Please keep a sharp eye out for this threat, even though it isn’t a threat because we have everything under control. Our currency is totally trustworthy. [1284]

A tax incorporated into a price tag on supermarket shelves makes us more frugal, whereas an equivalent tax added at checkout is virtually ignored. [1431]

Cash and electronic money may both be liquid, but they differ in their degree of slipperiness […] [1453]

Words, a dictionary editor once told me, are a palimpsest. Their etymologies contain the shadows of words and people from ages past. [1707]

Money and currency don’t discriminate between what we might describe as real versus virtual currencies, the way an online avatar is virtual but a hole in your roof is real. Currency is simply that which is accepted as payment, and its legitimacy and global reach is only limited by the extent of that acceptability. [2199]

[…] money is really more like a verb than a noun […] [2249]

People say anonymity is an advantage of cash, but what they really want is privacy. [2915]

There is no perfect equilibrium between the individual need for privacy and government interest in information. The best we can do is try to engineer systems that are as fair as possible and chockablock with checks and balances. [2932]

C’è anche qualche buffo errore (Caucuses per Caucasus [1655]) e qualche curiosità che fa sorridere (i figli di Bernard von NotHaus si chiamano Random e Xtra! [1981]), ma anche qualche errore un po’ più grave: “100 kWh is how much energy you need – exactly – to keep a 100-watt light bulb illuminated for 100 hours.” [2123: spiacente, per 1000 ore!]

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Anche in questo caso ho “curato” una pagina di recensioni del libro su Scoop.it – The End of Money.

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La fine del contante

martedì, 13 marzo 2012 — borislimpopo

Tra le misure del Governo Monti c’è il divieto di usare denaro contante per le transazioni economiche al di sopra di una certa soglia, più bassa che in passato. La cosa ha fatto e fa discutere: da una parte, la destra più radicale sostiene che in questo modo si riduce la libertà economica, anzi la libertà tout court e ci si consegna a uno Stato di polizia (mi sembra che l’abbia detto lo stesso Berlusconi, tra i cui primi atti da presidente del consiglio dei ministri, nel 2006, ci fu quello di alzare la soglia al di sopra della quale non si potevano utilizzare i contanti); dall’altra, ci sono i timori che per questa via si aumentino i poteri e i profitti delle banche.

Negli Stati Uniti David Wolman, un giornalista di Wired, ha vissuto per un anno intero senza utilizzare contanti e ne ha tratto un libro uscito da poco: The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers – and the Coming Cashless Society. Non l’ho ancora letto (benché l’abbia comprato proprio ora), ma la sinossi di Amazon è sufficiente a incuriosire:

For ages, money has meant little metal disks and rectangular slips of paper. Yet the usefulness of physical money—to say nothing of its value—is coming under fire as never before. Intrigued by the distinct possibility that cash will soon disappear, author and Wired contributing editor David Wolman sets out to investigate the future of money … and how it will affect your wallet.
Wolman begins his journey by deciding to shun cash for an entire year—a surprisingly successful experiment (with a couple of notable exceptions). He then ventures forth to find people and technologies that illuminate the road ahead. In Honolulu, he drinks Mai Tais with Bernard von NotHaus, a convicted counterfeiter and alternative-currency evangelist whom government prosecutors have labeled a domestic terrorist. In Tokyo, he sneaks a peek at the latest anti-counterfeiting wizardry, while puzzling over the fact that banknote forgers depend on society’s addiction to cash. In a downtrodden Oregon town, he mingles with obsessive coin collectors—the people who are supposed to love cash the most, yet don’t. And in rural Georgia, he examines why some people feel the end of cash is Armageddon’s warm-up act. After stops at the Digital Money Forum in London and Iceland’s central bank, Wolman flies to Delhi, where he sees first-hand how cash penalizes the poor more than anyone—and how mobile technologies promise to change that.
Told with verve and wit, The End of Money explores an aspect of our daily lives so fundamental that we rarely stop to think about it. You’ll never look at a dollar bill the same again.

The End of Money

amazon.com

Ieri (12 marzo 2012) Davit Sirota, un giornalista di Salon, gli ha fatto una lunga intervista, che trovate per intero al link sottostante. Più sotto, un’anticipazione della parte in  cui affronta le preoccupazioni che hanno accompagnato anche il dibattito italiano sulle scelte del Governo Monti.

Should we fear a cashless society? – U.S. Economy – Salon.com

Should we fear a cashless society?

salon.com / Credit: Repina Valeriya via Shutterstock

One of the arguments against getting rid of cash is that once we become a fully cashless society then basically we have put big corporations even more in the center of our lives. Cash is the one way within our financial architecture to avoid both having our financial transactions skimmed off the top of by credit card companies, and it’s also a way to avoid basic scrutinies of our transactions. How powerful is that argument and will corporate power in a cashless society inevitably be abused?

That’s the central question, and it’s something I address a lot in the book. Some of this has to do with the distinction between what is anonymity and what is privacy. Even though everyone loves cash for the anonymity of it, it’s not really something that goes along with our lives in a modern democracy. There’s nothing that guarantees your anonymity in the Bill of Rights.

So this is the tension between civil liberties and privacy. It’s why we have cameras on subway platforms in case there’s ever a violent crime committed, and I really don’t think there’s a way to dismiss privacy concerns, but most of us think it’s probably okay for law enforcement to have some kind of break-the-glass access to information about who was on that train platform when a crime was committed. It’s the same way we deal with airport securities and on and on it goes.

I’m sensitive to those concerns, but we’ve kind of relinquished so much of our financial lives to the banks and credit card companies already. I don’t say that to say we might as well go the final 2 percent here, I think it’s the other way, that when you talk about cashlesness and finally going 100 percent cashless, you see it kind of brings these fears to the surface in a way that people don’t really think about even though they’re never really using cash.

Though the difference between the train platform metaphor and cashless economy is that you’re making transaction, the train platform is a public piece of property, it is in a place that we acknowledge as public. But lots of people say they don’t want their transactions to be public. Do we have a right to that expectation of privacy?

They say they don’t want transactions to be public, but then when your credit card company calls you to say, “Hey were you in Hong Kong yesterday and did you buy this $12,000 diamond necklace,” and you say, “No, I didn’t.” That intervention is because they were monitoring transactions.

Of course, when we talk about monitoring transactions that’s scary and sort of Big Brothery talk. I’m not excited about that either. But do we want the authorities for example to know that somebody in the mountainous region of Pakistan is suddenly wiring a lot of money to Sacramento? I think that really does matter.

But the bigger question to cashlessness really is the idea that it’s either cash or the credit card companies. I actually think that when we go cashless, people would wake up to this great flowering of payment options that are out there and we’ll be more demanding of the banks and mobile services to lower their fees and provide us with the service we can be confident with. That’s why PayPal was so successful, because they finally convinced people: you can do this securely. It’s not perfect but it’s safe enough that people are game to go along with it or it wouldn’t be the gazillion dollar company that it is today.

So people are seeing options coming. Some are still worried that doing away with cash means enriching the fat cats at Mastercard and Visa, but that’s really a false dichotomy.

Can we ever really get rid of cash in this sense? We call the bills in our wallet cash, but if we immediately eliminated all of that there would still be an economy that existed on other currency — or maybe even bartering.

Cash in this book is rectangular slips of paper and coinage. What you’re talking about is money, and money is an idea.

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