Today, I hired an independent researcher to do some legal consulting for me. We agreed on a $100 "detainer". Since I began checking out of the system in 2009, and mainly to avoid any more contact with the IRS, I stopped doing business with all banks. I don't have any bank accounts of any kind, no credit cards, and I don't even have a debit card through services like PayPal because they're all tied in to the same corrupt banking system, and the IRS can (and most likely will) find you or at least your money by data mining your banking records. So to eliminate this attack vector I primarily operate with United States Notes (better known to the sheep as Federal Reserve Notes), i.e. cash. So to pay the detainer should have been a simple matter of running over and depositing a $100 note into my researcher's account at my local Chase Bank branch. Nope.
When I got there, the teller informed me that Chase does not accept cash deposits. The funds had to be in the form of a check or they could do a debit or an advance on a debit/credit card. I told her I thought that was a very silly policy and she gave me one of those, "Oh well, fuck you" smiles. This was actually in the news last year, and Chase's official policy is here [7]. The reason they give for this is: "We’re trying to do more to combat money laundering and other criminal activities", which is banker euphemism for "We're slowly phasing out cash from society to make it easier to control and manipulate all of you serfs MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I inquired if Chase would accept a post office money order, and she replied in the affirmative. Haha, bitch, the day is mine!
In the years since I went all cash, I've learned a few tricks and "backdoors" to still get paid for the particular expertise I dispense for money and to also pay for services where a check is required. Of course there are gift cards issued by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc., which act in most cases like normal credit cards. But in fact once you register the card you have opened a bank account with the issuing bank. The fact that you had to provide a Social Security Number to register the card should have clued you in (read the fine print on the bottom of the page here [8]; note "Green Dot Bank ... Member FDIC"). You can use these cards for up to 2 weeks as a straight debit card without registering (at least that was the case when I experimented with a WalMart MoneyCard using the Green Dot Bank network). After that, you won't be able to use it until you register it (with a SSN) or else you can return it and have the balance refunded. If you are going to use a gift card, I suggest getting one of the above mentioned and using it up within the registration grace period, or get a speficially non-reloadable gift card (edit: which do not require registration with SSN) that expires once it's depleted (i.e. it's more like actual cash, and if you lose it, you lost it). However, unless I want to order something online or make a reservation that requires some sort of credit card, I prefer to stay away from the banks altogether and use US Postal Service Money Orders.
First of all, the post office has an interesting history in the United States, and although the modern United States Postal Service is officially "an independent establishment of the executive branch" (see 39 U.S.C. § 201 [9]) it actually rests in its own jurisdiction. I can't get into the intricacies of what this all means (primarily because I haven't researched it all out myself), but I do know that USPS Money Orders are not governed by the same laws that govern, say, national banks, or even money orders issued by independent operators. For example, I can walk into a post office and purchase a money order up to a denomination of $2,000.00 for a fee of $1.60 (or up to $500.00 for $1.25). I don't have to present anything other than the order and the cash. No ID is required. The clerk takes the money and your fee, makes up the money order, and hands it back to you, blank except for the imprinted amount. Whereas, if you were to purchase a money order from e.g. a grocery store, as of a few years ago you are now required to present ID, which is recorded in some fashion (to prevent fraud and thwart terrorism, of course). In other words, it's still tied in with the banking system, and subject to banking laws.
As mentioned, the USPS money order is blank and it's up to you to fill it out. If you want you can just leave it blank and hold it indefinitely as cash; when you want to spend it you fill it out to yourself and cash it. Or you can spend it as cash with anyone who will accept it (think precious metals dealers, people). You can fill it out, or just hand it to them and let them fill it out, and get any change coming back in cash. The best part is you don't need a bank account to cash them; you can simply go to any post office, present it for payment (with ID), and you get handed back a pile of notes and coins. Now, this isn't always fullproof: sometimes the teller doesn't have the cash at hand to cash out your entire money order if it's particularly large, so you will either have to go at the end of the day when their coffers are filled or find a post office that does more volume and therefore will have more cash on hand. It's a pain when they don't have enough money to cover the instrument; to me that's fraud, or more specifically check-kiting (try using the "Oh well, sorry!" excuse yourself when you bounce a check and see what happens). I've tried yelling at the staff and complaining to the Postmaster General, but there's really not much you can do other than sue in court...an interesting proposition, and one I would like to research some other time when I don't have so many fires already raging. At any rate, it's a reasonable trade-off for being free from the banksters and their shitty, almost arbitrary and capricious anonimity-assaulting rules. Also, there's never a fee to cash the money order, whereas most banks charge a $5-$10 fee for cashing a check drawn on the bank for non-account holders.
So continuing my saga, off I went to the post office to exchange the piece of paper I had in my pocket for another piece of paper that Chase bank would be happy to accept (after having to wait in line for half an hour; ironically I had a $900 money order waiting for me at my mail pick-up but I wasn't able to cash it on the spot because it was still too early in the day :\). I then went back over to Chase and handed them the money order, my anonimity and freedom preserved, and my researcher paid. My time wasted.
I wanted to write about this in the same way I wrote about the shantytowns popping up in Stockton, California [10]. It's one thing to talk about it, and in the case of the looming cashless society, to piss and moan over it, but when it actually arrives in the form of a small incremental move like the above, and it confronts you, it is prudent to take heed. This is a harbinger of the cashless society that is slowly creeping over us. The clock is ticking. Take advantage of it while you can, because once it's gone, so is another aspect of our freedom. And unless an alternative currency not controlled by any particular government comes to the fore, or precious metals make a big comeback as currency, or barter returns to local communities as a big aspect of our local economies again, or perhaps some new currency spontaneously pops up in some part of the country or world that takes off organically, unless something replaces the relatively free currency we have presently, we will have lost forever a fundamental aspect of our freedom. If even our petit spending money on things like a quick snack at the gas station on the way home or an eighth of weed from your local dealer is controlled by international banksters, how free can you really be? If you don't have the credits to even pay for a drink because the government cut you off for not being patriotic enough--if you don't have the mark--what will you do?
I am Chumbawamba.