Can the U.S. Go ‘Cashless?’

>> You're used to hearing my voice on the world bringing you interviews from around the globe. >> And you hear me reporting environment and climate news. I'm Carolyn Bealer. >> And I'm Marka Werman, we're now with you hosting the world together. More global journalism with a fresh new sound.

>> Listen to the world on your local public radio station, and wherever you find your podcasts. [MUSIC] >> I haven't slept all the way through the night in almost a year. And it's like really starting to show.

>> So let me go. >> It's adding up. [MUSIC] >> Hello, and welcome to Optimistic Economy. I'm a economist, Katherine Ann Edwards.

>> I'm headed to Robin Rousy. On this show, we believe the U.S. economy can be better. And we talk about how to get there when problem in solution at a time. [MUSIC] >> Today on Optimistic Economy, we're going to talk about who uses Gashny more and why.

And what does that actually tell us? >> I'm wondering how long I can wait until I say Gash is king or something like that. >> Gash is king, babe. >> Just kidding. >> Okay, whoo, it's gone.

Announcements, first of all, I saw this review on Apple Podcast.

It says, I've become a better dinner party slash cocktail party guest.

“Since listening to this podcast, which I think is a great endorsement.”

Also, maybe you go to different parties than I do. I don't know, or maybe nobody else thinks that but her, right? Like, she's a great guest. Maybe he also is like, oh god, this is taking a turn. The damn show again.

>> Exactly. >> So thank you for that review. And also, I want to comment on Spotify. Somebody shared a YouTube video where a tattoo artist was shown pictures of people's tattoos. She was supposed to try to match the person to the tattoo without knowing who had what.

And one of the people had a tattoo of the herf and doll, Hershman index equation on her foot. And it turned out that she was the granddaughter of either herf and doll or Hershman. She didn't say which though the YouTube commenters put their money on Hershman. Anyway, I got that's a deep cut. >> I'll talk about the corners of the internet coming together.

>> Exactly. >> Exactly. >> See, after this, it's a small world after all.

“But there are multiple people commenting, like, who would get the HHI tattooed on her foot?”

I mean, we've talked about getting Bill Croats tattooed. >> Exactly.

>> I was like, this is clearly, we've never clarified, they would be matching Bill Croats tattooed, right?

>> Okay, red gone. We got an email from Katherine and Delaware who noticed that I could not say the word for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Apparently, I said semi-quintennial, but it's actually semi-quincentennial, which is why I'm still going to just call it the 250th anniversary.

>> semi-quincentennial. >> semi-quincentennial. >> It's a shit bummer it's happening right now, right? >> I know. >> I mean, the fourth of July is my favorite holiday, like bar none, it is, and it's not even

that it's my favorite, I think it is the best holiday. >> Really? >> Yeah, thanksgiving. >> Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. >> Thanksgiving is your favorite holiday.

>> There's a lot of food. >> Okay. >> Well, there's a lot of food in my July fourth party. >> A lot of food. >> That might, yeah, no, it's truly like slaughter the fatted calf, our country is easier

holder. >> Yeah. >> It's like birthday party, but no present, it's summertime, you get a burn stuff, because fireworks, it's awesome.

“>> Okay, terms and conditions, Katherine, did you look up anything this week?”

>> No, you don't really hold down the first half of the show.

>> You know, it's funny, we were off recording last week, and now I'm just like, I don't know. One week at the crew, I'm like, who am I, who are you, what is it count of me? >> What optimists, I just, I looked at this thing that I read about, called Czechs systems. So Czechs systems is like a credit bureau, credit reporting specifically for bank accounts. And so it's a central database to verify, all sorts of personal information related to

your banking history. And I think this is where you can also get sort of blacklisted from opening a bank account, and I didn't realize that that was separate from Equifax and tier W and the other credit reporting agencies. >> Yes, I mean, I think one term in condition for the show this week would be unbanked,

But it's practically speaking, it means that it's high use of alternative financial services and alternative financial products. So alternative financial products, alternative financial services, you know, you don't deposit cash in a bank, you don't withdraw from a bank, you go to a Czech casher, you go to a pawn broker, you go to a payday lender, these are not banks, but they perform financial services,

and that only people who go to them are people who are somehow frosted out of the banking system and unbanked and use of really not great financial products tend to be synonymous, even though technically they're two different things.

“>> Did you say frosted out of the banking for frosted out?”

>> Frosted out. >> Yeah, it's a technical term, you got iced out by the bank, you system frosted out. I don't know the words I say sometimes, believe it or not. >> I think frozen out is frozen out. That makes more sense.

>> We'll be back in just a second for the big pill crow discussion on cash in the unbanked.

>> Are we ready to pill crow, are we ready to pill crow, are we ready to pill crow is such a good motto. >> Now in the verb, now in the verb, I am ready to pill crow. Okay, so I was interested in this topic about our future cashless society, because a listener of the show wrote into, to ask what the ramifications of a cashless society would be.

So I looked up where we are in cash, usage, and I was sort of shocked, frankly, to find out that well, cash, usage had dropped during the pandemic, which is what everybody sort of thinks of, but then it in fact stabilized, and that about 80% of people still carry cash, and then in fact cash hoarding, like people keeping a lot of cash on the house went, has gone up since the pandemic, maybe it's just people feel like they need more cash around

the house, but still, you know, polls show that people really do think that we're headed to a cashless society. Gallup did a poll on this in 2016 and again in 2022, 70% of people under 50 think it's likely that we will be a cashless society in their lifetime, but this would be, this would be a problem, maybe a problem for a lot of people.

Oh, yeah, because outwardly it sounds great, it sounds great, like cash is filthy. We have to pay money to print it.

I dropped cash a lot, so always I pull a phone out of my pocket, whatever cash was in there,

goes flying. Yeah, yeah, there's truly no feeling like putting on a clean pair of pants and realizing you left money folded in your pocket and it's been through the washer, the dryer, and it's now crisp and dry, and you find it, and it's like money found money is free money, even if it was your money the whole time, right?

“That's a joy that I think I'd love other people to experience, even if it's like a dollar,”

it's just like, "Oh, my money!" But it's also like it's easier to pay, you don't, you don't have to count out your cash, rifle through your cash, carry cash, if you'll say for businesses say that it's safer for them. I mean, it seems like when, when, when, when, when, when, what could possibly be wrong

about not having cash when it is so convenient in so many ways and makes transactions simpler? Yeah. Do you use a lot of cash? I'm just curious.

I'm more or less did stop carrying cash, carrying the pandemic, you know, my cash usage has gone up because I moved back to Houston and my mom lives ten minutes away and she uses cash. So I'll end up with these arrangements of like, all order pizza and she's like, "Oh, well, let me give you money for the pizza and then she gives me cash and I'm like, what

am I going to do?" So you're, you're taking your teenager just getting like, "Allow it's money from your mom, still." Okay. No.

She's paying me back at a good rate. That's hilarious. I actually only get cash out of an ATM at the airport. I think. That's like when I travel, I feel like I should have cash.

And then I often come back with all of it, still in my bag. I've also converted almost entirely to Apple wallet payments and apparently I'm part of the problem. I just knew cash, no problem. I mean, I find this to be really an interesting question.

When you said you want to talk about cash, I was like, "Oh, let's talk about cash because we're not going to talk about cash, actually." And we're going to talk about banking, financial products and financial services, because I don't think there is any harm in the world.

If you decide, I'm never going to use cash again.

“I think the problem is people for whom that doesn't work and why it doesn't work.”

And this is one of these really interesting cases in which you embracing something has no bearing on whether or not it's a good policy overall.

But that's, like, your world's can coexist on some level where you never have to use cash

again, and that doesn't mean that they have to stop using it.

“It's a very, I think it's kind of like the you could coexist, which is why a lot of states”

have had bands on cashless. What is it? Get up, nine states and the District of Columbia have statewide cashless business bands. Yeah, our businesses are not allowed to go cashless. I was just a dodger-stabbing Friday, cashless.

They sent us an email in advance of the game saying, "We do not accept cash." I was like, "Baseball, baseball doesn't accept cash," and actually, you know, who knows if anything's ever going to move forward in Congress ever again. But the payment choice act of 2025, which has 21 bipartisan co-sponsors, you know, would insist that businesses that have a retail, like a brick-and-mortar retail location, take cash

for purchases up to $500, and there are some weird exceptions like you can have a machine that lets them put cash on a card that they can pay with or like an argument. It's like a one-time gift card machine, I don't understand how it has supposed to work.

“But it's interesting because I think you see both sides of this one side is the concern”

for people who are unbanked, but then also I think there's a real concern around privacy that there are people who legitimately don't want their every purchase tracked by financial institutions and credit institutions or the government or the government. So I think the one aspect of it, I think it's just purely like it is a, do you have the right in our economy to choose how you pay for things and what is the mechanism

for turning one of those options off? And it's not so much an endorsement that cash is better, but that choice and agency amongst consumers is better, and this lens sits to a lot of bipartisan support. Sure. But the banking lobby convinced you that we shouldn't be allowed to use cash anymore.

That makes me feel like it has such a long tail because, man, if you don't like banks and you don't like the government, should you be forced to go through a financial institution to be a participant in our economy? Yeah. No, I mean, no.

I mean, yeah, exactly. I'm a green button.

I'm like, I never want to use cash again, but do not, do not tell someone that they have

to go through a bank, it's a fundamental question of how we allow people participate in the economy. And then that fundamental question is meant with a lot of evidence is that the people who would then gatekeep participation in our economy, they're not good. Their track record would be not good.

No, good. I mean, I want to say mixed, but I'm not gonna, because it is a bad track record financial services that go to, especially low income people are bad. You're saying big banks, not necessarily the alternative financial services that you're talking about earlier.

Well, it's cascading issues.

“You need to be able to convert your currency into some type of payment system.”

How do you do that? Well, most of us go to a bank, but what if the bank says we won't take you? Hmm, according to the survey of household economics and decision making, which is put out by the Federal Reserve, 6% of adults are unbanked. And that number's been pretty steady.

It's been steady. According to them, since probably over the last 10 years, it's been relatively steady, and it's a pretty high correlation of being on the black list for unbanking institutions that these are people who have, you know, had too many overdrafts, unstable credits, didn't pay off accounts that had balances owed because of things like overdraft and they're kicked

out of the banking system for a period of time. The cousin of unbanked is called underbanked. A separate survey is put out by the FDIC, which is the survey of the unbanked in the underbanked, and they measure in terms of households, and it's 4.2% of households, which makes sense, underbanked is 14.2%.

So underbanked, meaning you have a bank account, but use alternative financial products and services is roughly three times the unbanked. And it's, I mean, it's not surprising, but your family income is under $25,000 a year. The rate of being unbanked, completely unbanked is 22%, and if your household makes under

basically under $50,000 a year, the unbanked rate is actually still an 8%.

That's problem one, they don't hit everybody. Problem two is that how does it, how does it say this, how does one, so their racist banks

They're regulated to not be racist, but they 100% are, and they, you know, it's, I don't think it's, um, but how do we know? So that they're racist.

“I mean, especially in this day at age where, I mean, you can open a bank account and never”

talk to a human, never step food in a bank.

One way that we see it is the difference in outcomes in terms of what kind of credit you're offered, um, your credit approval rate, your credit denial rate, your total access to credit of black and white people who are very similar incomes. The federal reserve has a survey, the shed, the survey of household economics and decision making, and the shed measures things like, have you ever applied for a credit increase

and were denied? And if you look within income bands, you know, you're still looking at black households that are pulling down $0,000 of $100,000 in their rejection rates, or their denial rate will be much higher than white households. So those are, like, high income people being rejected from credit applications, or, say,

like, making an account, your total credit availability larger, and it's disparate between race, even amongst high income households. So amongst low income households, it's going to be worse, but that's also true with Latino households, right?

“Yes, although the biggest knock in the financial sector is beat a black person.”

So here's a case study that's illustrative. It's 2020, and Congress has passed the paycheck protection program, which is intended

to open up credit, basically a spigot.

The fire hydrant that's pouring water into the street, they are trying to open up credit to small businesses to keep them from going under as the economy comes to a screeching halt. And the paycheck protection program works through existing lending institutions. You do not go to the government for money.

You go to a bank, and the bank opens up a small loan for you, backed through the paycheck protection program. And with the big banks, it went to small banks and so on. So a research and advocacy group called the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, they did a paired test of the PPP loan.

So paired test means you have two people, one black, one white, one in a protected class, one not in a protected class, one gay, one straight. It was developed by HUD. It was called the slam door test for you and send people out into neighborhoods to respond to like four lease signs and see what was the slam door rate of the white person being

given access to the apartment versus the black person having the door slender their face.

This model of slam door test has basically just become much more sophisticated over time.

But the fundamental question that their testing is the same, when two people come to you looking for a service, do you treat them differently based on their race, or their skin color, or their sexual preference, or their gender, or pregnancy status, or what have you. And we conduct these types of tests all the time. So the National Community Reinvestment Coalition had a set of people at the start of the

pandemic, call banks and they were supposed to be small business owners. Yeah, they're given a script of, you know, here is the size of your business. Here is how much money you need. Here's how many people you have on staff. They're basically given a script to follow to say, tell this to the bank.

And they had them, they had half men, half women, half black, half white. And as they point out in the report, most Americans are able to identify based on someone's voice, whether they're black or white. So you have black sounding people calling a bank, and then you have white sounding people calling a bank.

And it is, this is just you pick up the phone and ask a bank. The government is basically giving you money to give to me, which should I ask for. And they were given wildly different advice.

“And I remember these, they're given the prompt of the exact same business with the exact”

same numbers and statistics and then a black man calls and they give him worse advice, even though they're not, the money's not even coming from them. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition has done this type of testing leading up to the pandemic. So they were like ready to go.

Like they spun this research up really quickly on the day sent it out the door. Yeah, I mean, if you were a small business owner with a black voice in 2020, banks were more likely to offer you less loans, smaller loans, tell you to do things like take out a home equity line of credit instead of getting a business loan. I mean, they just got worse advice.

Oh my god. Yeah. Cremble advice actually, it seems like. Cremble advice in some cases. Cremble advice in some cases.

This is a problem that has exists up and down the financial institutions. So there's some, some of the badness of financial services comes from bad products. Like we don't need to explain to listeners why pay day loans are predatory. Like there are bad products, but then there is bad treatment of people within good products. And so this is like a compounding problem.

You don't serve everyone. You push them towards bad products. You push them towards bad products. Those bad products can be exploitative.

based on non-financial features like their skin. Their race. Their accents. You know, we want to move into a cashless society like who does that give power to? Well, it's Fargo.

Yeah. Bank of America. Yeah.

I mean, I think in, in defense of big banks, words I never thought I'd say aloud, you

know, should they be forced to do business with customers who don't have, you know, regular money to keep in an account or have a history of bouncing checks. Or, I mean, I think that if any of us own a bank, we might be like, well, I don't think that I trust this person because they have a bad history of using credit. No, I actually, I don't think banks should have to serve everybody, not a for-profit,

private bank, because they've proven themselves to be pretty, what is the word I'm looking for? I mean, might even be the right word, opportunistic.

“Why do you need to be charged a $35 fee for going 50 cents into the red in your bank account?”

Right. Right. I mean, it's, it's not necessarily that we should require them to serve those people because they've kind of shown that they will make money off of people's decision-making, you know, good and bad.

And I had a friend who worked for a bank regulator during the Biden administration's, like, let's get rid of junk fees and the banks really took issue for their fees being called junk because they were like, look, we're not charging you $15 to buy an online ticket. Like, they owe us money.

We should be allowed to charge them for that. It's not a junk fee because it's actually associated with particular action that has a cost. No, it does. It costs $35?

No. Yeah. I don't know. There's them over and over and over and over too. Shit.

Should I tell my banking story? I have. There are, like, banks that I, like, I will walk by and, like, you won't even withdraw money from the ATM. I won't.

Oh, my god. Like, I would, like, one day if they go bus, like, I will piss on their grave. Like, I hate. There are certain banks that I hate so much. I mean, it's, what's wild?

Right. So when I was in, I was spending a summer in DC at a paid internship. And I deposited my paycheck on the Friday or Thursday or Friday of a holiday weekend. It was July 4th. Obviously the best day of the year.

Best weekend of the year.

And I'm, this is my first July 4th in DC.

Like, we're going to see fireworks. There's all kinds of fun stuff going on. It's like, America, the weekend. I deposit my paycheck and then the weekend starts.

“And I think, you know, the, the paycheck's like, it's not a lot.”

It's not nothing. I'm proud of myself. But I think I deposit something like 500 bucks. And when I check my balance at the start of the next week, when the holiday is over, I owe the bank $700.

$600. Some, some wild. I mean, like, I was like, wait, is that negative? That's not, no, wait. Because at first I was like, wait, I only put in like 500.

I should have like 700. Like, how did that swing? And what it had happened was that they reordered transactions. So I made a deposit. Right.

And in my timeline, the human timeline that a person goes through, I deposit the money into the bank. Got my little receipts. And then over the next three days, purchase things. We went to museums.

Like, we, you know, like, whatever. I bought small stuff. $2 here, $3 here. $10 here. A movie ticket.

Whatever.

“Um, when they actually processed all the transactions,”

they reordered it so that all of the transactions I had made

before the weekend came first and each incurred a $35 overdraft.

And then the paycheck was the last thing that was deposited. So even though I deposited the paycheck, spent a lot of money over three days and then came back on a Tuesday, they reordered the transactions so as to force me to go into overdraft. It's not like you went into overdraft and they charge you $35 once.

They charge you for $35 for the movie tickets. $35 for the beer and fries. $35 for the parking. I mean, however it's of dollars. Because I mean, this is over a holiday weekend.

I mean, I easily made 20 different transactions over a three day holiday weekend. So I, I went back to the bank and I was like, what on earth did y'all lose the little piece of paper that said I have money? Like, what is happening? They're like, no, that's not us.

Our branch can't do anything. So I had to call the like 1-800 number. This was like a day off of work. Probably an hour for the phone call on seven hours, just a pace. Fear is the finger.

And they were, they were like, you know what? We're going to give you our special one time exception.

And I was like, reorder. I was so mad.

“They got off the phone and I went down to the bank.”

And I was like, give me every dollar in that account. I was unbanked for the rest of the summer. And I operated entirely off of cash because I was so like, I hate banks. I hate the way they treat people.

That's not my only horrible bank story. That was in 2005. I had a similar problem. I moved abroad after I graduated college. So I closed all the bank accounts that I like my primary check-in account before I moved.

I moved to Russia and then I moved to Prague. Well, like, I was like nine months later. My dad calls me.

And he says, you have a third party collection for like over a thousand dollars.

Turns out that the account that I had closed, like two days later a charge hit, you know, because they reorder and pause transactions. A charge came in after I closed it. And then I left the country. And then they charged me the overdraft.

Then they charged me interest on the overdraft. And then they compounded the interest on the overdraft. And then months go by. Because I moved out of the country. Because I'm gone.

I'm out of the country. I closed the account. I told my dad, like, oh, yeah, I've throw that away. I don't bank there anymore. They're just trying to, like, sell me something.

My parents have to go to the bank on my behalf to settle the debt. And my dad has been banking at this place for decades. And he, it's a small, like, local bank. And he was like, what the f*** is wrong with you? What's wrong with you?

And they were like, well, we're willing to settle for the initial overdraft. So you just have to pay that. And we'll wave everything else and take the debt out of collection. Guess how much the overdraft was? Oh, no.

Do you have a dollar so much? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It was a dollar 95. What?

Yeah. And it was me buying a doctor pepper. Um. And that's weird. And when you...

That kind of... My doctor pepper hadn't cleared, and it was, like, a thousand dollar doctor pepper. Oh, my God. I'm still mad. Honestly, all these years.

You know what? You're fit to 20 years. I'm like, ran and mad. Oh. I've been there.

“I mean, I think I told you about the time that I was trying to get a deposit on my apartment.”

And I had my first paycheck. And I deposit it. And they said, oh, well, this is a new account. We're going to hold on to this for 10 business days. And I think I found this out because something had already bounced.

And I went into the bank. And they said, you know, this is a new account. We were just trust you. And I was like, this was a paycheck. If I walked up to this window and asked you to cash it,

you would give me dollar bills. And if I walked around the room and got back in the line, and handed you a big pile of dollar bills, you would put those into my account. And you wouldn't hold it for 10 days, right?

And these were like, well, yeah. And I said, yeah, you can close that account right now. And just give me all the cash. And dollar bills. Thank you very much.

And I never went back to that bank.

Yeah. Oh, I think everybody has these types of experiences. It was like, maybe I didn't understand the game that we were playing. I thought I was just giving you money. And you were holding on to it.

And then I was going out and spending in society. But actually, I'm like some kind of mark. You figured out a way to make money off of me. Yeah. By holding my money, it's not just interest rates.

Like banking should be boring. You hold at one percent. You lend at another percent. But like the fee apparatus, the restructuring of transaction apparatus, they make money off of you.

Did you read that report from the Cleveland Fed, where they did the focus group of people who were half of them were had banks. And half of them were unbanked or underbanked, as you say. The hatred that some people had for banks. They didn't trust them.

They didn't trust their privacy. They were poorly treated by them. A lot of people banks represent safety and security. And for people who have been mistreated by banks, it is 180 degrees the opposite.

And that's where I really read about the privacy concerns that people have about banks. They just don't want the banks and the government up in their business about what they're spending their money on. Oh, yeah.

If a bank has an AI chat bot, do you think it's really good

“at keeping people's private transactions with itself?”

I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it. I mean, I have a friend who thinks that the overdraft fees were such an effective, long game,

basically moving all of U.S. consumers under credit cards.

I mean, there's lots of things, right? Like we have more credit card options. But it's the, you know, why would you incur debt for literally every transaction you have? Unless you were worried, unless it was easier to manage.

So you've kind of almost like locked people into preferring

because you could charge them like $100 to $100

for each account.

“Yeah, and I mean, and of course they make more money”

on credit card transactions because they charge the business. Anywhere from three to four percent, just to process that transaction. I mean, I imagine a lot of listeners would be in a position like myself, or like, I don't like banks,

but this is the world we live in. And I'm rich enough to keep myself mostly protected from the type of practices that can leave you a lot, you know, stung by the banking industry. I mean, the other thing that I find galling is to be charged

to have a bank account.

And I maybe I shouldn't find that galling, I just, but I do.

And the average fees for banks that charge for checking accounts the monthly fees are now on average over $12 a month to have a bank account, which just seems like a lot. And then, of course, there are banks that have no fees or have no fees with minimum deposits,

“but a lot of those are online only banks,”

which, you know, the people who need zero fee banks are probably the ones who are also doing only online banking. Right, so those fees aren't nothing, but they can be prohibited to someone who's trying to open an account or at least, you know, a turn off.

Like, I'm supposed to open up a bank account, so I put my $100 somewhere safe, but they're going to charge me $12 to hold my $100. You know, $144 a year isn't much if you're putting a $100,000 into an account,

but if you're putting $500,000, you know, $500,000. That's a very high fee. Oh, I have a term in condition. Okay, after the fact, Expose Factor term in condition.

Expose Factor term in condition is user-y? Oh, uh-huh. User-y is the charging of like incredibly high interest rates. Right. And the reason why we don't get charged incredibly high interest rates

is most state governments have user-y regulations. And this is what has been used to try and eradicate payday lenders to say that it's a user-y charge and their effective interest rate.

“I mean, our question here about, you know, will we go cashless?”

The problem with it is that you are very much at the mercy of financial institutions. And even those institutions that are good still have a lot of bad things that they do. And it's one of these like, well, I would feel differently about the world in which financial institutions have a lot of power. If the consumer financial protection bureau also had a lot of power.

Um, I think like the, the, the, the optimist solution here is, because there are so, there is so much skepticism on both sides of the aisle about the power given to financial institutions and a cashless society. That means that there is an opportunity for good policy. And the opportunity for good policy, I mean, you asked me,

should private enterprises have to have a bank account for everyone.

And I think the answer is no, but your government should.

We can offer financial services publicly. And we actually did for like 50 years through the postal system. The US postal savings system was a banking system set up through the post office where you could use the post office to make small deposits. It was set up after the panic of 1907 or in response to the panic of 1907.

The original strength of postal banking was that the FDIC didn't exist yet. And if you put money into a postal bank account, it was backed by the federal government, whereas other banks were not. So this was a way to have small savers protected after the Great Depression when FDIC starts to ensure deposits even at private banking institutions

and kind of exchange for heavily regulating them. The nature of postal banking changes and who actually uses it. And it becomes like a small dollar depository. So after that, it gets a little murky. There's some evidence that it was used as wealthy people figured out that they could get a low interest rate from it

and so they were using it kind of like for their own purposes of like, okay, wealthy people. Gonna wealth. Gonna like figure out how to make money out of money. Rich people get a roof. So even out loans?

No, I don't think so. They were really just short-term savings. A lot of countries, probably the three that would strike the most comparisons for us, Western industrialized listeners here in the United States, is that France, Germany, and Japan all have postal banking.

And it is not like a pure all. But it is a way that people who either don't want to use banks or don't have access to banks can hold small dollar deposits, can cash checks. They don't have credit cards attached, they don't have anything else attached. And there is a real push that has waxed and wained over the past 25 years

The postal workers union is very much in favor of reform. They've read it.

“Yeah, I think it's as last proposed in 2022.”

We'll see if that ever gets revived again. But there is a feeling that it could in fact shore up the postal service financially. Yes, by expanding their services. I'm expanding the services now. I mean, I'm trying to imagine, like, I am not boxed out of financial services.

So if they had a postal banking system, would I need it or use it? And of course, I'm thinking, like, it would probably be a great place to park some money for kids. Like a way to teach them about bank accounts and to have an institution that I feel safe. And I don't have to worry that if I create a bank account, but don't touch it, I'm intending it for children and for long term that I'll actually lose it all the fees.

Yeah. I just don't like banks. I don't like them. Yeah. It's not that I don't see their purpose.

It's not that I think they're all bad or they only do bad things.

I think they do amazing things.

But I think, I mean, they absolutely go after fees and exploitation when they have to. It's like, I fly in an airplane. It's not because I love airlines. Because I would like to get across the country. I don't fly because I love airlines.

I don't put my money in a bank account because I love banks. They do not want the alternative. Mm-hmm. We've talked about before the child savings accounts and the retirement accounts that everyone's have access to the Trump accounts and the Trump accounts.

The Trump accounts and the Trump accounts and the Trump accounts and the Trump accounts. But, you know, also called child savings accounts and also called the auto IRA or the thrift savings plan. The whole point of those accounts is that not everyone is served by a private sector, private provided for profit good.

“So you need to come up with an alternative.”

Yeah. The alternative is a public provision. All right. We need something, but is the public provision? Yes.

I think there's part of me that is just like we should always have cash around because

if nothing else that serves as a check on banks of how much power they can really have because we have a way of interacting with the economy that doesn't involve them. Mm-hmm. And there's something nice about that. I know that that's not necessarily like the best policy solution.

The best policy solution is we will have alternative banking services that come in public areas and have that are access to low-income communities and so that we don't have to be quite so held over a barrel by the banking system. Yeah. That's the better option.

Yeah. But that is like the ultimate $20 bill you find when you take your pants out of the dryer. The ultimate $20 is the continued to have cash. But I'm not married to this one.

“I think if there were a good enough slate of financial services and products in which the interaction”

that most low-income people have is not like pure exploitation and user-y. I think I would be okay with getting rid of cash. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for those of you who would like to contribute to office economy, we do not take cash.

We do take check, but obviously our preferred method is to have a burlap sack full of gold coins or the dollar sack inside the sack and that is the currency that we prefer here on the show. You can't mail us like a $10 bill in an envelope like my grandmother did at Christmas time. You can't do that to us. I think you can mail us a $10 dollar off.

You can mail us cash. How to miss you can mail us cash. We'll figure out. Yeah. You know what?

If you gave us cash, I would figured out. But often it's the economy is not cashless. Okay. I'm glad we're on the record there. Okay.

We'll be back in a second for executive orders and spiritual sponsors.

Are you ready? Catherine. I'm ready. Okay. So executive orders.

What do you got, Catherine? My executive order for the week is that youth sports need to be regulated so that there's schedules ain't so crazy. Okay. Because their schedules are crazy.

And I think we need to have some pretty clear limitations on like we can call the health and safety measure. But like you can only practice and play games so many times per week per sport. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Friends who had multiple kids and multiple sports, I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they did it. Yeah. It's a lot for just the logistics of getting kids from place to place. But then I've talked to a lot of older parents who said that it really does end up that

even if your kid loves sports, they can really only play one because the competition for time gets so intense. I also think that travel sports, this is another health and safety bands. You cannot have travel sports until like age 14, 15, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So your old enough to go maybe on your own and your parents don't have to go

and ever trip with you? Uh-huh. Yeah. And this would of course help parents feel more sane but at the same time would be a lot less

and it's wild if you have more than one kid who wants to play more than one sport.

I mean you're down thousands of dollars. And it makes sports being competitive at sports a privilege of the elite. So it's not just because I don't want to drive places or do things on weekends. It's also for America. You're right.

For America. The youth sports need to be 50 to 70% less intense. I endorse this. Speaking of junk fees. Yeah.

“I think that airline luggage fees should be done by weight, not by item.”

Like if I have two 10 pound bags, why should that cost me twice as much as one person who comes in with a 20 pound bag? They have a scale. You drop this stuff off.

They weigh it right there.

This is uh, this is to me common sense reform that the American people embrace. And it shouldn't have been a bathroom of a decent size. I would like to be charged in a sensical way for why I'm doing 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Spiritual sponsors things that get us through our week. Yeah. My spiritual sponsor is a little bit of a throwback now. But watching the Artemis crew splashed down in in the water with my kids around me.

Uh, the like yelps of joy that they like when they saw the splash. I mean, it was just like pure joy and excitement and I'm like, well. We're just hanging out in the Friday night watching the frontier of human achievement. I mean, like, of course, I'm about to just absolutely sobbing. It's like the Olympics of space.

Yeah. It's just the Olympics, absolutely, space Olympics. Human achievement really moves me and I'm even seeing their sobbing. My kids turn around and one of them said, but they're wait. Is everything okay?

It was like, yeah, everything's great. It's just really moved. Um, so the Artemis crew touching down. Yeah. And then the like real lovely hangover of like the hour it took for them.

To get the front porch out in the front porch talk.

“How quickly my five year old and three year old were like, where's the front porch?”

It's just a flip. They just they like, they got it. Is it actually called a front porch? It was called the front porch. And then I came home in my six year old was colorado.

And he was making a front porch for a capsule. This is like the bane of people who have cats or children.

A cardboard box is never really go away.

They don't. Yeah. I now have cardboard front porches. Oh, good, good, good, good. Um, my spiritual sponsor this week.

This is kind of a throwback to our friends with trucks, friends with pools. Friends with season tickets. Friends with season tickets to the Dodgers. Yeah, the Dodgers. Oh, no.

Haven't even the Dodgers. Even the Dodgers. Even the cashless Dodgers. Yeah, I went to the game on Friday. It was, it was, it's just really fun.

“The Dodgers stadium is really, it's just a great place to see a baseball game.”

It was beautiful. And, you know, friends with season tickets. That's awesome. Friends with season tickets. We.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Optimistic economy is a non-profit, but that doesn't make the show free to produce. It does mean we can take contributions from your donor advice fund.

If you have one, and we'll also just take, you know, cash and envelope. Send it our way. If you're on sub-sec, kind of either are free or paid levels. You can join the Optimistic economy chat and talk with your fellow optimists. And if you have the means to contribute to whatever levels comfortable for you,

we'll take your gift at optimisticonemy.com. The Optimistic economy podcast is edited by Sophie Lollon. Our video production for social media is by Andy Robinson. Video clips from the show for you to share or available on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and you can buy a t-shirt, a hat, or a tote bag on our website,

Optimisticonemy.com. And we're also in Facebook. Oh, and we're on Facebook now. Look at what. Oh, Optimists.

At some point, I'll tell you the story of why Facebook doesn't think I'm a person. Because the banks told them, no. [MUSIC]