Businesses in Italy soon to be permitted to require cash for payments of up to sixty euros.

[LuftWafflePilot]

I don't know really, english is not my native language and sometimes certain meanings escape me.

[Xêrxe]

I know what lufwaffe is. I still fail to understand the horribleness of making a funny word out of it.
Let's ban the word german, ok?
I'm from czech republic. The nazis murdered tons of us too, and we don't turn hysterical little snowflakes whenever someone mentions Germany over here.

WTF is going on?

Off-topic:
I think Tharthan simply just finds it funny that a username which has a pun on the most notorious air force of WW2 is berating Poland for banning abortion of all things to berate Poland about. I don't think he means any foul here.

It'd be like if I chose "CameraCaze" as my username and I complain about China inventing Genshin Impact, or American warships being better than Japanese ones in War Thunder (I haven't played the game, pls don't drag me on this)...

Off-topic:
Just in case, I am putting out there that Japanese warships ARE better than Yankee ones. Japanese vehicles in general are, and anyone complaining about poor construction, underpowered engines or armament simply has a skill issue.

[Tharthan]

Looking a little deeper into it, it seems that there really is a huge push going on right now among a number of economists in a number of different countries to push for an actually cashless society—as in, you are literally not permitted to pay in any way that is not digital.

A somewhat related story, which shows some of the backlash to this kind of stuff:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business ... story.html

Hembert Figueroa just wanted a taco.[...]

[...]

So he was surprised to learn the dollar bills in his pocket were no good at Dos Toros Taqueria in Manhattan[.]

[...]

Figueroa, an ironworker, had to stand to the side, holding his taco, until a sympathetic cashier helped him find another customer willing to pay for his meal with a card in exchange for cash.

"I had money and I couldn't pay," he said.

[...]

Business owners who go cashless say they are following the lead of the majority of customers who are abandoning cash payments. Retailers are under pressure to cater to customers with heightened expectations for fast and seamless service, driven by companies like Amazon, Uber and Grubhub.

[...]

"I'm uncomfortable with the idea that certain people don't shop here so it's fine to exclude them," said Justine Zinkin, CEO of Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners, a financial counseling nonprofit affiliated with the credit union where Figueroa banks.

[...]

The issue got some high-profile attention this week when retail giant Amazon bowed to pressure from activists and agreed to accept cash at more than 30 cashless stores, including its Amazon Go convenience stores, which have no cashiers, and its book shops. Amazon declined to say when the change would happen.

[...]

Earlier this year, Philadelphia became the first city to ban cashless stores, despite efforts by Amazon to dissuade it. New Jersey passed a statewide ban soon after, and a similar ban is working its way through the New York City Council. Before this year there was only one jurisdiction that required businesses to accept cash: Massachusetts, which passed a law nearly 40 years ago.

[Moonchild]

As a side note, Espresso House has lost me as a customer more than once when I just wanted to flip them a few coins for a coffee, and couldn't, because cashless. I've gone to some other places where I could get coffee even with lower quality because I wanted to use my cash-in-pocket.

[Eduardo Lucas]

Brazilian supermarket coffee is quite bad but i usually prefer to do it myself at home and drink the poor quality coffee than pay a high (for my country) value for a product which is still coffee. I think your decision is sound.

[Utnapishtim]

That is now another story. I'd personally never think to carry around 5000 euros, I won't feel safe. And moreover, I can withdraw only 500 per day.

I live not far from you in a country with a lot smaller incomes than in Milano and I wouldn't say that's anywhere near "never carry around" kind of money. Besides, that's only 10 banknotes (well, if you can find some purples). I used to carry a lot more cash as part of my job 10-15 years ago but even today I wouldn't worry about taking out 1-2k from the bank to buy something in a shop in broad daylight. This is Europe, not Wild West.

Besides it's really stupid that if you want to buy something like a piece of furniture for 1100 euros, you essentially have to pay a 30-50 euro tax to some foreign payment processor. The fee isn't advertised, but it gets passed to the customer as does everything else. This is why businesses offer cash discounts. If you're paying with your card for everything, you're paying this tax on everything. Whenever you get something in 12 installments interest-free, that's actually 3-5% interest. To me, making people pay this much extra VAT (not even going to your country's budget) to potentially stop some gangsters sounds crazy. Police investigations don't cost THAT much.