Harvard professor and economist Ken Rogoff is once again leading the chorus of high-level academics and officials who declare cash is only for criminals. He made his case in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial called the “Sinister Side of Cash.†The solution, he declares, is to simply get rid of anything but the smallest bank notes.
In his vision, drug dealers, human traffickers, and tax cheats are everywhere, but they are reliant on cash. Our benevolent central planners can largely incapacitate them by ridding society of anything larger than a $10 bill.
Kingpins won’t know what to do when a single-engine Cessna full of cocaine requires a Boeing 747 full of $1s, $5s, and $10s to make payment.
Rogoff seems to blame cash, not bad people, for facilitating criminal activity. He writes:
“There is little debate among law-enforcement agencies that paper currency, especially large notes such as the U.S. $100 bill, facilitates crime: racketeering, extortion, money laundering, drug and human trafficking, the corruption of public officials, not to mention terrorism.â€
People worried about meth dealers swapping dangerous drugs for “dirty” cash might get mad enough, and afraid enough, to put up with what Rogoff calls a “less cash†society. While elimination of most cash might make it harder for black marketeers who operate in the small dark corners of society, it will be a bonanza for the undesirables along Wall Street and in Washington DC who are planning to shake down literally everyone.
Getting rid of large bills is a terrific way for them to herd people down a blind alley and pick their pockets. Bankers will grab handfuls of fees and deposits they wouldn’t otherwise get because people can no longer hold or transact with cash. Fed officials can impose negative interest rates, robbing even more of the value from everyone’s savings. And bureaucrats in government can swipe everyone’s ability to transact privately using off-the-grid cash.
