When I was a child, I used to think that my father had a magical pocket that was always filled with an endless supply of quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies. He was born in the 1920s, and his style never progressed beyond the baggy fashion of the 1950s. It’s safe to say that my dad wouldn’t have made it onto Mr. Blackwell’s best-dressed gentlemen’s list for the 1970s. He belonged to a time when men still wore slacks, suit jackets, and hard-bottom shoes to hang out with their friends in the pool hall. However, he had his own sense of style, reminiscent more of Edward G. Robinson than Richard Roundtree. Whenever he walked down the street, the sound of clashing coins would emanate from those deep, baggy front pockets, sparking images in my mind of all the treats I could buy from the corner store. A couple of bags of chips, some juice, and a bagful of candy to keep me energized well into the night were always within his reach. The cost of all that was effortlessly covered by a quick scoop and a palm sort from those magical pockets.
As a kid, I thought of money as something to spend. A quarter could either get you twenty-five Jolly Ranchers, or Tootsie Rolls, or Big Blows, or an assortment of all three. It could get you a bouncy ball from a vending machine or a cheap plastic or metal toy. For the record, the ball didn’t last long because it would wind up bouncing down the street into a sewer. And the toy didn’t last long because my mother would ultimately step on it in the middle of the night and throw it out (side-note: a butt whipping was also included with my toy being discarded). To me, a quarter was like gold, and my father’s front pockets seemed like Fort Knox. It was even the going rate from the tooth fairy in exchange for a lost tooth (yes, my parents suckered me with that pagan practice). Back in the 70s, a quarter felt like endless possibilities for fun and treats.
As I read news articles and experience firsthand the decline of the US dollar and the rise of digital currencies like Bitcoin, I’ve slowly become that “get-off-my-lawn” fogey. Me thinking about how us Gen Xers are possibly the last generation to actually pick up and use pennies in the store, is giving me a vibe similar to our parents and grandparents walking ten miles barefoot to school. It’s a nostalgic realization that the average cost of a loaf of bread in 1977 was around $0.40. Now I charge that same loaf to my credit card and finance it over time, all while telling the Gen Zer who’s snarkily watching me “bag my own” groceries, “I remember when I could have bought 10 loaves for the price I’m paying now.” I know prices and costs are all relative. $0.40 in 1977 is the equivalent of $2.11 today, which still falls short of what the average cost of a loaf of bread is in 2024, further highlighting the erosion in the value of U.S. currency.
The decline of physical currency is leading us towards a cashless society. Traditional methods of storing money at home, such as in a sock, shoebox, or mattress, are outdated as your cash’s value depreciates. And keeping it in a checking account at your local bank isn’t much better, due to that same reason, value depreciation. In addition to the devaluation of cash due to inflation, its usage is being overtaken by digital transactions facilitated by technologies like cryptocurrencies and mobile payments via our cellphones. The shift towards digital currencies and the adoption of cryptocurrencies by financial institutions are also contributing to the accelerating decline of traditional cash. The rise of digital payment platforms like Zelle, Venmo, and CashApp is evidence of this growing trend towards digital financial services. However, it should also be important to consider the impact on people who are unbanked or underbanked as we move towards a cashless society. But then again, since when has the doctrine of progress empathized with the marginalized? The following stats support the slippery slope we’re sliding down.
• 11% of US adults have completely stopped using cash, up from 5% five years ago (Source: Gallup)
• The average number of cash payments fell from 26% in 2019 to 20% in 2021 (Source: Federal Reserve)
• Between 2012 and 2022, cheque transactions declined by almost half (Source: Federal Reserve)
• 70% of Americans believe that the US is becoming a cashless society (Source: Card Rates)
• More than 23 million people in the UK used virtually no cash last year (Source: The Guardian)
President Gerald Ford was once infamously paraphrased by a New York Daily News headline that simply read, “Drop Dead.” It was in response to New York City’s request for a government bailout. Due to a myriad of events, and not the least of them financial mismanagement, New York City in the 1970s was on the verge of bankruptcy. To the outsider looking in, the city was, and to some degree still is, the financial epicenter of the world. A towering expanse of glass and steel, that whether flying in from Kansas or gazing out from a Harlem rooftop, looked like the mythical city of Oz. However, as a kid in my South Bronx neighborhood, it was anything but Oz and more like Beirut. A warzone of burned-out buildings and vacant lots that substituted for playgrounds and clubhouses for small and big kids alike. However, despite living in what was considered one of the poorest areas in the country, I was fortunate enough to not ever feel “poor,” a testament to my father and his magic pocket of coins. Of course, naively and unbeknownst to a 7-year-old, those coins were filled with a lot of hard work, sweat, and worry. Worry about the rising gas prices, worry about the rising cost of food and services, worry about the rising cost of rent, worry about the declining power of unions and their protection of American jobs. Needless to say, there was enough worry to go around, and it was about this time the word “inflation” first entered my lexicon. I didn’t know what it was, but overheard it spoken with dread on TV and around the grown-folks table during family gatherings. But like most things in life, we gain knowledge as we grow into adulthood. And his worries then, are like my worries now.
So what has changed? Inflation is still here, and in fact has worsened. The U.S debt has now reached an astonishing $37 trillion (with a “T”). At some point that check will become due, and a foreign power like China will borrow those same words from Gerald Ford and lob them back to the United States. At which point, my now 7-year-old grandson will ask me to CashApp him half a Bitcoin for a bag of chips at the corner store. For him, there will be no nostalgic jingling of coins, just a generic notification on his iPhone that he received that half a Bitcoin. It seems that something has indeed changed.
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