Cashless ATM cards? Bad idea.

 

 

A report by Eric Lendrum at American Greatness references “cashless” ATMs – an obvious step on the way to digital currency.  Mr. Lendrum points out that several cities and states have banned cashless ATMs.  Ohio is not yet one of them:

A variety of businesses have begun implementing “cashless” ATMs that give out stored-value cards in exchange for cash.

. . .

However, several states and cities have passed laws to forbid businesses from doing so, in order to accommodate customers who don’t have bank accounts or credit cards of their own. The Federal Deposits Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says that these “unbanked” Americans account for roughly 4.5 percent of the overall American population.

The cities that have banned such devices include New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. The states of Colorado and New Jersey have also implemented bans on cashless ATMs.

The complete report is here.  It’s one way to resist Central Bank Digital Currency.  Well, at least it’s a start.

RELATED:  Justin Haskins at Fox News:  “Biden administration is quietly planning for a future where you don’t own money”

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A Voter-Fraud Nightmare in November

 

Justin Haskins is, I think, rightfully concerned about the November elections – at all levels.  His column at Townhall ("America Is Headed For A Voter-Fraud Nightmare in November") concludes:

Never before has America’s political class so willingly and eagerly marched the country toward predictable and preventable chaos. Mail-in balloting is, in fact, not a truly secure way of holding an election. Even if large-scale fraud does not occur, the perception will be that it did, and that should have been enough for politicians concerned about voters’ faith in the election process to enact policies that would have encouraged in-person balloting, a much safer route.

Unfortunately, that did not occur, so unless it’s a total blowout on Election Day, it seems inevitable the country is on the road to disaster. When we get there, Americans should know who to blame.

That would be the political class – D’s for aggressively pushing mail-in voting (and attempting to extend the deadline for counting ballots well past Election Day) and R’s for not aggressively pushing back.  Our household will be voting in person on Election Day.  Mr. Haskins's column is here.

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Medicare For All and socialism

image credit: americanliberalreview.com

There has been any number of articles and analyses concerning the proposed “Medicare For All.” A recent on-line report can be found at Forbes here; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “dodges questions” on how to pay for it here (spoiler: she doesn’t know); and the NY Times explains what is good about the policy here (what a surprise!).

Yesterday, Justin Haskins published an accessible analysis at Townhall entitled “Socialists Won’t Rest Until We Have Single-Payer Health Care. We Must Stop Them.” The quote marks are there because that’s the title of the article, but they could be interpreted instead as scare quotes. Excerpts:

The 2018 midterms could someday be remembered as the beginning of the Democratic Party’s full embrace of creating a single-payer health care system in the United States. For the first time in American history, a large number of Democrats, many of whom identify as socialists, openly campaigned for the creation of a government-run health insurance model.

For instance, Democratic Socialists of America member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won 78 percent of the vote on Election Day, championed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) “Medicare for All” proposal, calling it the “ethical, logical, and affordable path to ensuring no person goes without dignified healthcare.” According to Ocasio-Cortez, “Medicare for All will reduce the existing costs of healthcare (and make Medicare cheaper, too!) by allowing all people in the US to buy into a universal healthcare system.” 

Ocasio-Cortez says she supports a universal system that would include “full vision, dental, and mental healthcare - because we know that true healthcare is about the whole self, not just your yearly physical.”

The cost of enacting such a radical program would be astronomical. Researchers at the Mercatus Center say Sen. Sanders’ plan would cost $32.6 trillion in its first decade, and they note that even if Congress were to double taxes paid by individuals and corporations, it wouldn’t be enough to pay for the program. That should terrify you, especially since the U.S. government’s deficit for the 2018 fiscal year was $782 billion and the national debt now stands at a $21.7 trillion.

But as shocking as the price tag for single-payer health care would be, it pales in comparison to the numerous health care-related problems that would be created by such a model. For starters, the government has an absolutely terrible record of providing health care. One example is the Veterans Health Administration, which is run by the federal government. It routinely suffers from underfunding and long wait times, which has forced the agency to allow veterans to go elsewhere to receive care. As the Military Times notes, “About one-third of all VA medical appointments today are … conducted by physicians outside the department’s system.”

. . .

If the federal government can’t properly run the VA system or Medicaid—or even the Post Office—why does anyone think it could manage one of the largest industries in the United States today?

Much more about the VA, mortality rates, and other scary stats are here.

RELATED: Veterans in the greater Cleveland are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Via Breitbart:

The 10 worst cities for veterans included Ohio metros — Cleveland (#92) and Toledo (#95). California contributed San Bernardino (#94) and Fresno (#97). Also at the bottom of the pack were Philadelphia (#91), Baton Rouge (#93), Baltimore (#96), Memphis (#98), Newark (#99), and Detroit (#100).

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