AgentR11 wrote:What difference does it make whether I hand a clerk a piece of paper that only has value because the digital systems of the United States say it has value; or if I stick a piece of plastic and silicon in a reader, that moves bits that only have value because the digital systems of the United States say it has value. There's nothing magic or sacred about that scrap of paper; neither God nor Nature have imbued it with any value at all; its simply a marker, a temporary placeholder for moving bits from one account to another account. Even in the catastrophic sense, I can get my "cash" bits into equities faster than you can get your paper place markers into gold or silver, and much much faster than you can get them into any wider assortment of liquid assets that preserve purchasing power.
Paper money doesn't leave a paper trail. With compulsory e-money they can track everything you buy, everywhere you go.