The idea of a debit card is always nice to think about. You do not stand to lose accounting and exchange fees on transactions in other countries. But your wealth is reduced immediately upon purchase instead of up to a month later with a credit card kept current. What else?

Oh yes, the privacy. I like the idea the card does not have my name on it. As long as it clears the little verifying machine swipe with OK the store would be satisfied, wouldn’t they? How about in other countries? Would they refuse it even though it would pass the swipe test. Some places are perverse.

What about online purchases? All the forms are designed for credit cards and require name, address and phone. How about that?

I don’t object to a debit card for $ 89 and may buy one or more and load a bit for Christmas gifts. But there is no reason to ignore the bottom end of the market for e-transaction payment mechanisms. For each cellphone in the world there could be a new mini card reader. Local exchangers could offer ominbus accounts for members in the neighborhood, and sell cash cards to the rest. Hardly any transaction would be too small or too remote to come under e-gold at that point, — worldwide. Will a move into fractional milligrams of gold at this wide an extent cause the gold price to rise in fiat? We have been told No. Nothing can be determined to cause price changes in gold. But, the offers could be hiked if sellers thought about supplying these folks, it seems to me.

Thank you Pellinore for the comment on lottery demographics – hopefully the subject of a longer exchange elsewhere.
But your argument about community causes is totally flaky. You say “the community cause types would never tolerate a 50% house hold, so more people would benefit from the lottery.” What ever do you mean?

I was trying to be brief but unfortunately left the point poorly-expressed in the process. There are a few points I was trying to make:

1) "Community causes" may or may not actually be worthwhile, or even desired by the nominal beneficiaries in the community (I say "nominal" because few people benefit from public works of any type or scale more than politicians.)

2) Whether or not a community cause is actually preferable to private interests benefiting is highly debateable. Indeed, private interests no doubt benefit from community causes in many cases.

3) If the lotto was 100% private controlled, the sort of people who tend to agitate for community causes would never tolerate private interests taking 50% of the money generate by the lottery –for evidence, see any currently private gambling operation and compare its "hold" to that of the state lotteries. So there would be significantly more prize money circulating, thus making the lottery in theory more enjoyable and potentially profitable to those who play it.

Note of course that 3) is merely speculation and does not effect the community vs. private issue.

Pellinore

I meant that I fear a net loss of liberty.

Regarding the IRS, I wonder who would cross the tax line first:
1) The IRS, raising the taxes too high, or
2)The Federal Reserve, debasing the currency to such an extent that revenues collected by the IRS are worth less than the cost of collection.

Peter,

All the fees from getting the money from your bank to getting the money in a gold account with a debit card seem rather steep at this point. But I’m keeping an eye on it.

Maybe, you’re saying no harm is done by credit card gambling. Or greater harm by restricting it through fed gov’t? Either way, thought and action would be better spent abolishing the IRS.

Go to http://www.bestgoldcard.com and get a debit card you can fund with e-gold or 1mdc in about 3 seconds and use anywhere in the world, today; you really don’t need to wait for anything.

- A Man for All Seasons (1966)

It would be one thing if prohibition provided the benefits promised, or even if it could be proven that the benefits outweighed the costs.

Even if those conditions were met, would you still feel justified when violating others’ rightful liberty to bring others up to your morality or achieve “social good?”

How many support internet pornography, be it kiddie porn or “adult” exploitation?
Why not allow homosexuals to marry, adopt kids, etc? The Constitution envisions the well-being of our posterity– future generations.

We Lib’s have tripped ourselves with extreme trust in the intellect of fallible, dare I say Fallen man.

If gambling is so desireable, force it back out in the light where some regulation by the state’s may keep it in check.

Adding E-casino’s to fuel the already out-of-control digital money growth (credit cards) is a recipe for national catastrophe. Who doubts that mountains of credit card debt is draining a population bent on rampant materialism? (I’m a former gambler who would likely have destroyed his family through this easy access.)

UPSIDE: maybe this could lead to a gold-based mechanism, a standard of sorts– at least people wouldn’t be gambling there future paychecks.

The technology is here. As most new products that involve some departure from the previous art, this one will take some education and a lot of patience in the beginning. But we have already seen the beginning. All we are waiting for now is for the vendor community to wake up and give the gold clientele some attention and some extensive list of needed products to purchase.

It won’t be long. Instantaneous electronic payment transaction services of a secure, private, gold vault meets the conditions of a sound money. For the past several years those who have voluntarily begun using digital gold, have seen a large increase in the purchasing power of their coin. This is what you would expect to happen and to continue, since the quantity of gold is largely fixed; thus the huge increases in demand by the public has had its effect. In the longer term the increase in purchasing power of this money should be driven by production, and there is no reason why the rates of increase should not be comparable.

Indeed: http://4861766.thegoldcasino.com/

Of course they will use the extreme examples to make their case. They’ll tell you about the mother of five who dropped $100,000 at the virtual slots and is now living off of welfare. But the fact of the matter is that most excesses kill and they can be found in any market.

Despite all this nonsense, I remain optimistic. You can still gamble without too much difficulty. Get a money order from the bank and send it on in!

Anyway, it’s time for my appointment with the local liquor dealer. It’s going to be a fun night at the dorm!

Dollars were being exported, entertainment was being imported. What are they going to do with the dollars?

And it is not up to YOU or congress who I should get my gambling fun from. Who’s back gets sore after a long day’s work? Mine. My work – my choice. The minute you start doing ALL the work for the entire economy is when you can make all the decisions for the rest of us.

As far as the proceeds of lottery going to "community causes" this is hardly a measure of whether or not the cause is actually worthwile. The funds would almost certainly be better off going to dreaded private interests, and if they were going to private interests the community cause types would never tolerate a 50% house hold, so more people would benefit from the lottery.

Pellinore

I never realized the origin was so ancient.:~)

“A lottery is a taxation,
Upon all the fools in Creation;
And Heav’n be prais’d,
It is easily rais’d,
Credulity’s always in fashion;
For, folly’s a fund,
Will never lose ground,
While fools are so rife in the Nation.”

A song from “The Lottery”, a farce by

Henry Fielding (1707-54)

first performed 1 January 1732
Drury Lane Theatre, London

Consider putting up a reddit button instead of .