OK, that may have gotten your attention. By LA, I mean Louisiana. And not for all transactions. But if you want to hold a yard sale, you're not allowed to accept cash any more and have to keep more detailed records. It affects flea markets, even Goodwill.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/19/lousia...ng-cash-at

Gotta have that money trail.

WTF??

What a terrible decision. This is basically requiring someone to have a bank account to conduct certain kinds of business. This kind of coercive crap makes me want to puke. Anyway, this seems blatantly unconstitutional - "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private" etc.

PS - If you want to stop meth-heads from stealing the copper wire there are other options. Like, treating the problem (drug addiction). Or just requiring documentation for scrap-metal sales.

Big Brother is alive and well.

I'm surprised to see this in Louisiana, a state with a large population that I would expect is not big on banking.

I suspect you could do everything with a paypal account, which these days is pretty indistinguishable from a bank account... of course it requires computing too.

(10-20-2011 10:50 AM)emmiesix Wrote:  Anyway, this seems blatantly unconstitutional - "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private" etc.

It's definitely a terrible decision - if pawn shops can accept cash with the correct documentation, I don't see what makes Goodwill different except presumably fewer lobbying dollars.

However, the phrase quoted above has been consistently interpreted by the courts as debt only. If you finance the goods, you owe a debt, and the merchant must accept cash. If it is a POS transaction, the merchant is under no obligation to accept cash in trade for the goods.

(10-20-2011 11:23 AM)texd Wrote:  I'm surprised to see this in Louisiana, a state with a large population that I would expect is not big on banking.

That's putting it mildly.

(10-23-2011 10:57 AM)owl7886 Wrote:  However, the phrase quoted above has been consistently interpreted by the courts as debt only. If you finance the goods, you owe a debt, and the merchant must accept cash. If it is a POS transaction, the merchant is under no obligation to accept cash in trade for the goods.

Interesting. But, in this case a third party (the gov't) is not allowing the merchant to accept cash *even if they want to*... so that is different, and I assume has not been brought to a court challenge before? Although I wouldn't put it past some state leg. to do something idiotic repeatedly.