Dear Editor

The nature of business transaction is always a source of interest to business-owners. For instance, seeing where your customers are coming from often validates advertising and marketing efforts. Modern casinos rely on the tracking of their customers to anticipate future planning and promotion.

Law enforcement also relies heavily upon such “data-mining” in order to strategize where the next crime may take place.

The advent of cashless societies is said to be upon us. In the post-9/11 world, increasing demands have been placed upon businesses to account for their funding and resource allocations. The routine file-keeping eventually leads to painting a bigger picture, whereby seemingly unrelated subjects begin to show networking.

The first step towards a cashless society was the abandonment of the gold standard in backing up the United States dollar in 1933. As technology progressed, the use of credit cards increased, making that currency-alternative more accessible to lower and lower economic population segments. The marketing of credit cards to college students illustrates the ability to offer such credit lines to underemployed consumers of a young age.

Recent credit and also debit card (tied to existing bank savings or checking accounts) advertising campaigns have taken a step towards portraying the use of paper currency to pay for purchases as “uncool.” Set in a movie theater lobby, the couple ordering popcorn finds itself holding up the crowd who is late to get into their movie by paying for their snacks in cash. Whereas cash used to be king, in the Twenty-First Century, it is now an inconvenience. Recent news stories also point to the burden and cost to governments to mint pennies and nickels, worth more as raw materials than as currency.

All of these trends point to the day when economic buying power is controlled by computer databases and records of taxed income. The limit of consumer spending will be fixed to the penny of declared and taxed income. The perfectly rational statement to accompany this will likely state that it is for your own protection as terrorist groups have long engaged in money-laundering to hide their acts against humanity. As a concession to the effectiveness of the system, the Internal Revenue System will likely be discontinued, as all capital will be able to be accounted for, to each man, woman, and child. A baby tooth placed under the pillow will be rewarded with a credit slip, not a quarter.

While it will likely not be illegal to possess paper and coin currency, their value will be eliminated by government edict that would state that after such and such date, no more paper currency can be exchanged at a bank to be deposited into a networked account. Test runs of this type of system took place when East and West Germany merged after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and more widespread when the European Union was formed, and the Euro currency format was phased in among the member states of the European Union.

The lack of high-speed data transfer networks in Akwesasne create the first barrier to a cashless Land Where the Partridge Drums. Although becoming more prevalent, the lack of bank or independent ATMs (automatic teller machines) or even the ability to use credit / debit cards in all Akwesasne businesses points to the significant barriers to fully eliminating cash changing hands in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory. However, if the Canadian government chose to go to a cashless system, the clock would then be ticking on the United States to also follow suit. The imposition of a North American Trade Union (Mexico, USA and Canada) would also herald a currency conversion of some sort. Will Akwesasne be ready? This would be a challenge that would confront Akwesasronon and tax-payers alike.

- Chaz Kader

Mohawk Chamber of Commerce at Akwesasne, Executive Director