Bargeldverbot wegen Kriminalitätsbekämpfung?

a) Criminals always find a way. Cigarettes were the primary currency in the U.S. prison system until most states passed bans on smoking over the last decade. Now, inmates use everything from prepaid debit cards to postage stamps to foil envelopes of mackerel as currency.
b) China’s largest banknote is worth 100 RMB (about $15),which should make the country largely immune from the ills caused by high denomination bills. Interestingly, Larry Summer’s own missive about the perils of the $100 bill notes that “China… has made attacking corruption a central part of its economic and political strategy”. Yes, there are no doubt $100 bills circulating in China but even the Sands paper only cites one example of a corrupt official found (in 2014) with a large quantity of $100 bills. Clearly there is more to corrupt behavior than the existence of high denomination bank notes.
c) Boston Fed study published in 2014 found that 5 % of American consumers have a $100 bill in their wallet or purse. They tend to be more affluent than the average consumer (no surprise). To put that 5 % in context, it amounts to 12 million people carrying $100 bills every day. And since we doubt criminals answer Fed surveys we assume that those 12 million people are all law abiding citizens using their currency for legitimate reasons. Bottom line: real people use $100s too.

Überhaupt hat Bargeld eine Reihe von handfesten Vorteilen für den privat- als auch für den offiziellen Sektor:

a) The $100 bill is an extraordinarily efficient tool in advancing American interests, at home and abroad. It costs about $0.12 to print a new $100, or $1,200 for every million. Now, if you just hand them out randomly (as apparently was done in Iraq), you won’t see much benefit. But in a crisis – and there is always one brewing somewhere – $1 million dollars may be the difference between safe passage for the men and women of the U.S. military and disaster. In my book, that’s reason enough to keep it around in some form.
b) The $100 bill is an outpost of privacy in a world that seems more starved of that right every day. In that respect, the current debate over high denomination notes is very much on-theme with other issues that dominate the headlines, from Silicon Valley’s data encryption practices to government surveillance to how much information you put on your Facebook page. All of which means we haven’t heard the last of this debate.

Punkt a) gefällt mir, da er in der öffentlichen Diskussion, die sich eher auf b) fokusiert, vergessen wird: Es ist nicht zuletzt aufgrund der grassierenden Kriegsmüdigkeit im absolut ureigensten Interesse der westlichen Staaten, Scheckbuchdiplomatie betreiben zu können. Wie will man aber z.B. per eMoney mit Diktator XY einen Deal schmieden können, wenn dieser kein Zugang zur eigenen Zentralbankbilanz hat? Food for thought..