Former IMF Economist Declares War on Cash

The War on Cash continues to gain momentum within the circles of the politically influential.
Bloomberg yesterday posted an article on a new book titled The Curse of Cash, written by Kenneth Rogoff former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and current Harvard University economist.
Though the Bloomberg piece unfortunately accepts at face value the weak argument that eliminating cash will make it harder for criminals to operate, it does focus on the real goal of people like Rogoff, to give more power to central bankers:
Rogoff … contends that suppressing cash would make it easier for the Federal Reserve and other central banks to boost economic growth by pushing interest rates into negative territory. That’s the strange world where you pay to keep money in the bank and get paid to borrow it. The theory is that negative rates will induce people to save less and spend more, which will revive growth. Savers won’t tolerate negative interest rates on their savings as long as cash is an alternative. Why not simply withdraw stacks of $100 bills and keep the cash in a mattress or a safe?
Of course, one of the blessings of cash is the very fact that it allows normal people protection from some of the consequences of bad monetary policy. As Dr. Joseph Salerno wrote last month:

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on Sept 8, 2016.