1 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.
A. empowers B. hands C. innovative D. mean E. prints
F. notes G. shaving H. store I. tip J. traceable K. uneconomic |
The health food chain Tossed has just opened the UK’s firstcashless cafe. It’s another step towards the death of cash.
This is nothing 1 . Money is tech. The casting of coins made shells, whales’ teeth and other such primitive forms of money redundant (多余的). The printing press did the same for precious metals: we started using paper 2 instead. Electronic banking put paid to the cheque. Contactless payment is now doing the same to cash, which is becoming less and less convenient. In the marketplace convenience usually wins.
In a world without cash, every payment you make will be 3 . Do you want governments (which are not always benevolent), banks or payment processors to have potential access to that information? The power this _ 4 them is enormous and the potential scope for Orwellian levels of surveillance is terrifying.
Cash, on the other hand, 5 its users. It enables them to buy and sell, and 6 their wealth, without being dependent on anyone else. They can stay outside the financial system, if so desired.
Cash has its uses for small transactions- a chocolate bar, a newspaper, a pint of milk -which, in the UK, are still 7 to process by other means. It will always be the fastest and most direct form of payment there is. I like to 8 waiters, for example, in cash, knowing they will receive that money, without it being siphoned (转移) off by some 9 employer,knowing they will receive the money. I also like to shop in markets, where I can buy directly from the producer, without middle men 10 off their percentages.
Cash means total financial inclusion, a luxury the better-off take for granted. Without financial inclusion - and there will always be some who, for whatever reason, won’t have it - you are trapped in poverty. So beware the war on cash.
