ICR290: Ross Clark, War Against Cash

My guest on the podcast today is Ross Clark, author of The War Against Cash: The plot to empty your wallet and own your financial future – and why you MUST fight it.

We're constantly being told that we are on the cusp of a cashless society. And if you're anything like me, more and more of your financial transactions are becoming cashless.

According to Ross Clark, the financial services industry would certainly like to see it that way. We're being enticed with contactless cards, mobile phone payment apps, and methods of bank transfer: all, apparently, for our convenience.

But as Ross Clark argues in his compelling new book, The War Against Cash, it's not in our interests to surrender the right to use cash.

He argues that commercial interests want us to pay electronically in order to collect valuable data on our spending habits, while governments would love us to move to cashless payments in order to control the economy in ways which suit them, not us.

If we choose to pay electronically, that is one thing, but we will regret it if we do not defend the right to pay with cash.

Ross is a journalist who writes extensively for the Spectator, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and for many other publications. For many years he wrote the Thunderer column on the Times.

He's also the bestselling author of How to Label a Goat: the silly rules and regulations that are strangling Britain, and several other excellent books.

Here's my conversation with Ross Clark, author of The War Against Cash, in episode 290 of Informed Choice Radio.