FINAL WARNING: The Curtain Falls
123-45-6789 (Social Security Number)The Cashless SocietyIn 1974, Gary Allen wrote in A Decade Left- Has Orwell’s 1984 Come
Early?: “Federal planners forsee the day when every citizen will have a
money card instead of money to spend. The cards will be placed in a
machine at each point of purchase, and the charge would be
electronically subtracted from the customer’s Federal Reserve
Account.” The November, 1975 issue of Progressive Grocer reported:
“The day will come when one card will be good at any terminal, in any
state...” In the September 21, 1976 issue of the Daily Oklahoman, was
an article titled, “The Cashless Society Expected to Become Reality
Soon,” which said: “The long-talked about cashless society is almost
here. Bank debit cards are expected to go into nationwide use soon.”
In the December 27, 1979 issue of Electronic Fund Transfer Report,
there was an article titled “Electronic Money” which revealed: “A
sophisticated point of sale system is quietly operated by the Chase
Manhattan Bank in one of the banking industry’s best kept secrets.
Chase is now directly linked to hundreds of electronic cash registers
or P.O.S. terminals in department and specialty stores ... by offering
this service to merchants on a nationwide basis, a network will be
created that will allow the Chase Manhattan Bank to have a national E.
F.T. present.”On May 29, 1980, during ABC-TV’s Good Morning America show, a
Federal Reserve official talked about the existence of a new Federal
debit card: “A thin piece of plastic which is to be inserted in automatic
machines. One must then punch in his own secret code number ... You
are not to write your number down, tell it to anyone, or record it
anywhere. It must be memorized.” Giant Food, Inc. and the Safeway
Stores were the first to install the Point-of-Sale computerized
Electronic Fund Transfer checkout machines in their supermarkets to
take bank debit cards. They were later joined by Mobil Oil who installed
the system in all of its gas stations throughout the country. Since then,
debit cards have quickly assimilated themselves into all aspects of the
retail industry.The plan was to combine the credit card and the debit card into a