Buy Canadian

I dont see how you can do that without launching your own national credit card companies. And good look trying to do any grass roots organizing for that.

No one has enough money, and this trend will get worse as this trade war goes on. Unless you can replace the credit buffer this initiative is a non starter.

To many people are living partly on a credit card, we need to ether replace it with an non american credit card, some other form of credit (LoCs are harder to get at the moment) or find a way to get more money to Canadians.

For anyone curious like I was, Dicking Around is not what i thought. Looked it up and...

"the phrase "dick around" is actually from "dicker around" which is a 19th c. term. "Dicker" is to "Engage in petty argument or bargaining" and "Treat something casually or irresponsibly; toy with something". So when someone is "dick[er]ing around" they are treating serious matters lightly or doing things in an unnecessarily protracted way; which is precisely how we use it.

The word "dick" however, which I would gather, people would envision it meaning "penis" here, simply doesn't work. We don't use "dick" as a verb, yet alone a progressive verb. "To dick" or "to be dicking" a person, although fairly clear in its sexual connotation, is certainly not in use, "dicking (with) a person" however, makes perfect sense, because it's from that ye olden term "dicker" again.

So "dicking around" has nothing to do with the slang term for penis or the disused colloquial meaning of a rookie detective, or it being an everyman"

,

tho clearly OP didnt kno that and instead masculinizes his speech to be 'man talk' about and for Men.

edit: OP seems less evil than was implied.

Even if we dumped all online transactions and used cash for in person transactions, there isn't enough cash in circulation. Less than 3% of US dollars are printed on paper. The rest is just numbers on spreadsheets. There is no way we could function without electronic payments. This is true in almost every country that has a central bank that engages in fractional reserve banking.

Cryptocurrencies?

I mean, how long would it be until the next fascist Canadian prime minister?

Better to just get the government out of our wallets.

Ahh, so as an American my only option is cash. 😔

I work for an American credit card company, and my advice is to ditch credit and debit cards entirely. Use cash.

The Canadian banks are big enough to build a wholly Canadian credit system for global use, especially if they could get everyone in Canada (and maybe elsewhere) to switch right now.

They probably get too many incentives from Visa and Mastercard to find it enticing though, which is why they're always pushing credit cards and offering cashback and airmiles, etc.

I think there is a European alternative being developed. Perhaps we can get in on that.

For this to work, Interac needs to incentivize using it like credit cards do.

All types of loans require a credit score of some kind, and credit cards are one of the best ways to build this. Additionally, credit cards usually offer some kind of return.

Also because of poverty, a lot of people have a dependency on credit or payment plans.

Interac needs to make a Canadian answer to the credit card.

I’m on board for this but this proposal is up against a familiar devil: the network effect.

Shops support Visa and Mastercard because customers use them, customers use them because shops support them. This creates a powerful network that is extremely difficult for an upstart to unseat.

So while it’s a good idea to encourage people to take individual action on this — and you’re doing a great job doing so, and I’m taking it to heart for my own actions — we also need to accompany this with a policy solution to help overcome the network effect.

I’ve given up taking visa / Amex / Mastercard. My business now only accepts Interac e-transfer and cash.

Interac is hands down the most secure way to pay for something. I never have to take a card from a customer, the customer never has to take on additional debt, the money is automatically deposited into my account within seconds, and it costs me absolutely no money to do this and I have to pay no money to a merchant to make it happen.

I wish I could do this at more places.

Just like tipping, a percentage system makes no sense. It's the exact same work to bring me a $50 meal vs a $500 one. And for payment processing, a flat fee makes much more sense because there's no difference in processing a $100 transaction vs a $10,000 one.

So why does a percentage-based system persist? Because workers want higher wages (understandable when restaurants refuse to pay them more and expect the customer to pay part of their income). And for giant corporations like Visa and MasterCard, it's literally never enough for them. They can make more money, so that's the only reason. It's so dumb...