The Curse of Cash Quotes

“it can use laws, regulations, and outright coercion to come out on top: a determined government is always going to win the battle for currency supremacy, at least in the long run. Other transaction media may thrive, but the government currency will be at the center.”
― Kenneth S. Rogoff, The Curse of Cash

“certainly influence the future course of cryptocurrencies, which we take up in chapter 14; governments everywhere are facing the question of how to balance regulation with fostering innovation in this space. Nevertheless, one should have little doubt that governments have all the tools necessary to prevent any alternative transaction media from deeply infiltrating the legal economy on a sustained basis, thereby greatly undermining their value relative to the present-day status of cash.”
― Kenneth Rogoff, The Curse of Cash

“Volcker’s tightening policies ultimately worked wonders in taming inflation expectations. But it took a few years, and in the short run, severe monetary tightening hit the economy like a ton of bricks, leading to a recession and tremendous political pushback. Carpenters and builders mailed in two-by-fours to protest they had nothing else to do with their lumber. Car dealers sent coffins to the Fed filled with the keys of unsold vehicles. Farmers blockaded the Fed’s front entrance with tractors. Having just arrived from graduate school as a young economist at the Fed, I watched the Volcker disinflation unfold with amazement.”
― Kenneth S. Rogoff, The Curse of Cash: How Large-Denomination Bills Aid Crime and Tax Evasion and Constrain Monetary Policy

“All in all, the public health issue concerns do not seem to be a first-order argument against cash at present”
― Kenneth S. Rogoff, The Curse of Cash

“Security is constantly evolving. Some Federal Reserve officials have talked about using a variant of the blockchain methodology pioneered by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to create payment platforms that have built-in security due to its distributed public ledger verification process. We”
― Kenneth Rogoff, The Curse of Cash