I’ve never been too sure about political sides like right and left, conservative and liberal, or Republican and Democrat. As I’ve started my research on buying politicians, I’m finding a bizarre clarity – there are two sides, and the sides are inside and outside.

It makes no difference if I’m right or left – if I’m outside, politics is something that happens to me. I’m rural by choice – which means my government experience begins with paying taxes and ends in some variant of an authority figure deciding what I should do. I remember the last day of Obama’s administration, when the director of Fish and Wildlife issued order 219, banning the use of lead bullets on all federal lands. When you’re outside – like rural residents of a county where ¾ of the land is Forest Service, government happens to you, not for you. Fortunately order 219 didn’t last long – but it seemed like a malicious way to treat rural people who are outside.

At the county level, it can be where your residence is. Libby, with the courthouse and seat of county government, has a higher percentage of government insiders than the more remote north county. Government services are easier to use when you live close by – when you’re remote, you hope to be left alone. Most rural folks are outside.

I might have thought myself an insider when I was invited to talk with legislative committees about my specialties – but in retrospect, when my testimony supported doing what they wanted to do, everything was smiles and nods. If my facts differed from the legislators desire, much less so. Not having a dog in the fight, I was at best an expert whose testimony supported the conclusions that were already made.

I can’t make a lot of sense in classifying the national socialists as right wingers while the international socialists are left wingers. Each group seems closer to the other than to me. Then again, insiders versus an outsider.

Where Did the Terms ‘Left Wing’ and ‘Right Wing’ Come From? | HISTORY Shows the origin of right and left in France:

“The split dates to the summer of 1789, when members of the French National Assembly met to begin drafting a constitution. The delegates were deeply divided over the issue of how much authority King Louis XVI should have, and as the debate raged, the two main factions each staked out territory in the assembly hall. The anti-royalist revolutionaries seated themselves to the presiding officer’s left, while the more conservative, aristocratic supporters of the monarchy gathered to the right.”

So if being anti-royalist is the qualification for being left-wing, I’m a leftist.  I admit, I had a soft spot for Queen Elizabeth – but she’s gone, and it’s kind of hard to transfer that soft spot to Charles.  Still, that family is pretty much the illustration for a bunch of government insiders – and watching Prince Andrew and Prince Harry illustrates how the move from insider to outsider occurs.  As I think about it, historically we went through a time of revolution, when government was taken from these ultimate insiders, then changed to various forms of democracies and republics which a new bunch of insiders took over.  No big thing – I’ve read about the first King Charles and his problems with Oliver Cromwell

While our dollars say ‘legal tender’ on them, that doesn’t mean a store has to accept them. According to the Federal Reserve, all the term means is that a lender has to accept them as a form of debt repayment.

This last executive session, the Montana Legislature passed a bill requiring that US cash be accepted as currency, which was signed into law by the governor. Merchants that do not accept cash will be subject to a $100 fine per incident.

This still begs the question: Why is this even necessary? Looking into it suggests a of messy soup of definitions that a court will probably have to sort through at some point. A few thoughts:

• The Federal Reserve says “There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services” so, theoretically a store could insist on being paid in, say, chickens…
• Legal tender, as a concept, shows up in the argument over paper money, when the federal government started issuing it in order to deal with civil war debts
• There seems to be an insistence that as long as a merchant is accepting payment in dollars of some kind (like via a credit card), it doesn’t matter if they don’t accept it in another form

The creation of Trego’s new Community Computer Café has been 4 months of relatively accelerated organizing by a small group of passionate folks on the TFS Community Hall board, combined with the generous support of our local internet cooperative, Interbel.

The initial goal of creating this program was to fill some gaps in community services that are not being addressed by the current systems in place. While our local library does provide some access to computers and printers, their hours, space, and budget are really limiting when it comes to expanding those services. It seemed like there needed to be a place where anyone, but especially folks who work or go to school, could come use updated technology, Wi-Fi, and have a cup of coffee in a comfortable space. We thought it would be even better if this program also had local expert volunteers who could offer tech support, and occasional classes for regular folks who are just trying to keep themselves, and their kids, safe in a constantly changing online world.   

Now here we are, a week away from launching the area’s first completely free “Community Computer Café”, complete with different types of laptops, tablets, printers, privacy panels, commercial coffee maker, and all the bells and whistles to go along with it. Starting Monday, January 29, 2024, the TFS Community Hall will be offering the open Community Computer Café from 5 to 7 PM at the Hall in Trego and every Monday evening thereafter. Each open technology night will have an experienced technology assistant to help community members with anything from email to general internet browsing to basic computer coding and development questions. Tablets are equipped with games for childhood learning and development, and we have touchscreen laptops available for community members interested in design. These events are open to anyone in the community, from folks looking to set up an email account for the first time to the brightest techno-wizards around, completely free of charge. Don’t be shy, join us!  

In addition to the weekly Computer Café, the TFS Hall is looking to expand this program to support technology learning opportunities for applications like Canva, Microsoft, and Square. We will also be hosting Cyber and Internet Safety courses in the coming months to discuss important topics like general internet and email safety, password best practices, internet and computer safety for children and teens, and more hosted by a trained cyber professional in our community. If you have any questions or feedback for us on what kind of courses or programs you’d like to see us implement with the new equipment, please email secretary@thehalltfs.com. We’d love to hear your ideas and are excited about the opportunity to bring more services and offerings to Lincoln County through this program. 

If you have a remote or homeschooled learner at home, need a place to take a telehealth appointment, or are just looking to learn more about technology and collaborate with peers, we hope to see you Monday evenings at the TFS Community Hall starting January 29th at 5 PM. Finally, we’d like to thank Interbel for their continued partnership and support of the TFS Hall Community Computer Café. 

-Casey Fuson and Heather Buker

‘No cash accepted’ signs are bad news for millions of unbanked Americans

Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University

How many people don’t have a bank account? And just how difficult has it become to live without one?

These questions are becoming increasingly important as more businesses refuse to take cash in cities across the U.S. People without bank accounts are shut out from stores and restaurants that refuse to accept cash.

As it happens, a lot of people are still “unbanked”: roughly 6 million in the U.S., the latest data shows, which is about the population of Wisconsin. And outside of the U.S., more than a billion people don’t have a bank account.

I am a business school professor who researches society’s transition from cash to electronic payments. I recently visited Seattle and was amazed by the mixed signals I saw in many storefronts. Numerous shops had one sign proudly proclaiming how welcoming and inclusive they were — next to another sign saying “No cash accepted.” This tells people without bank accounts that they aren’t welcome.

Why not have a bank account?

Why would someone want to avoid using banks? Every two years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation surveys households about their connections to the banking system and asks people without bank accounts why they don’t have one. People can respond with multiple answers. In 2021, the top reason — with over 40% of respondents choosing it — was that they didn’t have enough money to meet the minimum balance.

This is consistent with data showing that poorer households are less likely to have bank accounts. About one-quarter of those earning less than $15,000 a year are unbanked, the FDIC found. Among those earning more than $75,000 a year, almost every person surveyed had some type of bank account.

The second- and third-most common answers show that some people are skeptical of banks. Roughly one-third of survey respondents agreed that “Avoiding a bank gives more privacy,” while another one-third said they simply “don’t trust banks.”

Rounding out the top five reasons were costs of dealing with a bank. More than one-quarter of respondents felt bank account fees were too high, and about the same proportion felt fees were too unpredictable.

While many middle-class and wealthy people don’t pay directly for their bank accounts, fees can be costly for those who can’t maintain a minimum balance. A recent Bankrate survey shows basic monthly service fees range between $5 and $15. Beyond these steady fees, banks earn $4 to $5 each time people withdraw cash from an ATM or need services like getting cashier’s checks. Unexpected bills can result in overdraft fees of about $25 each time an account is overdrawn.

Being unbanked in America

The FDIC calls people without a bank account “the unbanked.” People with a bank account but who primarily rely on alternative services such as check cashing outlets are called “the underbanked.”

The latest FDIC data shows almost 6 million unbanked and 19 million underbanked U.S. households. Given that 2.5 people live in the average household, this means there are over 15 million people living in a home with no connection to banks, and 48 million more in homes with only a tenuous connection to banks.

Combining the two figures means roughly one out of every five people in the U.S. has little or no connection to banks or other financial institutions. That can leave them shut out from stores, restaurants, transportation and medical providers that don’t take cash.

The true number of unbanked people is likely higher than the FDIC estimates. The questions on being banked or unbanked are supplemental questions added to a survey given to people at their homes. This means it misses homeless people, transients without a permanent address and undocumented immigrants.

These people are likely unbanked because you need a verified address and a government-issued tax-identification number to get a bank account. Given roughly 2.5 million migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023 alone, there are millions more people in the cash-only economy than the FDIC estimates.

How many people globally are unbanked?

While the U.S. has relatively high rates of people with bank accounts, the picture is different in other parts of the world. The World Bank has created a database that shows the percentage of each country’s population that has access to financial services. The World Bank’s definition of being banked is broader than the FDIC’s, since it includes anyone who uses a cellphone to send and receive money as having a bank account.

Overall, the World Bank estimates about one-quarter of the world’s adults don’t have access to a bank or mobile-phone account. But that varies dramatically by region. In countries that use the Euro, almost everyone has a bank account, while in the Middle East and North Africa, only about half the population does.

A more inclusive economy

Many of us swipe our credit cards, tap our phones or insert a debit card to pay without thinking. However, there are at least 6 million people in the U.S. and almost 1.5 billion worldwide who are unbanked.

When businesses stop accepting cash, the unbanked are forced to use payment methods like prepaid debit cards. However, these prepaid cards are costly. For example, Walmart, one of the largest U.S. retailers, offers a reloadable basic debit card. The card costs $1 to buy and charges $6 per month in fees, in addition to $3 each time someone wants to load the card with cash at Walmart’s registers. Paying a minimum of $10 just to set up a debit card for a few purchases is a steep price.

The next time you see a sign in a shop or restaurant window stating “No cash accepted,” you’re really looking at a business excluding many unbanked and underbanked people. Insisting that all businesses accept cash is a simple way to ensure everyone is financially included in the modern economy.

Jay L. Zagorsky, Clinical Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.