August 9, 2015

"Once a marker of a business with suspicious tax practices, the phrase 'cash only' has come to signify hipster entrepreneurialism at places like Stumptown Coffee at the Ace Hotel in Midtown Manhattan or the Emerson Bar in Brooklyn."

"... Many of the new alternative currencies have the look and feel of the regular legal tender accepted at such places. Most include anticounterfeiting measures like holograms and serial numbers. But they are more eye-catching. At the Effra Social, a Brixton pub, Ewan Graham, 31, an architect, was impressed upon examining one of the district’s special pound notes for the first time. 'I’d be more inclined to save money if it all looked like that,' he said. The back of the note displayed a Karl Marx quote about capital and its 'occult ability to add value to itself.' The £10 note, meanwhile, pictured David Bowie, a Brixton native (stardust, or other powdery substance, not included). It’s easy to imagine such notes being fetishized as audiophiles do vinyl...."

And it's easy to imagine suspicious tax practices... even by "hipsters"!

The article — in the NYT — is "Do You Have Change for a Bowie? The Advent of Artisanal Cash."

14 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Maybe gambling casinos could make their plaques and tokens and chips a little bit more nifty.

Michael K said...

I wonder what they will be worth when the crunch comes ? Nothing I assume. Of course that is true of all paper money.

Fandor said...

"What's in your wallet?"

campy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
campy said...

"And it's easy to imagine suspicious tax practices... even by "hipsters"!"

Bullfeathers! Hipsters are willing — nay, eager! — to pay their fair share (if not more) of taxes, because they love Big Government and all the marvelous things it does for us.

Swifty Quick said...

In places where marijuana is legal or quasi-legal on the state level marijuana retailers are forced to operate on a cash basis because banks won't do business with them out of fear of being accused of laundering drug money by the feds. So there's that.

CWJ said...

That Karl Marx quote is a doozy! If accurate, it simultaneously 1) demonstrates utter cluelessness regarding value creation in actual practise, and 2) explains his zero-sum world view.

glenn said...

"Do what I say not what I do."

cubanbob said...

Artisanal cash? Sounds like a hipster version of counterfeit money but with a major dash chutzpah.

JamesB.BKK said...

"suspicious tax practices" = keeping your own stuff. Can't have that. This is the Land of the Free.

SGT Ted said...

Karl Marx was a drunken loser who thought the world owed him a living due to his brilliance. Just like his followers.

J said...

IF they are actually exchange this stuff for goods the tax man over here would not like them.Printing money is reserved to the government.
and neohippies in prison for twenty years sounds about right.

mikee said...

Artisanal cash has been around since at least the 1880s in the US. The bills vary from trompe l'oeil to crazily daft, sometimes with witty sayings instead of "In God We Trust." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs

I for one cherish the Alfred E Neuman $3 bills of my youth.

Truly there is nothing new under the sun. But hipsters will never admit this.

Todd said...

So let me see if I understand this one...

Artisanal hipster cash = good

Bitcoin = bad

Is Bitcoin bad because no hipsters were involved in its creation? Is it because it is accessible to more people? Is it because it is more flexible?