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The UK is ahead of the game here, but the £50 note still needs to go. The £20 I can see use for but it is amazing that 18% of all UK cash is a note I never see.

The argument seems irrefutable.

The UK’s largest banknote should be smaller than the cost of a tank of petrol? Really?

I am not proposing the abolition of cash

But no one legitimately needs these notes

Sirsly?

50 thoughts on “Rilly?”

  1. “I do not ever need these notes. All my activities are legal. Therefore people only ever use these notes for illegal purposes. Therefore they must be banned. PS MOAR TAX”

  2. Isn’t this another postulation along the lines of “I don’t see a merit in x, therefore no one needs x”?

    Because if this is a valid line of argument: I don’t see the merit in Ritchie, will he therefore go away?

  3. No-one legitimately needs to take any notice of the drivel that this cunt talks.

    I’m glad you are doing, though. A friend’s daughter is currently at City and her boyfriend (by beautiful chance) is ‘studying’ under Richard Murphy. Apparently this blog is widely shared and there’s a lot of sniggering going on.

  4. Also: I suspect that fifties aren’t added to cash machines, hence why many people don’t see them. Whenever I get cash out from a machine, it’s usually a couple hundred quid, and it would (frankly) be more convenient to get four fifties (or three fifties, two twenties and a tenner), than 9 twenties and a pair of tenners). So, I suppose what I’m saying is that I’d like to see more fifties in circulation than fewer.

  5. @johnsquare – quite so – like you, I see no *need* for Murph but I don’t think he should be banned. I think he should be cultivated like some rare and disgusting plant, to be pointed to and laughed at when we need some light relief

  6. @Interested

    “Apparently this blog is widely shared and there’s a lot of sniggering going on.”

    Hopefully we can expect his students to start asking the ethics of incorporating your nanny, licensing from Barbados, and manufacturing in Ireland to sell in the UK and “when is an annex and annex and a home office a business for rates purposes”.

  7. Once more the Ego has spoken. He doesn’t use the note, therefore there is no legitimate use for it and must only be used by criminals.

    “But no one legitimately needs these notes”

    I can only assume his ‘reasoning’, such as it is, is that there is a smaller denomination note available.

    But this ‘logic’ applies to the £20 note. And the £10 note.

    So his opinion is entirely arbitrary and based on “I don’t use it, so people who do use it must be criminals”.

    Penis.

  8. Would love to become a client of this tosser.

    When he presented his fee to me, I’d roll up to the Old Orchard with a barrowfull of 1ps in settlement and say we should not be using paper money that might facilitate tax evasion

  9. “it is amazing that 18% of all UK cash is a note I never see.”

    No doubt who holds the purse strings in the Murphy household, then.
    Pussywhipped.
    But why would you want to go around telling people?
    Inexplicable.

  10. While I don’t agree with banning it, I rarely see £50 notes other than being used by tourists. No doubt not helped by very few retailers accepting them due the popularity for forgery a few years ago!

  11. I could understand his argument if he is receiving a butt load, hopefully literally inserted, of money from the banks for this opinion.

    I don’t see many $50 or $100 bills but that is mostly due to having to go inside the bank, and paying a fee, to get them. If ATMs gave out bills larger than a $20 they would get more use.

  12. I think the cash machine thing nails it. Most notes in day-to-day circulation came out of a cash machine at some point.

    The other problem with British £50 notes is that they are gigantic.

  13. So having a look at Murph’s original post, it does seem that the primary argument is that “criminals use them”. This seems to me to be a standard problematic approach of trying to stop criminality by removing the means of crime, as if criminals will then just give up. Like, for instance removing all the litter bins in London so that the IRA couldn’t put bombs in them. That was some years ago, but I remember joking with people about these sad-faced terrorists saying, “well that’s it, we’d better give up then”. It just doesn’t work that way.

    DBC Reed reminded us in the previous thread about Thatch’s abolition of the Truck Acts which entitled the proles to cash payments, weekly. The argument presented then was that it would stop wages snatches happening.

    Nowadays, you get your entire electronic bank account cleared out instead. Criminals really do tend to adapt to circumstances, and rather faster than the State, in fact.

  14. Most people stopped using £50 notes back in the 1980s, not just because their use was likely to flag you up, but by virtue of the large number of counterfeit fifties then in circulation (no one would accept them).

  15. I’m racking my brains trying to work out what crimes £50 notes facilitate. S’pose it means over the pavement jobs need a bigger size blagger to carry the loot, but what else?
    I just can’t remember anyone saying they weren’t going to try that one because “Oh no. They’ve only got twenties” or “I’m not flogging you that. Haven’t you got anything larger?”

  16. We do of course have €500 notes (known as Bin Ladens, he exists but has never been seen). It is true that they are used by those of a black money disposition. A wad is worth a lot! Also very convenient for larger cash payments… Of course the control freaks want to do away with them.

    Also, €200 and €100 (rare). I like them, they take up less space. The commonest note is the €50.

    Just to keep those that deal in certain substances under control all deposits of more than €2,500 or €3,000 (not sure) are listed for the Bank of Spain. Can’t say that the dealers have stopped dealing.

    Personally, I am as honest as they come (fear of prison is a wonderful control system), but I’m buggered if I want to do away with cash so some faceless paper-pusher can find out I spend a lot of money on booze (high quality of course) and then the next time I go to the doctor he charges me for the visit ‘cos he has been warned I take major health risks.

    Anybody not believe that is going to happen?

  17. JS

    “Also: I suspect that fifties aren’t added to cash machines, hence why many people don’t see them.”

    This.

    On the continent, if I take out €300 (from an ATM), more often than not I get 3 €100 notes. Shops then have no problem whatsoever taking them and giving you change, even if you are spending just a few euros. Murphy talking bollocks as always.

  18. In China the biggest note is 100RMB (approx £10). Was a pain in the arse the other month when I needed 16k in cash and quite literally couldn’t shut my wallet. The flip side although in Hong Kong where if you try to take out 500HKD from a ATM you’ll likely get a 500 note which is also a pain in the arse.

  19. “I am not proposing the abolition of cash”

    Well, not this week anyway.

    And Liberal Yank, the Scottish banks certainly issue £100 notes – not sure about the Bank of England.

  20. I remember about 10-15 years ago the banks *still* used to take 3/4 days to effect a transfer between themselves (nowadays its about 15/20 mins max between UK banks, and sometimes the same from UK to forrin ones).

    This meant I would often (monthly) have to spend my lunch hour extracting cash from one to take 100 yards up the highstreet to another so I could pay myself and the troops. Even with 50’s, that’s a lot of large cash bundles at £6-£8k for each person. I would hate to have been restricted to smaller notes, as it would have been obvious to any lurkers what I was doing.

    (Yes I did try S/O or electronic transfers, but there were enough mistakes and subsequent howls about not being paid that I stopped it).

  21. My one cash-handling job was as a barman whilst a student. If anyone handed over a £50 note there were two thoughts: (1) it’s a forgery (2) if it’s not a forgery then the customer is a flash wanker

  22. @Ben S, but then CHF 50 is like £20 in purchasing power. Except in petrol. Right now I can fill the tank for CHF 50 at some places :p

    Even then, I do prefer to get some 10s and 20s, although Raiffeisen seems to insist on giving me 100’s.

  23. “Do you even have a £100, or larger, note anymore?” In Scotland (unless they’ve changer it without my permission). Dunno about Norn ireland.

  24. I usually carry a couple of 200s & a 100 for security. There’s times, shit happens – your car dies in the ass end of nowhere, holiday weekend – where cash talks a lot louder than plastic. Those notes, because shit’s rarely less than a hundred & you have the options up to five.
    Security’s also because they live in an entirely different place in my jacket, whatever, from ready cash & conceal well. The other sort of shit happens, I can always give up the readies & plastic but I’m still solvent & can get home.

  25. Google tells me that Norn Ireland does have £100 notes, and that there are still £1 notes in Scotland.

    Frankly, although there are still pound notes in Scotland, they are not in common circulation – I haven’t seen any other than the few I keep for being a complete bastard for five years, at least. I suspect that more £100 notes are used (although they are uncommon too.) We have the same ATM fill (£10s and £20s) as noted above.

  26. Criminals must be pretty stupid if most of these notes are forgeries and hardly anyone will accept them. I can’t see them laundering ill-gotten gains into worthless pieces of paper.

  27. There were £1,000 notes until WW2, and that was when £1,000 was still worth something. They were first issued in the 18th century when they were serious money.

    They were normal notes for general circulation, although why and how I have no idea. Perhaps for property transactions?

    There were also some odd £100,000 BofE notes, but I think only for inter-government purposes, not for general circulation (unstable little countries depositing their money here), and of course the BofE used to issue £1 million and £100 million notes to the Scottish banks (they had to hold them to back their own banknote issues), but I think that’s done electronically now.

  28. The opposite of that, when I moved back from Hong Kong and emptied my bank account I got the change in a handful of one-cent notes. 😉

  29. If the £100,000 note was like any of the high $ bills then they were used for bank to bank transfers.

    I vaguely recall reading about the security measures Toronto banks used to keep these safe as they were carried by hand. Probably the most important security feature was the fact that they weren’t available for use by the general public.

    Since these transfers are now done electronically there is no need for the notes.

  30. Reading BiS’ comments in this thread, I’m convinced he’s a crim, on the lam to the Costa del Crime

  31. There was a time – perhaps 15 years ago? – that shops in Edinburgh wouldn’t accept one of the English notes – £20, I think. Not nationalism, just that there were too many forgeries about.

  32. Bloke in Costa Rica

    Pound coins are a bit bulky compared to a £50 note, but they do have the advantage that if you change the latter into the former you can fill a rugby sock with them and use it to beat to death any cunt that wants to abolish fifties.

  33. Just remember that, a few weeks ago, The Murph wanted the government to issue high denomination bills to prevent bank runs. The logic was unassailable because non – existent

  34. Liberal Yank says:
    Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    February 9 2016 at 11:06 pm
    What I do not understand is how eliminating physical currency would change illegal activity?

    Criminals will always find something of value to trade be it gold or domestic goods.

    Eliminating the £50 note will have no real effect other than inconveniencing law abiding citizens who either can not access banks or object to the excessive fees charged by banks, for electronic transactions, to small businesses. If you would like to better understand the advantage of physical currency, including larger bills, to small businesses I recommend you contact a local accountant that specializes in said businesses.

    Does he require moderation for all new commentators?
    Also wasn’t he an accountant?

  35. LY,
    He moderates all comments from all commentators.

    He will sometimes allow contradictory comments through in order to post rude rebuttals.

    Sycophantic comments will always get through, regardless of how obviously insincere and ridiculous they are. They just have to be very sycophantic. (I’ve tested this to destruction).

    The other fashion, since spoiled by tell-tale Arnald, was to post under the names of porn stars, totalitarian leaders, PG Wodehouse characters, etc etc.

    It was quite amazing what you could get away with as the sycophancy appeared to blind him to all else.

  36. “Just remember that, a few weeks ago, The Murph wanted the government to issue high denomination bills to prevent bank runs.”

    Lol, yes.

  37. We do of course have €500 notes

    I once saw a tourist walking about Paris with one of them, trying to get somebody to change it. He might as well have had Nigerian Naira.

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