That said, I really don’t understand how anything run by government has become “socialist” in the common vernacular.

The second misstep is the proposal that government get into the payments game. Have you ever heard of the Federal Reserve Bank? The Fed is the master operator and licensing authority for the largest payments transaction network in the world, the U.S. bankcheck settlement system. Not to mention its authority over the issuance of U.S. currency, the most fluid payments system we have. All other operators, including Amex, Visa and Mastercard, answer to the Fed. The government cannot get into payments because it IS payments.

The gist of your post is well-taken (however poorly argued)– that fluidity, convenience and trust are what we want in our payments environment. Not barriers. Amen to that.

So with this said, when you pay your groceries with a credit card, it authorises the transaction with MasterCard before you go, effectively offering the merchant with a garantee they’ll be paid by MC. When you cross a toll booth, it doesn’t authorises anything, it just recognises your ID which is later linked to your account and the fee is charged.

I can only close this by quoting ‘Holy Cow’ (erm!) above… “[The] Government is the worst services providor on the planet – it can capture by penalty of imprisonment great amounts of personal data, and would be forced to share that data with anyone or everyone who wants to plunk down ten bucks to own it.”

Cheers,
SEb.

In fact, many states make it illegal to accept card payments because they feel the processing cost is a blantant miss-use of the tax payers money.

It ain’t red tape, bro – just good old fashion money that gets in the way.

Also payments are nontrivial. You have fraud to detect, disputes to arbitrate. Margins are razor thin and you need scale for efficiency. The chances that a state could compete with MC or Visa (or PayPal) are approximately zero.

And you want to turn your personal payment services over to this typical local government? Seriously?

It’s fair to ask why a larger existing payment services company isn’t already doing this, like PayPal or something like it. PayPal already offers all the services you mention, but not yet such a device.

But to take the reflex socialist view of turning critical personal services over to the government just makes no sense. Government is the worst services providor on the planet – it can capture by penalty of imprisonment great amounts of personal data, and would be forced to share that data with anyone or everyone who wants to plunk down ten bucks to own it.

Please, please, put it in your mind to think private businesses first. You’re correct in your basic premise, but government payment services? No.

The Government should not be in control dictating standards, responsible for innovation, and interest rates. If you look at the Federal Reserve, they have done a horrible job managing interest rates and value of the dollar instead of letting market forces work. In the FasTrak system, they may impose a lower rate at the beginning, but eventually after they figure out they need to manage fraud, customer service, and maintenance the rates will spiral out of control the program will become yet another taxpayer subsidy. This system would also end up being forced upon retailers whereas right now they have a choice if they accept MasterCard/Visa/Amex or not. Additionally, with the current state of things I doubt many American would feel comfortable giving their purchasing habits directly to the government to data mine. ::Puts on Tin foil hat:: Go Capitalism!

;D nmw