That's the way governments seem to work. I sometimes wonder if security checkpoints at airports are an ongoing experiment into just how much people will tolerate before they look for other ways.
I always like to keep a bit of cash on hand, simply because there are always times when a card doesn't work for one reason or another. I've had a card work for one transaction, be declined for the next, then work again. And that's for transactions of no more than $40-50, it's not like $40 will go through and $8000 won't. If your card won't work and you don't have another means of payment, you're outta luck.
If the government ever does manage to do away with cash (which it probably will sooner or later, partly in thanks to the people who endlessly chant their "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra) it would seem to me like another step closer to the beast taking dominion over the earth. It may be a Very Long Time before the beast does rise to take dominion, but it's only in recent years that having the level of control to be able to prevent people from buying and selling has been technologically possible.
My prediction (based on my own analysis, I make no claim that this is in any way prophetic) is that we'll see an end to cash and currencies being merged until we have a single global currency. The destruction of national economies (hyperinflation seems like an obvious way to destroy a currency) seems to me to be the most likely means to bring national currencies together.
