I would much rather see an end to the "Fiat Currency" society. Bring our currency level to the level of our gold reserves...

Of course, we'd have to have .01 mil Gold Exchange Note (who here remembers what a mil is?), as there's doubt we even still *have* a US Gold Reserve.

I have said for years that paper money is pretty much worthless. Its also dirty, slow and inconvenient.
At first, using a debit card at Dunkin Donuts for a $1.09 cup of coffee felt a little awkward but I got over that pretty quick.
Paper money to me is just a pretty picture of something that is essentially intangible.
Its credit based on credit based on credit based on credit. What difference does it make if its on a magnetic strip or sheets of paper?
Since it has no substance to back it up anymore it seems perfectly natural to just keep track of it with a computer screen and transfer it with a mouse.
For at least the past decade or so I have almost exclusively used cash for tips and gifts, otherwise I don’t want to even be bothered with it. And coins? Forget it! Unless theyre pre-1965 I don’t even want to see them.
Its downright heartbreaking when I think about this; As I child I can remember on a few occasions holding a $100 dollar bill, the crispness, the distinctiveness of its texture, the unidentifiable yet enchanting smell of it and above all else the feeling of the sheer power that it possessed. Even at a young age I knew that it represented something very special. I knew, long before I was even close to an employable age that it represented somebodies hard work, that it held a fantastic potential energy. Fast forward 35 years, now I hold a hundred dollar bill, scoff at its ridiculous cartoon-like appearance and think to myself “What a pain in the ass, now I have to go the ATM and covert this into an electronic form thats actually useful” then wonder if its even worth the time because its barely enough to buy a lousy pair of sneakers.
And to think that its only decreasing in value every single day…

I use cash as much as I can. Groceries (because I take cash back) and fuel is all I usually buy with a debit card. It's no ones business what my business is.

Allow me one more point: You might find an exception, but ALL paper money always is uniquely numbered. Paper money has always been traceable. When police buy illicit goods, they note the serial numbers of the bills they use so that when the suspect is arrested, the bills can be entered as evidence. Does Glenn Beck think that we should haul around bags of coins instead of paper money?

That Blaze article is just spam. It has many factual errors wrapped in a conceptual error.
Error 1: "For example, the data breach at Target stores in February 2014 compromised the credit/debit cards of 40 million shoppers."
Fact: The breach occurred over the start of the Thanksgiving-Christmas shopping season. It was alerted right away by cyber security bloggers, but not announced (admitted) officially until much later.

Error: "... which drove down the Dow for three minutes; temporarily erasing roughly $130 billion of value from U.S. stock markets.” "
Fact: The Dow does not represent stock markets plural but only one exchange.
Fact: All exchanges in fiduciaries, commodities, derivatives, collectibles, or whatever "gain" or "lose" whatever you call "value" every second of every day 24 hours a day. When the Dow rebounded _3 minutes later_, did that represent a joyful rise in value?

Omission: "Research from Tufts University demonstrated that cash costs US consumers, businesses and governments more than $200bn annually in everything from ATM fees and theft to lost tax revenue."
Fact: The biggest cost of cash is in transportation. Your bank must PAY someone to bring it in and haul it out. You see armored cars everywhere making deliveries and pick-ups. Stores PAY for that service. Ultimately, you pay for it. You just are not aware of it. (Numismatists - collectors, really - who routinely search money for rarities know this and have known it for decades. Our banks make us wait, make us fill out request forms, and sometimes make us pay up front for delivery.)

Perspective: Herodotus says that Polycrates of Samos cheated his Spartan mercenaries with lead coins wrapped in gold foil. We doubt that. (You do not cheat the Spartans without consequences.) But we do know of ancient counterfeit coins, very many of them, in fact. Coins were a substitute for cows. Ever see a counterfeit cow? Well, there is the old saw about the blind horse who knew his own farm. So, you always can cheat anyone somehow if you want. The point is that _cash_ as an invention held all kinds of risks. Yet, it was better than commodities.

Perspective: In the Middle Ages, faced with a plethora of local coinages, bankers invented "pounds-shillings-pence" as an _abstract money of account_. They met at fairs and cleared their books of loans and payments without ever touching a coin. "Virtual money" is about 800 or 900 years old.

Perspective: In the cyberpunk stories of William Gibson, the underground currency is New Yen. Demonetized right after they were issued, the notes served as counters because they met all the parameters of "real" money.

Fact: After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Kurds kept their local economy going when they relied on the last issue of paper money from the fallen regime. It met all the parameters of "real" money.

Fact: Millions of Americans have tons of silver coins at home. The ever popular Morgan and Peace dollars are bid up 60% to 100% over bullion just because everyone recognizes them and honors them. That ties up to the first point above: Cash - even hard money - has costs.

Anything that reduces transaction costs increases values -- even if an attendant risk must be deducted in the calculation. Electronic money is here to stay -- and in Chicago and New York, you still can trade wheat for cows.