How Louisiana's Poor-Hating Politicians Are Cash-Bashing Lindsay Lohan
The political geniuses in Louisiana have decided they hate poor people so much, they passed House Bill 195—near unanimously! (One nay in the senate.)
It bans cash on all second-hand transactions. Now, when a good Louisianian holds a garage sale after a bout of spring cleaning, if they accept cash for their old vinyl collection, they’ve broken the law.
Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife
Swap meets. Church bazaar sales. Antique stores. Buying used skis off Craigslist. You can’t use cash in the Pelican State. Their stated reasoning is to prevent the sale of stolen goods—their view is cash transactions make it easy for criminals to sell their booty. Fair enough! No one wants to encourage dastardly behavior. Which must be very widespread, because one owner of a second-hand shop reports he had come in possession of hot goods once in eight years. (That he knows about! Cue ominous music.) And we all know how church ladies are regular fencers at their sinister fund-raising events.
I frequently write about the unintended consequences of even the best-intentioned legislation. You can’t get a better example than this (and I’m not even sure the legislation was all that well-intentioned). Does it stop the sale of some stolen goods? Maybe, a bit. But the primary impact is it hurts lower income people—who may not have ready access to a credit card or prefer to use cash for obvious reasons. (After all, hasn’t our Congress been hectoring us all for years on how irresponsible we are with credit cards?) And it hurts small business owners who may prefer not to pay transaction costs associated with a credit card swipe machine. Or who themselves want to avoid check fraud! And it hurts everyone, ever, who wants to hold a garage sale, sell a used bike on Craigslist, sell their old car to a nephew, on and on. What deviants!
One of the strengths of America is different states can pass different laws that impact only their state. They can make mistakes—even huge ones—but the impact is limited to home. Or, heck, they can innovate new ideas that might work great that others can copy—or not. Up to them!
My guess is Louisiana’s move is the former—with perhaps one exception. Lindsay Lohan has had multiple run-ins with the law and other forms of social problems, including allegedly “accidentally” walking out of a store wearing pricey jewelry. She’d be flummoxed in her attempt to sell her goods specifically in Louisiana should she need cash fast to pay any of her legal fees. Then again, she could always hock it at a pawn shop. Pawn shops are exempt! Why? Who knows. Politicians are silly.
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Money manager Ken Fisher’s latest book is Debunkery: Learn It, Do It, And Profit From It–Seeing Through Wall Street’s Money-Killing Myths (John Wiley, 2011). Visit his archive at www.forbes.com/fisher.