Credit cards are WORSE, normies!

Wear gloves, you lazy pigs.

https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-germ-study.php

Study: Credit cards carry more

types of bacteria than coins, cash

Duh.

Payment tablets, like the ones restaurant, bar and food truck patrons tap and sign with their bare fingers, were found to have more different types of bacteria than any other payment method studied. And credit cards had more different types of bacteria than cash and coins, contrary to the popular perception of money as being “dirty.”

Some of the nastiest bugs found on the surfaces of the payment methods studied included Staphylococcus aureus– the culprit behind staph infections – and Salmonella enterica, a common source of food poisoning.

..

David Westenberg, associate professor of biological sciences at Missouri University of Science and Technology, said that while cash, cards and tablets can pick up bacteria from human skin, the microbes can’t thrive there because there’s no food source.

?

what does that matter with viruses?

Gold and silver coins were antimicrobial. Our ancestors were clever.

https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/could-your-credit-card-kill-you-1276.php

A study reveals that half of all credit cards sampled tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — better known as the deadly MRSA infection

CDC spokeswoman Melissa Dankel calls credit cards a natural fomite, the medical term for an inanimate object that can transmit disease.

McQuaig says the widespread presence of MRSA is one reason cashiers, toll booth workers and TSA agents increasingly wear gloves on the job.

Lisa Holmes, a longtime vendor to the Department of Veterans Affairs, began her one-woman crusade against plastic fomites more than a decade ago after observing commonplace cross-contamination while making her rounds of VA hospitals.

“In one, the woman who registers veterans all day had lesions all over her hands from their plastic ID cards; she couldn’t wear gloves because she couldn’t type with them. In another, a lady caregiver was leaning over a patient with her badge touching his face, then turns and leans over another veteran and does the same thing. I said, ‘whoa, we’ve got to fix this thing,’” she recalls….

Holmes says card companies and issuers alike seem to have higher priorities these days than the health of their cardholders. While the additional manufacturing cost would be inconsequential, in the industry’s view, the idea of rolling out a new “cleaner” card just now would open a whole can of public relations worms best left unopened, she says.

There’s one other obstacle as well: the antimicrobial card doesn’t kill germs per se; it simply inhibits their growth.

Fine?

Holmes insists she’s on the right side of history and that one day her patent will be inside every purse and wallet in America.

“It’s just a matter of getting a credit card company that is willing to develop it. They don’t want to embrace it right now but once they do, everyone will want this thing,” she says. “I’m hoping the plastic badges will catch on, too. You have to fix it all.”

She was right.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/consumers/2019/05/21/how-dirty-debit-and-credit-cards-more-than-urinals-study-says/3752780002/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/02/19/credit-cards-transport-germs-bitcoin-safer-coronavirus/4798732002/

http://www.antimicrobialcards.com/2011/02/germs-coat-hospital-badges-says-study.html

Plastic is the WORST. Viruses love it.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-bacteria-are-all-over-your-wallet-and-smartphone-2016-05-18

Handing someone a wad of sweaty bills may be bad manners, but it’s not likely to make them sick. Even though money is covered in bacteria, there’s a low risk of becoming sick from touching it, said Christopher Mason, an assistant professor in the department of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell University, who has researched the amount of bacteria on common surfaces, such as the New York City subway.

Some 11% of hands, 8% of credit cards and 6% of paper money showed levels of bacteria equal to those in a dirty toilet bowl, according to a 2012 study of 272 people by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London. (Although, it’s important to note, the study was funded by a handwash company.) “Microbes are everywhere, and most of them are beneficial to us rather than harmful,” said Jane Carlton, a professor of biology and the director of the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU, who worked on the Dirty Money Project, in an email.

BAN HANDS, PAPERCHASE.

I think it’s actually illegal to ban cash.

That’s legal tender.

Banning cards in a shop is fine, legal tender is always legal.

You literally cannot ban cash as a shop.

That said, most people carry the kind of bacteria found on money and credit cards. Because paper dollars have a porous surface, they act like sponges and pick up a large amount of bacteria, Mason said, but the same bacteria is often found on skin.

Cash absorbs so it’s actually safer. Our cotton money is really absorbent.

“You should be no more afraid of touching money than shaking someone’s hand,” he said.

Your Credit Cards Are Crawling With Bacteria

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Topical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London looked into the contamination of hands, money, and credit and debit cards in England. From their samplings they found that 1 in 10 bank cards were contaminated with bacteria, and 1 in 7 bills were also contaminated.

What were they contaminated with? Bacteria like E.Coli, Staphylococci and most notably, fecal bacteria. This means about 10 percent of cards and 14 percent of money is swimming with bacteria. Although 91 percent of respondents claimed they were washing their hands after using the restroom, the findings showed otherwise. Also, take into account how many people handle your card, such as a cashier, whose hands may also be contaminated.

The study found that 28 percent of the swabs taken were contaminated, 26 percent of them with fecal bacteria. Of the samples taken 11 percent of hands, 8 percent of cards and 6 percent of bills were found to be contaminated with about the same amount of bacteria found in a dirty toilet bowl.

There were 272 participants in the study who provided cards, money, and their hands to be swabbed and inspected for bacteria as well as providing information about their hygienic habits. Now that we have provided you with this information isn’t it about time you went and cleaned your credit cards.

You can easily clean your cards by using disinfectant wipes. If you’re looking to keep your cards as clean as possible use a wallet, try to avoid having multiple touch your card (unless it is needed), and avoid laying your card down on public surfaces like the cashier counter.

“Stash cash under your mattress” ~ Fund manager

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11686199/Its-time-to-hold-physical-cash-says-one-of-Britains-most-senior-fund-managers.html

It’s short and they’ve been going SJW so, in full so I can explain;

The manager of one of Britain’s biggest bond funds has urged investors to keep cash under the mattress.

Ian Spreadbury, who invests more than £4bn of investors’ money across a handful of bond funds for Fidelity, including the flagship Moneybuilder Income fund, is concerned that a “systemic event” could rock markets, possibly similar in magnitude to the financial crisis of 2008, which began in Britain with a run on Northern Rock.

“Systemic risk is in the system and as an investor you have to be aware of that,” he told Telegraph Money.

Some of us like it that way. A little chaos spices up the day.

The best strategy to deal with this, he said, was for investors to spread their money widely into different assets, including gold and silver, as well as cash in savings accounts. But he went further, suggesting it was wise to hold some “physical cash”, an unusual suggestion from a mainstream fund manager.

He knows something. He grew a conscience?
Reminds me of the Most Honest Stockbroker in the Entire World.

His concern is that global debt – particularly mortgage debt – has been pumped up to record levels, made possible by exceptionally low interest rates that could soon end, and he is unsure how well banks could cope with the shocks that may await.

He daren’t mention the other 3 horsemen of the economic apocalypse: student loans, pensions/welfare and the NHS.

He pointed out that a saver was covered only up to £85,000 per bank under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme – which is effectively unfunded – and that the Government has said it will not rescue banks in future, hence his suggestion that some money should be held in physical cash.

WRONG.

Per banking LICENSE.
Many banks operate under a single license, meaning you’re entitled to 1 (one) £85k payment. You need to check yourself. This assumes the currency value doesn’t change compared to nominal.

He declined to predict the exact trigger but said it was more likely to happen in the next five years rather than 10. The current woes of Greece, which may crash out of the euro, already has many market watchers concerned.

Oh, he means the EU collapse.

Mr Spreadbury’s views are timely, aside from Greece. A growing number of professional investors (see comment, right) and commentators are expressing unease about what happens next.

The prices of nearly all assets – property, shares, bonds – have been rising for years.

House prices have risen by 26pc since the start of 2009, and by 68pc in London. The FTSE 100 is up by 75pc.

Although it feels counter-intuitive, this trend of rising prices should continue if economies remain weak, because it gives central banks licence to keep rates low and to carry on with their “quantitative easing” programmes.

Conversely, if the economy does pick up and interest rates need to rise, the act of doing so is likely to stall the economy and force them to be reduced again. Once more, demand for those mainstream assets would be rekindled and the asset boom continues.

But then there is the shock event. Daily Telegraph columnist Jeremy Warner also captured some of the concerns this week when he wrote that the trigger for an “inevitable correction” could come from “a clear blue sky – a completely unanticipated event”.

Like a…. Black Swan? If only there were a name for this effect?

How are fund managers preparing for this gloomy possibility?

Sadistic glee since they’re making bank twice (getting out before this Black Swan crash plus future selloff). 3x if you count ’08 but who does?

Mr Spreadbury sticks to bonds because of the remit of his funds. Within that world, he said a shock to the system would cause a flight to safety and the price of British government bonds, or gilts, would rise sharply. He also holds bonds of companies that would be most protected in times of turmoil – water companies, power network operators – and those where the bonds are secured on a solid asset, such as land or buildings.

Sounds like he’s prepping for a war.

Examples include Center Parcs and Intu, which owns shopping centres.

Marcus Brookes, another well regarded fund manager who looks after billions of pounds worth of investments, is less constrained in where he invests, because of the different remit of his funds. Schroder Multi-Manager Diversity, for example, can pick and choose between assets.

Mr Brookes said the probability of a major shock event was small but even he holds 29pc of the Diversity portfolio in cash, a huge proportion compared with most funds. This decision is due to his concern that bonds are overvalued and may fall. He aims to deliver returns of 4pc above inflation so can’t afford to put too much in assets that he believes will lose money.

“The problem is that people are struggling to work out how to diversify if QE programmes stop,” he said.

I wouldn’t give those people Monopoly money.

Mr Spreadbury added: “We have rock-bottom rates and QE is still going on – this is all experimental policy and means we are in uncharted territory.

Seems pretty planned to me.

“The message is diversification. Think about holding other assets. That could mean precious metals, it could mean physical currencies.”

But you said above….
Nevermind, they don’t have a clue.

Apocalypse incoming. Got it.

They can find fingerprints on cash and receipts now

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140528204217.htm

This is why the BoE (Bank of England) is trying to move to plastic-based cash. And they pass microbes better too.

“The technology, which has been developed by Dr John Bond OBE from the University of Leicester’s Department of Chemistry, uses a specially tailored UV light source to visualise fingerprints not possible to see otherwise on ‘thermal paper’ — that is, the paper used for shop receipts and for bank statements from ATMs.

Historically, the process of visualising fingerprints on thermal paper has been problematic, as the solvent used in the chemical treatment can colour the dye and turn the whole paper black, rendering thermal paper a ‘problem surface’ to recover fingerprints from.

…

The new technology developed by Dr Bond counters these issues, making it possible to identify fingerprints on all forms of thermal paper efficiently.

Dr Bond said: “This new technology offers a new way of easily looking for fingerprints on an increasing source of paperwork that criminals are likely to handle when committing a variety of offences.”