Delaware North Companies, Inc.
Attn: Jeremy M. Jacobs, Jr., CEO
40 Fountain Plaza
Buffalo, NY 14202
Dear Mr. Jacobs,
My uncle, Norman Krolman, was a great hockey player and I love going to a hockey game in your Boston Garden. Until last night.
Before the game starts, you play the national anthem with its disturbing imagery of the explosive destruction of war. Nothing to do with hockey but that’s all right, I guess. It reminds me of my uncle.
During the game, you highlight a live warrior in the audience and everyone around me is pressured to rise and applaud. I don’t like that too much. It reminds me of my uncle.
Between periods, you offer beer and peanuts at your concessions. I always bring extra cash in my wallet to treat myself. My uncle liked beer too.
But last night, my cash at Boston Garden was unwelcome. Now you’re going too far.
I talked to a concession worker about it. I asked, “Is that what fans want these days? To not use cash?” He said no. He said that Delaware North, you his boss, are forcing it on them. The fans don’t like it and your workers don’t like it. A second worker came over and chimed in. They pleaded with me to lodge my complaint at guest services and also to write a letter.
I decided to go along with their request. I complained at guest services. And now I’m explaining why to you in this letter: whether you know it or not, you’ve joined the war on cash. I’m against the war on cash just like I’m against war. In memory of my uncle.
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Here is my simple history and fuller explanation for why warriors against cash are promoting literal war that destroys human life and property.
A long time ago, when the state wanted to invade another country, the king would simply ask his lackey, “How much stolen loot is in the war chest?” If the war chest was empty, no war. Simple for all to see but, at the same time, frustrating to the state. They wanted to go to war whenever they felt like it. Painful attempts at managing a gang of tax collectors, clipping coins or blatant adulteration were just as frustrating. Then came a diabolically brilliant idea: central banking.
Since the founding of the Federal Reserve (just in time for spending on World War I), the state’s man simply asks his lackey to print up dollars to buy guns, uniforms and recruiting posters to their hearts’ content. The purchasing power of dollars across the planet is surreptitiously stolen and the war chest is overflowing for all the destructive power that the state could wish for. Not so simple for all to see — and thereby ideal for the war-mongering state. Good morning Vietnam and Desert Storms for eternity!
Pesky little promises that curtailed unlimited war dollars out of thin air – like the promise to always allow other countries to convert their pallets of dollar bills into gold at $35 per ounce – were unpromised one by one. The final pesky promise to get rid of is that little promissory note itself “legal tender for all debts, public and private”: the humble dollar bill. Let the war on cash begin.
That’s where you come in.
The reason the state needs to get rid of cash is because they don’t want bank runs. As they create more and more dollars out of thin air, the money is piling up in the bank accounts of their vendors and those vendors’ vendors around the world. The state wants people to do more stimulus spending with their bank balances – and certainly not ever all at once being spooked by hyperinflation. That would be game over for the dollar. To gradually nudge people to spend, they’ve lowered interest rates on bank savings to around zero.
But it’s not working. And certainly when the next big downturn comes, they’ll have to nudge a lot harder. That’s where negative interest rate nudges come in.
Let’s say one of your Boston Garden fans has $10,000 in the bank and they start nudging him to spend with a negative interest rate of say 5% per year. These days, if he’s reasonable, he’ll go to the bank, withdraw the cash and put it in a safe box. Down the road, however, if the war on cash succeeds (like in Sweden and almost in Great Britain), he’ll have to begrudgingly start spending the money or else watch it melt in his mobile pay wallet. The bank run bogeyman is banished.
I hope I’ve helped you understand why I’m against the war on cash. It’s because I’m against all war. Please reconsider what you’re against.
I visited my uncle two years ago. He is resting at the Cassino War Cemetery with a beautiful view of the abbey ruins. I would have liked to invite him out to a Bruins game and a beer at your Boston Garden. But not anymore.
Yours truly,
Arthur Krolman
