Expat Files – 07.30.17

#1- Land border crossing chaos. Land border bathroom blues. Johnny’s latest “boots on the ground” story #2- More examples of Latin upper-class racism/classism among upscale gringo copycats and first-world wannabees. #3- When so called type “A” Gringos and Expats come down (the shakers and movers) they often need to be the big fish in a small pond once again. Many …

It’s Our Money – Digits – Better Get Used to Them…… – 03.12.17

As cash transactions continue a downward slide toward obsolescence and perhaps even illegality, a host of replacement media are being lined-up to replace the practice of making tactile exchanges when completing transactions. Everyone is used to using credit and debit cards, those intermediaries that digitize payments and do account reckoning. But what lies beyond those captured private industry providers like Visa and Mastercard is an even more exotic and potentially far safer monetary transaction system called “blockchain.” This week Ellen talks with Jon Underwood, the founder and CEO of a blockchain-based parallel payment system called C-pay, a system capable of creating local monetary systems as well as addressing some of the payment world’s stickiest markets, like the developing cannabis markets of the American West.

Apple Pay Coming to Britain this Summer, Moving the World Closer to a Global Cashless Society By Steven MacMillan

This summer, Apple is set to introduce its “contactless payment technology” Apple Pay to Britain, shortly after a secret meeting was reported to have taken place in London to “end cash”. The iPhone is already fitted with a wireless microchip which can be used to pay in a similar manner to contactless cards, with The Telegraph suggesting Apple Pay could be rolled …