While it is hard to believe that Americans are still using punch card election ballots in the year 2000, it is even harder to understand why nearly half of all consumer purchases are still made with cash. However, the use of cash is dwindling as checks make up 32% and payment cards (credit and debit) make up 21% of retail spending. Most likely consumers purchasing items with cash in the year 2000 must have something to hide. Perhaps it is poor personal financial management, lack of spending discipline, a bad credit record, no banking relationship, unemployment, a nasty vice, illegal income or just plain laziness. With nothing to hide, the use of cash is still one big pain. If you get ripped-off with a bad purchase you have little recourse but to yell and stomp your feet at the merchant. If you lose your wallet the chances that your cash will be found are about as good as holding the winning number in a government run lottery. Handling a lot of cash can also raise your heart rate a few beats. Truth is while cash may be king, there is nothing regal about using it.

Coming in second on the "Stupid Money Habits in the USA" is the use of checks. American consumers write a mind boggling 18 billion checks per year for retail purchases. (About 65 billion more checks are written by businesses and consumers paying regular bills.) Writing and sending checks from home may be very convenient and carry little risk. However, carrying a checkbook in your purse and pocket is worse than carrying a huge wad of cash. It is incredibly easy for a thief to clean out your checking account with one check or deposit slip. Worse yet some really stupid consumers have their driver's license or social security number imprinted on their checks. This additional information can open the way for a thief to generate fraudulent credit cards or take over your identity. Even if you protect your checkbook there is also the arithmetic problem. It is fact of life that at least one of your checks will eventually bounce. It may not be your fault but the bank and the merchant deal mercilessly with such infractions. Bounced check fees make credit card late fees look like pocket change. Truth is using checks for store purchases is a nightmare waiting to happen.

The smart money is and always has been with the use of payment cards. Credit and debit cards offer the highest level of convenience, safety, and leverage of any payment method. Many payment cards today, including debit cards, now offer special bonus rewards to boot. The convenience of credit and debit cards are unsurpassed for both the consumer and the merchant. The settlement process is all electronic avoiding the risky handling of cash and the messy handling of checks. If a cardholder's credit card is lost or stolen the maximum loss is $50, and in most cases today, the liability has been reduced to $0 if reported promptly. Under the law there is a higher liability for debit cards but that has already been lowered by many issuers to the same as credit cards. Best of all consumers using credit or debit cards have enormous leverage with the merchant if they are unhappy with a purchase. There is a simple process to dispute a transaction if the merchant failed to perform properly. Two other enormous advantages over checks and cash are float and perks. If you pay off your credit card balance each month you can generally float a transaction without any interest charges for 50-60 days. About one third of credit cards, and a few debit cards, now offer cash-back, air miles, automatic discounts, etc. based on how much you charge. This is icing on the cake. Debit cards offer all the advantages of writing checks but without all the hassle and risk. With a debit card there are no paper checks to be compromised and there is no intimidating process to use it.

In the not too distant future Americans will be able to use one payment card to conduct all kinds of transactions from major purchases to micro-purchases. Smart cards have the ability to combine credit, debit and prepaid functions all on one card. The elements of the "Cashless Society" are here but unfortunately there may be too many Americans stuck in the dark ages of using checks and cash.

TAKING  STOCK

Jitters over earnings, the economy and the election have sent some of the best performing stocks in the world spiraling downward to super low levels. Some firms see this as a golden buying opportunity and are now offering consumers a way into the investment markets utilizing their credit card, rewards program, or airline purchases.

The Principal Financial Group and Pro2Net are now offering a VISA Platinum card that offers a 1.25% cash-back bonus and a VISA Classic card that offers a 0.75% cash back bonus that can be applied toward savings and money market accounts, mutual funds, mortgage and consumer loans, annuities and life insurance. Both cards carry no-annual-fee and a prime +6% APR.

SaveDaily, a micro-investing specialist and beenz.com have teamed up to enable consumers to buy shares of nationally recognized mutual funds with their beenz. beenz are a new kind of money that can be earned by consumers who simply visit, interact with, or shop at participating web sites. To participate, beenz.com customers first establish a SaveDaily account, which requires a small annual fee. Once the account is open, beenz account holders who have at least 1000 beenz in their beenz account will enjoy free investing with no transaction fees or commissions. beenz clients with existing SaveDaily accounts may start converting beenz immediately without incurring an additional annual fee. beenz can be spent by using the MasterCard rewardzcard, a reloadable debit card.    US Airways inked a deal this month with Stockback to give consumers who purchase qualifying tickets for US Airways flights through Stockback's online program a cash reward that can be invested a no-load, open-ended mutual fund managed by Merrill Lynch. Stockback can also earn up to 20% cash back at merchants such as Dell, Barnes&Noble.com, Buy.com and Brooks Brothers. For information on the above programs visit www.pro2net.com; www.beenz.com; or www.stockback.com.

ATM BALLOTING

Pregnant chads, hanging chads, and dimpled chads could be a thing of the past if U.S. election officials harness more advanced technology such as ATMs. With more than 300,000 ATMs deployed in the U.S., Americans could confidentially and accurately cast ballots with highly advanced machines that are neither Democrats or Republicans. Re-counts with ATMs would take hours instead of days. The ancient technologies used to cast votes in the world's most technologically advanced and wealthiest nation could also be discarded in favor of a registered voter smart card verified with biometrics and/or Internet vote gathering. Election Systems & Software said this month it has already conducted a successful pilot using the Internet for voting in a shadow election in San Mateo, CA. ESS says the current vote counting systems in the USA utilize levers, punch cards, OMR and DRE. Optical Mark Recognition Systems (OMR) uses a paper ballot where the response area and the candidate information are presented together. Later the ballot is read by an OMR device, which interprets the marks and records them in electronic files for computerized accumulation and reporting. Direct Recording Electronic Systems (DRE) are touch screen electronic systems where the voter makes selections directly onto the device.  Each selection is immediately recorded and when the voter is finished, the count is recorded in electronic files for computerized accumulation and reporting. Already some members of Congress are calling for federal subsidies for local governments to beef-up their voting systems with modern technology.

PALM  PAYMENTS

Desktop computers are out and handheld computers are in. Personal Digital Devices or PDAs are among the hottest holiday gifts this year. In the driver's seat is market leader Palm. Credit card issuers are already looking to PDAs for marketing purposes. Credit card processors are also looking to PDAs to facilitate wireless payments. Early next year Bank of America is set to launch a first quarter credit card marketing campaign that targets users of personal digital assistants and mobile phones. Last month, Bank of America tested a wireless campaign offering consumers the opportunity to apply for a credit card anytime, anywhere, by completing and submitting their credit card application on their PDA devices or mobile telephones. BofA says it has received positive feedback from its initial test launch and is currently planning to execute an enhanced roll-out of the campaign in early 2001. NYCE Corp announced this month it will launch a pilot early next year to enable real-time person-to-person funds transfers. When fully implemented, NYCE participants will be able to offer person-to-person transactions to their customers at all types of devices that can communicate with the NYCE Network's processing platform, from ATMs to Web-accessible personal computers and PDAs. Utilizing NYCE's real-time payments infrastructure, these transactions will be switched using an ATM/debit card number associated with the recipient's account. And because the transfer is made directly between accounts at insured depository institutions, issues associated with funds held by non-supervised organizations will not be present. Get a Palm now and watch the future unfold.