People buy more junk food when using plastic

''The pain of paying in cash can curb impulsive urges to purchase unhealthy food products,'' Thomas writes with his co-authors in the June issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. "Credit card payments, in contrast, are relatively painless and weaken impulse control.''

The researchers analyzed the spending habits of 1,For all DVS Bedding in PDF format.The Leading promotional usb Distributor to Independent Pet Retailers.000 shoppers at a large chain store over six months in 2003 and then conducted two controlled experiments at Cornell and SUNY Binghamton, as well as an online experiment.

Previous studies had found that consumers are more reluctant to part with bills and coins than to use credit -- what the research has labeled "pain of payment." Thomas' team, however, established that the "pain" of paying in cash really only affects impulsive purchases of "vice" foods and not deliberate "virtuous" purchases. There was no difference, however, when consumers used credit and debit cards to buy food -- an unexpected finding.

"This is surprising," Thomas said, "because, unlike credit cards, debit cards are equivalent to cash; the money gets deducted from the consumer's bank account almost immediately. This result suggests that ¡­ even the mere abstractness of plastic payments can reduce the pain of payment and thus influence consumers' purchase decisions.What to consider before you buy Wholesale pet supplies."

The key to understanding the findings, Thomas said,GreenRay's hydraulic hose design uses a different energy storage approach, is that the so-called "vice" foods,Welcome to the official Facebook Page about RUBBER MATS. such as Oreos and Coca-Cola, for example, are perceived as unhealthy and impulsive to buy. Shoppers therefore relate to vice foods on a purely "visceral" level, Thomas said, whereas they consider "virtue" foods (Quaker Oatmeal and Aquafina Pure Water, for instance) at a rational level as "utilitarian" products.

"So vice spending is more susceptible to pain of payment," Thomas said, and thus, to payment in cash, while form of payment doesn't affect virtue spending.

The findings not only showcase an interesting quirk of consumer psychology but also may help curb the epidemic of obesity in America today, said Thomas, who hopes that for some consumers, at least, the use of cash over cards might help them cut down on impulsive and unhealthy food purchases.

Thomas noted that various technological advances in the near future may also help consumers at the cash register.

"I believe and hope that we will soon start seeing technological advances in credit and debit cards that help consumers better manage their spending decisions," Thomas said. "For example, it might be useful to have an LCD chip in a card that shows the total monthly spending thus far, or the cumulative credit."

Co-authors of the study are Kalpesh Kaushik Desai, associate professor at SUNY Binghamton, and doctoral student Satheeshkumar Seenivasan of SUNY Buffalo.

As Plastic Reigns, the Treasury Slows Its Printing Presses

The number of dollar bills rolling off the great government presses here and in Fort Worth fell to a modern low last year. Production of $5 bills also dropped to the lowest level in 30 years. And for the first time in that period, the Treasury Department did not print any $10 bills.

The meaning seems clear. The future is here. Cash is in decline.

You can't use it for online purchases, nor on many airplanes to buy snacks or duty-free goods. Last year, 36 percent of taxi fares in New York were paid with plastic. At Commerce, a restaurant in the West Village in Manhattan,Choose from one of the major categories of Bedding, the bar menus read, "Credit cards only. No cash please. Thank you."

There is no definitive data on all of this. Cash transactions are notoriously hard to track, in part because people use cash when they do not want to be tracked. But a simple ratio is illuminating. In 1970, at the dawn of plastic payment, the value of United States currency in domestic circulation equaled about 5 percent of the nation's economic activity. Last year, the value of currency in domestic circulation equaled about 2.5 percent of economic activity.

"This morning I bought a gallon of milk for $2.50 at a Mobil station, and I paid with my credit card," said Tony Zazula, co-owner of Commerce restaurant, who spoke with a reporter while traveling in upstate New York. "I do carry a little cash, but only for gratuities."

It is easy to look down the slope of this trend and predict the end of paper currency.In addition to hydraulics fittings and Aion Kinah, Easy,From standard Cable Ties to advanced wire tires, but probably wrong. Most Americans prefer to use cash at least some of the time, and even those who do not, like Mr. Zazula, grudgingly concede they cannot live without it.

Currency remains the best available technology for paying baby sitters and tipping bellhops. Many small businesses — estimates range from one-third to half — won't accept plastic. And criminals prefer cash. Whitey Bulger, the Boston gangster who lived in Santa Monica for 15 years, paid his rent in cash, and stashed thousands of dollars in his apartment walls.

Indeed, cash remains so pervasive, and the pace of change so slow, that Ron Shevlin, an analyst with the Boston research firm Aite Group, recently calculated that Americans would still be using paper currency in 200 years.

"Cash works for us," Mr. Shevlin said. "The downward trend is clear, but change advocates always overestimate how quickly these things will happen.What to consider before you buy oil painting supplies."

Production of paper currency is declining much more quickly than actual currency use because the bills are lasting longer. Thanks to technological advances, the average dollar bill now circulates for 40 months, up from 18 months two decades ago, according to Federal Reserve estimates.

Banks regularly send stacks of old notes to the Fed, which replaces the damaged ones. Until recently, notes were simply stacked facedown and destroyed, as were dog-eared notes, because the Fed's scanning equipment could not distinguish between creases and tears. Now it can. In 1989, the Fed replaced 46 percent of returned dollar bills. Last year it replaced 21 percent. The rest of the notes were returned to circulation where they may lead longer lives because they are being used less often.

The futurists who have long predicted the end of paper money also underestimated the rise of the $100 bill as one of America's most popular exports.

For two decades, since the fall of the Soviet Union, demand has exploded for the $100 bill, which is hoarded like gold in unstable places. Last year Treasury printed more $100 bills than dollar bills for the first time. There are now more than seven billion pictures of Benjamin Franklin in circulation — and the Federal Reserve's best guess is that two-thirds are held by foreigners. American soldiers searching one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in 2003 found about $650 million in fresh $100 bills.

This is very profitable for the United States. Currency is printed by the Treasury and issued by the Federal Reserve. The central bank pays the Treasury for the cost of production — about 10 cents a note — then exchanges the notes at face value for securities that pay interest. The more money it issues, the more interest it earns. And each year the Fed returns to the Treasury a windfall called a seigniorage payment, which last year exceeded $20 billion.

To meet foreign demand, the Fed has licensed banks to operate currency distribution warehouses in London, Frankfurt, Singapore and other financial centers.

In March, largely because of the boom in $100 notes, the value of all American notes in circulUse bluray burner to burn video to BD DVD on blu ray burner disc.ation topped $1 trillion for the first time.