I was about to turn myself since I paid for my coffee with cash this morning but it says "always" uses cash so I'm safe.
The cash angle is troubling.
A few months ago I came across a statistic, something to the effect that only about 7.5% of all transactions are conducted with cash in this country anymore.
Separately, I came across another statistic more recently to the effect that there are several trillion dollars in the form of electronic digits in computerized accounts, but only a few billion ($500B?) in actual cash.
The banking system hated/hates the gold standard because it slowed them down from printing vast amounts of paper money. The banking system loves ATM cards and checkbooks because it means they don't even have to print the paper money.
Until something big goes wrong. Now, if the banking system started crashing, there isn't even close enough paper money dollars in existence to give more than a fraction of paper money to depositors.
Now, according to the fedgov, anybody who knows the above info and wants to keep the banking system at arm's length by using cash is suspicion.
Yeah, he's suspicious, but not for the reasons they say. He's suspicious because he understands the system and wants to reduce his risk--and might tell others.