Scoop’s Views

It was the end of 1964, and a so-called futurists described how, within a few decades, all financial transactions would be handled.

Simon Ramo wasn’t 100% on-target, but he was close. We don’t use thumbprint for many things, and the government doesn’t take it’s cut at the time of the transaction, but things are, well, instantaneous.

While we aren’t yet using the thumbprint technology in transactions such as buying a home, grocery shopping, or, for that matter, shopping at most any store, it is used for government stuff, as well as used for computing security.

Did Simon Ramo have it all wrong back in November 1964, or was he a little too optimistic for his time? I think it’s the latter. Even in the late 1990s and early this decade, even as late as 2003 or so, I heard people I know dismiss the idea of using debit cards, as well as ATMs, even for cash advances from a credit card. Those same people, though, also were against online shopping.

Maybe Ramo was on the right track, even to the point of suggesting the government — all the collective bodies, from local to federal — would take their cut of taxes from transactions as they happen, though off just a little in the timeline.

People are just now beginning to understand the breadth of Uncle Sam’s ability to track and monitor citizens’ activities. All that Big Brother stuff, coupled with other threats, such as identity theft, worries some people about how a thumbprint-type device could be secure.

All that aside, Ramo’s predictions may come true. Maybe, as he said, within the next few decades. Read the full story from the Nov. 27, 1964 issue of TIME in the magazine’s online archive.

So, what do you think?

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