The beginning of the end of cash [Special Report]

The basic paradigm has been in effect for years. You toil, scheme, cajole, and cogitate, and in exchange you get paid-but probably not in cash. Some bits get altered periodically in a database somewhere, as infinitesimal patches of ferromagnetism on disks or electromagnetic pulses flitting from here to there. Your earnings, your savings, your spending: Virtually all of it is virtual.