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Sweden's Cash-Free Future Looms -- and Not Everyone Is Happy About It
HughPickens.com writes: Liz Alderman writes in the NYT that bills and coins now represent just 2 percent of Sweden's economy, compared with 7.7 percent in the United States and 10 percent in the euro area and this year only about 20 percent of all consumer payments in Sweden have been made in cash, compared with an average of 75 percent in the rest of the world. "Sweden has always been at the forefront of technology, so it's easy to embrace this," said Jacob de Geer, a founder of iZettle, which makes a mobile-powered card reader. In Sweden parishioners text tithes to their churches, homeless street vendors carry mobile credit-card readers, and even the Abba Museum, despite being a shrine to the 1970s pop group that wrote "Money, Money, Money," considers cash so last-century that it does not accept bills and coins. "We don't want to be behind the times by taking cash while cash is dying out," says Bjorn Ulvaeus, a former Abba member who has leveraged the band's legacy into a sprawling business empire, including the museum.
But not everyone is pleased with the process. Remember, Sweden is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks call the police because they think you might be a terrorist or a criminal. Swedish banks have started removing cash ATMs from rural areas, annoying old people and farmers. Credit Suisse says the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong." Sweden's embrace of electronic payments has alarmed consumer organizations and critics who warn of a rising threat to privacy and increased vulnerability to sophisticated Internet crimes. Last year, the number of electronic fraud cases surged to 140,000, more than double the amount a decade ago, according to Sweden's Ministry of Justice. Older adults and refugees in Sweden who use cash may be marginalized, critics say, and young people who use apps to pay for everything or take out loans via their mobile phones risk falling into debt. "It might be trendy," says Bjorn Eriksson, a former director of the Swedish police force and former president of Interpol. "But there are all sorts of risks when a society starts to go cashless."
But not everyone is pleased with the process. Remember, Sweden is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks call the police because they think you might be a terrorist or a criminal. Swedish banks have started removing cash ATMs from rural areas, annoying old people and farmers. Credit Suisse says the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong." Sweden's embrace of electronic payments has alarmed consumer organizations and critics who warn of a rising threat to privacy and increased vulnerability to sophisticated Internet crimes. Last year, the number of electronic fraud cases surged to 140,000, more than double the amount a decade ago, according to Sweden's Ministry of Justice. Older adults and refugees in Sweden who use cash may be marginalized, critics say, and young people who use apps to pay for everything or take out loans via their mobile phones risk falling into debt. "It might be trendy," says Bjorn Eriksson, a former director of the Swedish police force and former president of Interpol. "But there are all sorts of risks when a society starts to go cashless."
If you don't know why they're doing this, you haven't been paying attention.
This is how the government manages to track and control every aspect of your life, and I do mean every.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I thought all countries (in the developed world, at the very least) had laws stating in one wording or another that it is illegal for a business to refuse payment in the country's official currency?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Only criminals will have cash.
But I'm not sure what they will spend it on.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Yeah, if you like government control.
Bow down to your masters as they track every penny (or krona) that you spend while they watch your every move.
i just want to buy stuff - anonymously, without the shop-keeper knowing my name and other personal details just because i bought a fucking coffee or a hamburger or something.
lack of privacy and anonymity are the main reasons i dislike online shopping and use it only very rarely - delivery of the purchased goods requires that i give the vendor my personal details which they then immediately assume they are entitled to store in a database, use to spam me, and sell, trade, or give to third-parties.
even when they have a checkbox option saying "don't spam me" or similar, some arsehole in their marketing department will take it upon themselves to decide that i didn't really mean that, or make some exception for their super-important spam (spammers always say "my spam isn't spam") or their database will frequently have that field "accidentally" cleared.
There are kids around here who think nothing of hauling out a Plastic Card to buy a 50 cent Candy bar.
Typically, a Cashless Society has a lot of hidden overhead, and those who promote the concept the most tend to benefit from that overhead.
It's not a Conspiracy Against Freedom, it's the Triumph Of the Hidden Middlemen.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the United States, accepting legal tender is mandatory only for repayment of "DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE". To avoid this, a shop can require prepayment for all goods and services so that the customer never incurs debt.
In that case, will it be a crime to buy something before becoming an adult? I was under the impression that only an adult could hold a bank account in his own name; anyone younger than 18 (or thereabouts depending on jurisdiction) has to make do with cash.
As someone who lives in Sweden I can say that I have never, ever seen a 'homeless street vendor' with a card reader, although I do not deny they exist (who is really going to stick their card into some guy on the streets card reader though, seriously....). I live in a rural area and no cash machines have been removed from any local villages. Most places take cash, probably those that do not are still a minority.
Yes admittedly less people carry cash, you can pay with apps (Swish) and get stupid loans via SMS with terrible rates if you are a moron. Sure there are those who think that Sweden will go cashless soon, but this is in an ideal world that exists in their heads. I keep reading articles like this every year. Next please.
What about the fees for a EFT? lot's of small shops don't like cards due to the fees also cash tips are big (at least over there they don't have that tipped min wage BS)
A cash-free society means the banks, and any business or government or person with juice, knows what everyone is doing. If you have no problem with this, build your next house with glass walls, and put a streaming camera and mic on your person.
All this, contrast to corporations and governments. Corporations aren't people, so you can't really spy on those. Corporations are now freeer, and now don't even have to declare a nationality. Their banking is private, if they desire. Derivative markets are untrackable and untaxed. They don't pay taxes. Yet they demand we give it all up to them, because ???? we're idiots.
Governments? The US, UK, Australia and NZ are frothing at the mouth to destroy any whistleblowers who rat them out. Assange is STILL in jail, no charges other than trying to get away from retribution. Wikileaks supporters have problems flying in airplanes and crossing borders. And the governments have no problem spying on everyone else and demanding that right. And the Cayman Islands secret banking system is left alone, because the CIA, the mob, and corporations like their privacy.
... is a bitch.
I wonder what kind of measures the Sweden have against losing it. And if I'm not mistaken most payments go through the Internet and of course the Internet is supposed to be 100% reliable ... oh, wait.
P.S. George Orwell wasn't a science fiction writer 'cause he actually (fore)saw the future. The future where everything you do is logged and categorized.
Nothing is anonymous anymore.
Deal with it. Even if you use Bitcoin or cash, there is nothing to stop the person receiving it or anybody watching you repoting you.
"We don't want to be behind the times by taking cash while cash is dying out," says Bjorn Ulvaeus
This is one of the most stupid statements that I have heard this year. I hope that it is a translation error.
You will feel it.
You guys want big government here on Slashdot? You're going to get it big and hard.
https://www.treasury.gov/resou...
"This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. "
this is to prevent things like a Brainless Git paying a US$25.00 bill in pennies or somebody stripping a businesses safe by using large bills to pay for small transactions.
in short if it would be a problem to handle cash (or some subset thereof) its all fair game. (but its common to post a sign to warn clients)
Sweden Yes!
there is no law of any kind that requires me to do business with any specific store of business, either
Specific business? No. Specific kind of business? Yes. Zoning laws require you to buy food rather than growing it. Indecency laws require you to buy clothing. Sit/lie laws require you to buy or rent housing rather than sleeping on public property. And shared responsibility laws require you to buy health insurance or face drastic tax hikes.
If the grocery store I habituate decided tomorrow to start taking plastic only, I'd find somewhere else to shop on principle alone.
So what happens once all grocery stores within walking distance go cashless?
Aren't 'marginalizes old people and refugees' and 'makes racking up consumer debt ever easier' typically considered features, rather than bugs, in payment systems?
Compromise. Limit cash to transactions under say $50
Table-ized A.I.
'"Sweden has always been at the forefront of technology, so it's easy to embrace this," said Jacob de Geer, a founder of iZettle, which makes a mobile-powered card reader'.
In other news, sharks were in favour of sea bathing.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
If the rest of the world has 75% of transactions being paid in cash ( seems legit, if maybe even a tad low ) how will people that come to Sweden for tourism pay for anything?
Seems like a great way to insulate yourself from the rest of the world and have your economy grow stagnant to me...
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
Sure, I don't use anything but my credit card in Sweden. The only times I'm using cash is when I go to a night club and they don't always take credit cards and they will redirect you to an ATM located nearby. Super annoying.
I won't complain if I don't have to use cash anymore...
Charging fees for EFTA is US thing. When living in Finland I used mostly bank account information to move money and pay bills. There was no cost associated with these transactions and they were fast. I never really carried more than â20 in my wallet as I was always able to use my debit card.
It wasn't until I moved to US when I had to learn the ancient art of check writing, getting used to waiting for checks to clear and etc. all other nonsense.
I know the perceived government control looks bad but the government already controls the value of the currency and making transactions more transparent reducing tax avoidance. I'm paying my taxes so should everybody else as if you don't then I need to pay more (and I hate paying any extra taxes because of freeloaders)
The real reason why this is happening is the very real possibility of introducing negative interest rates. Some EU economies already have negative rates, which essentially is a tax on holding your deposits. This only works when you don't have any other avenue to convert your savings. Barring converting your wealth into other assets (which they'll gladly track, since there will be no anonymous cash transactions), you'll have to pay this tax because they say you have to.
Welcome to completely captive economic hell, brought to you by central bankers worldwide. Think it isn't happening? It is, just on a small scale so far. If Sweden folds and goes cashless, the rest of the banking cabal will lick their chops at the prospect of fleecing an entire population, and enact it as soon as possible.
They get a slice of the transaction when you pay via plastic (the trader pays 1-3%). They get a bit when you pay in cash since the retailer will have to pay the bank a bit (cash handling charge) when they pay in at the end of the day. However bankers get nothing on many payments: the man who mows the lawn, the baby sitter, the window cleaner, ... many of these will spend what they earn as cash - so several transactions that the banks do not get the chance to bacon slice.
OK: this might not be a large part of the economy, but all those free transactions must be annoying them!
Awesome. Now if I want to sell a friend or family member a game or tool or whatever, we can't keep it simple and use cash. And now the government, banks, credit card companies, advertising agencies and businesses will know every little detail about every thing that changes hands in our lives, no matter how small or inconsequential... and they will probably figure out a way to tax it and market more products to us. So cool and "easy" for us. Yeah. The future is rad.
Many fees on cards.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
A fundamental problem with this is not surveillance, but rather control.
Consider this: When you pay in cash there is no middleman. You pay money directly to the recipient.
In a cashless society there needs to be regulation to guarantee competition, otherwise what will happen is we will give power to middleman to control which transactions are available and which are not. After all, if the middleman says "no", then with no options there is no recourse.
For example I can easily imagine pressure from a conservative minority allied with radical feminists to force a middleman company to refuse transactions for pornography. There is no way to bypass this without competition.
This was an *extremely* annoying aspect of visiting the ABBA museum in Stockholm: they refuse to accept cash at all. Neither for admission nor for the gift shop. At least in 2013 when I was there, signs were posted with an explanation by Bjorn who mentioned his son's apartment being robbed and how the burglars made away with some cash. So... "ban all cash" because my kid left some in his apartment and it got burgled. For an otherwise smart and talented guy, this has to be one of the most fatuous rationales ever.
Anybody want a peanut?
No more ADSL for YOU! The telephone service was privatized and the new "private" company feels it too expensive to keep the copper running so a large chunk of the country will no longer have telephone service or ADSL. Well, at least we have one million new muslim immigrants to keep us entertained. (Yes, I am one of the the people who will no longer have access to the Internet. They say I should build a huge mast, a directional antenna and an amplifier so I can get "3G"but I don't have the money (about 10K EUR). I no longer have phone or Internet... My great granddad put a phone in this house in the 1940's.
Sweden IS going to SHIT!
I like the idea of this. If we can get our mobile payments systemsup to snuff this would make things a lot easier. My issue is the hidden costs involved with it. One of the reasons I use cash is because I know it costs small businesses money if I use my credit card. I would rather get cash and pay that way for local shops than cost them the percentage they pay to the credit card company even though I may get a few cents back. The only way I could get behind this totally would be for there to be some way to make the payments with the middle man taking a big chunk of the money. IF it was true micropayments where the middle man takes a couple cents then maybe, but as long as it is a couple percent, I will still pay with cash.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
the founders of the US explicitly rejected, but their great-grandchildren stupidly have adopted. Central Banks provide paper money in place of something of real inherent value like gold or silver, and in doing so provide a means of manipulating and robbing the public by inflating or deflating the value of that paper money by printing more of it or taking some of it out of circulation. Going cashless, where the individual no longer has ANY physical thing but rather just some digits stored in a computer will only further enable the corruption and resulting hazard for the individual. Consider:
The founders of the US rejected the idea of a Central Bank because such banks were one of the mechanisms that the governments of Europe had used to rob the average citizen. First, government ordered the people to use money printed by their Central Banks, then they had the Central Banks print lots of fiat currency to pay for wars and palaces etc, which allowed the leaders to buy what they wanted but diluted the value of each unit of currency. This functioned as a huge hidden tax on the general public. The founders of the US rejected this hidden form of taxation/robbery and thus rejected the Central Bank idea as the primary enabler of it. Sadly, the US now has a Central Bank - The Federal Reserve Bank, which is a private entity whose owners and managers are extremely secretive and capable of using their power to manipulate the government or be manipulated by the government with little or no oversight or insight by the public.
The "Cashless society" is simply a further bite into the rotten apple of Central Banks. Once the individual has no actual physical currency, the banking and governing interests can completely manipulate the value of a unit of currency and even make it appear or disappear directly in bank accounts with ZERO transparency, ZERO accountability, and without the public even knowing if, perhaps, the Central Bank is doing something hyper-evil like manipulating the currency of only members of certain political parties, or people who frequent certain establishments, etc. In a cashless society, freedom and liberty must necessarily disappear - as users become concerned that various actions they take leave them vulnerable to having their individual assets manipulated, they will naturally find that they must go all-in on political correctness for the safety of their families. If you are shocked by governments ordering ISPs to turn over the records of users and ordering those ISPs to not tell their users, just imagine a world where those same governments order a bank to manipulate somebody's account and not tell anybody they are doing it...
Paper money was the initial dangerous step. Digital money is the final dangerous step to enabling every evil thing governments desire.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson
"If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash." - George Washington
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance.” - James Madison
with thunderous applause.
an ill wind that blows no good
They bounce back and forth between Sweden and Scandinavia. The fact is, I go to Denmark constantly and while I have a few thousand Danish crowns sitting in a drawer at home, I don't bother. I live in Norway and take out a total of about 500NOK in cash a month for my kids to have some spending money. We were going to get the credit cards, but Norway's DnB and Denmark's Danskebank have both released easy payment apps which eliminate the need for cards now... and nearly everywhere which accepts cards also seems to accept app payment now. I also grocery shop in Sweden quite often (2-3 times a month). The problem there is that you need a Swedish 10 crown piece to use a shopping cart. It's not a rental, instead it's to make sure you put the cart back or leave the 10kr in the cart for someone else to claim when they put it back.
The main issue I have with the article is the piss poor writing about the doubling of electronic fraud without properly addessing the obvious. The massive increase in electronic payments will increase the amount of electronic fraud... obviously... but what's been the impact on counterfeiting? I'd imagine that the decrease in counterfeiting paper money has been approximately equal to the increase in electronic fraud.
Then there's the issue about privacy... All that needs to be done is that the Swedish government says "We won't snoop on you without asking first" and that should be good enough. Generally Scandinavia has self-enforced laws. This means, all you have to do is declare something illegal and people will actually stop doing it.
'...In general, the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong."...'
I sort of get this, the idea that if you have nothing to hide, then who cares if your transactions leave a trail, but if the Swedes really want to get rid of cash, then,
A. Stop printing it, and,
B ban all transactions using cash.
But I wonder about folks who do no wrong but simply want to live their lives privately, and I wonder about the inefficiency of making every transaction go through intermediaries; transaction processing companies, card issuers, etc. And as a side note, if I just want to purchase something directly from you, say a cord of firewood that fell in a storm in your backyard, do you then need to have a card reader and a deal with a credit card company, and do they get a cut of our private transaction? It seems to make some things more complex than necessary.
Don't step on the baby.
It isn't just about taxes... it is about logs as well. This is why there is such a push for blockchains for transactions.
Imagine the sheer intel data that one has by knowing what one person bought and sold with everything. From there, you can tell if they are at home (to find the times when their place is robbable), where their kids are, who someone interacts with.
Right now, people don't give a rat's ass... but what happens when government starts to do purges, Stalin-style, and can easily, with a search term, find everyone linked to one person... and have them all "disappear" [1].
My personal take... If my government demanded I stop using cash, I would be swapping between BitCoin and DASH (by swapping between the two, I could separate my transactions completely from BTC's blockchain.) Since BTC and e-currencies are too unstable for holding long-term, I'd be using the currencies to buy and sell precious metals, and the metals would be used for a long term store of value.
The tourists? How will they pay?
What about the fees for a EFT? lot's of small shops don't like cards due to the fees also cash tips are big (at least over there they don't have that tipped min wage BS)
Depends on the card.
In Canada at least we have Interac [1], which is the debit system for the major banks. While credit cards can have a fee of upto 4% of the transaction value, Interac's fee is flat (CA$0.008 per transaction, $82.53 for 10,000 transactions, by one account) [2], plus some other stuff (monthly renting the terminals). In 2009 the Bank of Canada (like the US Fed, ECB) looked at cost of processing a $36.50 transaction, and came up with: Debit card: 19 cents; Cash: 25 cents; Credit card: 82 cents.
Cash has overhead as well (handling, manually counting, depositing). My mom works as a book keeper in retail, and there's a decent amount of stress with dealing with reconciling the cash registers every day, especially in these last few weeks in the holiday season. With credit they have the higher fees that they lose out on, but with debit the fees are lower and there isn't manually reconciling.
Processing fees are causing a bit of a brouhaha with many smaller retailers. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac
[2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/card-costs-who-pays-what-to-whom-1.807339
[3] http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2013/08/11/lets_have_a_debate_on_credit_card_fees_roseman.html
How are Swedes going to buy pot? Credit card?
It's also an Aussie thing for both credit and debit cards. Electronically shifting money from my account to an account in a different bank takes at least a day to "process". Cheques take three business days to "clear". ATM machines charge $2-3 per transaction.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Canada has gone for debit cards in a big way. I hardly ever pay cash for anything.
Our local public transit system is rolling out a smartcard fare system. On my way to work maybe one person a day pays their fare in cash. Yes, TransLink can track where I ride the bus. And if they ever misuse that information I'll ditch my current Compass card and buy an unregistered anonymous one.
...laura
We were warned over 200 years ago against having a central bank. No country should have one. They are more dangerous than a standing army.
In the U.S. the Federal Reserve (not a part of the Federal government) pretty much runs the country. Nobody has the power to oversee or control it. The income taxes you pay don't go to the government, they go to the Federal Reserve. The Secretary of the Treasury is not an employee of yours; he's an employee (as in paid by) of the Federal Reserve.
Negative interest? Ha, that's just the start of the funny stuff. Wait for what's to come.
because the banksters get a cut of every non-cash transaction and companies like Walmart negotiate with them to get a lower rate. Moreover with Google Pay, Samsung pay and Apple pay, they get a cut on top of that as well. Basically non-cash payments penalize small shops and drive up the costs for everybody.
A merchant, such as the government, can structure transactions to avoid the creation of debt in the first place. Acceptable forms of payment for a prepaid transaction are covered under invitation to treat law rather than legal tender law.
Here in Oz we sold half of our state owned telephone company and introduced competition, the half they kept has control of the wholesale network. Telco's were split into wholesale and retail companies, wholesale prices were regulated. Wholesale companies have a "universal service" obligation, meaning they must supply and maintain communications infrastructure to remote areas at the same price they are supplied to everyone else. Retailers cannot charge more in remote areas but they have no obligation to cover them.
The (very successful) public stock float was a huge story here, many ordinary Aussies (including myself) bought into the generous small investor share packages by filling in a form at the post office, most of them doubled/tripled their money in a year or so. The phone network itself is a "natural monopoly" and is best managed as public infrastructure, ours is in the process of a major national upgrade and all the politics that goes with giving private companies tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to build and operate a "natural monopoly".
Note the universal service obligation was a central part of the government telco's mandate decades before it was privatised in the early 90's. Voters in general knew that the government telco took the universal service obligation seriously and did a reasonable job providing service in the bush, they were not going to let private owners quietly shirk that obligation.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I see you are more familiar with Miss Whoosh. Annoying how she keeps talking over your head.
One million new muslim immigrants. Right. Wasn't that 10 millions? Or 12 billions? Or 150 thousands.
Does anyone really want to take economic advice from a guy who wears big poofy sleeves and spandex overalls? I mean, if he wants to give advice on how to bang hot Swedish babes, OK, I'm listening. But I really don't need to know what he thinks about monetary policy.
https://youtu.be/J3ECxyIS9oI
https://youtu.be/qrfY7RNaBjw
You are welcome on my lawn.
The following, "compared with 7.7 percent in the United States..." is very misleading. By total dollars perhaps, but not total number of transactions.
Profit Margin (ttm): 45.59%
Operating Margin (ttm): 65.40%
Note: This is VERY profitable, twice as profitable as AAPL, for example.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
When I travel, I have the local currency.
Sometimes, you need it for something simple, like when the mobile card reader in the cab doesn't work (I was with my boss who puts everything on cards, so I had to bail him out with my cash, and expense it later.)
I also don't relish the idea of running my card for every meal - increasing the odds of some skimmer screwing the card up and getting a fraud alert put on it, just when I need it most. (I know, a lot of places, especially in Europe, bring there card reader to you, rather than the USA standard of you letting your numbnutz waiter wander off with your card, where he can fondle it in private...)
I prefer to use cash, while traveling and domestically for any transaction under about $100. It is more convenient for me, since I am someone who actually looks at my credit card bill, and *gasp* balances my checkbook, unlike kids these days who just glance and say "that looks about right".
I did actually find a case where my bank cashed the same check twice! About 5 months apart. No, they couldn't explain it, and they couldn't deny it, and returned the money, no questions asked. I am just glad it wasn't the check I had written about the same time for my car...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Nothing? That's what I thought. Don't tag it with bitcoin when it's not involved with the story. Fucking editors.
herp derp
http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/cocaine-prices/
True enough, I guess, but I'm in Denmark for the holidays and the local pizza joint won't take my Swiss credit cards; brother in law had to pay with a Danish card. The cash-free system isn't quite ubiquitous down here, at least.
Sweden currntly has a negative interest rate. The Swedish central bank's interest rate is currently at -0.35% and has been for quite a while. This has never happened before in history. It is not passed on to savings accounts yet, but they are all at 0% interest.
The effects so far has been a booming real estate market, fueled by deductable mortgage interest payments, deductable costs for home improvement and a removal of real estate taxes. Spending on the mortgage interest deduction alone outstrips the nation's total defense spending, and that is at the present low-rate interest environment.
According to this report from our central bank, aggregate debt quotient for a Swedish citizen is now 170%, 315% for someone with a mortgage: http://www.riksbank.se/Documen...
And by official calculations we have negative or no inflation, owning to the fact that our inflation figure apparently includes the effects of the mortgage deduction. Which is weird because not everyone has a mortgage.
We also have no rules regulating the amortization of loans.
I didn't see mention one of the worst outcomes of cashless society. The government can finally reduce interest rates negative for average citizens.
Before the lowest a government could go is 0%, as mattresses provide a better return than -0.75%. With everything digital, you can ensure that all savings are can generate negative interest. Who needs taxes when you the banks + the central bank can suck all your money away.
So how do they plan to deal with tourists? None of the articles mention them.
I have a German bank card with chip and that generates a foreign transaction fee each time I use it for foreign currency, which is not good when you are tourist and making small purchases. Then I have an American bank cards, no chip, where the on-line banks eats the foreign transaction fee, with a limit per month. However I run into a lot of places that have issues because of the no-chip.*
*Yes according to visa/mastercard/eurocard terms places are required to accept both but then there is reality.
As a scandinavian living in a country that uses cash for payment, I am sure nobody cares if you pay with cash. Ofc, I guess if you buy a house for cash then it looks weird.
I am a swede lived abroad for 6 years and missed some payments on my student loan meaning I am marked for 3 years. When I moved back to sweden the bank would not give me a debit card or internet banking. My bank does not handle cash, so I need to transfer my entire salery every month to my mother's bank , and then she in turn need to transfer it to a credit card of hers.
I need to pay like 5usd each time I withdraw money from the ATM and the maximum amount is 200 USD. So most transactions I do is with her credit card, and that works fine except when the vendor does not have a chip n pin terminal and require a signature.
I am just waiting for the card to be skimmed and all my money stolen and credit stolen. Then I will be marked for another 3 years and probably my mom too.
Electronic payment is good but it must be available for all no matter what, I mean winters can get really cold here...
Remember, Sweden is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks call the police because they think you might be a terrorist or a criminal.
Remember, the USA is the place where, if you use too much cash, banks and casinos are legally obligated to report it to the federal government as a possible warning sign of illegal activity. And "too much" is a mere $5,000, so if you buy a halfway decent used car with cash, guess what? You've just tripped the reporting requirements.
It's going to be hard to get your audience here convinced that Sweden is more fascist than wherever they live, because they almost certainly live someplace more fascist. US, UK, both fit the bill eh?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's also an Aussie thing for both credit and debit cards.
But not EFTPOS, which is what the GP was talking about. If you click SAV instead of CR on the pinpad, there is no fee.
Electronically shifting money from my account to an account in a different bank takes at least a day to "process".
Banks process inter-bank transactions overnight via a batch process.
Cheques take three business days to "clear".
Who uses a cheque? What is this 1980?
ATM machines charge $2-3 per transaction.
Only if you use an ATM that doesn't belong to your bank.
Need I say more? Who runs the bank? Who wants to totally monitor their 'goyim' (cattle)? The JEW.
...be visiting. I pay cash (or check) for everything. And I am debt free. All the people who rant about the conspiracies should think of this as one to get people into debt.
It seems to me that it's something you should negotiate about with your bank.
You are a hilarious and clueless fucker. No bank negotiates anything with its customers. They selectively offer a service for a fee. The fee will likely increase in time. If you don't like it, even if you are Bill Fucking Gates, your only alternative is to take your business elsewhere.
Now, I know that you think that you're a mogul of Warren Buffet's financial stature and that a national bank will cower and bend to your will if you threaten to take your paltry few thousand dollars in deposits to another bank. After all, that's what the tellers tell you. But, you're so incredibly clueless and naive that it is hilarious.
Thanks for the laugh!
Electronic transfers are "instant" in the UK (which guarantees within 2 hours, and is usually within 5 minutes if between banks, or instant at the same bank). This was introduced about 6 years ago.
Wikipedia says the system was introduced to increase competition, so it sounds like something every country should have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But there will still be a way to buy my hookers and blow, because you're kidding yourself if you don't think the black market economy is massive.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
anyone in favor of this should watch Enemy of the State starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman
Why not a cryptocash system, wherein a particular smart chip requires a hardware register in a non-default state to write to it, and carries a complete signature of its contents? You could use small credit chips, each carrying a digitally-signed serial number and value--a 1024-bit identifier, a value (like $5), a system ID (serial number of the credit chip it's assigned to), a 7kB random padding block, and a private-key-encrypted hash.
You'd trade the chips as cash, readable by any dumb reader. You could use a connected system to send the contents of each chip to a central authority and then rewrite them into an account or into a new chip, combining a whole wallet of chips onto one. This allows you to make change by exchanging a $20 credit chip (verified by an unconnected machine) and getting back three $5 credit chips (also verified), or by accepting three $5 credit chips and rewriting one as a $1.23 credit chip (communication with central authority), or by accepting a $20 credit chip and rewriting it as a $3 credit chip (also by central authority).
Each of these chips would hold its own account--a full list of denominations, down to a dozen pennies--and a computer (such as a bank's database) could wipe the chip and reorganize its contents (convert 23 pennies to two dimes and three pennies). The credits would act like cash, in so much that you can't know who holds a particular credit chip, you can trade credit chips, and they can be deposited into banks; the physical chips would release their contents to accounts, so your bank account holds real dollars. Obviously, banks would account for how many dollars you have, and pool "your" dollars into their accounts, thus they'd still loan more than they had cash-on-hand.
All the advantages of cash--no personal identifying information, handling without networked electronics, physically tradeable, cheap to produce (bit of plastic with a printed circuit on it)--and of digital currency--can be loaded into accounts (and the accounts can just be a physical card rather than far away). A few of the disadvantages of digital currency, notably that you need some form of powered electronic device unless you put an eink screen to display the current denomination onto each credit chip, which would make it a hell of a lot less cheap to manufacture.
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Tin foils sales up 1000% among commenters to this article.
The thing is...some people, like me who are going debt free and card free want to go back to cash to manage our lives and live within our means better. Not because I'm trying to hide something, but because I don't want to use cards period. They fail to understand this.
Ironic that this is happening in the first country in Europe that issued paper money (1661).
Just wait until stagflation cuts in and the central bank wants interest rates to go negative. In a cashless society, you can't have a run on the banks. You can't get your cash and keep it under the mattress. You have to keep it in a bank and pay the bank interest to hold your credit.
What the commies want is to control not just speech (by means of SIGINT), but also control ALL AND ANY COMMERCE. "I am banking with NSA" is probably the correct phrase.
Also, they actively Mohammedanize their country.
Good riddance, the Caliph will surely use all the electronic finance records.
What happens when there is NO CASH, ie. all money is digital and controlled by banks and they decide to take rates negative.
At that point you can't even "protest" by withdrawing your money, as cash from the bank.
It will cost you, as much as the bank decides, to have any credit in your account.
Imagine trying to save for ... anything, a car, a house, a holiday, retirement and watching your savings go backward by 5 or 10 % pa forever !
This works in a country the size of California, but not likely for the larger ones.
This is all good for locals for whom you can simply insert the card and type your PIN, but for someone like who has a foreign credit card, and therefore can't use the PIN code, I need to sign the receipt every. single. time.
This, combined with the fact that I'm Swedish but don't have a Swedish identity card with a social security number on it (my old one expired years ago) makes any purchase in Sweden a huge hassle for me.
I was happy to come back to my new home where I can use cash without feeling embarrassed.
"First, gold and silver have no inherent value..."
Wrong. Both are "precious metals" which have value both because they are useful, and because people assign them value. Even if nobody used them as currency, they would still have value as they have for the entire history of mankind. Gold and silver have many properties that make them valuable not just in terms of jewelry, but in industrial terms as well. One could also have currency made of things like titanium and such currency would have inherent value, though less because it's both harder to use and it decays in ways gold and silver do not. Paper money and electronic digits in a computer have ZERO inherent value.
"Money is not typically paper. It's account entries on computers."
Yes, all fiat currency is an abstraction which can be represented by anything that has no inherent value, like paper or binary digits. You could also use tiddlywinks or lego bricks as a fiat currency. People who have always lived in comfort in advanced civilizations with fiat currencies are easily fooled into thinking such icons for value, like bitcoins, paper dollars, or electronic bank balance numbers have value, but those who remember history remember how many times in history such currencies have lost all value and wiped-out millions of people. When a central bank plays with the value of a fiat currency, the public is harmed and has no recourse, but people with REAL money with inherent value (like gold and silver coins, which go UP in value in such scenarios) do fine. Once you surrender to fiat currencies, you surrender your fate to central bankers and you must live in the irrational hope that they will not play with the value.
"Banks can't just make money appear and disappear for individuals. That's seriously illegal..."
So what? The banks will do whatever they are ordered to do (like make all those loans to otherwise inelligible home buyers, which led to the 2008 meltdown) and government officials LOVE to break the laws when they can get some benefit. (Nixon ring any bells? Clinton lying under oath in court in violation of the very law he signed? Obama violating all the immigration & border laws and ignoring the law that prevents releases from Gitmo without prior written notice to congress?). The Obama administration's own inspector General admitted that the Obama administration's IRS went after TEA Party groups and illegally released information on anti-gay-marriage groups to pro-gay-marriage groups (two separate violations, involving two different sets of groups) and yet the Democrats in congress keep defending Obama - When Nixon TALKED about using the IRS against opponents, the Democrats of the 1970's made that one article of impeachment against him.
"There is transparency and accountability. Financial records are carefully recorded to enhance accountability."
Sorry, but this is blatantly wrong. The Federal Reserve Bank of the US (aka "The Fed") is a PRIVATE bank not actually part of the US government. Nobody outside the Fed knows who owns it, or what its assets are and nobody knows how it makes its decisions about the money supply. There are people on Wall Street who make their entire careers on trying to analyze and predict the actions of the Fed. Congress has never seen "the books" of the Fed and guys like Ron and Rand Paul have over the years tried to pass laws to let congress audit the Fed.... but on every occasion, the Fed tells the congress terrible things could result from such an audit, and any political support for those bills rapidly evaporates. There is NO transparency or accountability in the American central bank and the paper and coins it prints/mints and the ones-and-zeros that the banks store in the bank accounts of individuals - and the entire US government is currently too frightened to even look into it. Before you rant any further on things you clearly do not understand, you should, AT A MINIMUM, read
Don't forget the ability this will give the central bank / banks to charge negative interest rates on savings accounts / deposit accounts, something that should in theory not exist in a society that allows cash.