Sweden moving towards cashless economy

(AP) STOCKHOLM - Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it's come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them.

"I can't see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970's pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash.

The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money.

In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether

Real hard to have an economy if the government isn't being prudent on how it treats its money be it paper or digital. The latter is much easier to debase, ie the computer while the other is more time consuming and frankly more expensive. This step by Sweden will make it that much harder on the population when the inevitable government debt becomes a noose around the citizens neck. Of course it will make it that much easier on the government there to steal even more from their people until very little is left which I assume is the point of going cashless in the first place.

from the article

Vicar Johan Tyrberg in the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, on Sept 7, 2011, stands next to a credit card machine enabling worshippers to donate money to the church collection without carrying money in their pockets. (AP Photo/Camilla Lindskog)

I just saw the article.

Funny it’s an AP article and can’t find who wrote it.... yet.

Seems like a trial balloon. A cashless society would not be a free society. Being able to electronically zap away your money would be a major threat, and leverage to make you submit to any political system - imagine Hitler or Stalin having the ability to strip you of your assets with a keystroke.

Saw this comment on the CBS site:

“Guys. I live in Sweden, and this is totally bogus. The article is a PERFECT example of how you create a trend in the media by picking only the details you like. Bjorn Ulvaeus says something, and you pick up on that. A church installs a credit-card reader, and you pick up on that. Etc.

I have NEVER seen a church accept credit cards. This must be the only one. But you don’t see the journalist write about the many thousands of other churches. And he doesn’t write about the tens of thousands of businesses that accept cash.

You see only a few small details. And since that’s all you see, and Sweden is far away, you think they show the reality. But here in Sweden, I have never in my life heard of “Sweden moving toward cashless economy.” Ridiculous. Of course we will keep using cash.”

God help us - but this is the one world govt rearing its head.

I had to cancel my debit card (long story) and the nine days until the replacement arrived were a PITA. I use it for most everything including paying monthly bills.

Digital money worked well until that point.

The first thing I did was withdraw money to stick in a coffee can in case it should happen again.

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