Sweden Is on the Verge of Going Completely Cashless: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Sweden is rapidly turning into a cashless society, which seems like the utopian dream of many a government figure. What could possibly go wrong from the government’s point of view? Isn’t it ideal that they could soon digitally control every single person in the country?

Actually, quite a few things are going wrong. So much so that even members of the government are expressing concern.

Sweden is the most cashless society in the world

The change is happening fast in the European country.

“No cash accepted” signs are becoming an increasingly common sight in shops and eateries across Sweden as payments go digital and mobile…

…Sweden is widely regarded as the most cashless society on the planet. Most of the country’s bank branches have stopped handling cash; many shops, museums and restaurants now only accept plastic or mobile payments…

…Last year, the amount of cash in circulation in Sweden dropped to the lowest level since 1990 and is more than 40 per cent below its 2007 peak. The declines in 2016 and 2017 were the biggest on record…

…An annual survey by Insight Intelligence released last month found that only 25 per cent of Swedes paid in cash at least once a week in 2017, down from 63 per cent just four years ago. A full 36 per cent never use cash, or just pay with it once or twice a year. (source)

Cash is used so infrequently that the government of the country has demonstrated concern. And this isn’t just in the big cities. A source in rural Sweden tells me that even in his remote area, the push to go cashless is omnipresent.

What could possibly go wrong?

The folks of Sweden have so little use for cash that it’s predicted many stores will no longer even accept it by 2025. And according to an article in the Financial Post, the government is beginning to have second thoughts.

…The government is recalculating the societal costs of a cash-free future.

The financial authorities, who once embraced the trend, are asking banks to keep peddling notes and coins until the government can figure out what going cash-free means for young and old consumers. The central bank, which predicts cash may fade from Sweden, is testing a digital currency — an e-krona — to keep firm control of the money supply. Lawmakers are exploring the fate of online payments and bank accounts if an electrical grid fails or servers are thwarted by power failures, hackers or even war. (source)

And the potential of a down-grid situation isn’t the only problem. Older Swedes and immigrants who aren’t really involved in the digital society could have great difficulty making transactions.

Consumer groups say the shift leaves many retirees — a third of all Swedes are 55 or older — as well as some immigrants and people with disabilities at a disadvantage. They cannot easily gain access to electronic means for some goods and transactions, and rely on banks and their customer service. (source)

We all know some folks who eschew online banking and never use a debit card. Many of these people are senior citizens who aren’t ready to learn a new technology. As well, there’s a cost involved in taking part in a technological economy: smartphones, internet service, and computers are simply not a part of the lifestyle of many folks.

One group, the Swedish National Pensioners Organization, is attacking this issue by teaching classes to get them more comfortable with digital transactions.

“We have around 1 million people who aren’t comfortable using the computer, iPads or iPhones for banking,” said Christina Tallberg, 75, the group’s national president. “We aren’t against the digital movement, but we think it’s going a bit too fast.”

The organization has been raising money to teach retirees how to pay electronically, but, paradoxically, that good effort has been tripped up by an abundance of cash. When collections for training are taken in rural areas — and the seniors donate in cash — the pensioner in charge must drive miles to find a bank that will actually take the money, Tallberg said. About half of Sweden’s 1,400 bank branches no longer accept cash deposits.

“It’s more or less impossible, because the banks refuse to take cash,” she said. (source)

Just to emphasize…”the banks refuse to take cash.”  THE BANKS.

The reason given for the refusal to accept cash is that they wish to prevent recurrences of the violent robberies that took place in the early 2000s.

And of course, there’s concern of government control.

It seems rather ironic that it’s the government pointing out the possibility of trouble with government control in a cashless society, especially since they’re considering rolling out a new digital currency called the e-krona.

The central bank has plans to roll out a pilot version next year of a new type of Riksbank money — the digital krona, or e-krona — that could replace physical cash or at least help calm the current cash conundrum. An e-krona would mean that the functions of a currency backed by the state would remain, even in an all-digital world that is fast approaching.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, noted last week that several central banks were “seriously considering” digital currencies.  (source)

Just imagine:

If the government were in charge of the digital currency, the amount of control they’d have would be breathtaking. Could they simply make your digital currency invalid if you owed taxes or were suspected of a crime? Could they wipe out everyone’s online accounts in the event of some kind of bank holiday or economic collapse?

If the grid went down in a long-term way, all you’d saved would be lost forever. A short power outage would cripple communities. Every single purchase you make would leave a digital footprint, and huge amounts of personal data could be mined from it. And what about the possibility of online bank robberies carried out by hackers?

The list of things that could go wrong is infinite.

And of course, it all goes back to microchips.

Out of all the nations in the Western world, it seems that Sweden is the most enthusiastic about the embedding of microchips into humans “for convenience” purposes.

Recently, Adam Palmer wrote about how thousands of Swedes were voluntarily getting the chip for their own convenience.

The microchip “bypasses the need for cash, tickets, access cards, and even social media,” according to the Daily Mail…

…In June, 2017, SJ Rail, the Swedish train operator, announced that 100 people were using microchips for train rides, obviously indicating that the rail system was already set up to handle the payment system before anyone was ever microchipped.

For this system, passengers with a microchip in their hand have their ticket loaded directly onto the device and the train conductor can read the chip with a smartphone to confirm payment.

The Daily Mail paints the chip in a positive light, recounting the opinion of Szilvia Varszegi, 28, who said the chip “basically solves my problems.” The “problems” Ms. Varszegi is referring to is apparently the “problem” of manually purchasing a ticket or engaging in a phone-based transaction. (source)

Well, thank goodness poor Ms. Varszegi’s horrible burden has been lightened.

Many readers expressed dismay, shock, and revulsion at the very idea of having a chip implanted in their bodies, and I’m with you. But we’re witnessing something important here. We’re watching an alarming glimpse at the future.

The endgame of complete control truly seems to be in sight as more and more Swedes go cashless.

Hat tip to Sebastian for the link!

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived, and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. She is widely republished across alternative media and  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses. You can find her on FacebookPinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

Leave a Reply

  • Something tells me that swedish millionaires will have gold coin stashed for the inevitable tech crash aftermath.

    Whether EMP, hack or coronal mass ejection, your time is gonna come.

    Paraphrasing John Titor, “everyone carries their own water”…

  • I can see this going very, very wrong. I can see a lot of nefarious things happening, and none of it pleasant. And these people who are so willing to get a microchip do not realize that these, like any other electronic device, can be hacked. Thank You, I will pass.

  • All I can say is they will be sorry.
    And that goes for the people of the U.S. too.
    TPTB are working overtime to push that cr@p here.

  • Anyone with a half a brain can see where this is leading. It’s leading to KONTROL. The mark of the beast.
    At least cash gave you the option to work around this KONTROL! And as they said a government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it all away.
    The same here with a cashless society. One press of a button and your money is in your account and by the same token one press of a button and it can be digitally gone!
    And what happens during an EMP?? So going cashless is STUPID! But then again, maybe that’s the purpose it is leading too.

    • Cash is on it’s last leg, and those that trust fiat have no idea how it’s manufactured or produced. A 100 dollar bill is printed in the USA by the the Federal Reserve (Not a govt. entity, but a corporate entity) This dollar has ZERO backing on it after 1971 when Nixon took us off the gold standard. So now a corporate entity can not only print up as much cash as they want, they can also gamble it in the derivatives market at 100x leverage. When these gambles fail the purchasing power of your dollar falls, but the trick on the masses is you just see 1 dollar. You don’t see the fall. This is why a 1969 Mustang cost 2800 and the 2018 Mustang which with lower operating costs and far better mechanization and production methods costs 28,000 dollars. Your dollar has fallen 98 percent in purchasing value since 1912…. Yet all you see is paper in your wallet that buys you things. In steps Bitcoin. It’s finite like Gold, spends like Visa and in a FULLY ADOPTED market, it has ZERO inflation. You can send 25 million dollars to another country in under an hour for .80 cents. Than this tech has scalability and it will increase in security and become easier to store. I store my Bitcoin offline. Right now Bitcoin is getting crushed by market maker investors because the market cap is so low (Under a Trillion dollars) This happened to Apple and it took 17 years for Apple to regain it’s ATH (all time high). Bitcoin is Decentralized so it can not be a Ponzi or a Pyramid scheme by definition. Bitcoin is the Internet, no one controls it. Mining pools do have say in how to scale it, but once it grows in size not one mining pool will have over 51 percent of control. Bitcoin is the peoples money, Cash is owned and printed by governments and easily counterfitted by todays tech. If you only knew how much counterfitting overseas happens with our dollar and why it falls in value from this and overprinting and leverage scams, there would be blood in the streets.

      • All American currency is printed by the Bureau of Engraving, very much a federal agency. Currency is sold to the Federal Reserve at the cost of production and loaned to the government at face value plus interest. These facts are well established and can be found in books by G. Edward Griffin and the late Eustace Mullins.

  • Cashless society: total government control; what if the system goes down??; What if the government cut you off for what you said, posted or wrote??

  • The microchips definitely sounds like Bible prophecy to me, mark of the beast. The Bible tells us that if we take the mark, we will receive God’s wrath. We all need Jesus!!!

  • Some things not mentioned…

    Crime rates will sky-rocket in a Cashless Sweden.

    Everyday transactions that are now conducted, by necessity, with real money, will become illegal.

    The underground economy and black markets will explode
    with activity.

    Tax avoidance will increase as taxpayers find other ways to
    exchange goods and services without using digital money and leaving a digital trail.

    The tourist economy will shrink.

    A two-tiered economy will develop wherein some services and goods are available in only the digital realm or the
    tangible realm.

    Sweden will be flooded by currencies from other Nations
    as people seek alternatives to digital tracking of their economic activities. Chinese restaurants will let customers pay in Yuan, Bootleg Vodka dealers will accept Rubles, and
    illegal poachers will accept U.S. dollars for fresh meat.

    Sweden deserves to perish.

  • Revelation 13:17 King James Version (KJV)

    17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

  • Since 70% of transactions in big box stores are made with debit or credit cards, America is already largely cashless itself. The only concerns would stem from the realization of how unstable and insecure secure computer networks are. Have any of us ever owned or used a computer that had never crashed or locked up so solidly that it had to be reset? SWIFT, the network used by international banks to make electronic transfers, was written in COBOL and still operates in it, using emulators. The number of programmers that have ever encountered COBOL, let alone programmed or analyzed programs written in it, is approaching zero as there are no new ones and the oldest ones are dying daily.
    I see the cashless society as a profit center, because the possession of cash when most are cashless will facilitate trade with those who have any when the cashless system goes down, as it most surely will, eventually. I have a steadily growing stash of one and five dollar notes. I never leave more than ten dollars in a bank account after I have made the few purchases I use a debit card for, and I have never had a regular credit card. The few store credit cards I used to have have been gone since the early 1980s.
    When the time comes for cash to be king, I will be in a buyers market of all buyers markets.

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