Greeks Continue To Protest 666 Electronic Ids And Bank Cards

[ItsObvious]

Eventually they'll use photonic means (quantum) - which will work with a short blast of eye-safe laser into your peepers.

 

[TempestOfTempo]

mhhhmmm, my credit card has that 666 number on it /:

lol

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/19/cashless-society-con-big-finance-banks-closing-atms

All over the western world banks are shutting down cash machinesand branches. They are trying to push you into using their digital payments and digital banking infrastructure. Just like Google wants everyone to access and navigate the broader internet via its privately controlled search portal, so financial institutions want everyone to access and navigate the broader economy through their systems.

Another aim is to cut costs in order to boost profits. Branches require staff. Replacing them with standardised self-service apps allows the senior managers of financial institutions to directly control and monitor interactions with customers.

Banks, of course, tell us a different story about why they do this. I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because “customers are turning to digital”, and they are thus “responding to changing customer preferences”. I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches.

There is a feedback loop going on here. In closing down their branches, or withdrawing their cash machines, they make it harder for me to use those services. I am much more likely to “choose” a digital option if the banks deliberately make it harder for me to choose a non-digital option.

In behavioural economics this is referred to as “nudging”. If a powerful institution wants to make people choose a certain thing, the best strategy is to make it difficult to choose the alternative.

We can illustrate this with the example of self-checkout tills at supermarkets. The underlying agenda is to replace checkout staff with self-service machines to cut costs. But supermarkets have to convince their customers. They thus initially present self-checkout as a convenient alternative. When some people then use that alternative, the supermarket can cite that as evidence of a change in customer behaviour, which they then use to justify a reduction in checkout employees. This in turn makes it more inconvenient to use the checkout staff, which in turn makes customers more likely to use the machines. They slowly wean you off staff, and “nudge” you towards self-service.

Financial institutions, likewise, are trying to nudge us towards a cashless society and digital banking. The true motive is corporate profit. Payments companies such as Visa and Mastercard want to increase the volume of digital payments services they sell, while banks want to cut costs. The nudge requires two parts. First, they must increase the inconvenience of cash, ATMs and branches. Second, they must vigorously promote the alternative. They seek to make people “learn” that they want digital, and then “choose” it.

We can learn from the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci in this regard. His concept of hegemony referred to the way in which powerful parties condition the cultural and economic environment in such a way that their interests begin to be perceived as natural and inevitable by the general public. Nobody was on the streets shouting for digital payment 20 years ago, but increasingly it seems obvious and “natural” that it should take over. That belief does not come from nowhere. It is the direct result of a hegemonic project on the part of financial institutions.

We can also learn from Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation. The basic idea is that you can get people to internalise beliefs by addressing them as if they already had those beliefs. Twenty years ago nobody believed that cash was “inconvenient”, but every time I walk into London Underground I see adverts that address me as if I was a person who finds cash inconvenient. The objective is to reverse-engineer a belief within me that it is inconvenient, and that cashlessness is in my interests. But a cashless society is not in your interest. It is in the interest of banks and payments companies. Their job is to make you believe that it is in your interest too, and they are succeeding in doing that.

The recent Visa chaos, during which millions of people who have become dependent on digital payment suddenly found themselves stranded when the monopolistic payment network crashed, was a temporary setback. Digital systems may be “convenient”, but they often come with central points of failure. Cash, on the other hand, does not crash. It does not rely on external data centres, and is not subject to remote control or remote monitoring. The cash system allows for an unmonitored “off the grid” space. This is also the reason why financial institutions and financial technology companies want to get rid of it. Cash transactions are outside the net that such institutions cast to harvest fees and data.

A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised, disenfranchised from the cash infrastructure that previously supported them. There are also poorly understood psychological implications about cash encouraging self-control while paying by card or a mobile phone can encourage spending. And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.

Despite this, we see an alignment between government and financial institutions. The Treasury recently held a public consultation on cash and digital payments in the new economy. It presented itself as attempting to strike a balance, noting that cash was still important. But years of subtle lobbying by the financial industry have clearly paid off. The call for evidence repeatedly notes the negative elements of cash – associating it with crime and tax evasion – but barely mentions the negative implications of digital payments.

The UK government has chosen to champion the digital financial services industry. This is irresponsible and disingenuous. We need to stop accepting stories about the cashless society and hyper-digital banking being “natural progress”. We must recognise every cash machine that is shut down as another step in financial institutions’ campaign to nudge you into their digital enclosures.

"All over the western world banks are shutting down cash machines and branches. They are trying to push you into using their digital payments and digital banking infrastructure."
So very true.........

 

[Undertaker]

This is not the "mark of the beast." It's not a microchip either...this is what the verse actually says:

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Rev. 20:4

So it must be some kind of engraving or tatoo:

"Every time the word "mark" appears in the book of Revelation, it is the Greek word charagma. It is NEVER the Greek word stigma. Not in any manuscripts.

charagma: a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or sculptured figure (statue): — graven, mark (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance)​

charagma denotes "a stamp, impress," translated "mark" in Rev. 13:16, etc. (Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words)​

Charagma is very strong evidence for a simply a "mark" or "stamp", rather than a micro-chip implant.

As far as I can see the word stigma is basically a synonym, I don't think there's any ancient greek term denoting an implant. In any case, a mark doesn't rule out an implant, there can be both in the same spot for easy identification.

 

[Undertaker]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/business/sweden-cashless-society.html

Few countries have been moving toward a cashless society as fast as Sweden. But cash is being squeezed out so quickly — with half the nation’s retailers predicting they will stop accepting bills before 2025 — that 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.

“When you are where we are, it would be wrong to sit back with our arms crossed, doing nothing, and then just take note of the fact that cash has disappeared,” said Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, known as the Riksbank. “You can’t turn back time, but you do have to find a way to deal with change.”

Ask most people in Sweden how often they pay with cash, and the answer is “almost never.” A fifth of Swedes, in a country of 10 million people, do not use automated teller machines anymore. More than 4,000 Swedes have implanted microchips in their hands, allowing them to pay for rail travel and food, or enter keyless offices, with a wave. Restaurants, buses, parking lots and even pay toilets depend on clicks rather than cash.

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.

And the progress toward a cashless society could upend the state’s centuries-old role as sovereign guarantor. If cash disappears, commercial banks would wield greater control.

“We need to pause and think about whether this is good or bad, and not just sit back and let it happen,” said Mats Dillén, the head of a Swedish Parliament committee studying the matter. “If cash disappears, that would be a big change, with major implications for society and the economy.”

Urban consumers worldwide are increasingly paying with apps and plastic. In China and other Asian countries rife with young smartphone users, mobile payments are routine. In Europe, about one in five people say they rarely carry money. In Belgium, Denmark and Norway, debit and credit card use has hit record highs.

But Sweden — and particularly its young people — is at the vanguard. Bills and coins represent just 1 percent of the economy, compared with 10 percent in Europe and 8 percent in the United States. About one in 10 consumers paid for something in cash this year, down from 40 percent in 2010. Most merchants in Sweden still accept notes and coins, but their ranks are thinning.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the numbers are startling: Up to 95 percent of their purchases are with a debit card or a smartphone app called Swish, a payment system set up by Sweden’s biggest banks.

Ikea, whose flat-box furniture is a staple of young households, has been experimenting to gauge the allure and effect of cashless commerce. In Gavle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm, managers decided to go cashless temporarily last month after they realized that fewer than 1 percent of shoppers used cash — and Ikea employees were spending about 15 percent of their time handling, counting and storing money.

Patric Burstein, a senior manager, said the cashless test had freed employees to work on the sales floor. So far, around 1.2 of every 1,000 customers have been unable to pay with anything but cash — and mainly in the cafeteria, where people tend to spend change. Rather than bother with bills, Ikea has been offering those customers freebies.

“We said, ‘If you want a 50 cent hot dog, be my guest, take it. But next time maybe you can bring a card,’” said Mr. Burstein, who is 38.

The test so far suggests that cash is not essential and, instead, may be costly, he said. “We’re spending a lot of resources on a very small percentage that actually need the service,” he said.

The nearby branch of the Swedish National Pensioners Organization has led protests against the experiment, in part, because many retirees like to go to the Gavle Ikea for a bite to eat.

“We have around one 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, Ms. 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.

Banks have propelled the cashless revolution by encouraging consumers and retailers to use debit and credit cards, which yields banks and credit card companies lucrative fees. That includes the bank-developed Swish smartphone app.

Sweden’s banks have cut back on cash in part for safety reasons after a rash of violent robberies in the mid-2000s. The national psyche is marked by an infamous helicopter heist in Vastberga in 2009, when thieves landed on the roof of a G4S cash service depot and stole millions — a drama now being turned into a Netflix film. Last year, only two banks were robbed, compared with 210 in 2008.

In recent years, banks have dismantled cash machines by the hundreds. So little cash is used now that it has become expensive to track and maintain, said Leif Trogen, an official at the Swedish Bankers’ Association.

There are two proposals by the Swedish authorities to keep cash at hand. Parliament wants just the biggest banks to handle cash. The central bank is holding out for all banks to keep money flowing. Swedbank, SEB and other big Swedish financial institutions are fighting the lawmakers’ demands, saying it would place an undue burden on them to provide greater access.

“The demand for cash is decreasing at an ever faster pace,” Mr. Trogen said. “Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate to influence the demand for cash.”

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. “While the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further — seriously, carefully and creatively,” she said.

Mr. Ingves, the central bank governor, said, “This is not a war on cash, but no one has argued that this evolutionary motion is going to stop.”

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/business/sweden-cashless-society.html

Few countries have been moving toward a cashless society as fast as Sweden. But cash is being squeezed out so quickly — with half the nation’s retailers predicting they will stop accepting bills before 2025 — that 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.

“When you are where we are, it would be wrong to sit back with our arms crossed, doing nothing, and then just take note of the fact that cash has disappeared,” said Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, known as the Riksbank. “You can’t turn back time, but you do have to find a way to deal with change.”

Ask most people in Sweden how often they pay with cash, and the answer is “almost never.” A fifth of Swedes, in a country of 10 million people, do not use automated teller machines anymore. More than 4,000 Swedes have implanted microchips in their hands, allowing them to pay for rail travel and food, or enter keyless offices, with a wave. Restaurants, buses, parking lots and even pay toilets depend on clicks rather than cash.

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.

And the progress toward a cashless society could upend the state’s centuries-old role as sovereign guarantor. If cash disappears, commercial banks would wield greater control.

“We need to pause and think about whether this is good or bad, and not just sit back and let it happen,” said Mats Dillén, the head of a Swedish Parliament committee studying the matter. “If cash disappears, that would be a big change, with major implications for society and the economy.”

Urban consumers worldwide are increasingly paying with apps and plastic. In China and other Asian countries rife with young smartphone users, mobile payments are routine. In Europe, about one in five people say they rarely carry money. In Belgium, Denmark and Norway, debit and credit card use has hit record highs.

But Sweden — and particularly its young people — is at the vanguard. Bills and coins represent just 1 percent of the economy, compared with 10 percent in Europe and 8 percent in the United States. About one in 10 consumers paid for something in cash this year, down from 40 percent in 2010. Most merchants in Sweden still accept notes and coins, but their ranks are thinning.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the numbers are startling: Up to 95 percent of their purchases are with a debit card or a smartphone app called Swish, a payment system set up by Sweden’s biggest banks.

Ikea, whose flat-box furniture is a staple of young households, has been experimenting to gauge the allure and effect of cashless commerce. In Gavle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm, managers decided to go cashless temporarily last month after they realized that fewer than 1 percent of shoppers used cash — and Ikea employees were spending about 15 percent of their time handling, counting and storing money.

Patric Burstein, a senior manager, said the cashless test had freed employees to work on the sales floor. So far, around 1.2 of every 1,000 customers have been unable to pay with anything but cash — and mainly in the cafeteria, where people tend to spend change. Rather than bother with bills, Ikea has been offering those customers freebies.

“We said, ‘If you want a 50 cent hot dog, be my guest, take it. But next time maybe you can bring a card,’” said Mr. Burstein, who is 38.

The test so far suggests that cash is not essential and, instead, may be costly, he said. “We’re spending a lot of resources on a very small percentage that actually need the service,” he said.

The nearby branch of the Swedish National Pensioners Organization has led protests against the experiment, in part, because many retirees like to go to the Gavle Ikea for a bite to eat.

“We have around one 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, Ms. 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.

Banks have propelled the cashless revolution by encouraging consumers and retailers to use debit and credit cards, which yields banks and credit card companies lucrative fees. That includes the bank-developed Swish smartphone app.

Sweden’s banks have cut back on cash in part for safety reasons after a rash of violent robberies in the mid-2000s. The national psyche is marked by an infamous helicopter heist in Vastberga in 2009, when thieves landed on the roof of a G4S cash service depot and stole millions — a drama now being turned into a Netflix film. Last year, only two banks were robbed, compared with 210 in 2008.

In recent years, banks have dismantled cash machines by the hundreds. So little cash is used now that it has become expensive to track and maintain, said Leif Trogen, an official at the Swedish Bankers’ Association.

There are two proposals by the Swedish authorities to keep cash at hand. Parliament wants just the biggest banks to handle cash. The central bank is holding out for all banks to keep money flowing. Swedbank, SEB and other big Swedish financial institutions are fighting the lawmakers’ demands, saying it would place an undue burden on them to provide greater access.

“The demand for cash is decreasing at an ever faster pace,” Mr. Trogen said. “Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate to influence the demand for cash.”

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. “While the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further — seriously, carefully and creatively,” she said.

Mr. Ingves, the central bank governor, said, “This is not a war on cash, but no one has argued that this evolutionary motion is going to stop.”

I totally see the above -

What bothers me to most, if I'm being absolutely honest, is how people can see all this without connecting the dots...

"The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel".
This was a big wake-up call for me. I know often I feel bad for somebody, or about a situation, but then I don't really do anything about it, and after a while, I am somewhat numbed to the person or the situation- and that is scary.

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/musing-screwtape-letters

 

[Dalit]

I totally see the above -

What bothers me to most, if I'm being absolutely honest, is how people can see all this without connecting the dots...

"The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel".
This was a big wake-up call for me. I know often I feel bad for somebody, or about a situation, but then I don't really do anything about it, and after a while, I am somewhat numbed to the person or the situation- and that is scary.

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/musing-screwtape-letters

Those quotes are excellent, Red. Time to fish out that book from a box of books I've been intending to read but never did.

The quote you posted up reminds me of a spot I pass on the way to work during the week where there's always someone with a cardboard sign begging for money. I usually try not to look the person in the eye because it seems like that is the spot and many of them may be panhandlers, but honestly, it's because I don't want to be bothered. I used to keep some food in my car to give to them or really it was food for me, but I gave it away. I need to do so again. Speaking of a cashless society, it's rare that I could give out cash to them even if I wanted to because I'm not in the habit of carrying it. Once I did give cash to one. But yeah, even if the person could be a panhandler and that be a spot that people work, no one turns away food. It's good to take time out of the day, even when rushing to be somewhere, to help someone in need.

 

[TempestOfTempo]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/business/sweden-cashless-society.html

Few countries have been moving toward a cashless society as fast as Sweden. But cash is being squeezed out so quickly — with half the nation’s retailers predicting they will stop accepting bills before 2025 — that 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.

“When you are where we are, it would be wrong to sit back with our arms crossed, doing nothing, and then just take note of the fact that cash has disappeared,” said Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, known as the Riksbank. “You can’t turn back time, but you do have to find a way to deal with change.”

Ask most people in Sweden how often they pay with cash, and the answer is “almost never.” A fifth of Swedes, in a country of 10 million people, do not use automated teller machines anymore. More than 4,000 Swedes have implanted microchips in their hands, allowing them to pay for rail travel and food, or enter keyless offices, with a wave. Restaurants, buses, parking lots and even pay toilets depend on clicks rather than cash.

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.

And the progress toward a cashless society could upend the state’s centuries-old role as sovereign guarantor. If cash disappears, commercial banks would wield greater control.

“We need to pause and think about whether this is good or bad, and not just sit back and let it happen,” said Mats Dillén, the head of a Swedish Parliament committee studying the matter. “If cash disappears, that would be a big change, with major implications for society and the economy.”

Urban consumers worldwide are increasingly paying with apps and plastic. In China and other Asian countries rife with young smartphone users, mobile payments are routine. In Europe, about one in five people say they rarely carry money. In Belgium, Denmark and Norway, debit and credit card use has hit record highs.

But Sweden — and particularly its young people — is at the vanguard. Bills and coins represent just 1 percent of the economy, compared with 10 percent in Europe and 8 percent in the United States. About one in 10 consumers paid for something in cash this year, down from 40 percent in 2010. Most merchants in Sweden still accept notes and coins, but their ranks are thinning.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the numbers are startling: Up to 95 percent of their purchases are with a debit card or a smartphone app called Swish, a payment system set up by Sweden’s biggest banks.

Ikea, whose flat-box furniture is a staple of young households, has been experimenting to gauge the allure and effect of cashless commerce. In Gavle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm, managers decided to go cashless temporarily last month after they realized that fewer than 1 percent of shoppers used cash — and Ikea employees were spending about 15 percent of their time handling, counting and storing money.

Patric Burstein, a senior manager, said the cashless test had freed employees to work on the sales floor. So far, around 1.2 of every 1,000 customers have been unable to pay with anything but cash — and mainly in the cafeteria, where people tend to spend change. Rather than bother with bills, Ikea has been offering those customers freebies.

“We said, ‘If you want a 50 cent hot dog, be my guest, take it. But next time maybe you can bring a card,’” said Mr. Burstein, who is 38.

The test so far suggests that cash is not essential and, instead, may be costly, he said. “We’re spending a lot of resources on a very small percentage that actually need the service,” he said.

The nearby branch of the Swedish National Pensioners Organization has led protests against the experiment, in part, because many retirees like to go to the Gavle Ikea for a bite to eat.

“We have around one 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, Ms. 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.

Banks have propelled the cashless revolution by encouraging consumers and retailers to use debit and credit cards, which yields banks and credit card companies lucrative fees. That includes the bank-developed Swish smartphone app.

Sweden’s banks have cut back on cash in part for safety reasons after a rash of violent robberies in the mid-2000s. The national psyche is marked by an infamous helicopter heist in Vastberga in 2009, when thieves landed on the roof of a G4S cash service depot and stole millions — a drama now being turned into a Netflix film. Last year, only two banks were robbed, compared with 210 in 2008.

In recent years, banks have dismantled cash machines by the hundreds. So little cash is used now that it has become expensive to track and maintain, said Leif Trogen, an official at the Swedish Bankers’ Association.

There are two proposals by the Swedish authorities to keep cash at hand. Parliament wants just the biggest banks to handle cash. The central bank is holding out for all banks to keep money flowing. Swedbank, SEB and other big Swedish financial institutions are fighting the lawmakers’ demands, saying it would place an undue burden on them to provide greater access.

“The demand for cash is decreasing at an ever faster pace,” Mr. Trogen said. “Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate to influence the demand for cash.”

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. “While the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further — seriously, carefully and creatively,” she said.

Mr. Ingves, the central bank governor, said, “This is not a war on cash, but no one has argued that this evolutionary motion is going to stop.”

“When you are where we are, it would be wrong to sit back with our arms crossed, doing nothing, and then just take note of the fact that cash has disappeared,” said Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, known as the Riksbank. “You can’t turn back time, but you do have to find a way to deal with change.”
See, when we create a certain situation that is advantageous to us and harmful to almost everyone else.... its bound to cause problems. Problems which can be solved by the convenient & prepackaged, ready to implement "solutions" we already have waiting in the wings. So you see...... problems where there were none? PRESTO! WE HAVE THE SOLUTIONS!

 

[TempestOfTempo]

I totally see the above -

What bothers me to most, if I'm being absolutely honest, is how people can see all this without connecting the dots...

"The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel".
This was a big wake-up call for me. I know often I feel bad for somebody, or about a situation, but then I don't really do anything about it, and after a while, I am somewhat numbed to the person or the situation- and that is scary.

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/musing-screwtape-letters

"What bothers me to most, if I'm being absolutely honest, is how people can see all this without connecting the dots..."
I feel the same about the posters here who co-signed the Trump regimes blatant theft, drugging, abuse and disappearance of thousands of innocent children......

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

"What bothers me to most, if I'm being absolutely honest, is how people can see all this without connecting the dots..."
I feel the same about the posters here who co-signed the Trump regimes blatant theft, drugging, abuse and disappearance of thousands of innocent children......

What has happened with Trump is what I suspected some time ago but didn't want to believe. Christianity with earthly "dominionism" is as old as Constantine. Injustice was never promoted by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount.

 

[TempestOfTempo]

What has happened with Trump is what I suspected some time ago but didn't want to believe. Christianity with earthly "dominionism" is as old as Constantine. Injustice was never promoted by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount.

Break it on down, Im interested to learn your take on the situation......

 

[Undertaker]

https://www.rt.com/news/445304-brain-implant-depression-study/
In case you were curious how ‘they’ were going to convince us we all need brain implants, look no further. According to a new study, the devices may prove beneficial in treating depression, and who hasn’t been depressed?

Increasingly common but still poorly understood, depression is a modern mental health plague, affecting 300 million people worldwide every year. Scientists at the University of California at San Francisco believe they’ve found a new way of treating the condition using deep-brain stimulation (DBS). Currently used to treat Parkinson’s and epilepsy, DBS involves implanting electrodes into specific areas of the brain and delivering controlled doses of electricity through a pacemaker-like device. The impulses are thought to restore a healthy electrical pattern, alleviating the patient’s symptoms.

Previous attempts at using DBS to treat depression had mixed results, sometimes catapulting depressed patients into mania or even making them more depressed, but the UC team zeroed in on the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) – uncharted neurological territory that appeared advantageous both for its role in emotion processing and its plentiful connections to other parts of the brain involved in emotional regulation.

Given access to a small group of epileptics who already had electrodes implanted into various parts of their brains to pinpoint seizure locations – a hyper-specialized population that means their results are unlikely to be replicated anytime soon – the researchers stimulated different brain regions over a period of several days, sometimes swapping in a “sham stimulation” to act as a control.

Afterwards, subjects were asked about their mood. Depressed subjects were consistently happier following OFC stimulation in a way non-depressed subjects were not, and the effect did not appear following sham stimulation. Unlike in previous DBS experiments, the positive mood appeared natural – both in how the subjects behaved and how their brainwaves looked on an EEG.

 

[Undertaker]

"but the UC team zeroed in on the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) – uncharted neurological territory that appeared advantageous both for its role in emotion processing and its plentiful connections to other parts of the brain involved in emotional regulation."
This might just be a prototoype of the forehead mark.

 

[saki]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/business/sweden-cashless-society.html

Few countries have been moving toward a cashless society as fast as Sweden. But cash is being squeezed out so quickly — with half the nation’s retailers predicting they will stop accepting bills before 2025 — that 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.

“When you are where we are, it would be wrong to sit back with our arms crossed, doing nothing, and then just take note of the fact that cash has disappeared,” said Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, known as the Riksbank. “You can’t turn back time, but you do have to find a way to deal with change.”

Ask most people in Sweden how often they pay with cash, and the answer is “almost never.” A fifth of Swedes, in a country of 10 million people, do not use automated teller machines anymore. More than 4,000 Swedes have implanted microchips in their hands, allowing them to pay for rail travel and food, or enter keyless offices, with a wave. Restaurants, buses, parking lots and even pay toilets depend on clicks rather than cash.

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.

And the progress toward a cashless society could upend the state’s centuries-old role as sovereign guarantor. If cash disappears, commercial banks would wield greater control.

“We need to pause and think about whether this is good or bad, and not just sit back and let it happen,” said Mats Dillén, the head of a Swedish Parliament committee studying the matter. “If cash disappears, that would be a big change, with major implications for society and the economy.”

Urban consumers worldwide are increasingly paying with apps and plastic. In China and other Asian countries rife with young smartphone users, mobile payments are routine. In Europe, about one in five people say they rarely carry money. In Belgium, Denmark and Norway, debit and credit card use has hit record highs.

But Sweden — and particularly its young people — is at the vanguard. Bills and coins represent just 1 percent of the economy, compared with 10 percent in Europe and 8 percent in the United States. About one in 10 consumers paid for something in cash this year, down from 40 percent in 2010. Most merchants in Sweden still accept notes and coins, but their ranks are thinning.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the numbers are startling: Up to 95 percent of their purchases are with a debit card or a smartphone app called Swish, a payment system set up by Sweden’s biggest banks.

Ikea, whose flat-box furniture is a staple of young households, has been experimenting to gauge the allure and effect of cashless commerce. In Gavle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm, managers decided to go cashless temporarily last month after they realized that fewer than 1 percent of shoppers used cash — and Ikea employees were spending about 15 percent of their time handling, counting and storing money.

Patric Burstein, a senior manager, said the cashless test had freed employees to work on the sales floor. So far, around 1.2 of every 1,000 customers have been unable to pay with anything but cash — and mainly in the cafeteria, where people tend to spend change. Rather than bother with bills, Ikea has been offering those customers freebies.

“We said, ‘If you want a 50 cent hot dog, be my guest, take it. But next time maybe you can bring a card,’” said Mr. Burstein, who is 38.

The test so far suggests that cash is not essential and, instead, may be costly, he said. “We’re spending a lot of resources on a very small percentage that actually need the service,” he said.

The nearby branch of the Swedish National Pensioners Organization has led protests against the experiment, in part, because many retirees like to go to the Gavle Ikea for a bite to eat.

“We have around one 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, Ms. 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.

Banks have propelled the cashless revolution by encouraging consumers and retailers to use debit and credit cards, which yields banks and credit card companies lucrative fees. That includes the bank-developed Swish smartphone app.

Sweden’s banks have cut back on cash in part for safety reasons after a rash of violent robberies in the mid-2000s. The national psyche is marked by an infamous helicopter heist in Vastberga in 2009, when thieves landed on the roof of a G4S cash service depot and stole millions — a drama now being turned into a Netflix film. Last year, only two banks were robbed, compared with 210 in 2008.

In recent years, banks have dismantled cash machines by the hundreds. So little cash is used now that it has become expensive to track and maintain, said Leif Trogen, an official at the Swedish Bankers’ Association.

There are two proposals by the Swedish authorities to keep cash at hand. Parliament wants just the biggest banks to handle cash. The central bank is holding out for all banks to keep money flowing. Swedbank, SEB and other big Swedish financial institutions are fighting the lawmakers’ demands, saying it would place an undue burden on them to provide greater access.

“The demand for cash is decreasing at an ever faster pace,” Mr. Trogen said. “Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate to influence the demand for cash.”

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. “While the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further — seriously, carefully and creatively,” she said.

Mr. Ingves, the central bank governor, said, “This is not a war on cash, but no one has argued that this evolutionary motion is going to stop.”

...honestly, I've read this one thru twice... and I still have some degree of uncertainty here.... it appears that paper bills are being produced at a high rate, but they are unaccounted-for, in the macro-sense....
...it sounds as if many people, worldwide may be hoarding cash in paper bill form....(?)
...dunno... just gonna throw this one into the mix...

Why Is the World's Cash Disappearing? Banks Are Asking, But No One Seems to Know
BY STEPHEN GREEN DECEMBER 16, 2019

***excerpts*** full article at link.....

The Wall Street Journal reports (paywall) that in recent years central bankers have printed more actual banknotes than ever, "yet they seem to be disappearing off the face of the earth." The story notes that the "value of U.S. dollars in circulation hit about $1.7 trillion last year," which is "up from $1.2 trillion in 2013." That's half a trillion dollars in cold, hard cash, but with inflation stubbornly below 2% and growth stubbornly around 3%, no one can account for where the money went.

...and...

This phenomenon isn't limited to the U.S., either. In the same report, WSJ's David Winning and James Glynn tell the story of Philip Lowe, governor of Australia’s central bank, who "estimated that about $2,000 in printed bills exists for every Australian." Where most of it actually is, is the mystery.

I don't think I've ever even seen that much cash all at once, outside of a mobster movie. And yet there are approximately 51,104,400,000 Australian dollars floating around out there, somewhere.

New Zealand's central bank can only account for the whereabouts of about a quarter of the country's cash holdings. The rest is... elsewhere.

My favorite quote from the story comes from Henk Esselink, head of the issue and circulation section in the ECB’s currency management division. He said, "Everyone says that they are not hoarding cash but the money is clearly somewhere."

Why Is the World's Cash Disappearing? Banks Are Asking, But No One Seems to Know

pjmedia.com