Sweden’s War on Cash Runs Into a Wall – and a Heroic Bank<br /> http://lewrockwell.com/salerno/salerno13.1.html

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Comment by legalize freedom on December 30, 2012 at 12:41am

Doug, thank you for your kind words.  Please try to avoid anything division that works to divide and conquer the truth/liberty movement.  No one can confirm or deny anything that is posted on here...or in any forum, but please keep in mind that we are all on the same team fighting to save Humanity.  If you have alterier motives, I'm not sure what we can do for you.  My goal is to wake people up and get them digging for information on their own.  I do not want to tell people what to think, nor should anyone.  Whether we have 100% accurate information or not, we must join or die.  Trolls are everywhere working against us.  Whether Lew Rockwell has other motives or is disinformation, the message of this story is important.  USE CASH.  The cashless economy will enslave us as much as every other tactic the evil ones try to place upon us.  Get past the bickering!  Work toward our ultimate goal of a free Humanity.  Thank you.

Comment by Doug Diggler on December 28, 2012 at 6:49pm

If it's from Lew Rockwell, you can bet it's a steaming pile of BS. Lew Rockwell was the author of the racist Ron Paul newsletters, so no doubt he pretty much hates all humanity that is not exactly like himself. How a misanthropic racist asshat has the wherewithall to comment on Swedish politics is beyond me. Here's hoping he will soon be going the way of his useless humanity-hater boss into the ash heap of history.

Comment by James μολὼν λαβέ on December 28, 2012 at 12:40pm

By Joseph Salerno
Thursday, December 27th, 2012

The war on cash in Sweden may be stalling. The anti-cash movement has been vigorously promoted by major Swedish commercial banks as well as the Riksbank, the Swedish central bank. In fact, for three of the four major Swedish banks combined, 530 of their 780 office no longer accept or pay out cash. In the case of the Nordea Bank, 200 of its 300 branches are now cashless, and three-quarters of Swedbank’s branches no longer handle cash. As Peter Borsos, a spokesman for Swedbank, freely admits, his bank is working “actively to reduce the [amount] of cash in society.” The reasons for this push toward a cashless society, of course, have nothing to do with pumping up earnings from bank card fees or, more important, freeing fractional-reserve banks from the constraints of bank runs. No, according to Borsos, the reasons are the environment, cost, and security: ”We ourselves emit 700 tons of carbon dioxide by cash transport. It costs society 11 billion per year. And cash helps robberies everywhere.” Hans Jacobson, head of Nordea Bank, argues similarly: ”Our mission is to make people understand the point of cards, cards are more secure than cash.”

Fortunately, it seems that the Swedish people are not falling for the anti-cash propaganda spewed by private bankers and Riksbank officials and are resisting the trend toward a cashless economy. It is reported that last year the value of cash transactions in Sweden were 99 billion krona which represented only a marginal decrease from ten years ago. And small shops continue to do one-third to one-half of their business in cash. Furthermore a study of bank customers satisfaction released by the Swedish Quality Index in October 2012, indicated that the satisfaction index was pulled down among customers of Swedbank, Nordea and SEB by their policy of eliminating cash transactions at their bank branches. Even more heartening is the fact that Handelsbanken, the largest bank in Sweden, is committed to serving consumers who demand cash. As Kai Jokitulppo, head of private services at Handelsbanken, puts it:

“As long as we know that our customers are asking for cash, it is important that we as a bank [are] providing it. . . . We see places where other banks are taking other decisions, we get customers from them and positive response.”

Fewer then 10 of Handelsbanken’s 461 branches currently do not handle cash and the bank’s goal is to have cash in every branch by the first quarter of 2013.