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Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

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Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#301

Post by wnoise »

beefield wrote: post #223
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe there are realistic scenarios where it is good for the economy and society to have negative interest rates imposed by central banks. Could you articulate one of those scenarios and why negative interest rates would be the best solution?

Okay, I try. TL;DR: When even at zero rates, aggregate demand is less than aggregate supply. Then a small disclaimer. I am not an economist by trade, so whatever I write below is my thinking, not learned from a book. Thus no sources available, and take everything with a grain of salt anyway... If you look at the (macro)economy in the short term from the central bank point of view, there are basically a handful of int…

If supply is greater than demand, why doesn't that mean trusting the normal price signals and reallocating the supply? Artificially propping up the demand just masks the price signal builds up more crap, and keeps this adjustment from happening.

The argument against this is "oversupply in all sectors, so nowhere to reallocate the supply to", but this is clearly nonsense when people are demanding better housing, healthcare, and education.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#302

Post by sygma »

robert_foss wrote: post #204
smichel17 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but spending time in Germany has changed my view on coins. See, in the US, coins are kind of useless on their own. You can't pay for anything with only coins, so giving exact change is always an extra step on top of paying with cash. Ugh. But in the EU, they have €1 and €2 coins, and it's difficult to overstate how much this changes the dynamic. It means that for purchase…

Being a Swede, who now lives in Germany I would say that there must be a middle ground between the extreme cash dependency of Germany and the opposite in Sweden. I have no idea how you do your shopping and end up not getting a pool of useless 1/5 cent coins. People literally laugh you in the face if you try to purchase things with them. Your only option is to give them away or collect them in a jar. And needing to co…

Some German banks (e.g., Commerzbank) have an "Einzahlungsautomat", basically a reverse ATM that accepts deposits as bills or coins. Collect the coins in a jar and once a year hit the ATM.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#303

Post by dehrmann »

johnlorentzson wrote: post #115
theshrike79 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't fully manual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

I never thought I'd see "IBM" and "holocaust" in the same sentence, but here I am.

I'll throw out Bayer, Volkswagen, Ford, and GM as companies with Nazi ties worth reading into.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#304

Post by frosted-flakes »

jfengel wrote: post #287
jotm wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> places no longer accepting cash Is that legal? I believe in most countries national currency most be accepted in any form, by law...

It's not true in the US or the Eurozone. The "legal tender" requirement is for debts, not for purchases. A store can simply refuse to sell you the thing if you insist on paying cash. There are movements in both places to require merchants to accept cash, but I don't know of any countries that have adopted them yet. (Some cities in the US have.)

When you order food at a sit-down restaurant, you pay after you've eaten. In theory, that means such restaurants must accept cash.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#305

Post by logfromblammo »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #298
mrep wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ending up with useless coins is also super prevalent in the states because tax isn't included in list price and everyone prices things as $X.99 so you always end up with useless change. Super annoying and I wish they would change the law to force list prices to be the final price all things included (no hidden fees either).

That law would have the drawback of making tax increases invisible.

I'd rather be taxed by higher list prices than by some .0875 surcharge that is inconveniently difficult to calculate in one's head.

If I pick up an item that claims to be $1.99, and plunk it down on the counter with $2, I don't want the cashier to say "That'll be $2.16, please." The label says $1.99 . They could have added the tax when they printed it. If they wanted the label price to be $1.99, they could have made the base price $1.83, and added the tax back in to make it $1.99 on the shelf.

If I go to a concession stand at a ball game, their list prices are all-taxes-included. $2 for a hot dog means if I ask for a hot dog, and pay $2 exactly, no one needs to mess around with change. Why can't other merchants do that?

It's not like consumers can just choose to stop buying things if the sales tax goes up. "What's that? Sales taxes went from 8.75% to 9.15% ? Oh, never mind, then, I'll just stop buying anything from here on out."

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#306

Post by marton78 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #164
johnlorentzson wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never thought I'd see "IBM" and "holocaust" in the same sentence, but here I am.

They're not exactly advertising it =) Just like Hugo Boss don't mention their Nazi Uniform Design Division in investor calls.

That's a common misconception. Hugo Boss didn't design the Nazi uniforms, but they manufactured it.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#307

Post by lostlogin »

dijit wrote: post #212
tda wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1 and 2 cents problem can easily be solved by agreeing to stop using them and round all transactions to the nearest. Think we stopped using 1 and 2 cent coins in the Netherlands more than 15 years ago

The ironic thing here is that Sweden already does that. there is no 1c equivalent coin, the smallest denomination of currency is roughly 10c (1SEK) so things already get rounded.

We have signs at counters here in New Zealand that informs customers that the store uses ‘Swedish rounding’ for the same reason.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#308

Post by mixmastamyk »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #296
pimterry wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, within the EU, this is rapidly improving. > still slow (same bank) SEPA instant credit transfer is standardized since 2017 and supported by > 50% of banks & payment providers ( https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta... ). If both parties support that then bank transfers take under 10 seconds. If that's not supported somehow classic SEPA transfers work everywhere, and arrive in 1 busi…

>If that's not supported somehow classic SEPA transfers work everywhere, and arrive in 1 business day max. Right, but one business day will often be two days during the week and four days over the weekend, because many banks set an arbitrary cut-off time after which they will no longer process any payments. One bank I use will process payments received after 12:00 pm (lunchtime) on the next day. So the money will arr…

Keep a full paycheck spare and then never have to worry about it again.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#309

Post by kuschku »

2rsf wrote: post #275
kuschku wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that’s not possible – you can’t have multiple cards with the same name on the same account. I know, I’ve tried after I’ve spent the entirety of january without without a card due to losing one (and the bank fucking up the replacement).

order an extra credit card, never use it and store it someplace safe

I can’t — the only way to order a card automatically deactivates all other cards.

I can create a second card, on a different name than my own, but that’d require ID verification for that different person (e.g. for shared accounts of couples)

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#310

Post by alkonaut »

askesum wrote: post #195
alkonaut wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proprietary id is at least co-owned by all the major consumer banks, so it's slightly better than it being just some random small company. I'd prefer if it was a government operation of course, especially since now almost all contact with authorities goes through this system. The right thing to do would be to create a publicly owned e-ID and electronic cash, and replace the reliance on BankID and credit cards.

As a Trisquel user I am completely excluded from this system.

As far as I’m aware all Linux users are out of luck. Buying a cheap used android phone for BankID is probably the easiest solution.
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