Sweden leads the race to become cashless society

Swedes are blazing a trail in Europe, with banks, buses, street vendors and even churches expecting plastic or virtual payment

In 1661, Stockholms Banco, the precursor to the Swedish central bank, issued Europe’s first banknotes, on thick watermarked paper bearing the bank’s seal and eight handwritten signatures.

Last year – as Britain did last week – Sweden launched a new series of notes, cheery affairs featuring 20th-century Swedish cultural giants such as Astrid Lindgren, the creator of Pippi Longstocking, Greta Garbo and filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. But like its Nordic neighbours Norway, Denmark and Finland, Sweden is fast becoming an almost entirely cashless society.

MasterCard is at war in Canada, and it’s not against who you’d expect

As ex advisor to Ronald Reagan, Martin Armstrong, says: The current goal for major institutions and governments is to eliminate cash. This is how you keep bankruns from happening, plus you’re able to track down every single transaction. It’s an all-out assault on your freedom.

 

TORONTO — In Canada, the biggest rival MasterCard Inc. is working to obliterate, according to its local president Brian Lang, isn’t Visa Inc., American Express Co., Interac Association or Bitcoin dealers. It’s cold, hard cash.

“The benefit of Interac and Visa for me is that we’re competing towards the same goal of a digitally enabled country,” Lang said in a recent telephone interview. “I actually appreciate that (Interac) is advertising right now not to pay with cash and that there’s a much better way, that you can tap or pop in your card.”

Euro Slides After Reports Troika Is Preparing Greek Plan B, C, & D Including Parallel Currency

 

Earlier we detailed reports that The IMF was preparing a contingency plan in the event of a Greek default, and furthermore that Andrea Merkel was under increasing pressure to “let Greece go,” and now, as Eurogroup ministers begin to gather for today’s crucial ‘deal-or-no-deal’ meeting, Die Welt reports The Troika has 4 scenarios for Greece  – one positive and three increasingly negative ranging from the need for further bailouts to paying staff in IOUs and issuing a parallel currency.

While Austria’s Hans Jorg Schelling sticks to his statement that:

“There’s nothing to it The Plan B was not discussed..”

It appears, yet again, another European elite was lying (because it was important), as now, as Die Welt reports (via Google Translate), hope is fading fast for a deal…

Central banks fight ‘vultures’ in global currency war

A global war of currency depreciation has begun. Although the weapons are not killing anyone, the slow damage will be no less devastating than nuclear, chemical or biological warfare. In a worst-case scenario, there will be a substantial redistribution of the income and wealth of all nations and an even wider gap between the rich and poor.

The war has now spread to Denmark, Singapore, the EU, Switzerland, Japan and even South Korea and Taiwan. The weapons used include banknotes, central bank control of foreign exchange and interest rates, and vultures (hedge funds) in the financial markets defending and speculating on the currencies.