In their rescue of Greece and Ireland, the EU deliberately violated its own rules.
There are a lot of disturbing things happening in Poland, but Pawel Swidlicki argues that the EU needs to forego intervention.
As Europe holds emergency Schengen talks, Sweden is closing its border to refugees from Denmark and Norway is blocking migrants without visas.
Here’s a piece written by a Syrian refugee and the woman offering refuge.
The Swedish central bank has a negative interest rate on deposits, and an increasingly cash-free society, leading people to stash their money at home.
First link is to an article about Oregon and Idaho.
Sweden: War on Cash baby. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/01/jeff-thomas/international-war-cash/Report
Fixed.Report
Man, 2016 is just taking them out.Report
By Grabthar’s Hammer, 2016 sucks!Report
I guess making it to 70 is Hard. On the plus side, that’s three, so Keith and Abe can quit looking over their shoulders. For now at least.
Friend of mine DJ’d an all-Bowie night last night at a local watering hole. It was nice.Report
I found out that Bowie had died when I turned the news on in the morning. The teenager saw the report, and my reaction (which was disbelief), but didn’t really know who Bowie was. So he went and took a shower, and when he got out, he said, “Wait, is that the guy from Labyrinth?” Young people.Report
It’s not exactly easy. A man has about a 74% chance of making it to 70. 83% for women. The patriarchy works in mysterious ways.Report
Does the negative interest rate include direct deposits from your employer?Report
It’s the central bank, sort of the bank of the banks, so I don’t think people are getting direct deposits from their employers there. So far, I don’t think consumer banks, the banks people would get direct deposits in, have passed on that rate to their customers.
And if they did, it would likely apply to all money in the bank regardless of how it got there. That’s what makes the cashless society thing an issue: if you can’t withdraw your money as cash, then a bank with a negative interest rate can just keep taking your money unless you spend it. Which is part of the idea behind the negative interest rate in the first place: put your money into the economy instead of just keeping it in the bank, because the bank will charge you if you keep it there.
The stashing money in a mattress or microwave thing is a lobbyist being hyperbolic. I mean, I’m sure it happens (particularly with older people), but I doubt it’s happening all that much.Report
Yeah the articles say the consumer banks haven’t passed the pain on to the consumers yet.
What this underlines for me is the Swiss are badly in need of some money printing. Looks like a perfect place to try some kind of GBI experiment.Report
Swiss or the Swedes?
Though negative interest rates are being used in one way or another all over Europe, including the European Central Bank, at least some Italian bonds, the Swiss central bank (also a commercial bank, not a consumer bank) on sight deposits (probably what Will was thinking of as “cash deposits”), Denmark’s central bank, and probably some others that I haven’t read about. The idea of course is to get banks to loan their money rather than stash it in the central banks. I don’t think banks are hiding their money in microwaves, though.Report
They’d need a lot of microwaves.Report
GBI Charged?Report
Also what do tourists do in Sweden? Presumably they don’t have the same apps as the Swedes…Report
They use their credit cards.Report
The main thing a cashless society does is help the goverment collect their 25% VAT.Report
It’s also terrific for Central Banks because it gives them more anti-deflationary weapons.Report
The United Sates government also likes credit cards and other cashless methods of payment because it makes it harder for people to cheat on taxes even though we don’t have VAT.Report
When I worked at the restaurant, my waitstaff *LOVED* it when they got tipped in cash because they didn’t have to declare it.
Getting tipped on credit card? Well, those are declared for you, automatically.Report
Not necessarily. It depends on the restaurant does it. When I worked delivery and got credit card tips, the boss would reach into the register and pull out the corresponding amount of cash (this is why we hated when people would use their tip to make the total a nice round number… we got a pocket full of change). I don’t know what happened from there but my tips were never included on my tax forms. And I was paid above the table. Maybe it is because I didn’t get paid the sub-minimum wage thingy? I made $7.50/hour.Report
I’m surprised that anti-immigration forces haven’t hit upon a cash less society as the best way to crack down on undocumented aliens/illegal aliens (depending on your point of view). Many but not all undocumented aliens/illegal aliens get paid in cash and do not have access to formal banking. Even aliens who are in a temporary legal status like people going through the asylum process or foreign students lack access to formal banking many times. Going towards a cashless society would basically make it very difficult for them to function even if they are in the United States or elsewhere legally.Report
If only everybody could be assigned a number that, without which, no man might buy or sell…Report
Call it the Buy/sell Efficiency And Surety Tag.
We could tattoo everyone’s BEAST numbers on their foreheads (or some other convenient body parts) for convenience’s sake. Maybe use bar codes so that a laser scanner could read them easily. Man, that would be fast and simple.
Or better yet, embed the BEAST number on an implanted RFID chip. Reduces the chances of counterfeiting. A moment of pain, for a lifetime of convenience.Report