90
Back to cash: life without money in your pocket is not the utopia Sweden hoped
(www.theguardian.com)
Clickbait. TLDR: it's safe to have cash, because times are weird.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
90 points (91.7% liked)
Europe
5466 readers
1377 users here now
News and information from Europe ๐ช๐บ
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: RT, news-pravda:com, GB News, Fox, Breitbart, Daily Caller, OAN, sociable:co, citjourno:com, brusselssignal:eu, europesays:com, geo-trends:eu, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to any of the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
what a weird headline.
as a rule, we never use cash. i've been carrying around 500 kronor in notes for years, and i can't get any use for them because people would rather take swish than deal with the hassle of cash. even in a blackout or network failure at the supermarket cash would be no use because they all use digital cash registers than ingest the bills and spit out change automatically.
the thing we are being told by our government is "don't put all your eggs in one basket". we are being recommended to keep two payment cards from different issuers, as well as cash. this is all for redundancy, not because something has broken.
Exactly and Sweden is also fast becoming completely cash free. Guesstimates close to 50% of our stores are (or are soon becomeing) completely cash free. It's rare to find a store that takes cash at all here.
500 kr is the exact amount of cash you need at very specific vendors, the only place where they don't do swish at all ๐
except in sundsvall
A clickbite title for an interesting article. That is so so sad! The problem with the cashless "utopia" is not in the system, that worked for years, but "in the context of today, with war in Europe, unpredictability in the US and the fear of Russian hybrid attacks almost a part of daily life in Sweden" So, like always, when a society with high level of democracy, science, philosophy ecc. faces the barbarians. The barbarian win.
Lack of cash in a crisis might be an issue, but cash itself is not the solution.
In a complete breakdown, cash would only work for a few days and there'd be all kinds of other more serious issues than someone not being able to pay.
Securing a domestic infrastructure of power and network is obviously crucial, but I think it's worth remembering that people survived just fine before it was possible to swipe a card, even in times or places where cash was useless. Food stamps and ration sheets were used all over the world in times of crisis. I'd be surprised if the Swedish government doesn't already have such a plan for the worst case scenario.
Sure, go ahead and save some cash in your doomsday bunker, but I bet you'll be eating the cans of tuna long before the cash bills provides anything of actual value.
Cash is king, long live cash