Cash money disappears (within 5 years) – Netherlands, Europe

Hmm... so I am coming to the Netherlands to study for the year.

Any tips/things I should be aware of?

Although I don't agree with it, it doesn't look like I will be able to avoid using some of these systems.

I guess that is their goal...

S&F

This is currently happening on US airlines. Last trip I took in September 2009, I had only cash with me. I could not get anything to eat or drink without a credit card, exception being water.

OP - what is happening in the Netherlands is similar to the program that has been rolled out in Hong Kong over the years.

There they have contactless (and cashless) stored value cards which you can use on all public transport, taxis, 7-11s, McDonald's stores - all sort of places, and the number of outlets is growing relatively quickly. Everyone there must also have a chipped national ID card, which stores your thumbprints too.

Exiting and entering the country, you don't need your passport or to talk to any customs/immigration people - you use your biometric thumbprint to come and go, after inserting your ID card to a gate-post.

There has been talk in the past of merging the stored value (i.e. digital money) with the national ID card. Everything will be tracked should that go ahead. You can still use cash, but there also seems to be a move away from cash.

I totally disagree with this statement.

While money may slowly dwindle away and be mainly replaced by chargecards, key cards, credit cards,...

What if i wanted to go to the newsagent and buy 1 newspaper.
Or a pack of chewy....

..???


Seriously. There going to have a hard time getting people to line up thier cards at a news-stand to pay for one newspaper. The time it takes to swipe and key a pin, compared to the time it takes to hand over a coin.... is a big big difference...

I find it ironic that the more society goes towards credit, the more I go towards cash.

I am older than most here, not too old, but not too young. Kinda middle stream. Anyway, my school loans 20 years ago were "supposed" to be deferrable due to unemployment. Well, the gov said I defaulted on the loans while unemployed-breach of contract, so I told them to bite my ass. Now, all my life I have lived without credit, OR DEBT. Kind of a sobering thing in todays society.

BUT, quite a refreshing ideal when everyone of my friends and family have lost their asses due to credit and me, have only continued on in the standard non credit life.

Sorry to tell you this folks, the last 20 years have not been THAT hard to exist without credit, it has taught me to be the OPPOSITE of everyone else, I have always tried to sustain a buffer for possible problems.

Of course at times it sucked, but at other times, I did not lose my ass. Think about the interest that you and others have paid in your lives. Not one dime have I given to others except of course for the tax burden of 50%. Just imagine if you have not had the tax and interest burden?

reply to post by DaRAGE


The cards they use in HK and China are the size of credit cards, and you simply wave the card over a little machine and it deducts the value, you don't have to touch the card and machine. It can be used for chewy, newspapers...a ten cent pack of sweets if you want - so, no pins or anything, and actually at the moment they are more or less anonymous.

But that's how these sort of things creep up. It is convenient, it is fast - therein is the hook. When it becomes so normal and prevalent, then some sort of new rule or 'safety' issue is declared, and the cards will be merged with identity cards, or you need to register the cards to counter fraud or something.

That's it, I'm moving to the Netherlands.

We need to abolish currency and 'wealth' in the world. I don't follow the argument that you need a wealth-backed currency to drive economy, as if gold were somehow worth anything beyond being 'pretty'. The only reason gold was ever worth anything is because those in power wanted it for its rarity and because it was shiny. Replacing a rockwith a peice of paper is simply progress. Replacing stacks of paper with a single, plastic card is simply progress.

As society progress' with this in mind you can either be a part of it, or not.

reply to post by links234


Progress is indeed a very good point.

Until you realize it is not YOUR progress they are talking about. Nor your childrens. Nor theirs.

It doesn't stop there either. Progress is defined by advancing from a situation into another one. This process never stops. And the thing with processes that never stop is they don't but you do. So you never really have progress, but you can have the promise of progress. The promise of change. The promise of happiness.

I can make some mighty fine promises too, will you support my cause?

Personally, I'd like to see them try to get rid of cash in the Netherlands.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


I surely hope your post is correct my friend.

I for one, have recently closed all of the banking accounts I had. I will not be a willing pawn in their murderous schemes. I do admit that some services/companies here in the US make it much harder to pay them by not accepting cash but I don't mind the extra effort to avoid having an account. It makes me feel good honestly. Besides there is at least for now, many ways around having an account.

As for the black market that would spring up, well I can hardly wait to be quite the entrepeneur within that new market! To he#^ with these bankers!

This is no surprise.

I predict that within 10 years cash will be a thing of the past. Children born after today will live in a world where the concept of cash wil be lost.

Of course a few people will fight this change, but the overwhelming majority will accept and quickly conform.

I am soomeone who believes cash is king. I don't buy anything on credit. if I want soemthing, I save until I have enough to buy it. For people like me, ones who keep their lives free of the traps of banks, this will be a difficult change.

However the change is inevitable, as technology progresses we will have less and less control over the information about us.

Persoanlly, the best I can hope for is to be lost amonsgt the multitudes, becasue this a change that no one will be able to forgo.

reply to post by Redwookieaz


Congratulations my good friend, I am proud of you! To hell with the banking system, free markets do not need banks in order to survive. Banks need market to survive, and more importantly they need depositors. Screw the banks.

As to black markets, where ever you are, start looking around, I assure you, you will discover a robust black market outside of illicit drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, prostitution and gambling. Tupperware parties and Avon may be "legal" businesses, but there are many black market parties that operate in the same manner as Amway, Tupperware, and Avon do. Find your niche, develop your client base, because if you build it, they will come, and if what you are supplying is in demand, they will undoubtedly come. Although, there is a value to supply side economics as well, if you can afford to create a demand.

Where the media loves to call supply side economics "voodoo economics", the FOX channel is a great example of supply side economics. When Rupert Murdoch fist built FOX station, everyone insisted that there was no market for a fourth network. Today, there are far more than four networks. When FOX was a fledgling network, CBS has virtually a monopoly on the NFL. However, when the NFL upped their asking price for licensing, CBS decided they couldn't generate enough in advertising revenue to pay for the increase in price so passed on the NFL. FOX took the lead and accepted the NFL's price.

In an interview with Murdoch, the journalist asked Murdoch what made him think he could afford to pay the price the NFL was asking if the more successful CBS couldn't afford the price. Murdoch admitted that he couldn't afford the price either, but insisted that he had two shows he thought were quality shows and worth of a larger audience than he was getting. He gambled that if he brought the NFL to FOX on Sundays, people would stay afterward and watch those shows.

Those two shows were The Simpson's and The X-Files, and Murdoch's gambit paid off, and FOX went on to great success. That is supply side economics and there is nothing voodoo about it all. Another example of supply side economics would be the Pet Rock. Who the hell would have thought people would pay good money for a rock just because it had a face painted on it? Voodoo economics? Hardly! Good old fashioned American know how is what it was! Forge your way, my friend, and become fabulously wealthy, so that you can compete with the elite instead of watch them try to rule you. I believe in you, make sure you believe in yourself.

I see nothing about this here in Norway, we don't roll with the EU crap
Thank god for that.... The only change I can think of is that we now use the chip, rather than the good old stripe on the credit cards..

Well it has been five years now, and Denmark is just getting started. Be vigilante man.

Denmark ponders allowing shops go cash-free

Lets hope the world does not lose power afterwards.

Great post and interesting topic, thanks OP. And hello everyone, this is my first post here.

This is a really serious matter and it is not getting enough attention anywhere among the public. Imagine a world where:

1. Retail stores know everything you have purchased, and have all the history of your actions stored on their servers, now they can use targeted advertising (the most benign thing they can do), profile you, and make assumptions about your personality.
2. All financial transactions will be under government and bank control. They will argue that this is a good thing because it will eliminate tax evasion, illegal work (working without a contract), and crime (no cash in stores to rob). While in fact, they now own you completely.
3. They can say things like, "this guy smokes too much, this guy drinks too much". Imagine if employers could gain access to your profile through this.
4. It would be really easy for them to set quotas on products (only 1 steak per month for all residents in this area, only 1 can of coke...)

This will be reality in the near future, banks already know what you spend money on, but not necessarily the details. In my location, I get a detailed bank statement on what I've spent money on (food, clothes, entertainment...). That is scary as hell, and they also contacted me with a "savings plan" on what I should spend money less on, like it's their business.

Business Intelligence and analytics is the keyword in the IT world for this.
In short, "Business intelligence (BI) is the set of techniques and tools for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes."
The big famous IT companies you already know have been working on these tools and techniques behind the scenes for years, and now devs are being trained to use them. Companies are already trying to focus on how to get the most out of any data collected from customers, you see where this is going right ?