Germany Unveils “Cash Controls” Push: Ban Transactions Over €5,000, €500 Euro Note
It was just two days ago that Bloomberg implored officials to “bring on a cashless future” in an Op-Ed that calls notes and coins “dirty, dangerous, unwieldy, and expensive.”
You probably never thought of your cash that way, but increasingly, authorities and the powers that be seem determined to lay the groundwork for the abolition of what Bloomberg calls “antiquated” physical money.
We’ve documented the cash ban calls on a number of occasions including, most recently, those that emanated from DNB, Norway’s largest bank where executive Trond Bentestuen said that although “there is approximately 50 billion kroner in circulation, the Norges Bank can only account for 40 percent of its use.”
That, Bentestuen figures, “means that 60 percent of money usage is outside of any control.” “We believe,” he continues, “that is due to under-the-table money and laundering.”
DNB goes on to say that after identifying “many dangers and disadvantages” associated with cash, the bank has “concluded that it should be phased out.”
On Tuesday we got the latest evidence that officials across the globe are preparing to institute a cashless “utopia” when Handelsblatt reported (in a piece called “The Death of Cash) that the Social Democrats – the junior partner in Angela Merkel’s coalition government – have proposed a €5,000 limit on cash transactions and the elimination of the €500 note.
Berlin is using a familiar scapegoat to justify the plan: the need to fight “terrorists” and “foreign criminals.”
“Limits on cash transactions would discourage foreign criminals from coming here to launder money,” says a paper penned by the Social Democrats. “If sums over €5,000 have to pass through traceable bank transactions, laundering would be severely hampered, it adds.”
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