Germany, Italy import legally dubious Brazilian gold, study shows
About 94% of the Brazilian gold imported by Germany and Italy, the main buyers in the EU, has dubious origins, Instituto Escolhas says.
The Associated Press reports that the Sweden has come the furthest in getting rid of printed currency, opting for the convenience and security of digital money.
In most Swedish cities, public buses don’t accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether.
But while all countries see the advance of PIN cards and credit cards for more and more transactions, Peter Sunde, the founder of the Pirate Bay and micropayment service Flattr, worries that the development is not a good thing:
“If everything is traceable you start thinking about your purchasing behaviour. You need cash for anonymous behaviour,” he said at the session on The Future of Money at the London Web Summit.
Ben Milne, founder of Dwolla argued that we already lived in a cashless society: “There’s no anonymity in transactions. Things go digital, and anonymity is removed. You can’t do anything about it. If you have a credit card there’s no such thing as anonymity.”
Read the story in Wired.
