Smelly, runny crud pushed by smelly, runny, smalltime orifices on two legs
"Children will only know from history books what a wallet and hard cash are," said Telefonica Germany CEO René Schuster
Well, they already know only from history books what hard cash is (which means they can admire beautiful bubbles and inflation from the front seats).
But as long as there are people who do not like to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered, there will be cash, even if it has to be reinvented again and again.
Even the Swedes are not so sure about the cashless society:
The war on cash in Sweden may be stalling. The anti-cash movement has been vigorously promoted by major Swedish commercial banks as well as the Riksbank, the Swedish central bank. In fact, for three of the four major Swedish banks combined, 530 of their 780 office no longer accept or pay out cash. In the case of the Nordea Bank, 200 of its 300 branches are now cashless, and three-quarters of Swedbank’s branches no longer handle cash. ... Fortunately, it seems that the Swedish people are not falling for the anti-cash propaganda spewed by private bankers and Riksbank officials and are resisting the trend toward a cashless economy. It is reported that last year the value of cash transactions in Sweden were 99 billion krona which represented only a marginal decrease from ten years ago. And small shops continue to do one-third to one-half of their business in cash. Furthermore a study of bank customers satisfaction released by the Swedish Quality Index in October 2012, indicated that the satisfaction index was pulled down among customers of Swedbank, Nordea and SEB by their policy of eliminating cash transactions at their bank branches. Even more heartening is the fact that Handelsbanken, the largest bank in Sweden, is committed to serving consumers who demand cash.