Bigjon
7th June 2010, 08:37 PM
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=2710
How liberty is eroded under the cover of providing 'safety'
Cash is one of the alleged banes of society that has long been in the sights of statist control-freaks everywhere. The debate over cash has recently received fresh input from none other than that paradise of socialism, Sweden. As reported in 'The Local', „Robberies raise prospect of retail cash ban“.
In it we learn that Sweden has something called the 'Work Environment Authority', one of the countless bureaucracies that tend to spring up in the modern-day State and then perpetuate themselves by constantly inventing new regulations.
Per the report in 'the Local':
“The head of the Swedish Work Environment Authority (Arbetsmiljöverket) has raised the prospect of a ban on cash in Sweden's retail stores to help tackle the growing problem of robbery. The authority's director-general Mikael Sjöberg refused to rule out the drastic measure in an interview on Wednesday. "You can't rule anything out, it just depends on how risky the situation is. We have very extensive possibilities to explore," Sjöberg told trade union publication Handelsnytt. The authority is set to conduct an inspection of 3,000 small stores across Sweden to chart opportunities aimed at improving the working environment. "It is not acceptable that people go to work in fear and concerned that they could be subject to a robbery, which does actually happen in this sector," Mikael Sjöberg said. The Work Environment Authority has previously pushed through cash bans on buses in Sweden after a spate of hold-ups. Robberies against retailers accounted for 9 percent of all robbery cases reported in Sweden in 2007, according to statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). From just under 400 cases per annum in 1987, the number of cases had more than doubled by 2007 after a peak in 2005.“
We don't want to give them any ideas, but one might naively ask, why not forbid cars on account of the prevalence of road accidents? A poster named Molly on the EeeUser-forum has put together a number of arguments forwarded by Swedish politicians and bureaucrats in the past in support of banning cash.
While we could not independently verify this list of statements, it certainly rings true, and in part mimics the spurious arguments heard elsewhere before (Molly's own comments in italics):
How liberty is eroded under the cover of providing 'safety'
Cash is one of the alleged banes of society that has long been in the sights of statist control-freaks everywhere. The debate over cash has recently received fresh input from none other than that paradise of socialism, Sweden. As reported in 'The Local', „Robberies raise prospect of retail cash ban“.
In it we learn that Sweden has something called the 'Work Environment Authority', one of the countless bureaucracies that tend to spring up in the modern-day State and then perpetuate themselves by constantly inventing new regulations.
Per the report in 'the Local':
“The head of the Swedish Work Environment Authority (Arbetsmiljöverket) has raised the prospect of a ban on cash in Sweden's retail stores to help tackle the growing problem of robbery. The authority's director-general Mikael Sjöberg refused to rule out the drastic measure in an interview on Wednesday. "You can't rule anything out, it just depends on how risky the situation is. We have very extensive possibilities to explore," Sjöberg told trade union publication Handelsnytt. The authority is set to conduct an inspection of 3,000 small stores across Sweden to chart opportunities aimed at improving the working environment. "It is not acceptable that people go to work in fear and concerned that they could be subject to a robbery, which does actually happen in this sector," Mikael Sjöberg said. The Work Environment Authority has previously pushed through cash bans on buses in Sweden after a spate of hold-ups. Robberies against retailers accounted for 9 percent of all robbery cases reported in Sweden in 2007, according to statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). From just under 400 cases per annum in 1987, the number of cases had more than doubled by 2007 after a peak in 2005.“
We don't want to give them any ideas, but one might naively ask, why not forbid cars on account of the prevalence of road accidents? A poster named Molly on the EeeUser-forum has put together a number of arguments forwarded by Swedish politicians and bureaucrats in the past in support of banning cash.
While we could not independently verify this list of statements, it certainly rings true, and in part mimics the spurious arguments heard elsewhere before (Molly's own comments in italics):