The REAL Reason Sweden Did Not Lockdown

All year Sweden has been chastised by media and health officials across the world for not shutting down their economies, nor require face masking to stop the spread of Covid-19. Though the criticism has gone on all year since the beginning of the pandemonium, Sweden’s case rate and death numbers have remained low – a fact that has been conveniently ignored by the media, politicians, and health authorities.

Again, just like other nations, the media continually ignores who is dying; and those that are dying tend to be elderly or have prior health conditions. But again, The WinePress continually reminds its readers that the case numbers and testing methods are highly dubious, imprecise, and unreliable. The CDC has had to admit that there was a 98% decrease in the flu last year. They admit that their tests are faulty due to a lack of a proper isolate that can identify the virus when tested. When a can of Coca-Cola tests positive for the virus, I think we all can agree that these tests are useless and a bit of a coin toss.

As of recent, Sweden has started to stiffen up a bit by closing up public pools and gyms, and face masking is only “recommended” when using public transportation; but this is very loose compared to the rest of the world. They still have yet to “mass quarantine” the country, and they have no plans to do so either.

However there is a much more important, and not so obvious, reason as to why Sweden did not lockdown. The answers may surprise you. There are many pieces to the puzzle, so stay with us as we help to connect some dots for you.

Deception In Daylight

The WinePress has reiterated time and time again, and will continue to do so, that Covid-19 and this so-called pandemic, is just a front for the real agenda – and that is to crash the economies of the world. If you do not believe me, take a look at what James Bullard, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said in March when the lockdowns began to go into effect for most states:

This is a planned, organized partial shutdown of the U.S. economy in the second quarter. The overall goal is to keep everyone, households and businesses, “whole” with government support. It is a huge shock and we are trying to cope with it and keep it under control.

But why was this planned? What is the goal of shutting down the economies of the world?

Well, this all apart of “The Great Reset.” The World Economic Forum released a new headline this year entitled “The Great Reset.” The global elitists are getting so bold, they are now blatantly throwing it in the masses faces. But the masses are asleep and are willingly ignorant as to what is going on around them.

The World Economic Forum posted a rather telling article this year on August 14th, titled “Why it’s time to take central banks’ digital currencies seriously.” Intriguing, isn’t it?

The following is from that article:

• The introduction of central bank digital currencies could upend the global economic order.
• This technology could bring multiple benefits, such as more efficient trade, greater financial access for millions of people, and a reduction in crime.
• But there are still technological barriers to overcome, too.

The decline of cash use in western economies has accelerated due to COVID-19. Meanwhile, central bank digital currencies are emerging, potentially upending the existing global economic hierarchy.

Lockdowns limit physical interactions and naturally reduce physical cash use. But there also credible concerns that paper money can transmit the virus. Research has shown that the average European banknote plays host to around 26,000 colonies of bacteria. The human influenza virus can survive on a banknote for up to 17 days; with one-dollar and five-dollar bills changing hands more than 100 times per year on average, the risk during a global pandemic is considerable.

Who then can blame the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) when it announced in February that it would be destroying cash collected in high-risk environments, such as public transport, markets or in hospitals?

In concert with this decision, the PBOC also ramped up its plans to replace cash with a central bank digital currency (CBDC) – the e-RMB. In April, testing began for the e-RMB in several major cities, including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu, and a new area south of Beijing called Xiong’an. According to state media, the e-RMB has been formally adopted in these cities, with some government employees receiving salaries in the digital currency as early as May. The expectation is that these pilots will extend to the venue for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

China is not alone. Deutsche Bank Research has tracked almost 20 digital currency projects led by central banks across all regions globally. Meanwhile, the private banking sector has also launched multiple initiatives, such as the R3 consortium, or in India, the Blockchain Infrastructure Company.

The aim for most of these initiatives is efficiency and effectiveness. Digital currencies could remove the cumbersome operational and security apparatus which surround conventional forms of money transmission. Reducing the ‘cost of friction’ can help financial inclusion of individuals, while also making global trade more efficient and less risky. Increasing transparency and traceability can protect against money laundering and other forms of financial crime.

For central banks, the most important benefit is the ability to improve regulatory compliance and the effectiveness of monetary policy. This is particularly important now. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to know if or when monetary policy is having the intended effect on the economy. If such stimuli were executed through a central bank digital currency, its flow through the economy could be monitored precisely, informing future monetary actions.

There are political and social benefits as well. As research by Deutsche Bank shows, first movers in this space could win long-term geopolitical advantage. The potential for China here is immense. If the e-RMB is adopted broadly as a system to streamline trade and reduce risk, China could become the world’s trade banker, as well as its factory. Yet the bigger goal for China is actually more local, and relates to financial inclusion. Digitising the RMB will grant access to financial services to hundreds of millions of citizens, including some of the most disadvantaged. This benefit is something that can be applied to any country across the world.

That said, significant technical and structural barriers must be overcome before any CBDC becomes reality. Described as a ‘tri-lemma’, the challenge is that the underlying blockchain architecture of many cryptocurrencies can be designed to be highly decentralized, secure or scalable – but not all three at the same time. Scalability and security are crucial to the effectiveness of any CBDC, but losing decentralization risks creating other bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

These technical challenges are being addressed by companies such as Infosys, along with many partners in the financial and technology industry. What is clear is that any solution needs to be at once fast, cheap, energy efficient and unbreakable. Privacy and identity must be dealt in a way that is acceptable to governments, citizens and corporations. We need enough transparency to enable the hoped-for leaps forward in efficiency and effectiveness, while still protecting individual and corporate rights to privacy.

This is a tall order – but in a world where digitalization is already transforming our lives, it is by no means impossible. If the last century has taught us anything, it’s not to underestimate the transformative potential of technological innovation.

Important questions remain. How do we manage the disruption a CBDC could create by replicating, and potentially cannibalising, the current banking structure? What if some countries migrate to a CBDC and others don’t? What new power imbalances may result?

The answers are not straightforward, yet the opportunities to strengthen fiscal management, transparency, and efficiency are significant. What is clear is that the crisis of COVID-19 presents many challenges – but also a unique opportunity to rethink how money is managed and used in our society.

Dirty Cash To Digital Trash

That article reveals that the banks across the world want to implement a digital currency. Remember at the start of the pandemonium they were selling the fear that our money is covered in coronaviruses and infectious bacterias? So is your phone, bed pillow, dinner knife, TV remote, and toilet seat; but you do not hear the propaganda to get rid of those, now do we? Remember that psy-ops they tried to do to people this year by saying there was a “coin shortage?”

They are now pushing this propaganda again. On December 4th, Wbur (the NPR for Boston, MA) released a headline “US Coin Shortage Highlights Implications Of Moving Toward A Cashless Society.” Here are some highlights from the article:

Lots of people, lots of different hands, touch cash and touch coins, so because people think it’s cleaner, because they’ve only touched their credit cards, they’ve only touched their debit cards, lots of people don’t want to be using cash during the pandemic.

Professor Jay Zagorsky of Boston University’s Questrom School of Business

Retailers really enjoy a cashless society because when people pay with cash, they have to count those coins. They have to get them back to the bank. It’s expensive for them. Banks love a cashless society because they make money on loans, and the more often you use a credit card, the more often banks get a cut of what you spend.

When you have to pull a wad of bills out, there’s a moment of pain. However, if you just slap down a credit card, you’re going to pay maybe next month or months later if you decide not to pay off your credit card bill in full. And this is the exact same reason why casinos use chips instead of cash, because it doesn’t feel like it’s real anymore.

We’re going toward a cashless society no matter how often I speak on the radio and say, ‘You know, it’s OK if we slow down a little bit.’ Because there’s a whole bunch of problems when we go to a purely cashless society. Let me be very clear, I use credit cards, but I don’t use credit cards for everything.

Jay Zagorsky

By pushing the propaganda that cash and coins are germ spreaders, it scares the masses into wanting to use it. Then the banksters can swoop in with their new digital currencies. Then they control you. The eradication of the dollar is happening at lightening speed. Forbes documents this in July and Bitcoin.com in September.

As the previous reports listed above show, the banks all over the world have been working towards a new digital currency. In our report, “Is There A V-Shaped Recovery?,” The WinePress documents that the central banks are admitting to creating a new digital dollar. In that report, we cited evidence from The Trends Journal discussing this very issue – that Bank of America stated the FED will create inflation with a new digital dollar. They explain the immediate affects of that decision:

One: A devalued digital dollar is massively positive for the stock market. Why? It
will take more weaker digital dollars to buy anything – including shares of stock.

Two: Multi-national corporations based in the United States will love a weaker
dollar, as they will reap the benefits of currency exchange rates when selling their
products overseas. This will add to their bottom line.

Three: A weaker dollar is incredibly positive for gold, silver, and cryptocurrencies.
A weaker dollar is also commodities positive overall.

Four: A weaker dollar robs purchasing power, making the lives of those not so well off even more difficult.

The second point is a point The WinePress has noted different times in our reports. The corporations this year have done extremely well. 56 new billionaires in America were added last year. The billionaires net worth grew an additional $1 trillion. Did you see Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc, shutdown? On the contrary, they boomed because mom and pop was put under house arrest and forced to watch their business go under, and people’s wallets shrunk so it forced them to buy more of the cheap goods. It is all by design – a fascist takeover.

“Never Again!”

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

Benito Mussolini

If there was ever a man who knows what fascism is, it would be one of the quint essential fascist figures, Benito Mussolini. When Nazism was uprooted at the end of World War II, and treaties were signed, the cheers of “never again” were said. Well, it IS happening again on a global scale.

What is happening right now is the Fascist takeover of America. It is happening elsewhere of course, but as an American, I can speak for America. There are numerous things that could be cited, but some of the actions taken by President Trump cannot be ignored and swept under a rug.

Now I would like someone to explain to me how a “too strong” of a dollar is bad. There is no logic in this whatsoever, UNLESS you want to kill the dollar so the FEDs can implement their new currencies – which is what they want. This is why they are printing off massive amounts of “pork” filled bills and “relief” packages as this just inflates the dollar and further adds to the debt crisis in this nation.

Stockholm Syndrome

Now let’s get back to Sweden. How does Sweden tie into all of this?

In early 2019 a NPR report was released documenting Sweden’s cash flow. It was found that only 13% of Swedes use cash. It was 40% around 2010. Whereas at this same time, the report found that Americans still use around 70% cash.

Then in December of 2020, Sweden.se ran a headline saying “Sweden – The First Cashless Society.” Here is what the article has to say about this cashless society:

A big part of integrating into Swedish society involves using BankID. It’s a mobile app that allows anyone with a Swedish personal identification number (personnummer) and bank account to access all digital public services, use online banking and even sign contracts.

The simplicity of a six-digit code or the use of a fingerprint on a smartphone literally puts almost everything at your fingertip. This saves people in Sweden from having to remember a large number of codes and passwords in order to access digital services.

Cashless payments go hand in hand with the Swedish lifestyle. Swish’s popularity can partly be attributed to Swedes’ fondness for splitting the bill in bars and restaurants. Very often, one person pays and the rest swish their share.

Ella Johansson, professor in Ethnology at Uppsala University, explains how this has much to do with the relation between friendships and resources:

‘Swedes see exchange of money and debt as a threat to friendship. In other cultures, like Italy for example, people would fight over being the one to pay the bill for the sake of keeping up the friendly relations.’

The move towards a cashless society is also driven by fintech, or financial technology. Many internationally renowned fintech companies were founded in Sweden. One example is Klarna, a payment system startup founded in 2005 that counts over 90 million customers globally.

Another is iZettle, which makes small cheap card payment terminals. The terminal allows a retailer to take payments by connecting it to a dedicated app on a smartphone or tablet.
Handy payments, literally

To some people, the cashless experience is more than skin-deep… They’ve got a microchip implanted in their hand, which can store different kinds of data – from ID to door-opening blips, train tickets and even bank cards. This makes it possible to pay by simply waving the hand.

Though this might sound like science fiction, over a thousand Swedes have inserted this handy biohacking commodity into their lifestyle. It saves them from carrying bank cards, ID, membership cards and keys around.

In ten years the proportion of Swedes using cash has fallen from 40 to 9 per cent, according to Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank. The use of cash is mostly limited to making small payments and by the elderly. In shops and cafés, it is much more common to find the sign ‘Card only’ or ‘Cashfree’ than ‘Cash only’ as in many other countries.

Online shopping is also very popular, with many Swedish retailers gaining a good share of their margins via web shops. According to Eurostat, 82 per cent of the Swedish population makes purchases online, putting the country among the top in Europe.

Who knows ؘ– maybe one day everyone will be making payments with their implanted microchips. Whatever the future of banking has in store, Sweden is likely to remain at the forefront of future payment innovations.