COMMENT: The 91 year old woman who had her $12,000 deposit declined in Kristanstad, Sweden, and the money confiscated by the State is a sad tale. Perhaps you might want to identify Kristanstad, as a town in Sweden, for those of us who do not readily identify Kristanstad, a town of 35,000 souls with Sweden.

BTW I love your blog.

REPLY: Sorry – my bad as they say. This is Sweden. The notes were the old obsolete notes that she had saved over the years. If she could not prove she saved these notes, the government refuses to accept them. Just more confiscation because ALL governments now PRESUME we are all guilty and it is our BURDEN to prove we are innocent. This is the peak in socialism. It has nothing to do with helping people, it is all about helping government.

The “obsolete” is not the issue. Even obsolete notes are redeemable. This is standard in Europe. One pound notes in Britain from 1970 have been cancelled. Only the US does not cancel old currency. They are still redeemable. Even Australia redeems old cancelled banknotes. The Swedish Riksbank states on their site:

The Riksbank redeems all Swedish banknotes that are invalid, as long as there is no suspicion that they may be linked to a crime, for instance a cash-in-transit robbery.