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the issuance of a Citizen Smart Card that can be used as an ID card, in the Health System, as well as for gaining access to the food stamp program etc.

It's in the program...

You hand out smart cards to the entire population. They are initially intended for accessing the health system, and for food stamps. Every citizen has an account created by the government. Retailers and health providers need terminals, obviously.

Then, some time later, ta-daa, you roll out Citizen Smart Card 2.0. It's the card you already have, but now you have an "Air Miles" account, with an initial free allocation on it. You can use your Air Miles to pay your tax. Retailers who accept food stamps will accept them for payment too, using them for their own tax liabilities, and exchanging them with other companies (all companies can have an Air Miles account too). Government income support would also be paid through the system, perhaps pensions...

Pretty quickly you have critical mass for a purely electronic currency -- I don't see any immediate need for physical scrip.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 10:27:29 AM EST
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And you need to wire up all stores anyway since you want to collect VAT effectively. Who can object to that.
by generic on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 10:38:19 AM EST
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Can't wait to see the face of the Eurogroup chairman in June...

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 10:45:12 AM EST
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Still this presupposes that they make it to June. They'll have to fight the notTroika every step of the way. Have they even gotten a single cent yet? Of course it doesn't get easier to provoke a crisis once the can is bouncing down the road and the ECB governing council will probably be less hostile to Greece in another rotation. When was the timing for those rotations decided anyway?
by generic on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 11:12:38 AM EST
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Also we shouldn't forget that the Eurogroup's record of keeping to its commitments is less than stellar.
by generic on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 11:21:44 AM EST
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The rotation was decided in September.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 11:27:35 AM EST
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Democracy is great isn't it?
by generic on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 11:30:16 AM EST
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Who says June says April. The first order of business is to get past the liquidity crunch in mid-March. But they can already start legislating and implementing parts of their program. It will be interesting to see which are the first parts of the agreement that they implement.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 25th, 2015 at 11:29:32 AM EST
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