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Our financial futures are closely tied to the rise of automation and electronification. Considering this is CR4, this won’t come as a surprise. Technology has always heavily influenced not only what people spend on, but also how they spend.
But the changes to society’s financial institutions are happening much more quickly than some might expect. Here are two examples:
 McDonalds Kills Cashier (Jobs)
Lately, the National Burger Factory, a.k.a. McDonald’s, has begun eliminating cashier jobs in states where the minimum wage is expected to soon hike up to $15 an hour, and will continue to do so in 2017. Those states are New York, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Illinois and Washington.
McDonald’s, the second largest employer in the world as of 2012, argues it can’t afford to pay workers $15 an hour. To begin cost cutting, restaurant patrons make orders at a kiosk and wait at a table while humans cook and deliver the food. According to Glassdoor, the average cashier wage is $8.53. The McDonald’s closest to me is 24/7/365. Employing just one cashier at a time for one year for an always-open restaurant costs nearly $75,000 annually. Considering this, it is actually surprising that kiosks haven’t happened sooner.
McDonald’s has had increased competition from fast casual burger joints like Five Guys and Shake Shack in recent years. The company has noticed that customers who order from kiosks tend to order more food, in addition to the cost savings it offers. Once other fast food restaurants start to rollout order kiosks, the entire burger cooking and packaging task is next to be automated. The technology has existed since the 1990s, but has been waiting for the moment when economies of scale finally made the technology commercially viable.
No Krona For You
 Sweden is preparing to be the first country that eliminates physical currency in favor of digital currency.
For nearly 150 years Sweden’s currency has been the krona, which translates as crown in English. It was also Denmark’s and Norway’s currency up until World War I. As a U.S. dollar can be exchange for 100 pennies, a Swedish krona can be exchanged for 100 öre.
Yet Sweden is currently reforming its currency. Since the 1970s, Sweden has been reducing the amount of öre coins it prints, first ceasing production of 1 and 2 öre coins, then 5 and 25 öre denominations were eliminated, and then the 10 öre coin. In 2010, the last öre coin, the 50, was retired from use. Next, the country is requiring all 1, 2 and 5 kronor coins to be of a new, updated design. Old designs will no longer be considered tender after June 30, 2017.
Slowly but surely, the country is now phasing out the use of banknotes. It has eliminated 1,000 and 10,000 kronor notes, and forced the country to adopt new designs of other notes, lest they become worthless as well.
Since 2009, physical money circulation in Sweden has fallen 40%. Swedes instead utilize credit cards, typically armed with microchips, or smartphones with apps linked to accounts that pay via near-field communication readers.
Most Swedish banks refuse to accept or deal in physical tender, as it adds too much labor or incentive for robbery. Banks also charge negative interest rates in Sweden, so the more money a person has in their electronic account, the more the bank is making. The government supports reducing the need to regulate and print money, and tax evasion is almost impossible when all funds can be electronically audited. Merchants won’t have to keep tabulate physical currency or worry about dishonest employees.
It seems consumers are the only ones seeing the potential downsides, with omnipresent purchasing surveillance one of the most prominent issues.
Both of these examples present how technology is reshaping our relationships with money. In one instance it changes how some people earn their money, in the other how people can use their money.
Is it possible that changes to the fundamental idea of money are next?
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Re: How Technology Evolves Money
