Why Americans do not pay off credit card debts

[Gilrandir]

Unless you're talking about a black market operation, these places will have no problems adjusting to a paperfree economy.

You certainly have no experience of shopping in Ukraine, which explains your naivety in this issue. I, for example, NEVER buy meat at supermarkets. At the market it is cheaper, fresher and locally produced while at the supermarket it is more expensive; it usually stays there for quite a time and when it gets "unfresh" they have ways to make it look and smell fresh again; and it is usually imported from Brazil or Poland or other such places (and I'm not sure that it is imported legally, which may happen as often as not or that it is not infected by some plague or anthrax and sold at next to nothing to some astute Ukrainian businessmen who then bribed sanitary inspection which allowed it to be sold). It is pretty much the same with other "raw" foodstuffs which can be produced by local farmers. The latter come to the market to sell their wares from the sticks and certainly sell them cash down. You may call it blackmarket, I call it direct delivery of home made products.
Also living in Ukraine you must be always prepared for various what-ifs. What if electricity is switched off? What if the supermarket card reading facilities are out of order? What if your bank goes broke? And latest developments in Eastern Ukraine bear me out: people there may have some money on their bank accounts but bankomats don't work, electricity supply is intermittent and in view of this supermarkets work for cash. Do you suggest they should eat their cards?
Conclusion: living in Ukraine is fun.

Feel free to live under a stone if you wish.
The rest of us, however, want more efficiency, reduced costs and generally less hassle.

It feels more natural and healthy under a stone. In fact, you may view it as preparation for the running-to-the-hills manouver you advised me to take.

Then I started using that thingy inside my cranium, and it worked fine. I check my bank account a couple of times a month to pay bills and make sure all the electronic payments are correct, yet I always know how much is in my account, give or take a couple of hundred(NOK).

The described procedure fits excellently into what you call "less hassle".

If your money doesn't exist except at the pleasure of the government and a group of banks that are in cahoots with the government, then all you're getting is an allowance with plenty of expectations to go along with it. The concept of ownership is pretty important. What about people who don't want bank accounts? What about people who want to remain anonymous with their transactions? Would you label them all criminals, and proponents of the black market?

Hurting the economy should never be a criminal act by itself. If I want to take my money out of the system, and the system is hurt by that, then that sucks for the system. I should still be able to do it.

That's what I think. One who advocates and defends caring governments and obliging banks is too naive to consider them such. They will skin you to the bone without batting an eyelid for their own profit and will never stay in the red. So why should I worry about their plans to squeeze more money out of too trusrful citizens who are naive enough to think that they do it out of charity exclusively to pease us to the utmost?

[HoreTore]

You certainly have no experience of shopping in Ukraine

Meh, don't worry; you'll join us developed countries eventually.

[Husar]

Meh, don't worry; you'll join us developed countries eventually.

Do you only eat processed factory food then?

[Gilrandir]

Meh, don't worry; you'll join us developed countries eventually.

In this case I'm afraid one scabbed sheep will eventually spoil the european flock and you will either run for the hills or have me teaching you survival in the mess Ukraine will land you into.