Somehow I feel bad talking about this with a German. It's like when someone who has never been to my home telling me what my home is like. :P

A government who can create infinite money since it never has to make anything to back it.

And if you do something wrong, you're instantly locked out of all your funds...

Could always go back to trading using gold and silver, in little bars of 1gram squares and the like...

Yeah exactly...there are even real bastards who'd like to abolish cash altogether so they can pull off shit like negative interest rates and force people away from saving into consumption...perverse imo.
So people, please use cash, because cash is a symbol of freedom.

Maybe I'm German like you're Iranian :-P

That would be really Iranic.


That was bad, I'm sorry. I guess it would be better if Iran now.

I like to tell my German friends jokes sometimes. Afterwards, I'll ask them how funny it was, and they'll always rate me at "nine". I'm quite a hit with that crowd, as you can tell.

My German friends always give me an '88'.

All of my AF buddies will get that joke. :P

Maybe get a CREDIT card from your employer?

Germany is awful for credit card users. For debit card users too. Most stores won't accept any major cards like Visa/Mastecard. Bring cash or be prepared to withdraw some from ATMs.

Ah man, I really want to visit Germany.

There are so many motorsport events in Germany I want to see for myself: DTM, ADAC, MotoGP, F1, WRC, Formula E, Blancpain, and so on ... soo many things I want to see, but soo little money in my bank.

nvm

Yeah, I have a Visa credit card from my bank. The problem is that most cards in the UK are now Visa (Credit and Debit), no-one issues Maestro or EuroCheque cards.

I think the best solution is to use my Debit card to withdraw cash at ATM machines, and then bill my employer for the currency conversion charge (it's a valid expense since I wouldn't need Euros unless they sent me there in the first place).


There are people on the MPC of the Bank of England who want us to move to a cash-less society, where everything is electronic. However, this is because of tax reasons - they can already cause things like negative interest rates and inflation simply by monetary policy, the actual coins and notes only account for about 5% of the UK money. But I digress.

Just get a credit card (mastercard obviously). Germany is one of the few countries that uses EC cards or cash cards. And no they aren't your standard debit cards even if they might have a maestro sign on it. And yeah german stores tend to send you to the cash machine if you wan't to use a maestro debit card. More or less all the stores are marked with maestro cards signs but they decline them (don't wan't to pay for transaction costs) and make up excuses. So a credit card is much safer for paying in Germany. Otherwise its all just cash purchases there. So another option is as already mentioned getting cash from an ATM.

Even if you get yourself an EC card, you still should carry enough cash since some places don't take cards and don't let the change get too big else they won't take your cash either.

Germany loves hard cash and the local tram around here does take neither cards nor bills and often only accepts the exact amount and throws your coin back at you if accepting it would mean having to give any change.

Although in most bigger cities you can buy tram and bus tickets with your smartphone. No cash needed in this case.