Adam posted this on Wednesday: Tough month for organized crime
I jumped on the bandwagon: BoA analyst: Kill the 500 euro note to boost the economy
Now the Financial Times (gated, but the two above links aren’t!) is getting in on it: Bin €500 notes to spread debt burden
The argument is that the €500 note is mainly used by criminals. The short story is Boa/ML analyst Athanasios Vamvakidis reckons the ECB should call in the notes, asking for proof they were legitimately earned (no details presented on how to do this):
If, say, one-third of the notes are not presented in time, the ECB’s liability would be cut by a very handy €100bn.