Trump"s nomination for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is an outspoken proponent for putting magnetic strips in physical cash so the government can track its movement and tax it.
The post Trump’s Federal Reserve Pick Wants to Put Metal Chips in Cash to Track Every Dollar and Tax It appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
In a recent paper - The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing, Alexei Kireyev of the International Monetary Fund advises abolishing cash without having the citizens aware of the process.
First, large banknotes are to be withdrawn from circulation, next limits on cash transactions are to be imposed, then computerization of the world’s financial system and control of international cash transactions are to be enforced and, finally, private companies are to be encouraged to avoid cash transactions.
Kireyev draws on the ideas of former IMF chief Kenneth Rogoff.
In his 2016 book “The Curse of Money”, he advocated the abolition of cash. In his opinion, it would contribute to the fight against crime, tax evasion and the reduction of the grey area.
The ECB obliged him and promised not to print the 500 euro note after 2018.
The government of India did the same thing: on November 9,2016, it unexpectedly devaluated all 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes over the night – a severe blow against the black economy and corruption. The next day, chaos reigned on India’s streets – crowds of people in front of banks, empty ATMs – everyone wanted to withdraw his money, exchange the old rupees for new, valid ones, and there were even casualties.
The other governments eagerly followed this ideas of great economic gurus, not worrying about what was happening in the Indian streets:
Australia wants to withdraw its 100 notes from circulation,and Venezuela has already abolished the 100 bolivar note.
France, Italy, Spain and Greece already have ceilings for cash withdrawals, and a ceiling of EUR €5000 is currently being discussed in Germany.
In some countries, the renunciation of cash is becoming a means of political struggle.
In Poland, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki introduced cashless payments to the state postal service. Soon it will also be possible to pay his tickets directly on the patrol car. Not all Polish politicians probably like the idea that officials will not come into contact with cash – for example, the head of the Polish National Bank Adam Glapi?ski, who introduced the new 500 zloty note at the same time.
The abolition of cash is only one step on the road to even greater insanity: Kenneth Rogoff has other crazy ideas behind him.
The craziest: he demanded negative interest from European politicians, on the grounds that they are necessary anyway when the next crisis comes. We remind the reader that negative interest rate is limited by cash. If interest becomes too negative, people will hoard cash.
What consequences would his idea have if it were implemented? What if the negative interest rates were introduced? The money from accounts would flow into tangible assets, especially jewellery, gold bars and other precious metals. Their prices would rise to unprecedented levels, as would inflation driven by speculation. This would be boosted by rising real estate prices, as people would invest in houses rather than in worthless plastic money. The barter trade and black market would flourish as it did in times of war – the opposite of what is desired would be achieved. And the criminals and corrupt politicians would certainly find another means of exchange to conduct their business – it is well known that arms dealers and terrorist groups pay with diamonds. The abolition of cash and introduction of negative interest rate would dispossess ordinary citizens, making them transparent to the authorities at any time – after all, it would be easier to control and influence the transparent people whose lives can be traced by account statements.
The renowned economists, bankers and governments forget that cash cannot be abolished, only money printed by central banks can be abolished. They do the calculation in their ivory towers without considering the host, without ordinary citizens. The citizens will be outraged by this and take to the streets, as they did after the devaluation of banknotes in India. In the end they will find alternative currencies to do their business without the government’s interference.
The economic gurus don’t care – the experiment on the living organism is important, even if it kills them.
This is why North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile is so important. North Korea had test fired a total of 22 missiles so far this year, but this latest one showed that nobody on the globe is out of their reach. In fact, General Mattis is now admitting that “North Korea can basically threaten everywhere in the world”, and that includes the entire continental United States. In addition to hitting individual cities with nukes, there is also the possibility that someday North Korea could try to take down the entire country with an EMP attack. If the North Koreans detonated a single nuclear warhead several hundred miles above the center of the country, it would destroy the power grid and fry electronics from coast to coast.
I would like you to think about what that would mean for a few moments. Suddenly there would be no power at home, at work or at school. Since nearly all of our vehicles rely on computerized systems, you wouldn’t be able to go anywhere and nobody would be able to get to you. And you wouldn’t be able to contact anyone because all phones would be dead. Basically, pretty much everything electronic would be dead. I am talking about computers, televisions, GPS devices, ATMs, heating and cooling systems, refrigerators, credit card readers, gas pumps, cash registers, hospital equipment, traffic lights, etc.
For the first couple of days life would continue somewhat normally, but then people would soon start to realize that the power isn’t coming back on and panic would begin to erupt.
The intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea just launched traveled almost 1,000 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of 4,500 kilometers. We have been told for decades that this would never be allowed to happen, but now it has happened…
This is concerning for one big reason: according to General Mattis, the North Korean ICBM “went higher, frankly, than any previous” and “North Korea can basically threaten everywhere in the world.” This was confirmed by North Korea missile analyst, Shea Cotton, who cited Allthingsnuclear author David Wright, and who told the BBC that the initial estimates of the ICBM test mean that North Korea can now reach New York and Washington DC.
If we had been working hard to develop our anti-missile technology all these years, this wouldn’t be a problem.
But at this point we are way behind the Russians in this regard, and there is a very real possibility that a missile launched by the North Koreans could make it through the very limited anti-missile defenses that we do have.
Once upon a time, discussions about a North Korean EMP threat were mostly hypothetical, but now that has completely changed. North Korea has clearly demonstrated that they are able to deliver such an attack, and last September Kim Jong Un publicly admitted that North Korea intended to develop this capability…
But most reporters missed a key threat that appeared at the bottom of Kim’s public statement, when he bragged that North Korea had harnessed “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack according to strategic goals.”
So now we know. Launching an electromagnetic pulse attacks against its enemies is one of North Korea’s strategic goals. And for North Korea, the United States is the top enemy.
And like I said earlier, all it would take would be a single well placed nuclear detonation to fry electronics from coast to coast. The following comes from the Daily Mail…
Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful bomb detonated at an altitude of 249 miles would wipe out all electronics in the US, save the southernmost top of Florida and the easternmost states – as well as affecting Canada and Mexico.
Without power, nothing would get distributed. That means that very rapidly there would be no food, no water and no medicine available in your community. An article posted by Fox News this week used the term “post-apocalyptic” to describe what we would be facing…
It all starts to sound very post-apocalyptic when you realize this means no lights or other electric-powered devices in homes and businesses, no water filtration, no regional food hubs, no transportation grid – none of the things we take for granted in modern civilization.
Like I stated earlier, things would be relatively fine for a few days, but then once everyone realizes that the power isn’t coming back on there would be chaos on a scale unlike anything we have ever seen before. The following comes from an article by Mac Slavo…
The first 24 – 48 hours after such an occurrence will lead to confusion among the general population as traditional news acquisition sources like television, radio and cell phone networks will be non-functional.
Within a matter of days, once people realize the power might not be coming back on and grocery store shelves start emptying, the entire system will begin to delve into chaos.
Within 30 days a mass die off will have begun as food supplies dwindle, looters and gangs turn to violent extremes, medicine can’t be restocked and water pump stations fail.
So what kind of a “mass die off” would we be talking about?
Well, some of the top experts in the field believe that “up to 90 percent of all Americans” could end up dead if the power outage lasted long enough…
William Graham, chairman of the former EMP commission and its former chief of staff, Peter Vincent Pry, warned the hearing that such an attack could “shut down the US electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans.“
Others believe that the figure would be lower, but pretty much everyone agrees that the death toll would be in the millions.
This is one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities, and our power grid could be hardened against an EMP attack for just a few billion dollars. This is something that I am pushing very hard for, but right now it is just not a priority for our leaders in Washington.
In fact, they have actually pulled funding from the commission that was looking into the EMP threat…
On Sept. 30, the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse to the United States of America shut its doors after a failure to secure funding from Congress.
Sometimes I find it difficult to come up with the words to describe how incredibly foolish Congress is being.
An EMP attack is a greater threat than ever before, and yet Congress didn’t even want to come up with a little bit of funding for the commission that was working on a plan to protect us.
This is yet another example that shows that we need new leadership on Capitol Hill, because right now the people that we have “representing” us in Washington seem to be completely and utterly clueless about almost everything.
The post How A North Korean Electromagnetic Pulse Attack Could Kill Millions And Turn America Into A Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Everyone is surely aware by now that all of our digital communications are being sent to government databases for storage. If our American ancestors could see it, they wouldn’t believe their eyes. We still, however, have the ability to use cash. All of our economic decisions are not under constant government surveillance. Ron Paul discusses the dangers of Big Brother’s War on Cash.
Should you get free money from the U.S. government every month simply for being alive? That may sound like a crazy idea to many of us, but the truth is that this will likely be one of the biggest political issues in the 2020 presidential election. At this point, 40 percent of all Americans already “prefer socialism to capitalism”, and the concept of a “universal basic income” is starting to catch fire among grassroots Democrats. Many liberals are convinced that the time has come to fight for the right to “a minimum standard of living”, and one study by a “left-leaning” group found that giving every adult in the country $1,000 each month would increase the size of the U.S. economy by more than 2 trillion dollars…
Giving every adult in the United States a $1,000 cash handout per month would grow the economy by $2.5 trillion by 2025, according to a new study on universal basic income.
The report was released in August by the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute. Roosevelt research director Marshall Steinbaum, Michalis Nikiforos at Bard College’s Levy Institute, and Gennaro Zezza at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy co-authored the study.
What an incredible idea, eh?
All we have to do is give out free stuff and the economy grows like magic. And the study also discovered that the larger the universal basic income is, the more the economy would grow.
So why not make it $10,000 a month for everyone?
Well, it turns out that there is a catch. According to the study, the economy only grows if the universal basic income is funded by deficit spending. If we have to raise taxes to pay for it, there is no positive benefit to the economy at all…
These estimates are based on a universal basic income paid for by increasing the federal deficit. As part of the study, the researchers also calculated the effect to the economy of paying for the cash handouts by increasing taxes. In that case, there would be no net benefit to the economy, the report finds.
Oh.
What a bummer.
Getting free stuff from the government always sounds like a great idea until you realize that we are going to end up paying for it one way or another.
Unfortunately, that little detail isn’t stopping potential Democratic presidential candidates such as Mark Zuckerberg from “exploring” the idea. And actually, it is being reported that Hillary Clinton almost made a “universal basic income” part of her platform in 2016…
In her new book “What Happened,” and in a recent subsequent interview with Vox Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein, Clinton explains how she seriously considered including a version of universal basic income — a radical solution to poverty, currently being tested in cities and countries around the world — as one of her platforms in the 2016 US presidential election.
The platform would have been called “Alaska for America,” in homage to the state’s Permanent Dividend Fund. Every year since 1982, Alaskans have received a yearly check — typically ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 — as a kickback from the pot of money that has been set aside in case oil reserves dry up.
If the left is ever able to get this implemented, do you think that we will ever be able to take it away?
Over time, government just keeps getting bigger and bigger and so does our national debt. In fact, we just hit a major milestone in that regard. According to CNS News, we just surpassed the 20 trillion dollar mark for the first time ever…
The federal debt officially surpassed $20 trillion for the first time on Friday, as the debt subject to the legal limit set by Congress jumped $317,645,000,000 in one day–following President Donald Trump’s signing of a spending-and-debt-limit deal that will fund the government through Dec. 8.
If the left wants a “universal basic income”, they are going to have to get the money from somewhere. Our budget deficit is already larger “than the entire GDP of Argentina”, and hard working Americans are already being taxed to death.
The truth is that the money simply isn’t there. As it is, we need to dramatically cut back our borrowing because the path that we are currently on leads to national suicide. Just consider the following numbers…
Here’s the problem: the national debt is growing MUCH faster than the US economy. In Fiscal Year 2016, for example, the debt grew by 7.84%.
Yet even when including the ‘benefits’ of inflation, the US economy only grew by 2.4% over the same period.
This is not even close to the realm of being sustainable. We are steamrolling toward an inevitable financial collapse, and yet most Americans don’t seem to care.
And thanks to our rapidly aging population, our entitlement spending is set to absolutely explode in coming years. The following comes from David Stockman…
The Federal spending machine is almost entirely on autopilot and heading for disaster owing to ballooning populations and debt. Ten years from now the combined cost of mandatory programs and debt service will reach $5.12 trillion compared to just $2.87 trillion during FY 2018.
Entitlement spending will be nearly double — even if Congress took a 10-year recess!
As shown below, that means the Federal spending share of GDP is now inexorably climbing toward 30% owing to baby boom retirements, even as revenue under current law is stuck at about 18% of GDP. The CBO’s latest projection of the widening fiscal gap — soon more than 10% of GDP annually — leaves nothing to the imagination.
There is no such thing as “free money”. In the end, we all have to pay for any “free stuff” that the government gives out.
But the “free stuff army” is going to continue to demand more free stuff from the government, and the Democrats are going to be more than happy to give it to them.
To many of you this may sound like complete and utter insanity, but the truth is that the path that we are already on is completely insane as well. If we don’t find a way to right the ship, it is just a matter of time before it goes under, and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is not being straight with you.
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Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,
Visa recently unveiled its own offensive in the war on cash. Visa is offering certain merchants a $10,000 reward if they refuse to accept cash in the future.
Not surprisingly, Visa’s competitor is also part of the war on cash. Mastercard is increasing its efforts to encourage merchants to refuse cash. Here’s Bloomberg, quoting the CEO of Mastercard:
“Mastercard Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga has been one of the most ardent supporters of ditching paper currency in the U.S. The 57-year-old first declared his war on cash in 2010.”
These private efforts by Visa and MasterCard exist side by side with official efforts to eliminate or discourage the use of cash coming from governments in India, Australia, Sweden as well as the United States.
These efforts are always portrayed in the most favorable light. Private parties talk about convenience and lower costs. Governments talk about putting pressure on tax cheats, terrorists and criminals.
Governments always use money laundering, drug dealing and terrorism as an excuse to keep tabs on honest citizens and deprive them of the ability to use money alternatives such as physical cash and gold.
But the so-called “cashless society” is just a Trojan horse for a system in which all financial wealth is electronic and represented digitally in the records of a small number of megabanks and asset managers.
Once that is achieved, it will be easy for state power to seize and freeze the wealth, or subject it to constant surveillance, taxation and other forms of digital confiscation.
The war on cash has two main thrusts.
The first is to make it difficult to obtain cash in the first place. U.S. banks will report anyone taking more than $3,000 in cash as engaging in a “suspicious activity” using Treasury Form SAR (Suspicious Activity Report).
The second thrust is to eliminate large-denomination banknotes. The U.S. got rid of its $500 note in 1969, and the $100 note has lost 85% of its purchasing power since then. With a little more inflation, the $100 bill will be reduced to chump change.
Last year the European Central Bank announced that they were discontinuing the production of new 500 euro notes. Existing 500 euro notes will still be legal tender, but new ones will not be produced.
This means that over time, the notes will be in short supply and individuals in need of large denominations may actually bid up the price above face value paying, say, 502 euros in smaller bills for a 500 euro note. The 2 euro premium in this example is like a negative interest rate on cash.
The real burden of the war on cash falls on honest citizens who are made vulnerable to wealth confiscation through negative interest rates, loss of privacy, account freezes and limits on cash withdrawals or transfers.
The whole idea of the war on cash is to force savers into digital bank accounts so their money can be taken from them in the form of negative interest rates. An easy solution to this is to go to physical cash.
The war on cash is a global effort being waged on many fronts. My view is that the war on cash is dangerous in terms of lost privacy and the risk of government confiscation of wealth. India provides the most dramatic example.
How would you like to go to bed one night and then wake up the next morning to discover that all bills larger than $5.00 were no longer legal tender? That’s essentially what happened in India not long ago.
The good news is that cash is still a dominant form of payment in many countries including the U.S. The problem is that as digital payments grow and the use of cash diminishes, a “tipping point” is reached where suddenly it makes no sense to continue using cash because of the expense and logistics involved.
Once cash usage shrinks to a certain point, economies of scale are lost and usage can go to zero almost overnight. Remember how music CDs disappeared suddenly once MP3 and streaming formats became popular?
That’s how fast cash can disappear.
Once the war on cash gains that kind of momentum, it will be practically impossible to stop. That’s why I’m always saying that savers and those with a long-term view should get physical gold now while prices are still attractive and while they still can.
Given these potential outcomes, one might expect that citizens would push back against the war on cash.
But in some places, the opposite seems to be happening.
A recent survey revealed that more than a third of Americans and Europeans would have no problem at all giving up cash and going completely digital.
Specifically, the study showed 34% of Europeans and 38% of Americans surveyed would prefer going cashless.
Notably, Germans are the most resistant to going cashless. Almost 80% of transactions in Germany are done in cash, and many Germans never use credit cards.
The German experience with hyperinflation after WWI and additional monetary chaos after WWII certainly plays a part in this resistance to the cashless society.
Incidentally, the German word for debt, schuld, also means guilt.
Other countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, which have recent experiences with currency and financial crises, also tend to use cash extensively.
Of course, there’s no denying that digital payments are certainly convenient. I use them myself in the form of credit and debit cards, wire transfers, automatic deposits and bill payments.
The surest way to lull someone into complacency is to offer a “convenience” that quickly becomes habit and impossible to do without.
The convenience factor is becoming more prevalent, and consumers are moving from cash to digital payments just as they moved from gold and silver coins to paper money a hundred years ago.
But when the next financial panic comes, those without tangible wealth will be totally at the mercy of banks and governments who will decide exactly how much of your own money you’re allowed to have each day.
Just ask the citizens of Cyprus, Greece and India who have gone through this experience in recent years.
It will come to the U.S. soon enough.
Other dangers arise from the fact that digital money, transferred by credit or debit cards or other electronic payments systems, are completely dependent on the power grid. If the power grid goes out due to storms, accidents, sabotage or cyberattacks, our digital economy will grind to a complete halt.
That’s why it’s a good idea to keep some of your liquidity in paper cash (while you can) and gold or silver coins. The gold and silver coins in particular will be money good in every state of the world.
I hold significant portion of my wealth in nondigital form, including real estate, fine art and precious metals in safe, nonbank storage.
I strongly suggest you do the same.
Image source: Pixabay.com
Did you know that the United States, per capita, spends more than twice the average of other developed countries on health care?
Research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reveals that this higher spending likely is driven by a greater use of technology and higher health care prices, rather than more frequent hospital admissions or doctor visits.
This higher spending has had a big impact on the average American wallet. Today, many Americans are paying a larger percentage of their medical costs than ever before. Although the Affordable Care Act may have given more people access to health insurance, those insurance plans often come with high deductibles.
In order to save money on health care, American consumers should look at health care just as they look at other services they purchase. They need to shop around and follow the shopper’s maxim of “let the buyer beware.”
Learn How To Make Powerful Herbal Medicines, Right in Your Kitchen!
Here are several ways to save on health care costs they you may not have considered.
1. Do some research. You wouldn’t buy a car without doing some research, would you? You can apply that same comparison shopping mindset to buying a surgical operation or other planned medical procedure.
Ask questions such as whether a test or procedure is really necessary. Get prices – including all costs associated with a test or procedure – in advance and in writing. Ask for a signature and title along with the quoted price.
2. Pay cash – and ask about discounts. Many hospitals and clinics offer steep discounts for quick payment. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reported that Torrance Memorial Medical Center billed a patient’s insurer, Blue Shield of California, $408 for routine blood tests. The patient was responsible for $269.42.
Yet when the patients called the hospital to question the tests, which cost $80 each, she was told that if she had paid in cash, the tests would have cost only about $15 each. In other words, she was better off to avoid insurance and just take care of the bill herself.
Get in the habit of asking if there is a cash discount or some other discount for which you might be eligible.
3. Don’t take – and then pay for — tests you don’t need. The American medical community has gone test and imaging crazy. While some of them are necessary, many are not. Be wary of agreeing to expensive scans and x-rays for uncomplicated ailments. Ask your doctor why it is needed.
Visit ConsumerReports.org/choosing-wisely for more information.
4. Examine your bills. It is not uncommon for patients to be billed twice or even three times for the same hospital service.
Health care bills are filled with codes, and they can be confusing. It is well worth your time to find out what the codes stand for and to make sure you actually had that service or procedures indicated by the codes.
5. Become a letter writer. We all like the instant communication of email and phone calls, but an old-fashioned letter is your best bet for communicating about your health care charges.
Image source: Pixabay.com
While emails often are ignored and phone calls provide no record, letters usually are answered. Be sure to make copies of your correspondence.
Another option – particularly if you need to work out a payment plan – is to visit the hospital’s billing department in person. Be polite and courteous.
This final tip will only work as a money-saver in certain situations. When faced with mounting questions and overwhelming medical bills, you can consider hiring a patient advocate to help you.
Patient advocates are expert in spotting incorrect codes as well as incorrect or duplicate charges on your bills. Some claim they can recover 20 to 50 percent of your charges. Advocates either charge a flat fee, or a percentage of what they recover.
6. Buy generic. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about generic alternatives to brand name medicines. Often they are just as effective but are far less expensive. You may even find that you can get certain generic prescriptions for less money by paying cash for them than by paying your co-pay for brand name prescription drugs.
Another way to save money on medications is to ask you doctor to write you a prescription for two or three months of medicine for a chronic ailment instead of just for one month. You can eliminate multiple co-pays this way.
You also may save money by substituting certain over-the-counter (OTC) medicines for higher-priced prescription versions. Examples are substituting OTC loratadine (Claritin) (or a generic) for prescription levocetirizine (Xyzal) or OTC omeprazole (Prilosec) for prescription esomeprazole (Nexium).
7. Stay in your network. Read your health plan carefully to find what doctors and hospitals are part of its coverage. Even if you are allowed to visit non-participating providers, you usually will pay more if you do.
On the other hand, question “out of network” charges that are not your choice. For instance, you should complain if, after surgery, you are billed extra charges for an out-of-network anesthesiologist that your network hospital chose for you. If you did not choose that doctor, you are not responsible for the penalty fee.
What advice would you add on saving on health care? Share your thoughts in the section below:
According to the most recent data, Visa–which is mostly owned by banks–accounts for over 50 percent of all credit card transactions and 70 percent of all debit card transactions in the world. Hundreds of billions in transactions process through Visa’s databases every year and this number continues to grow.
Despite their overwhelming increase in market share, cards issued, and overall total volume, Visa has made a recent move that shows they intend to completely snub out their most unaccountable, untraceable, and most liberty-associated competitor and means of payment–cash.
In a news release, ostensibly written as an attempt to “help small businesses,” Visa announced that they are launching “a major effort to encourage businesses to go cashless. Aiming to create a culture where cash is no longer king, the program will give merchants increased ability to accept all forms of global digital payments.”
According to the behemoth digital payment company, “a major effort to encourage businesses to go cashless. Aiming to create a culture where cash is no longer king, the program will give merchants increased ability to accept all forms of global digital payments.”
“At Visa, we believe you can be everywhere you want to be, and that it should be easy to pay and be paid in more ways than ever — whether it’s a phone, card, wearable or other device,” Jack Forestell, Visa’s head of global merchant solutions, said in a statement. “We have an incredible opportunity to educate merchants and consumers alike on the effectiveness of going cashless.”
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Laughably, Visa claims that companies who stop accepting cash–a major form of payment for people around the globe–that they could increase profits.
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Apparently, they want business owners to forget that they take upwards of five percent of every single transaction.
“The important thing to realize is that going with ‘fast and easy’ is not always the best and most cost effective,” Marco Carabjo, a credit expert, wrote in a 2013 U.S. Small Business Administration blog post.
“Typical merchant account companies can charge up to 5 percent of everything a company earns with prices consisting of merchant processing costs, gateway fees, interchange costs, Visa, MasterCard, American Express charges, statement fees and so on.”
Outside of the obvious reason of convincing businesses to go cashless so they can tax their sales into oblivion by creating a monopoly on accepting payments, the implications for control and surveillance are far more insidious.
Visa–just like government–wants to monitor your spending habits and use that data to exploit humanity. This is why governments and banks across the world have almost simultaneously launched a war on cash.
Earlier this year, the European Commission proposed enforcing “restrictions on payments in cash” under an all-too-familiar premise — terrorism.
“Payments in cash are widely used in the financing of terrorist activities,” the Commission’s proposal states. “In this context, the relevance of potential upper limits to cash payments could also be explored. Several Member States have in place prohibitions for cash payments above a specific threshold.”
According to the Commission’s Inception Impact Assessment, “Cash has the important feature of offering anonymity to transactions. Such anonymity may be desired for legitimate reason (e.g. protection of privacy). But, such anonymity can also be misused for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. The possibility to conduct large cash payments facilitates money laundering and terrorist financing activities because of the difficulty to control cash payment transactions.”
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Just before the EU’s announcement of their war on cash, Citibank announced similar moves and stated it will no longer accept cash deposits or deal in cash.
Citibank Australia’s head of retail bank Janine Copelin offered an explanation saying, “We have seen a steady decline in the demand for cash services in our branches — in fact, less than 4% of Citi customers have used this service in the last 12 months.” The company stated it will no longer handle currency as a result.
“This move to cashless branches reflects Citi’s commitment to digital banking and we are investing in the channels our customers prefer to use…While the number of customers visiting our branches to access cash handling services has fallen, the branch network remains an important component of how we serve our high-net-worth customers,” said Copelin.
As Mises Institute professor, Joseph Salerno predicted in 2015, the war on cash is an inevitable move by big banks and the state. “I think this could come in the next couple of years. If they have to bail out the financial system again…they’ll block the cash in the banks to prevent it from escaping and destabilizing these fractional reserve banks,” Salerno said in an interview with Ron Paul.
It appears that the Trump administration has already been preparing for this move by filling the swamp with Goldman Sachs execs and essentially remaining silent on his campaign promise to audit the Federal Reserve.
Make no mistake, when governments and banks control and monitor 100 percent of what you spend, tyranny has set in. If ever there was a time to start investing in crypto currency and precious metals, it is now.
Did you know that many members of Congress spend three or four hours a day “dialing for dollars” in cramped call centers that both parties have set up in Washington? I promised that I would keep all of you updated on what I am learning as I run for Congress, and what I learned the other day just about had me losing my lunch. I always imagined members of Congress spending long hours in their offices working on legislation and other important matters, but the truth is that most members of Congress are little more than glorified telemarketers at this point. Winning the next election is everything for most of these Congress critters, and so they spend far more time making cold calls to potential donors than doing anything else.
Have you ever had a politician call you up in the middle of the day begging for money? It is an absolutely disgraceful thing to do, but the truth is that money is the number one factor in determining election outcomes, and so our professional politicians have an endless appetite for it.
Every two years, more than a billion dollars is spent on congressional elections, and those that are masters at raising money just keep winning over and over again. Something desperately needs to be done to fix our fundamentally flawed system, but neither party seems to have any desire to take the money out of politics.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives will only be in session for 147 days this year. But even on those days, members of Congress are not exactly spending much time doing what they were elected to do.
During an interview with 60 Minutes, U.S. Representative Rick Nolan told Norah O’Donnell that members of Congress are expected to spend about 30 hours a week “dialing for dollars” in their respective call centers…
Rep. Rick Nolan: Well, both parties have told newly elected members of the Congress that they should spend 30 hours a week in the Republican and Democratic call centers across the street from the Congress, dialing for dollars.
Norah O’Donnell: Thirty hours a week?
Rep. Rick Nolan: Thirty hours is what they tell you you should spend. And it’s discouraging good people from running for public office. I could give you names of people who’ve said, “You know, I’d like to go to Washington and help fix problems, but I don’t want to go to Washington and become a mid-level telemarketer, dialing for dollars, for crying out loud.”
This is utterly shameful, and if I end up getting elected I will never do it. In fact, I will push legislation to ban this practice.
Former U.S. Representative David Jolly was also interviewed by O’Donnell, and he admitted to her that Republican members of Congress are actually given a telemarketing script to use while making these calls…
Simply by calling people, cold-calling a list that fundraisers put in front of you, you’re presented with their biography. So please call John. He’s married to Sally. His daughter, Emma, just graduated from high school. They gave $18,000 last year to different candidates. They can give you $1,000 too if you ask them to. And they put you on the phone. And it’s a script.
In 2013, new Democratic members of Congress were given a “model schedule” for how they should be spending their time. On that model schedule, two hours a day were allocated for “committee/floor”, and four hours a day were allocated for “call time”. In other words, those members of Congress were expected to only devote two hours a day to doing the jobs they were elected to do and four hours a day to making telemarketing calls.
If we ever want to end this disgraceful system we need to take matters into our own hands.
Shortly after I announced that I was running for Congress, I was given a list of thousands of names in my district. It is the same list that other politicians are getting too. Even at this moment, people are having their dinners interrupted by desperate politicians that are “dialing for dollars”.
If this ever happens to you, write the name of that politician down and never vote for that individual again.
I have pledged not to participate in this shameful system, and if I get the chance I will work to abolish it. Yes, every campaign needs funding, but making telemarketing cold calls to people at home is not the way to do it.
In fact, these politicians are actually trained to interrupt you during lunch and dinner because those are apparently some of the best times for raising money.
And these call centers in D.C. are as bad as you are probably imagining. The following is more from former Representative David Jolly…
It is a cult-like boiler room on Capitol Hill where sitting members of Congress, frankly I believe, are compromising the dignity of the office they hold by sitting in these sweatshop phone booths calling people asking them for money. And their only goal is to get $500 or $1,000 or $2,000 out of the person on the other end of the line. It’s shameful. It’s beneath the dignity of the office that our voters in our communities entrust us to serve.
Jolly is precisely correct.
Any politician that makes these sorts of calls is acting in a completely shameful manner.
If we don’t get the money out of politics, we are just going to end up with a bunch of sleazebags in Washington that spend most of their time on the phone bugging people for money.
Is that what we want?
Do we really want our laws to be made by those that can prove that they are the best telemarketers?
Nobody is supposed to talk about these things, and I suppose that this is yet another article that is going to get me into trouble.
But I don’t care. Our system is deeply broken and it needs to be fixed. Hopefully by shedding some light on these issues I have moved the ball in the right direction.
Image source: Flickr / Creative Commons
Whether you’re an experienced homesteader or just starting out, you quickly learn: Bills don’t pay themselves, nothing is ever a sure thing, and there is constantly something to fix. Don’t forget about your taxes — the government certainly won’t.
If you want your homestead to generate cash, or even .a profit, hard work is not enough. You must find ways to make as many aspects of your homestead as possible generate revenue.
Here are a few ideas:
1. Fly-tying material.
If you raise poultry and livestock or hunt, chances are you toss a heap of fur and feathers into the trash every time you butcher animals. You could be collecting some money instead. Many of the feathers and furs from poultry and small animals can be re-purposed as fly-tying materials, which are easily sold to fisherman who tie their own flies. Fly-fishing is a popular sport, and these materials are always in demand.
Rooster tail and neck hackles, for example, are important components of dry flies. Ring neck pheasant tail feathers are used in a variety of fishing flies, as well; peacock feathers are often used to make streamer flies. A four-inch strip of rooster tail feathers can sell for anywhere from $4-$10, which is not a bad bit of pocket change from something you would otherwise just throw away. More uncommon feathers, such as those from ring neck pheasants, are even more valuable. Some animal furs, such as the belly fur of rabbits, and the tails from deer and squirrels, also can be sold as well.
2. Goose down.
If you have a flock of geese (and really, you should have one), you no doubt enjoy the giant eggs, the fine meat, and the crazy companionship these big birds provide. But when it comes to butchering, you probably just scald and pluck them and get rid of the feathers as fast and efficiently as you can. If you are, you are throwing away a valuable, easily saved commodity: goose down.
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Down feathers, generally defined as those found on the lower carcass of the goose, are important to the textile industry. Down is used as fill for expensive pillows and to make high-end comforters for beds; that expensive jacket you bought at REI is probably filled with the stuff, too. People who make items like these, especially on a small scale, are always looking for a steady supply of quality down.
Image source: Pixabay.com
So instead of just throwing the down feathers away, process and store them. Gather the harvested down feathers, place them in a mesh fabric bag, wash them in cold water, and then hang the bag out to dry. Once the feathers are dry, store them in a cool, dry location until you have enough to sell. A quarter pound of feathers can fetch anywhere from $6-10 online.
3. The black gold standard
No matter how big your herd or flock is, you are probably amazed by how much manure they can produce. Whether it’s poultry, rabbits, goats or other animals, dealing with their manure is likely a part of your routine. But instead of just carting it over to the compost heap, you could be monetizing it instead.
Animal manure is often a high demand item, especially if your homestead is close enough to suburban areas. People want fresh manure to amend their soil, or to energize their compost bins. If your manure is organic, it might even sell for a premium, too.
You should let your manure, especially rabbit and chicken manures, compost for a bit. You can then bag it, load up the bed of your truck, and go sell it at the local farmers market. Better yet, post an ad on Craigslist, and let paying customers come and haul it away for you.
Parting Thoughts
The Internet makes it easier than ever to connect your homestead with customers looking for unique odds and ends. So, try these three ideas when you get a chance, or better yet, think up some new ones on your own.
How do you make cash on the homestead? Share your ideas in the section below:
The attacks on physical cash from a phalanx of economists, central bankers, commercial banks, and politicians have not diminished in recent years. On the contrary, in the face of the worldwide increase in terror attacks, particularly in Europe, and ongoing pressure on public budgets, the cash ban issue is increasingly dragged into the spotlight.
In a highly-recommended study entitled “Cash, Freedom and Crime. Use and Impact of Cash in a World Going Digital,” Deutsche Bank Research demolishes numerous popular myths surrounding cash, inter alia in the context of crime and terrorism.
Without cash there are no longer bank robberies at gun point, instead there are now electronic bank robberies. Fraud involving credit cards and ATM cards is massively increasing in Sweden, the country considered the pioneer of the cashless society.
The argument that adopting a cashless payment system would facilitate the fight against terrorism doesn"t hold water either:
As regards terrorism in Europe, an analysis of 40 jihadist attacks in the past 20 years shows that most funding came from delinquents’ own funds and 75% of the attacks cost in total less than USD 10,000 to carry out — sums that will hardly raise suspicions even if paid by card.
Moreover, many terrorists, particularly if they are prepared to risk their own death, won"t be deterred by prohibitions, just as stricter gun laws have no impact on people who must use unregistered weapons for their crimes. Often, they are unable to get hold of a weapon by legal means anyway if they have a criminal record. Planned terror attacks are as a rule characterized by a meticulous and careful approach. At best a cash ban might make financing of terrorism more difficult (even that is doubtful), but at the price of subjecting the law-abiding peaceful population at large to even more intrusive surveillance.
Legislators have passed additional regulations in the past 12 months which at least restrict the use of cash; bans of high-denomination banknotes (e.g., the 500 euro note) and (lower) thresholds for legal cash payments. There are however also technological developments that are significantly reducing the transaction costs of cashless payments and are therefore making cash comparatively unattractive.
In Sweden, an app called “Swish” introduced by the country"s leading banks has revolutionized cashless payments. To this point, the app has been downloaded 5.5 million times. In the Scandinavian country only 2% of all payments are settled in cash these days.
Sweden"s central bank expects that this percentage will decline by another three-quarters to 0.5% by the end of the decade. 900 of the 1,600 bank branch offices in the country no longer have any cash in store.
The academic debate continues unabated. A paper that has recently triggered intense debate is the IMF working paper “The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing,” which was published in March 2017. Its author Alexei Kireyev examines the possible macroeconomic consequences of abolishing cash. His central conclusions are:
Regardless of a superficially balanced approach in large parts of the text, the article clearly evinces an underlying bias toward supporting the abolition of cash. Several arguments in the paper are fallacious and represent little more than intellectual kowtowing to the prevailing zeitgeist. Thus a cashless economy is supposedly going to improve “financial inclusiveness” — as every citizen and economic actor would be forced to open a bank account; it would reduce illegal immigration — as employment of illegal immigrants would become more difficult; and it would help protect the environment — because the production of paper or polymers for banknotes has a greater impact on the environment than electronic money.
Whether the given objective of fighting crime and black markets can be realized by banning cash remains a highly controversial issue. Thus, Professor Friedrich Schneider, one of the most renowned experts in the areas shadow economy and tax evasion, shows that a cash ban would reduce illicit employment be a mere 10% and organized crime by less than 5%.
The paper"s conclusions ultimately read like a political manual for the abolition of cash by means of salami tactics.
In other words, to prevent the population from getting alarmed, it is to be weaned off cash in tolerable doses through a piecemeal approach. Economic incentives for cashless payments are to be put in place, i.e., specifically, fees for cash payments are supposed to be introduced or raised. In our assessment, the most important point though concerns the notion that “de-cashing” would be “critical for the efficiency” of a negative interest rate policy.
The citizens of Sweden are perhaps closer to completely giving up a component of their individual sovereignty than any other country on earth. In a world where government"s abuse of power and intrusion into the personal lives of its blissfully ignorant enablers grows more disturbing by the day, at least for now, cash offers the one opportunity to transact in a truly anonymous way.
That said, Swedes are ditching their physical currency at a breakneck pace with notes and coins in circulation dropping consistently for the past 6 years and down over 15% in 2016 alone.
According to the following chart from Bloomberg, notes and coins in public circulation dropped to an average of 56.8 billion kronor, just $6.4 billion, in the first quarter of this year, the lowest level since 1990 and more than 40% below its 2007 peak with the pace of the decline accelerating to its fastest ever in 2016.
As Bloomberg notes, the avoidance of cash has become so prevalent in Sweden that churches, and even the homeless, now accept plastic and/or digital payments.
A growing number of Swedish parishes have started taking donations via mobile apps. Uppsala’s 13th-century cathedral also accepts credit cards.
The churches’ drive to keep up with the times is the latest sign of Sweden’s rapid shift to a world without notes and coins. Most of the country’s bank branches have stopped handling cash; some shops and museums now only accept plastic; and even Stockholm’s homeless have started accepting cards as payment for their magazine. Go to a flea market, and the seller is more likely to ask to be paid via Sweden’s popular Swish app than with cash.
“Fifteen years ago I would withdraw my entire salary and put it in my wallet, so I knew how much I had left, but these days I never really carry cash,” said Lasse Svard, the acting vicar at the parish of Jarna-Vardinge, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Stockholm.
"A drive for innovation has been created in Sweden to come up with cost-effective and user-friendly alternatives to cash,” Skingsley said. Cash is likely to “more or less disappear” as a means of payment in the private sector, she said.
Of course, we should all promptly ignore the negative, unintended consequences of a cashless society in the name of "innovation." Forget about the ultimate power and control it gives to governments to track your every move and to Central Banks to ram their reckless policies down your throat.
And you shouldn"t t worry too much about those cyber attacks either...because those things rarely happen these days..."Worst-Ever Recorded" Ransomware Attack Strikes Over 57,000 Users Worldwide, Using NSA-Leaked Tools".
This article was written by Lily Dane and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.
Editor’s Comment: The level that things have reached on every front is outrageous. It isn’t just police, the entire system is out of control. Hospitals kill at least 100,000 patients per year due; the monetary system is a spreading virus and a fraud. No transaction in society represents what it seems on face value; it is discounted, it is corruption.
How much farther can things deteriorate before they collapse? We have only history to guide us, and time to wait. Be ready for what is coming, and stay vigilant.
Study: Police-Inflicted Injuries Send More Than 50,000 To Emergency Rooms EVERY YEAR
by Lily Dane
A new study published by JAMA Surgery found that from 2006 to 2012, there were approximately 51,000 emergency department visits per year for patients injured by law enforcement in the United States, with this number stable over this time period.
From the press release:
During this time period, there were 355,677 ED visits for injuries by law enforcement, and frequencies did not increase over time. Of these visits, 0.3 percent (n = 1,202) resulted in death. More than 80 percent of patients were men, and the average age of patients was 32 years. Most lived in zip codes with median household income less than the national average, and 81 percent lived in urban areas. Injuries by law enforcement were more common in the South and West and less common in the Northeast and Midwest. Most injuries by law enforcement resulted from being struck, with gunshot and stab wounds accounting for fewer than seven percent. Most injuries were minor. Medically identified substance abuse was common in patients injured by police, as was mental illness.
The most common cause of injury was “being struck by or against” which accounted for approximately 77 percent of the ER visits.
Lead study author Dr. Elinore Kaufman, a surgical resident at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, told Live Science that mental illness was common, affecting 20 percent of people injured. She added that the study’s estimate of 51,000 emergency room visits per year does not include deaths that occur at crime scenes or people who are injured but do not seek medical attention.
Of the findings, the study authors wrote,
While public attention has surged in recent years, we found these frequencies [approximately 51,000 ED visits per year] to be stable over 7 years, indicating that this has been a longer-term phenomenon.
While it is impossible to classify how many of these injuries are avoidable, these data can serve as a baseline to evaluate the outcomes of national and regional efforts to reduce law enforcement-related injury.
According to The Counted, a database maintained by The Guardian, 1,146 people were killed by police in the US in 2015, and 1,092 lost their lives to law enforcement in 2016.
The Washington Post maintains a database called Fatal Force that tracks police shootings. So far in 2017, according to the database, 295 people have been fatally shot by police in the US.
A website called Killed By Police lists people who have been killed by police by all means, including gunshot, taser, restraint/physical force, chemical, vehicle, and “other.” The site is updated regularly, and as of the time of this writing, 343 deaths by law enforcement are documented.
This article was written by Lily Dane and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.
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(image: TheFreeThoughtProject.com)The IMF (International Monetary Fund) or as I like to call them – International Mafia Federation – is showing it’s true colors and proving beyond question this organization is nothing more than street-corner-thugs in high priced suits.
With the release of this latest working paper on how to enslave nations, steal the remaining sovereignty of the people and the nations they have drawn up plans to force a cashless society upon all the people within IMF member nations.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington has published a Working Paper on “de-cashing”. It gives advice to governments who want to abolish cash against the will of their citizenry. Move slowly, start with harmless seeming measures, is part of that advice.
In “The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing”, IMF-Analyst Alexei Kireyev recommends in his conclusions:
Although some countries most likely will de-cash in a few years, going completely cashless should be phased in steps. The de-cashing process could build on the initial and largely uncontested steps, such as the phasing out of large denomination bills, the placement of ceilings on cash transactions, and the reporting of cash moves across the borders. Further steps could include creating economic incentives to reduce the use of cash in transactions, simplifying the opening and use of transferrable deposits, and further computerizing the financial system.
The private sector led de-cashing seems preferable to the public sector led decashing. The former seems almost entirely benign (e.g., more use of mobile phones to pay for coffee), but still needs policy adaptation. The latter seems more questionable, and people may have valid objections to it. De-cashing of either kind leaves both individuals and states more vulnerable to disruptions, ranging from power outages to hacks to cyberwarfare. In any case, the tempting attempts to impose de-cashing by a decree should be avoided, given the popular personal attachment to cash. A targeted outreach program is needed to alleviate suspicions related to de-cashing; in particular, that by de-cashing the authorities are trying to control all aspects of peoples’ lives, including their use of money, or push personal savings into banks. The de-cashing process would acquire more traction if it were based on individual consumer choice and cost-benefits considerations. Source
It doesn’t get much clearer than that – if the people resist, simply change the rules and, as we have stated time and again, simply enact a new law that the majority of people will accept and the remaining 3-5% will be forced into enslavement with the rest.
Let’s break it down a little so the picture is as clear as possible.
Step one – The de-cashing process could build on the initial and largely uncontested steps, such as the phasing out of large denomination bills, the placement of ceilings on cash transactions, and the reporting of cash moves across the borders.
Strip out, for example, the $100 bill from the U.S. economy. This would eliminate more than half the cash value in circulation with one stroke of the draconian pen.
Next, as France and Spain have already done, and most of the European Union have cash transaction limits – set a limit, for example, transactions larger than$1,000 must be made using electronic means or have a bank involved at some level, e.g. cashier check so their is a record of the transaction for tax and tracking purposes. The good news is, Germany attempted to set a $5,000 euro cash transaction limit and the people revolted.
Finally, make it almost impossible to get cash out of your country and into another. In the U.S. you are required to declare more than $10,000 cash moving across the border and my guess is this suffer a substantial cut.
Another handy tool the criminals are planning on using is to have, for example, “big-box stores” to simply no longer accept cash “for your safety” of course. By implementing this type of policy change the government is not seen as the ‘bad guy’ but a much more friendly “retail outlet” looking out for your safety and the safety of their employees. One question – when was the last time an armed robbery occurred at any big box store world wide? Criminals are not so stupid as to attempt to rob a big-box store due to the sheer volume of cameras on the grounds and inside the stores.
Once these the steps are in place, it makes it much easier to get people to accept financial enslavement as a “convenience” and “for your protection and safety” – “for the children”.
Note, that the author is not talking about unreasonable objections and imagined disadvantages: He does count it among the advantages of de-cashing in the very next paragraph that personal savings are pushed into banks and he also does count total control of all aspects of financial life under the pros, as in the last sentence of the last quote below.
“As de-cashing gives incentives to economies’ agents to convert their currency in bank deposits, the deposit base of the banking system will increase, which can help reduce the lending rates and expand credit.”Source
As the criminal banking cabal becomes more desperate to steal our remaining wealth they are devising more devious ways of doing it. Soft-sell the people into their own enslavement instead of forcing them. The past few decades we have been treated just a step above cattle, now the gloves seem to be coming off and the banking cabal no longer cares that we can see their crimes and their true colors.
You can read the entire – pdf that will download to your computer – IMF plan to financially enslave the planet by clicking here.
This article was written by Lauren Wright and originally published at Activist Post.
Editor’s Comment: Talk about control. The coming era of digital, cashless money is one in which the banking institutions and money creators hold all the power. No longer will cash and personal holdings do it; everyone must go through the system, and hold an account, just to do business.
All transactions are automatically under scrutiny and de facto suspicion; everything you do is monitored and traced. Meanwhile, the purchasing power of that money once again resides largely with the banks, the fractional reserve system and the power to lend on fiat indefinitely.
In A Cashless Economy, Your Money’s Never Idle Money
by Lauren Wright
The global financial crisis opened the world’s eyes on how dependent we were on the big banks. Today, we could be held as much hostage to the banking system as we were before, if not much more. As several countries push for a dematerialization of payment means, have we already forgotten the lessons learned after the crash?
Many of the major banks in the U.S or in Europe still haven’t recovered fully from the multiple crashes and the collapse that shattered the system worldwide. At the time, many citizens realized how fragile the banking system was and they lost their trust. After Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy many swore that never again they would allow the banks to play with their money like they had in the past. At the time, masses of several countries rushed to their banks to withdraw their assets and keep it in the form that seemed safer to them: cash.
Today, however, the prophets of media and governments around the world have asked us to start saying goodbye to physical money. They want to go cash-free. The idea seems wonderful, no more heavy coins in our pockets and no more ‘cling cling’ sound from the laundry machine. Instead of it; cards, mobile wallets, e-payment systems. We would live in societies where all of our assets are kept in banks, but not physically.
“When we deposit money in a bank, we are making a loan”(1) says Anat R. Admati professor of finance and economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, had $2.4 trillion in assets as of June 30, and debts of $2.2 trillion: $1.2 trillion in deposits and $1 trillion in other debt. It was notable for surviving the crisis, but no bank that is so heavily indebted can be considered truly safe (…) outside of banking, healthy corporations rarely carry debts totaling more than 70 percent of their assets. Many thriving corporations borrow very little,” he added.
After the crisis we received implicit guarantees from governments that the banks would not be allowed to continue such practices. Today “the tendency is go the same way that we were going before but with some speed limits” says Stephen Olaffson, professor at the University of Reykjavik.
Even Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has acknowledged that the “too big to fail” problem has not been solved.
Yet, by going cashless if that’s the road we decide to take, banks will again be the only option we have for our assets. For them, the interest is tremendous in seeing governments voting regulations on cash and overall seeing less banknotes and coins in circulation. In addition to the benefits of having fewer employees there is one more incentive for banks to adopt the cashless closed system of banking. Since banks make money with money, “the more money a bank can control, the more profit it can make.”
Presently in U.S dollars alone, there are untold millions, if not billions of currency in circulation that are not under the control of any bank. This wealth is therefore in what we call the open monetary system; the system that would precisely disappear in a cashless world. All this money in circulation, under the mattresses, in pockets, piggy banks, dresser drawers and who know how many other places, would become history. In the coming cashless society, in order for one to be able to buy and sell, all money held by an individual must be deposited into the system regardless on how much trust the individual has for the banking system This means that all of the wealth that is now held by individuals will then be controlled by the banks and other financial institutions.
Do we want to live in a society where we keep allowing banks to have the same practices that caused the collapse that all hurt us, this time with all of our assets? Today, the transition is already happening. And we can start to ask ourselves the question ‘whose money is it anyway?’. Many people have their paychecks and other income deposited directly into their financial account, have loan payments, bill payment made by electronic fund transfer. Once this closed system is fully implemented and, we, have become cashless, all deposits and payments will be done electronically. Individuals will no longer be the first to have access to their money.
It is as scary as it sounds and banks love it. Pastor Guest wrote: “These are a few of the ways banks can make use of the cashless ‘closed’ monetary system to improve efficiency, security, and overall profitability. No doubt there are many other ways the banks and other financial institutions will be able to utilize the closed monetary system to maximize their profits.” It’s worth to think about it twice: whose money is it anyways?
This article was written by Lauren Wright and originally published at Activist Post.
