Bjorn Ulvaeus Photo: Wikipedia |
Bjorn
Ulvaeus, a former rocker, stated that cash encourages theft, citing his own son
who was the victim of armed robbery three times. Cheating and cash theft may
have declined in Sweden but cybercrime around the world is indisputably on the
rise. Even though Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes
in 1661, Ulvaeus would like Sweden to phase out cash altogether.
Doug Casey
gave an interview recently to Louis James of International Speculator on the “War on Cash.” Doug Casey described
how governments would control the people’s finances through assaults on cash
by making every financial transaction electronic. He presented the following historical
timeline of efforts to control people’s money:
-
Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 requiring U.S. citizens
to “report the existence of any foreign bank or brokerage accounts,” a law which
Americans ignored
-
Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, forcing
Americans to explain the source of their money as if it was a crime to move
money around without government permission; in Casey’s opinion, “money
laundering is an artificial, arbitrary, made-up crime”
-
Patriot Act of 2001
-
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010
(FATCA), forcing foreign banks to “report Americans who had bank or brokerage
accounts;” Casey explained that U.N.’s Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) countries jumped at the opportunity to make FATCA a
global issue https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/03/doug-casey/one-edge-precipice/
Casey
explained that many countries have already outlawed cash transactions over a
certain amount (€1,000 in France, $5,000 in Uruguay, etc.); countries like
Norway, Sweden, India, Denmark, and Israel have promoted the ban on cash
entirely. Large corporations such as airlines use the excuse of theft to do
away with cash transactions.
From the
government’s perspective, banning cash under the guise of controlling “money
laundering” of criminals and drug lords, and routing all of our income through
the banking system helps them better control everything we do, freezing
accounts at will, while taxation becomes much easier, including payment for
Obamacare premiums and penalties for non-compliance. “It enables them to track
everything you buy and sell, and effectively, everything you own,” added Casey.
Then there
is the infamous “bail-in” in Cyprus when the government bureaucrats and
Brussels’ EU technocrats helped themselves to people’s bank accounts in order
to “save” the too-big-to-fail banks and the rapacious government.
And we
should not forget the numerous quantitative easings (QEs), printing money with
no backing of goods and services, the zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), and stock
and real estate bubbles. And the negative interest rates are spreading around
the world, the “war on savings,” as Casey explains it.
Because cash
is freedom, the progressive MSM is attacking it with pathetic excuses that cash
is “physically dirty, expensive, potentially criminal, and obsolete 19th
century technology,” promoting the “war on cash.”
Some see the
“war on cash” as another form of “population control” when people’s accounts
will be raided if they are classified as potential domestic terrorists, or denied
healthcare if they are marked with a “digital star.” Over 16,000 IRS employees
and the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) of Obamacare will be
impossible to stop; they are appointed, anonymous, and unaccountable to anyone.
The issues of a cashless society and of a one
world-currency are many:
-
Total control by the state or its proxy
-
There
are savings deriving from a cashless society in terms of special paper,
printing, ink, labor, and metal alloys
-
If
an attack occurs on the Smart Grid and there is no power, there are no
financial transactions possible without some cash, a substitute, or barter
-
If
there is a national disaster, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, or power
interruptions, transactions of goods and services will be made by cash, a
substitute thereof, or barter
-
An
EMP attack or intense solar flares would make cash or a one world currency
worthless, we would have to resort to barter or theft
-
A cashless or one global currency could result in
extraordinary powers given to banks, potentially, with no cap on interest rates
-
Cashless transactions would be traceable at all times
-
One world currency would eliminate exchange rates, currency
trading in futures, eliminating a substantial sector of the job market and thus
revenues
-
There will be no black market involving cash or illegal
activity, everyone would be forced to pay taxes
-
Children under 18 would be excluded from holding credit
cards and thus excluded from financial transactions if cash disappeared.
-
Migrant and illegal workers would be paid electronically in
a cashless society, forcing accountability in taxation and employment
-
Prostitution would have to be legalized, taxed, and clients’
names become public record
-
Muslims would no longer be able to use hawala transactions which are based on cash
-
Conducting monetary policy, money stock, interest rates, and
inflation would be altered in a cashless society
-
In the case of one-world
currency, who would conduct monetary policy, decide interest rates, the
digital money stock, and taxation? Would it be the United Nations?
-
Would society change dramatically because labor will be
purchased with digital credit as opposed to cash? How would the one-world currency value be decided?
Will it be tied to precious metals such as silver, gold, and platinum or will
it be arbitrarily decided by the United Nations?
-
In a time of war, how would one country destabilize the
economy of another by dropping off counter fit currency over another country’s
territory if the entire world uses the same currency?
-
In the case of cyber-attacks and hacking, what would happen if
all banks, companies, and institutions would be connected to a single grid of digital money
-
What would happen to third world nations that are not so
electronically wired and depend heavily on cash or barter? Could they be
required to make transactions in digital
money?
-
Finally yet importantly, who would police the counter
fitting of a one-world currency
across the globe? http://canadafreepress.com/article/what-would-the-world-be-like-without-cash-or-with-one-currency
The
idea of a digital money society or a one-world currency may capture sound
bites on TV and the imagination of liberals, libertarians, and conservatives
alike, especially when running for political office, but it opens a new
Pandora’s box of ills that most countries are not yet equipped to resolve.
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