Cash is King and Freedom

My grandmother always kept cash under the mattress, and my grandfather stashed his precious silver and gold coin collection in a tin box which he hid in a special place he thought was safe. But I knew about it because I saw him one day.

When the Russian soldiers “liberated” the country after WWII, they confiscated most valuables they found, including cash. Whatever they missed, the Bolshevik communists behind them confiscated the rest, even digging up his small tractor he had buried in the garden.

The communist economy, from then until December 1989, was cash-based and barter-based, nobody had checking accounts and credit cards were something nobody knew existed in capitalism. The bartering as a medium of exchange was out of necessity to survive.

Everybody carried around large amounts of rolled up cash because people never knew when they walked by a grocery store with a long line of people, waiting for certain staples of food that would be delivered and, if they had the money, they stood in line to buy whatever was sold because they would need it, if not today, for sure tomorrow or in the near future.

Cash is a convenient medium of exchange; often the exchange happened between an underground-economy seller and a customer who did not want to stand in line and was willing to pay the price asked.

Cash is used for purchases from sources other than stores, for paying someone to mow the lawn or do a simple repair job. Illegal gambling is a cash-based part of the economy. Drug trafficking and human trafficking are also based on enormous amounts of cash, and no legal records are ever kept. And the government never receives any taxes.

People have used commodity money to pay for goods and services. Commodity money is an object used as a medium of exchange; such commodity money has value in alternative, non-monetary uses. Examples of commodity money could include cattle, stones, candy bars, chocolate, panty hose, gold, silver, copper, cigarettes, soap bars, woodpecker scalps, porpoise teeth, giraffe tails, etc.

Bartering can be useful in smaller, rural areas but it is much harder in large cities because it is based on the coincidence of wants. Our economy is much more complex to allow a smooth provision of goods and services just based on coincidences of wants.

The problem with commodity money is that it has be easily divisible, readily identifiable, uniform, storable, durable, and compact. Of all the commodity money, gold and silver hold the most value, are most compact, and do not require refrigeration. Currently, gold has already surpassed $4,000 per troy ounce which is approximately thirty-one grams.

Gold and silver coins had been struck for 2,500 years. Paper money was invented by the Chinese in the eleventh century, and Marco Polo brought the idea of cash to Europe.

Ironically, the modern Chinese were the first to implement digital currency on their billion plus citizens, all tied to the social credit score system. This allows citizens to have an economic life, travel, fly, go on vacations, medical care, school tuition, food, and other necessities based on their social credit score, i.e., how they behave in society and whether the government approves of their behavior, what they say and do.

Cash is king and represents freedom, but the globalist plan wants to replace it with digital currency across the globe, removing any possibility of hiding sources of income, wealth, and economic activities that do not generate taxes for the globalist government. The digital currency becomes the absolute tool to control all economies, all income, the ultimate mean of power and control.

As more and more places refuse to take cash as a form of payment, our cash will disappear from the global and domestic markets. The “greenbacks,” named so after Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury to Lincoln, who picked the green color for our legal tender banknotes, will disappear.

All our freedoms depend on cash, however devalued the "greenbacks" may be because of the overspending by Congress and the constant printing of it by the Treasury.

 

 

 

 

Cash is King and Should Remain So

I am sure that many have heard the expression, cash is king, but did not waste any time thinking about what that means.

The Federal Reserve System (the fed), our central bank system, has control over our money printing and monetary policy, but has no control over the cash in the underground economy, i.e. gambling, drug activity, illegal employment; it is an economic activity that they cannot control and thus our government cannot tax it via its fiscal policy.

The fed publishes the amount of money stock in the economy and control the interest rates values. How accurate is the money stock when one considers the amount of cash that circulates in the underground economy.

The rub of cash for the government is that they cannot tax and control all of it. How can they change that? By issuing digital currency, central banks digital currencies (CBDC), around the globe, and giving bankers the power to control EVERYTHING we and governments do.

Cash is the most liquid form of money and harder to trace and control by the omnipotent government. They measure the quantity of money in our economy as M1 and M2. M1 is the sum of all coins and paper money plus checkable deposits at banks and savings institutions. M2 includes M1 plus shares in money market mutual funds. There is an M3 which includes M1, M2, and all financial institutions.

Then there are near moneys, close substitutes for money, and credit cards which can be counted as what one owes on the credit cards or what their credit line is.

Cash is most liquid and often untraceable, especially the cash involved in the black market, do it yourself jobs, rainy day funds in safe deposit boxes, cash under a mattress, hiring a neighbor or an illegal to do a job that is not taxed in any way, babysitting jobs, grandmas’ cash gifts, etc.

How can the government then control everything and tax everything? Remove all cash from circulation and install the CBDC (central bank digital currency) where everything will have to be approved and paid for by electronic transfer by appointed bankers each time a transaction is requested.

Working for the government, the banks would tell you what to eat, how much to eat, when, what to purchase, where and when you can go on vacation, what to do with your money, how much money you can keep, what car to buy, how much money you can withdraw, if you are allowed to buy gasoline, a car, a house, tickets for a show, have TV, heat, air conditioning, food, go to doctor, buy medicine, buy a plane ticket, anything that keeps you alive and well as long as you behave according to government dictates, you obey them, and your social scoring is good.

Before 1945, most people paid for everything with cash. By 1990, about $30 trillion was moved annually by checks. By 1998, $1.3 trillion was moved electronically daily through the Federal Reserve System, our central bank with 12 regions, all owned by private investors.

By 2024, some central banks have already installed digital currencies and have removed cash from circulation altogether. One example is Australia and some third world nations. The central banks of Brazil, China, the European Union, India, and the United Kingdom are moving in that direction.

In 1862 the U.S. government issued its first paper money called greenbacks, printed in green ink to distinguish them from gold certificates.

The first European notes were printed in Sweden in 1661and France issued paper money in wide circulation in the 18^th century.

The British Empire issued promissory notes to Massachusetts soldiers in 1690. There were, of course, paper monies issued in different historical periods, but their strength depended on the economy of the country issuing them; Kubla Khan issued paper notes in 1282 made of mulberry bark; the kwan, issued by the Ming dynasty in China in 1368-1399, is the oldest surviving paper money.

Although not real paper money, the Babylonians of 2500 B.C. wrote bills and receipts on clay tablets.

Before paper money, people bartered with goods and services, but it was less convenient because it depended on “coincidence of wants,” whereas money did not require such a coincidence. Barter was not always fair because animals are not divisible. Barter restricted productive capacities.

Live animals and sacks of grain were accepted as money. In 1393 Europe, “a pound of saffron was worth one plow-horse; a pound of ginger would buy a sheep; two pounds of maize would buy a cow.” (WSJ, Guide to Understanding Money and Markets, 1990, pp. 98-99)

Commodity currency such as gold and silver, pelts, salt, cigarettes, chocolate, medicine, beads, cattle, sheep, was eventually replaced by fiat currency, the money of today, where governments decide what is money and their value based on the amount they print which is or is not backed by goods and services. If too much money is printed, way above the value of the yearly GDP, like today, inflation occurs, and the value of the currency goes down.

In the last four years, prices for most goods Americans consume have doubled in prices because of the inflation caused by the policies of the current administration. One shopper at Walmart bought the same basket of goods in 2024 that he had purchased in 2022 and the total cost has allegedly quadrupled.

The most frequently quoted hyperinflation is the Weimar Republic when in 1923 a German homemaker burned mark notes in the stove because it was cheaper than buying firewood and people carried a wheelbarrow filled with cash to purchase a loaf of bread. Such glaring mismanagement of the economy, by printing money for out-of-control government spending to boost the post World War I sluggish economy, gave rise eventually to Hitler’s Reich.

The Continental Congress issued paper money during the American Revolution because it was short on gold and silver to mint coins. They printed so many paper bills, causing such a high inflation that the price of corn rose 10,000 times and by the end of the war, a dollar dropped in value from $1 worth of gold to 2 ½ cents in gold. Congress did not issue money again for 70 years. They did issue currency with abandon during the Civil War and disastrous inflation occurred again.

What will happen once the central banks eliminate cash and install CBDC? The central banksters, which already run monetary policy, will also run the fiscal policy, replacing the legislative branches, and thus eliminating each country’s sovereignty and all individual sovereignty.

Cash is king. Keep it this way if you want to maintain independence and freedom as a country and as individuals.

Cash or Digital Money, Personal Freedom or Globalism

Bjorn Ulvaeus Photo: Wikipedia

Sweden seemed to be at the forefront of the newest globalist scheme digital money v. cash, advocating a cashless global economy with a one-world currency. A CBS World News article reported in 2012 that a small number of businesses in Sweden accepted only credit cards, including some churches, even though elderly people prefer cash, especially in rural areas. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sweden-moving-towards-cashless-economy/

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 19^th 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.