Banning Cash: Serfdom in Our Time
Over the last few months a stream of articles have crossed my screen, all proclaiming the need of governments and banks to eliminate cash. I’m sure you’ve noticed them too.
It is terrorists and other assorted madmen, we are told, who use cash. And so, to protect us from being blown up and dismembered on our very own street corners, governments will have to ban it.
It would actually take some effort to imagine a more obvious, naked attempt at fearmongering. Cash – in daily use for centuries if not millennia – is now, suddenly, the agent of spring-loaded, instant death? And we’re supposed to just accept that line?
But there are good reasons why the insiders are promoting these stories now. The first of them, perhaps, is simply that they can: After 9/11, a massive wave of compliance surged through the West. It may not last forever, but it’s still rolling, and if the entertainment corporations can pump enough fear into minds that want to believe, they may just get them to buy it.
The second reason, however, is the real driver:
Negative Interest Rates
The urgency of their move to ban one of the longest-lasting pillars of daily life means that the backroom elites think it will be necessary soon. It would appear that the central banks, the IMF, the World Bank, the BIS, and all their backers, see the elimination of cash as a central survival strategy.
The reason is simple: cash would allow people to escape from the one thing that could save their larcenous currency system: negative interest rates.
To make this clear, I like to paraphrase a famous (and good) quote from Alan Greenspan, back from 1966, during his Ayn Randian days: The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
That was a true statement, and with a slight modification, it succinctly explains the new war on cash:
The preservation of an insolvent currency system requires that the owners of currency have no way to protect it.
Cash is currency that you hold in your own hands, that stands more or less alone. It is primarily external to bank control. Electronic money – bank balances, credit, etc. – remains inside the banking system and fully subject to bank control.
A combination of no cash and negative interest rates would be a quiet, permanent version of what was done in Cyprus, where the government simply shut down everything, allowed only the smallest deductions via ATMs, and then stole money from thousands of bank accounts at once.
The Cypriot spectacle was fairly large, however, and that tends to undermine the legitimacy of rulership. So, it is much better to have no ATMs and no cash at all. There would be no lines of angry people talking to each other, only isolated losers with no recourse, licking their wounds while the talking heads on television tell them to stay calm and watch the flashing images.
Negative interest rates would give the banks 100% control over your purchases. They could, even in the worst pinch, allow you to purchase food while freezing the rest of your money. The average person would have no recourse and would simply be robbed… but very smoothly and with no human face to blame on.
Negative interest rates mean that your bank account shrinks day by day, automatically. Your $1000 in January becomes $950 by December. And where does that money go? To the banks, of course, and to the government. They syphon your money away, drip by drip, and there’s nothing you can do about it. This accomplishes several things for them at once:
- It finances government, limitlessly and automatically. Forget tax filings; they can just take as they please.
- It pays off the bad debt of the big banks. (And there are oceans of debt.)
- It forces you to spend everything you’ve got, as soon as you get it. (Otherwise it will shrink.)
- It gives the system full control over your financial life. Everything is monitored, everything is tracked, and every single transaction must be approved by them (or not). If they decide they don’t like you, you’re instantly reduced to begging.
In short, this is a direct return to serfdom.
I suggest that you start talking to your friends and neighbors about this now, before it’s too late. Don’t let them comply without a fight.
Paul Rosenberg
[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]
So would my drug dealer take my credit card?
Demand payment in gold – and keep it somewhere unknown to bankers and governments.
The ECB and the Fed look the other way when one of their member banks engage in money laundering; but it is a terrible thing when another entity engages in that same activity.
Fuck the lying gov’t and their media shills.
Our welfare state also requires deficit spending – wonderful.
The politicians have fucked this country. (and others).
Reminds me of the old Tennessee Ernie Ford song “Sixteen Tons”: “You load 16 tons of number nine coal and what do you get,
another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don’t you call me,
’cause I can’t go.
I owe my soul to the company store.”
Here in the southern mountains you can still find pieces of company scrip, or script, issued by coal and timber companies to their workers. Paper bills and metal tokens given to their workers in payment for their labor and only usable in the company store. Couple that form of payment with being in a company town whose only access was a single railroad track and people were essentially captives…slaves.
BARTER.
I will trade you this bushel of apples for that chicken. What say you?
Lets see the “powers that should not be” try that on for size?
Gold the money of kings
Silver the money of gentlemen.
Barter the money of peasants.
Debt the money of slaves.
King Canute once thought he could order the tide to stop and cease rising.
The “powers that should not be” will find that outlawing “cash” (barter) will be impossible.
@Out
Barter may be a way to get a chicken…but what about cities?
There aren’t really any bushels of apples, let alone chickens.
Off topic…not really, if this is about theft, so not sorry.
A Mr. Briels, former Burns, Oregon Fire Chief (30 yrs service Oregon)
told the rancher’s story from his point of view, Caravan 2 Midnight, aired
today. The story is complex, and particularly the number of “Federal”
agents that remain and act in these communities. The take-away is
the revelation that the BLM is a private corporation. As in, private contractors,
v. an agency “employed” by “our” gov. We have been hearing that gov agencies
are NOT actually gov agencies at all. Now we have banks? and or gov. together,
moving to eliminate cash, and go electronic money. This gives the gov and banks
total control over the people’s lives. This is a really big deal. So, a person has
$50. in a cookie jar, but it will be illegal to spend/use it. Thanks gov.
Last, the name Clinton, and the countries Russia, and China, along with a
commodity called uranium came up. So, are all the agencies we assume
to be “arms” (pun?) of the Fed gov. actually private corporations? Until we
shed our learnin’ and normalicy bias, we might be blindsided by what,
in the future, will be obvious. Too late.
The fire chief had such a unique point of view. Essentially, a life long
resident and public servant in this small community. He knows all the
players and dealt with the out of towners. Please try to catch it.
“They kill people man, you better be careful.” Are these dangerous topics?
Today I spent a half hour on the phone to my bank, to try and get them to reverse their error. They charged me twice for the February house payment; apparently my actually paying off the “escrow shortage” caught them by surprise, and when they adjusted the payment back down to the pre-escrow-shortage figure, they forgot to kill the charge for the “new payment adjusting for escrow shortage” payment; taking two payments in one month.
I heard today it will take a claims process and minimum 3 – 5 days for them to correct their error, and possibly up to ten days; we will be operating on a cash basis (not using bank services) for this time, damned if I’ll give them more of my money to mess up / overcharge on.
At the end of the call, the guy trying to fix the problem tried to interest me in a new credit card with them; can you say clueless?
@ Outlookingin & Suzanna:
Agreed. Unfortunately, barter will only work for so long…. all they have to do is look at your accounts and see that you aren’t buying ‘enough’ food, and then the hammer really comes down. If you are of the religious persuasion, it sounds an awful lot like that ‘mark of the beast’ thing I once heard about….
Ok knuckleheads …. how are WE going to stop the government from eliminating cash ? How will WE stop them from imposing negative interest rates ?.
bb,
If I knew, I would tell you for FREE. Trouble is,
I am just getting a peek through the clouds and
swirls of snow. I am hoping someone smart
speaks up. Sometimes all we do is play, “ain’t it awful.”
Not good, but it serves to show we aren’t alone and we
want to learn. Step one, ID the problem.
bb….just watch the politicians; don’t vote for the scum that support cashless and NIRP. Otherwise, a million man march on DC would work wonders – never happen.
The primary reason for wanting to ban cash, is the elimination of trillions in debt.
All credit issued by the Fed and the banks represent an I.O.U. legal tender cash, eliminate the cash, eliminate that debt.
http://carl-random-thoughts.blogspot.com/
And all that without the need for legislation. Direct confiscation.
And it’s supposedly about crime, yeah, it just enables the bigger crime of the enslavement of all men bipartisan a few elites.
I have always used credit cards and have a +800 FICO. However…because I am being told I should NOT use cash I am going to begin to get used to using it a lot more, like my college days. Just like gun control talk, when the government say I may NOT do something…I like to do it a whole lot more.
Dear Government: I plan on ignoring you more and more until you eventually collapse under your own corruption, stupidity, greed and incompetency. Or, We The People give you a nice, big push.
I have been a flea market participant as the occasional seller and frequent buyer for several decades. One of my favorite Dylan lines is “To live outside the law you must be honest.” Flea market people, on both sides of the transaction/equation, give me both hope for and faith in the survival of humans. The community market, be it a farmers’ mart or your local flea is worthy of your participation, whatever your political persuasion or asset level. When I visit our local market, which is held on the grounds of a civil war era mineral spring and spa, it is like going to the Greek agora/ marketplace. I reconnect with old friends on both sides of the aisle, meet neighbors and meet new people who often become friends. I find the occasional treasure or useful tool or fresh produce from a local farm. If you are so inclined you can eavesdrop on and participate in or initiate lively discussions on most anything. Over the years I have discovered some really sharp, witty, and knowledgable people who rival the best teachers I had, and thereby further my education.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/02/09/prescient-trump-hidden-report-mexico-remittances-total-more-than-entire-mexican-oil-revenue/#comments
Gryffin- Thanks for the scrip post, that is exactly it, scrip. We must really be fucked.
Admin- OT but I think Deutsche Bank is getting ready to fold.
Now would be a really good time to hold some cash and obtain some gold/silver if you need some just in case that 70 trillion in derivatives sends Deutsche Bank over the cliff. Just sayin
Its already too late. On the 476 in pennsylvania there are already exits that are easy pass only. There is a bridge into jersey the same way. The superbowl paypal add. Its all over folks. You ban cash to pay tolls you are well on your way to fucked.
Ottomatik,
Thanks for recognizing what I was trying to say. If the system is truly fucked and there will be untold casualties, there will also be survivors. We all need to figure out how to be among the survivors.
I could be wrong but I just don’t see them banning cash until an alternative exists for the govt parasites and Wall Street oligarchs to make payola payments to each other. Just imagine a world where the CIA can’t run guns and drugs anymore! I’m sure the fucking mob is opposed to banning cash as well as the proprietors of all other cash operated endeavors. A bitcoin type system that exists outside banks may work. I’m actually amazed that there has not been an increase in so called crypto currencies in light of the talk about banning cash. I hear that the Treasury and one or more alphabet soup intel agencies are looking into creating their own crypto currencies though. I’m sure that one more system for the haves and another for the have nots is on the horizon. I see decades of cash restrictions coming into play before an outright ban though.
The two primary reasons the cashless dream lives on
First, the vig. Couple of percent of every little transaction, doesn’t every organized crime gang dream of that? Second, you couldn’t pull your money out of the bank now, could you? So there could never be a run on the banks. Pipe dream
Well I just wonder what kind of Plan B do the narco traffickers have lined up for having their only medium of exchange being yanked out from under their feet? Does anybody really think that they’re going to just throw their hands up in the air and say “OK, I give up now, I’m going to go 100% legit with my way to earn a living!” or something like that? No, I think that if they have any kind of a clue at all about what the impact of this will be, that the proponents of this cashless society have been identified as well as their immediate family members, and they will be given new jobs shortly, it’s called pushing daisies. If any of their past actions can be used as an example of their future actions, I expect to see some major players in this to have their picture on milk cartons very soon!! And the sooner the better too!!
CASH …. WITHOUT IT……YOU HAVE NO FREEDOM OR LIBERTY…….