War On Cash: The Next Phase Begins

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

With so much news about an economic reopening, a border crisis, massive government spending and exploding deficits, it’s easy to overlook the ongoing war on cash.

That’s a mistake because it has serious implications not only for your money, but for your privacy and personal freedom, as you’ll see today.

Cash prevents central banks from imposing negative interest rates because if they did, people would withdraw their cash from the banking system.

If they stuff their cash in a mattress, they don’t earn anything on it; that’s true. But at least they’re not losing anything on it.

Once all money is digital, you won’t have the option of withdrawing your cash and avoiding negative rates. You will be trapped in a digital pen with no way out.

What about moving your money into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin?

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ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENT

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – H.L. Mencken

Jolly Roger Black Flag - moeguns.com

It’s now almost two weeks since the most crooked, rigged, fraudulent election in U.S. history. The engineered elevation of a handsy, sniffy, senile, empty portal, trojan horse by billionaire oligarchs, their Silicon Valley techno-geek social media censorship police, and the corporate media propaganda mouthpieces looks like it might succeed. Republican cucks like Romney and even the pliable Fox News talking heads have acquiesced to this third attempt during this ongoing coup like obedient lapdogs positioning themselves to profit from doing the bidding of their global oligarch masters.

Make no mistake. There was a master plan implemented by dark forces to steal this election, overriding the will of the American people. The anger of 70 million Americans is perfectly captured in the above quote from Mencken. If Trump and his allies are unable to prove fraud and overturn this sham of an election, myself and millions more will treat the Kamala Harris administration as illegitimate and do everything in our power to resist and insure its failure.

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Europe’s Latest Steps to Eliminate Cash Post-Davos

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

EU Restri8ctions on Cash

Roman-Hoard-BritainWithin days of Davos, here in the European Commission statement on moving forward to eliminate cash. This is an “Inception Impact Statement” to provide notice to those involved and to ask for comments back. Everything is couched in terms of terrorism, but in fact it is to hunt taxes and eliminate our freedom to privacy regarding our own wealth. The Roman Emperor Maximinus I (235-238AD) declared that all wealth belonged to the state. He paid informants to rat out anyone who looked like they were hiding wealth. The bottom-line, this pushed the Roman Empire over the edge.

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The War On Cash Is Happening Faster Than We Could Have Imagined

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

It’s happening faster than we could have ever imagined.

Every time we turn around, it seems, there’s another major assault in the War on Cash.

India is the most notable recent example– the embarrassing debacle a few weeks ago in which the government, overnight, “demonetized” its two largest denominations of cash, leaving an entire nation in chaos.

But there have been so many smaller examples.

In the US city of New Orleans, the local government decided earlier this month to stop accepting cash payments from drivers at the Office of Motor Vehicles.

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This Is Where I Get Off

Guest Post by Jeff Thomas

We began writing on the War on Cash some time ago, when it was still just a theoretical ploy that we believed banks and governments were likely to employ as their economic adventurism continued to unravel.

But, in the last year, several countries have, as a part of the War on Cash, begun removing larger bank notes from circulation in order to force people to perform all economic transactions through the banking system, assuring that the banks would gain total control over the movement of money.

Of course, the banks could not admit their true goal to the public. They instead used the governments to claim that the measure was being undertaken to restrict crime (money laundering, drug deals, black marketing, terrorism, etc.)

Recently, without any fanfare, ATM’s in Mexico have ceased issuing the 500 peso note US$24). The largest note is now the 200 peso note (US$10).

At about the same time, Citibank in Australia declared that it will no longer accept coins or banknotes.

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The Termination of Cash Approaching Rapidly

Hunt MoneyGuest Post by Martin Armstrong

The hunt for money is intensifying with the aid of banks no less. India was the balloon. They simply canceled the currency with no notice and imposed a 90% tax on anyone holding the high denomination notes. This is how the world governments operate. The first bail-in was done in Cyprus. We were even contacted by members of the government trying to push back against the EU. We provided the solution, but the government did what the EU wanted because this was a test. If they got away with it in Cyprus, then the “bail-in” would become a contagion. The politicians lied, as usual, and said that policy would NEVER be applied in Europe. It is now standard around the world. We warned, Cyprus, then Greece – who would be next.

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“There’s Chaos Everywhere” – Indians Angry As ATMs Run Dry After Cash Ban

Tyler Durden's picture

The blowback from the world’s latest strike in the war on cash is unraveling fast in India. This week’s decision by PM Modi to ban some high-denomination banknotes (on the premise of fighting corruption) has left “chaos everywhere” according to one official who accused the prmeier of wreaking havoc on the poorest Indians. As Reuters reports, nearly half of India’s 202,000 ATMs were shut on Friday and those that operated quickly ran out of the new notes as scores of people descended upon them.

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The Shift to a Cashless Society is Snowballing

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist
Love it or hate it, cash is playing an increasingly less important role in society.

In some ways this is great news for consumers. The rise of mobile and electronic payments means faster, convenient, and more efficient purchases in most instances. New technologies are being built and improved to facilitate these transactions, and improving security is also a priority for many payment providers.

However, there is also a darker side in the shift to a cashless society. Governments and central banks have a different rationale behind the elimination of cash transactions, and as a result, the so-called “war on cash” is on.

On the Path to a Cashless Society

The Federal Reserve estimates that there will be $616.9 billion in cashless transactions in 2016. That’s up from around $60 billion in 2010.

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The Ban On Cash Is Coming… Soon!

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

This is starting to become very concerning.

The momentum to “ban cash”, and in particular high denomination notes like the 500 euro and $100 bills, is seriously picking up steam.

On Monday the European Central Bank President emphatically disclosed that he is strongly considering phasing out the 500 euro note.

Yesterday, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers published an op-ed in the Washington Post about getting rid of the $100 bill.

Prominent economists and banks have joined the refrain and called for an end to cash in recent months.

The reasoning is almost always the same: cash is something that only criminals, terrorists, and tax cheats use.

In his op-ed, Summers refers to a new Harvard research paper entitled: “Making it Harder for the Bad Guys: The Case for Eliminating High Denomination Notes”.

That title pretty much sums up the conventional thinking. And the paper goes on to propose abolishing, among others, 500 euro and $100 bills.

The authors claim that “without being able to use high denomination notes, those engaged in illicit activities – the ‘bad guys’ of our title – would face higher costs and greater risks of detection. Eliminating high denomination notes would disrupt their ‘business models’.”

Personally I find this comical.

I can just imagine a bunch of bureaucrats and policy wonks sitting in a room pretending to know anything about criminal activity.

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The Case for Outlawing Cash

By Bill Bonner, editor, The Bill Bonner Letter

Investors are losing confidence…

They’re probably losing confidence in corporate managers, for instance.

Who wants to own stock in companies run by numbskulls who buy back shares in their companies at record prices just before a major selloff?

Or maybe they’re wondering whether the world’s $200 trillion in total debt (roughly 300% of total output) can possibly be paid back?

Or maybe they’re beginning to puzzle out how scammy and fraudulent the Fed’s policies are.

But watch out! Reeling from the jabs of the last two weeks, expect a strong counterattack from the zombies and their allies.

Some Fed governor will come forth – maybe even Janet Yellen – and tell us not to worry about a return to more “normal” interest rates anytime soon.

We’re way too far into the weird to get anywhere near normal now. And surely Wall Street shills will be in the news explaining how markets become unreasonably fearful from time to time. They will tell investors that it is time to hunt for bargains.

Dow 25,000! Why not?

And they may be right. There’s bound to be an inflationary blow-off waiting somewhere ahead.

Stocks will soar. But not before they crash.

Retiring Another “Barbarous Relic”

In the meantime, watch your rear: There’s a serious counterattack coming.

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Something Very Disturbing Spotted In A Morgan Stanley Presentation

Tyler Durden's picture

With central bankers losing credibility left and right, and failing outright to boost the “wealth effect” no matter what they throw at it, the next big question is when will central planners around the world unveil the cashless society which is a necessary and sufficient condition to a regime of global NIRP.

And while in recent days we have seen op-eds by both Bloomberg and FT urging the banning of cash, the most disturbing development we have seen yet in the push for a cashless society has come from the following slide in a Morgan Stanley presentation, one in which the bank’s head of EMEA equity research Huw van Steenis, pointed out the following…

 

… and added this:

One of the most surprising comments this year came from a closed session on fintech where I sat next to someone in policy circles who argued that we should move quickly to a cashless economy so that we could introduce negative rates well below 1% – as they were concerned that Larry Summers’ secular stagnation was indeed playing out and we would be stuck with negative rates for a decade in Europe. They felt below (1.5)% depositors would start to hoard notes, leading to yet further complexities for monetary policy.

Consider this the latest, and loudest, warning on the road to digital fiat serfdom.


Banning Cash: Serfdom in Our Time

Banning Cash: Serfdom in Our Time

BanningCash

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:

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