Cash – Page 2 – The Burning Platform

The International War on Cash

By Jeff Thomas

Back in 2008, I began warning of increasing capital controls that we would see in the future, as a component in the decline of Western economies (Western in the broad sense, including Japan, Australia, etc.)

Along the way, it occurred to me that, at some point, governments might collectively attempt to eliminate paper currency in favour of an electronic currency – transferred from party to party solely through licensed banks. Sound farfetched? Well, maybe, but what if the U.S. and EU agreed on an overall plan, then suggested it to other governments? On the face of it, this smacks of conspiracy theory, yet certainly, all governments would benefit from this control and would be likely to get on board. In fact, it might prove to be the only way out of their present economic problems.

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So, how would it play out? Here’s roughly how I saw Phase I:

Link the free movement of cash to terrorism (Create a consciousness that any movement of large sums suggests criminal activity.);
Establish upper limits on the amount of money that can be moved without reporting to some government investigatory agency;
Periodically lower those limits;
Accustom people to making all purchases, however small or large, through a bank card;
Create a consciousness that the mere possession of cash is suspect, since it’s no longer “necessary”.

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Swiss to Give Up EVERYTHING & EVERYBODY

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

As of January 1, 2016, Switzerland is handing over the names of everyone who has anything stored in its Swiss freeport customs warehouses. For decades, people have stored precious metals and art in Swiss custom ports — tax-free — as long as they did not take it into Switzerland.

Now any hope on trusting Switzerland is totally gone. That’s right — the Swiss handed over everyone with accounts in its banks. Now, they must report the name, address, and item descriptions of anyone storing art in its tax-free custom ports. This also applies to gold, silver, and other precious metals along with anything else of value.

Back in 1986, the FBI walked into my office to question me about where Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) stored the gold he allegedly stole from the Philippines. Marcos had been the President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986 and had actually ruled under martial law from 1972 until 1981. I told them that I had no idea. They never believed me, as always, and pointed out that Ferdinand Marcos was a gold trader before he became president and he made his money as a trader. They told me he was a client and that I had been on the VIP list for the grand opening of Herald Square in NYC, which he funded through a Geneva family. I explained that I never met him, and if he were a client, he must have used a different name.

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Cashless Society – Tracking Gold – the Hunt for Loose Change

If the oligarchs actually attempt to create a cashless society, I think it would start a revolution. Eliminating cash is how the oligarchs want to add a fee to every transaction and to track everything you do so they can tax you. Think about how many mom and pop restaurants and retailers would be forced out of business. This would be the tipping point.

Think about the food stamp program. You used to get actual foodstamps. Bankers had nothing to do with the transactions between the recipient and the food store. Now the money is loaded onto a card and swiped at the POS. JP Morgan now collects billions from the downtrodden and retailers. They sell these ideas as efficiency, when it is nothing but a new method of rape and pillage.

Know your enemy.

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

I do not see how it will be possible to eliminate physical money, for it would require Third World economies to adopt modern technology.More than half the world is not into technology. Moreover, there is still a reasonable segment of people within the industrialized world who are not into the technology age. Denmark will move to a near fully electronic money system come January 2016. Stores will not accept cash but there must be exceptions such as medical.

Such a transition urged by Rogoff and Buiter, the harbingers of Economic Totalitarianism, merely illustrate how they live in a bubble and do not see that the entire world does not fit the way they live. That does not mean the major nations will not attempt such a scheme for they are desperate for cash. A friend applied for a mortgage. Every penny they were putting down as the down-payment had to be proved right down to a check for $400. What was it for and why did a relative give them $400. The questions were all related to what they are calling money laundering or in other words tracing every penny for tax purposes.

Europe is looking at this move to electronic money because the banking system is infected with euro debt of member states lacking a single reserve debt system as exists outside in the USA, Canada, Britain, and Australia just to mention a few.So the design of the Euro is a fatal flaw and instead of correcting the design, they choose to become more authoritarian.

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The Coming Cashless Society/Greek Tragedy

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Now you are watching newspaper and TV shows all preparing the public for the coming cashless society. This is a marketing campaign and this may be indeed what October 1st, 2015 is all about – 2015.75. I doubt that the USA will be able to move to a cashless society as easily as Europe. The dollar is used around the world and cancelling that outstanding money supply would bring tremendous international unrest. Additionally, the USA is not in crisis financially as is the case in Europe.

Europe, on the other hand, has an entirely different problem. The failure to have consolidated the debts of member states meant the reserves of the banks were constituted of a politically-correct mixture of debt. Instead of fixing the problem, politicians who are lawyers always move one step forward with laws. To them the logical solution is to eliminate cash to protect banks from a panic run that would collapse Europe and take Brussels with it.

This is a deliberate marketing campaign now. I know who these things work and just pay attention. They are selling this idea everywhere and that is the preparation for the inevitable action. With the speed at which they are moving, it certainly appears they are gearing up for October 1st on out model. It is also interesting that some German press misquoted our date as October 17th. I was not sure why they would do that, but perhaps that was intentional as well. This is very curious for when they take that final step, it will most likely be sudden and overnight. This would announce it and give everyone some time period to take your paper currency and deposit it into you bank account.

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Government’s War on Cash, Resistance Tactics

Guest Post by Roger McKinney

Mainstream economists have hated cash since the Great Depression because in their business cycle “theory” they assume that people quit spending and decide to hold more cash. That stoppage in spending constipates the “circular flow” model of economics they pray to and causes recessions. They don’t ask why people might prefer cash to a new Ford Focus or more stock in Apple. Many main stream economists follow the thinking of Herman Minsky who simply thought people are irrational. The behavioral school in economics assumes people are pretty much nuts. In their brains, a large group of people wake up one day and decide they need to hold more cash for no reason and all hell breaks loose. I call that the “crap happens” theory of business cycles.

Of course, the solution to that problem, in mainstream thinking, is to force people to spend their cash at the mall. So they start with reducing interest rates to ridiculously low levels, which is supposed to discourage saving and motivate spending. But what if that doesn’t work? In case you haven’t noticed it hasn’t worked in Japan, Europe or the US for the past six years.The next step is to punish people for holding cash. One way to do that is to force negative interest rates. Rates can become negative when the inflation rate is higher than the interest rate on deposits, or banks can charge customers for depositing money. Willem Buiter, an economist for Citibank has suggested that the Fed could have fixed the latest crisis sooner if it had pushed interest rates to a negative 6%. Buiter got the idea from Harvard economist Ken Rogoff. Both have been tried in Europe for the past year.

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Will Central Banks Abolish Cash?

Guest Post by Mark Nestmann

Cash has never been a popular asset with the totalitarian set. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to trace. Cash makes it possible to do business “off the books.”

For decades, with the US leading the effort, governments have engaged in a War on Cash. The original justification for this war was to fight racketeering. The War on Cash morphed into the War on Drugs, then the War on Money Laundering, and subsequently, the War on Terror.

But now, central banks and their lackey governments have a new rationale for the War on Cash: the very existence of cash makes it more difficult to enforce negative interest rates. That’s a big deal, because nearly $3 trillion worth of bonds with negative interest rates have already been issued. Incredible as it may seem, investors actually pay financially insolvent governments for the privilege of buying their bonds. Negative interest rates punish banks that fail to make loans but instead maintain reserves at a central bank. And of course, they punish savers seeking a positive return on their investment.

The European Central Bank has had negative interest rates in effect since June 2014. These rates apply to the “deposit facility rate,” which is the rate on “excess reserves” banks maintain at the ECB. Currently, that rate is -0.2%. If you’re a bank in the eurozone, your “reserves” gradually dwindle in value if you don’t lend them out. For instance, after one year at a -0.2% rate, €1 million of your reserves would only be worth €998,000.

The Danish and Swiss national banks have gone even further, with negative interest rates of -0.75%. After a year, 1 million Danish krone or Swiss francs would be worth only DKK/CHF992,500, respectively.

This policy isn’t reserved just for banks. I hold a position of Swiss francs at a domestic brokerage house. A few weeks ago, I was informed that money market holdings over CHF100,000 would now be subject to negative interest rates. I suspect this policy will gradually percolate into money market accounts for all currencies sporting negative interest rates.

Now, I can understand why central banks impose negative interest rates. They’re desperate to reinvigorate national economies that remain mired in recession years after the economic collapse of 2007–2009.

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France Restricts Cash, Movement of Gold & Crypto-Currencies

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

France is of course the most socialist country in Europe and it always attacks anyone with money. Its latest war on money is broadening to create a virtual lock-down on all assets of anyone. France is strengthening the control of cash payments drastically. Also the gold sales and movement of any tangible goods is to be reported.

The French Finance Minister Michel Sapin has announced a drastic tightening of the use of cash in France. As the newspaper Le Parisien reported that citizens should be strictly monitored from September 2015 if they make payments in cash.

– The limit on cash payments will be reduced from 3,000 euros to 1,000 euros.

– Tourists can only pay up to 10,000 euros in cash, so far there were 15,000 euros.

– If a Frenchman wants to change money into another currency, it must still do to 1,000 euros without identification only. So far, French could buy foreign currencies for 8,000 euros.

– If a bank customer stands out more than 10,000 euros in a month from his account, the bank must report the transaction to the Money Laundering Authority TRACFIN.

– Banks must inform the authorities of all cargo transfers within the EU that exceed 10,000 euros. This regulation checks, pre-paid cards and even gold are affected.

– The control of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin to be drastically tightened.

This is the economic tyranny we face. What is yours really belongs to them from the way they see it. We no longer live in a democratic world. This is all about them controlling the people to sustain their power. The French official reason for these measures is the “war on terror”. In fact, it is the measure that we are witnessing around the globe because those in power feel it slipping away. This is not a war on terror, it is war against the people in the form of financial repression. It is still unclear whether other euro countries to follow the example of Paris and its citizens in other countries restrict the free, private use of their money.

Gold v Dollar

The powers that be hate cash. They can’t get their vig on a cash transaction. The bankers that run this country get a piece of every pie, except cash pies. They get 1.5% to 4% of every credit card transaction. They get a slice of every SNAP transaction. Why do you think they changed from actual food stamps to SNAP cards? The move to outlaw cash is coming fast. Once they make everything electronic, they can make their slice bigger, and you will have no alternative. They will also have complete control of the financial system and can shut it down at their whim. Everyone will be Cyprused for the good of the country. It will be declared patriotic to have your deposits absconded by the government. It will be for the children.

If you have cash in Wall Street banks, get it out. Did the $29 jump in gold today have anything to do with the chatter about turning the country into a cashless society? It seems the ruling class is preparing for something big. They are laying the groundwork needed to keep control – no cash, military exercises, militarizing the police, mass surveillance, new foreign enemies, media propaganda, and false terror plots.

Their enemy is critical thinking people with, cash, gold, guns, and the ability to live off the grid. Prepare accordingly.

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

The traditional mumbo jumbo is dollar up, gold down. However, we may be entering a completely new phase. Gold and the dollar may no longer be archenemies. They are actually now moving to the same side of the fence, for the common enemy is the rapidly approaching electronic money, with so many analysts at banks now calling to abolishing paper money. What is interesting is that paper money places a check and balance against central banks from moving deep into negative interest rates. At some point, more and more people will just withdraw their cash and hoard it, which has already begun.

Right now, gold enthusiasts are closely watching the statement expected for this week from the Federal Reserve policy makers on Wednesday. They are clinging to anything, looking for any clues that the Fed is becoming less likely to raise interest rates. They fear that raising interest rates will support the dollar, but there is really a lot more going on behind the curtain.

BIGGEST CASH HOARDERS ON EARTH

Below you will find the U.S. mega-corporations who outsourced American jobs to Far East slave labor facilities where they could maximize their profits. That’s what mega-corporations do – maximize short term profits no matter the long-term consequences. That is all well and good. When these mega-corporations made these decisions, they knew the tax implications of repatriating those foreign earnings back to the U.S. – a 35% tax rate.

These fuckers can’t have it both ways. They gutted our manufacturing base and shipped it to the Far East, making hundreds of billions in the process. Their brilliant Ivy League educated MBA CEOs paid themselves hundreds of millions for a job well done. They knew the downside, but now they want their captured politician puppets in Congress to give them a tax break if they are kind enough to repatriate those hundreds of billions. They will use the cash to buy back their stock and pay their executives bonuses for successfully buying off Congress again. Our vulture capitalism system is something to behold.

According to a recent J.P. Morgan report, U.S. companies hold a combined total of more than $2 trillion in cash abroad. Among all S&P 500 companies, Apple has parked the largest amount of cash outside the U.S. by quite a margin. The iPhone maker hoards $158 billion (89 percent of its total cash) overseas. That’s almost twice as much as second-ranked Microsoft ($82.1b) and 2.5 times the total of General Electric, which is ranked third with foreign cash holdings of $62.4 billion.

Under current law, U.S. multinationals have little incentive to bring home the cash they hoard overseas, because they would have to pay 35 percent corporate income tax once they repatriate their foreign earnings. To address this issue, two senators proposed a repatriation tax holiday earlier this year, which would enable companies to return money to the United States paying just 6.5 percent tax, not 35 percent. The bipartisan proposal suggests the proceeds could help finance the Highway Trust Fund which is expected to run dry in May. It would also limit the use of the repatriated funds, prohibiting their use for stock buybacks or executive compensation and funneling them towards investment beneficial to economic growth in the U.S.

Although considered unlikely, it wouldn’t be the first time Congress passed a tax holiday for foreign earnings. In 2004, companies paid just 5.25 percent taxes on repatriated cash. However, a congressional subcommittee later found that the measure hadn’t been effective: many of the companies that profited most went on to cut jobs and reduce R&D spending in subsequent years.