Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:32 am Post subject: Cashless society -> digital money -> microchip humans
Cashless society by 2012, says Visa chief
(The cashless society that David Icke has been predicting for nearly 15 years)
'Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe. Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash. Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned.'
Cashless society by 2012, says Visa chief
By Tim Webb
Published: 11 March 2007
Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe.
Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash.
Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned.
Visa Europe briefed the British Retail Consortium last month on new "contactless" cards that can be waved in front of a scanner to make small payments.
However, the consortium dismissed this vision and claimed that card processing fees, which regulators are investigating, are still too high.
One member of the consurtium said that the estimated "interchange" fee charged to retailers amounts to some 4p for each transaction.
Nick Mourant, treasurer at Tesco, said: "There is a duopoly between Mastercard and Visa in the UK. Their setting of fees is anti-competitive."
This means total control. Not a transaction out of place. But I wonder how they'll wash the drugs money? oh of course, stock market registered corporations can change as much cash as they want without having to tell a soul. Oh yea there'll still have to be cash alright. They can't even keep the economy afloat without the black market cash flow.
Still, frightening prospect for anyone thinking of shaking them off by hitting the homeless trail and living from odd jobs or hand to mouth. There won't be much cash around at all in the lower regions. _________________ Muslim Jewish Christian Alliance for 911 truth.
Not sure it is a mistake,Stephen. Related spiritual-side backup, and pretty graphics
All these topics are multifaceted and interrelated _________________ http://www.exopolitics-leeds.co.uk/introduction
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:34 pm Post subject:
Aaron Russo 'developed' cancer in 2001, after having spurned Nick Rockefeller's attempt to recruit him; he died on August 24th, 2007.
He was a great Freedom Fighter, and made among other videos his flagship 'America: Freedom to Fascism'.
HE ALSO SAYS HOW NICK ROCKEFELLER TOLD HIM ABOUT THE CASHLESS SOCIETY TO COME, AND OF THE NWO PLANS TO 'CHIP' EVERYBODY:
(SEE VIDEO BELOW):
Here is a brilliant full-length interview with him by Alex Jones; it's so good, I don't know why this isn't absolutely put at forefront of our campaign:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5420753830426590918 _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Nice to see someone emphasising Russo's contraction of cancer following his revelations
This is an often used method for those in the public eye _________________ http://www.exopolitics-leeds.co.uk/introduction
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:09 pm Post subject:
paul wright wrote:
Nice to see someone emphasising Russo's contraction of cancer following his revelations
This is an often used method for those in the public eye
Another good example is Penny Lernoux; lots of good books, particularly 'Cry of the People'; bit too near the bone! _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
• Coins for fewer than half of payments 'in five years'
• Chip and pin even taking over in pubs and clubs
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 April 2010
Cash is fast falling out of favour as a method of payment according to a report which predicts that banknotes and coins will be used for fewer than half of all transactions in five years' time.
Even the sight of thirsty pub customers waving tenners at the bar is on the way out as part of the ongoing "payments revolution" characterised by the rise of internet banking and the replacement of cheque books and cash with plastic – predominantly debit cards – the report claims.
The forecasts are made in The Way We Pay 2010 by the Payments Council – the national body which has decided to phase out cheques by October 2018 provided alternatives are developed. The 23-page report provides a detailed analysis of the changes to the way we pay for goods and services over the last 40 years and charts the decline of cheques. Originally they were only for a wealthy elite when most people were paid in cash.
The report says cash still appears popular. Six in 10 transactions involve notes or coins, but almost 80% of these are for less than £10. In five years, the council predicts, cash transactions will represent fewer than half the total for the first time.
The proportion of spending done with cash is dwindling even faster compared with our wealth and our spending, rising only 7% in the last 10 years, while overall consumer spending has doubled.
Pubs and clubs are singled out to show cards are widely accepted by retailers, with improved technology making payment easier and faster. In 1999 we bought nine out of 10 of our pints with cash; now only 40% of pub spending involves notes and coins and pubgoers are more likely to be eating out as well as drinking.
Chip and pin accounts for more than half of all spending in pubs. But we still need to withdraw cash and there are 63,000 ATMs in the UK – two-and-a-half times more than 10 years ago. While credit card ownership and use is levelling off, debit card usage has risen fourfold in 10 years – four times as fast as spending. Mike Bowman, head of policy and markets at the Payments Council, said: "Although cash won't disappear in our lifetime, the continuing payments revolution will make it an ever smaller part of our spending.
"The people who used to wave their tenners at the bar is fast vanishing. They're more likely to brandish their debit cards now as they compete to get served."
The use of the cheque book has been in steep decline since 1990 as consumers opt for quicker payment methods. Just 0.8% of retail transactions are made with cheques and by value, 60% of consumer cheque use is for financial transactions (savings, investments, paying credit card bills).
Greater wealth and a growing population has seen overall spending double over the last 10 years and there have been big shifts in how we spend money. Supermarkets take 55p in every pound we spend in shops compared with 48p in 1999.
Consumer groups said reports of the demise of cash and cheques were premature. James Daley, money editor at the consumer rights group Which?, said: "Although it's great that most consumers are now confident using cards and online banking, the flip side of these figures is that there's been a significant increase in banking fraud over the past few years, so it's now more important than ever for consumers to take care of their personal data, and to protect their pins."
He said it was important that the banking industry did not try to use the figures as proof that cash and cheques were completely redundant: "Many people – especially the elderly – still feel much more comfortable using cash and cheques to make their payments, and it's important that these consumers are not cut off by the banks. There may well be a day when cheques are no longer used, but at the moment thousands of people still rely on them, and are not ready or able to use the alternatives."
Ways to pay
If you've been driven mad waiting in a queue while people pay by chip and pin you'll be glad to know improvements will make things easier and faster. The use of debit cards, and "contactless" card payments will push us further from cash. Although it is unlikely ever to disappear completely, its decline may even accelerate as the scope for payments by mobile phone increases. An iPhone app already makes payment by phone possible. perception that online shopping is risky is on the wane as e-commerce gains in popularity. PayPal offers a more secure option and has carved a niche in the online environment, particularly amongst 25- to 34-year-old shoppers. Half of them now use it.
Here's my comment:
Quote:
acrobat74
16 Apr 2010, 4:31PM
A cashless society has very serious implications for individual liberties.
In essence, a bank chip will decide whether you can buy food or not.
This is not something to be taken lightly, regardless of its supposed convenience.
Are we certain we want to trust banks with this?
Surely the recent past must have taught us something about trusting banks?
Quote:
The forecasts are made in The Way We Pay 2010 by the Payments Council ? the national body which...
'National body'?
You make it sound like it's sponsored by government.
Let's take a closer look.
The Payments Council is an organisation of United Kingdom financial institutions that sets strategy for UK payment mechanisms.
It was established in 2007,[1], and its first major move was to agree a target of 2018 for the elimination of cheques in the UK.[2]
Membership
The Payments Council is a voluntary membership organisation, with 27 founding members:
Abbey National plc
ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
Alliance & Leicester plc
Bank Machine Limited
Bank of America N.A.
Bank of England
Bank of Ireland
Bank of Scotland (The Governor and Company of)
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi
Barclays Bank plc
Cardpoint Services Limited
Citibank NA (London Branch)
Clydesdale Bank plc
Co-operative Bank plc (The)
Deutsche Bank AG
DnB NOR Bank
HSBC Bank plc
JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. (London Branch)
Lloyds TSB Bank plc
Morgan Stanley
Nationwide Building Society
Northern Rock plc
PayPal(Europe) Limited
Post Office Ltd
Royal Bank of Scotland plc
Standard Chartered Bank
Wachovia
So, a report published by the banks tells us that we should trust them and their chips to decide whether we can buy food or not and to have total visibility of all our financial transactions (and hence habbits and preferences).
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:55 pm Post subject:
outsider wrote:
Aaron Russo 'developed' cancer in 2001, after having spurned Nick Rockefeller's attempt to recruit him; he died on August 24th, 2007.
He was a great Freedom Fighter, and made among other videos his flagship 'America: Freedom to Fascism'.
HE ALSO SAYS HOW NICK ROCKEFELLER TOLD HIM ABOUT THE CASHLESS SOCIETY TO COME, AND OF THE NWO PLANS TO 'CHIP' EVERYBODY:
(SEE VIDEO BELOW):
Here is a brilliant full-length interview with him by Alex Jones; it's so good, I don't know why this isn't absolutely put at forefront of our campaign:
Thought I'd resurrect this, as it is so appropriate to the last posts. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2568 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 9:03 am Post subject: Cashless High Street "Social Experiment" mancheste
Quote:
Shoppers will find their cash is worthless in one Manchester suburb as only cards will be accepted by stores on the high street.
As part of a social experiment, shops along fashionable Beech Road in Chorlton will only take payments on plastic.
It comes as research shows people are increasingly using cards instead of notes and coins.
Many of the shops, bars and restaurants on the road are independently owned.
Mary Paul, of the Beech Road traders' association, said: "Businesses can see the way things are going with more money being taken on cards across the board, so this is a very interesting glimpse into the future for all of us."
This month the British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed cash use has fallen by 14% in the last five years.
Card use is increasing rapidly, with debit cards currently being used for 32% of transactions compared to 30% last year.
Some experts predict physical currency will cease to exist within 20 years.
Helen Dickinson, director general of the BRC, said: "Customers are taking advantage of new ways to shop and pay. The availability of contactless cards, handy express stores and self-service tills, as well as online sales, has increased the use of debit cards for smaller payments in place of cash."
Mark Latham, product and innovation director at Handepay, the card payment provider behind the idea to trial a cashless high street, added: "Britain is at the forefront of countries heading towards becoming cashless because the public are always eager to embrace new technology.
"Recent research showed most Londoners would welcome a cash-free society as they're so used to paying for everything with cards.
"There's now an expectation that card payment is available everywhere - it takes us aback as consumers if it isn't.
"Business owners love it too as it cuts down on queues, reduces lost sales and gives them more time to interact with their customers.
"All evidence shows consumers spend more too, as they're no longer limited to just the cash in their pockets."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 10:44 am Post subject: Re: Cashless society by 2012, says Visa chief
The independent no longer carries our headline story!
Replaced by some Orwellian sport tosh
Only alternative media have kept it online
How and why did hackers or the indie remove it though
more importantly - why?
Jill Papworth and Rupert Jones The Guardian, Saturday 21 June 2014
Shoppers will today be able to get a glimpse of a future without notes and coins by visiting what's claimed to be the first ever UK street to go "cashless" for a day.All 32 businesses in Beech Road, Chorlton, will be attempting – as far as possible – to trade without cash and accept only card payments.
The experiment taking place in the leafy south Manchester suburb is a joint venture between the local traders' association and a card payment company, and is designed to test the claims made by some pundits that most shoppers are now so used to paying for everything by card that they would welcome a cash-free society.
Articles proclaiming "the death of cash" have, of course, been appearing for years, but perhaps things really are changing. Earlier this month the UK Cards Association revealed that three-quarters of all retail spending is now by debit or credit card – up from less than half a decade ago – while the British Retail Consortium said customers "are using less cash than ever".
Millions of us now carry contactless debit and credit cards and this technology will receive a major boost when all London buses controversially go cash-free on 6 July. Meanwhile, the major high street banks have just launched Paym, which enables you to pay the window cleaner or give back the £10 you borrowed from a workmate at lunchtime, simply by pressing a few buttons on your mobile phone. Other hi-tech systems are also being rolled out, and then there is the rapid growth of virtual currencies such as bitcoin.
Against this backdrop, it will be interesting to see how the traders of Beech Road – in an affluent neighbourhood renowned for its alternative "vibe" and high proportion of independent shops (and Guardian readers) – get on with encouraging their customers to forgo cash and pay only with cards on what is traditionally one of the busiest days in the local calendar.
Businesses taking part in the experiment range from newsagents, bakeries and delis to cafes, restaurants and pubs.
Patrick Hall, proprietor of The Laundrette, a pizza restaurant and cocktail bar, is aiming to go completely cashless for a day, apart from tips to serving staff.
"On a normal weekend around 70% of payments are by card and 30% by cash, but we are going to encourage all our customers to enter the spirit of the day and pay by card, and I don't envisage having too many problems," he says. "We are increasingly in a world where cash is disappearing, and this is a chance to prepare ourselves for that. The big chains automatically offer customers several ways to pay and some small independents can lag behind."
Hall offers both chip and pin and the newer contactless card payment systems, the latter for transactions under £20. But, unlike some small independent retailers, he does not insist on a minimum amount if paying with plastic, so customers can pay for just a coffee, for example, by card.
However, when Guardian Money chatted to some of the other retailers, it soon became clear that claims in the advance publicity that would see notes and coins banished completely for a day were simply unrealistic – which perhaps suggests that cash won't be going gently into that good night any time soon.
Sarah Raine, manager of Epicerie Ludo, an independent deli, wine merchant and grocery store, says: "Given that we bake bread and pastries and sell a lot of individual items with a low transaction value, and given that we have a minimum value of £5 to pay by card, I don't think it will be possible to go completely cashless – but I am going to promote card payments as much as possible."
She adds: "On a typical Saturday, value-wise 65% of transactions are by card, but by number of transactions, 63% are in cash. I'm interested to see if this will shift if we encourage people to use cards, and whether people spend more when using a card – it could be the case. Already, I notice that if someone wants to buy £4.50 worth of items, they will often buy something extra to take it over the minimum £5 limit so they can pay by card."
You would imagine that going plastic-only would present particular problems for newsagents, whose customers include lots of children buying sweets who are too young for payment cards, and some technology-resistent pensioners picking up their morning paper or pint of milk. Craig Etchells at Beech Road newsagent C & W Etchells says if someone doesn't want to pay by card, or is unable to, they will of course be able to pay with cash – "you're not going to turn trade away" – though he will be trying to encourage people to use plastic.
"About £7 seems to be the turning point from where someone switches from paying cash to paying with a card," he says. "Up to a fiver, it's generally cash. Over £10, nine in 10 transactions are probably with a card." His shop typically imposes a 30p surcharge if someone spends less than £6 and pays with a card, though this is being waived for the day.
Mark Latham at card payment provider Handepay says Britain is at the forefront of countries heading towards becoming cashless, "because the public are always eager to embrace new technology". He adds: "There is now an expectation that card payment is available everywhere – it takes us aback as consumers if it isn't."
But not everyone is embracing this revolution: earlier this month a survey found that more than a third of consumers (38%) avoid contactless payment methods because they don't know enough about the technology and are "worried about security". The poll by Vista Retail Support also found that a further 24% of people don't use the technology because they do not know which of their cards are enabled for contactless payments, or don't know how to use them.
Another of the Chorlton experiment participants, Rosa Stone, manager of the nearby Horse & Jockey pub, will be dropping the normal £10 minimum transaction limit on chip and pin card payments for the day, and encouraging customers to use cards over cash.
"I think it's a fascinating experiment," she says. "Around 60% of our customers already prefer to pay by card, typically to settle a tab they set up to pay for food and drinks during their visit. But I'm really interested to see whether the other 40% of customers react well or get annoyed when we ask them pay by card, though we will accept cash if people insist. If they just want to buy a packet of crisps for example, it would be hard to refuse a 50 pence piece."
The event's website, handepay-cashless-street.co.uk, will be regularly updated to offer visitors a live feed of trader and customer vox pops, reaction via social media, blogs and films.
Linda wrote:
Cashless society by 2012, says Visa chief
(The cashless society that David Icke has been predicting for nearly 15 years)
'Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe. Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash. Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned.'
Cashless society by 2012, says Visa chief
By Tim Webb
Published: 11 March 2007
Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe.
Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash.
Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned.
Visa Europe briefed the British Retail Consortium last month on new "contactless" cards that can be waved in front of a scanner to make small payments.
However, the consortium dismissed this vision and claimed that card processing fees, which regulators are investigating, are still too high.
One member of the consurtium said that the estimated "interchange" fee charged to retailers amounts to some 4p for each transaction.
Nick Mourant, treasurer at Tesco, said: "There is a duopoly between Mastercard and Visa in the UK. Their setting of fees is anti-competitive."
Denmark has moved one step closer to becoming the world's first cashless society, as the government proposes scrapping the obligation for retailers to accept cash as payment.
The Danish government has said that as of next year, business such as clothing retailers, restaurants and petrol stations should no longer be legally bound to accept cash payments.
The proposal is part of a package of economic growth measures, which are being released ahead of this year's Danish election. It aims to reduce costs and increase productivity for Danish businesses.
Finansrådet, a Danish finance industry lobbying group, says the change would free retailers from the cost of security, and the burden of managing change and notes.
Annoying pocketfuls of change are a thing of the past in the Nordic countries, where card payments for the smallest items are commonplace. Although it seems like a drastic step, the Danes are already moving away from paper and metal money.
Almost a third of the population uses an official Danske Bank app called MobilePay - it links your mobile to other users' phones or to a sensor at the till, allowing you to confirm payments with a simple swipe on your smartphone's screen.
Similar technologies like Paym are available in the UK, which allows users to transfer money to others by entering their mobile number. Google Wallet turns your phone into a contactless card, allowing you to tap your device against readers to transfer money - however, it is currently only available in the USA.
But both of these technologies are still yet to see the level of adoption that MobilePay has in Denmark.
There are fears that moving to totally cashless payments could increase the risk of fraud - in Sweden, a nation with one of the highest numbers of bank transactions per person in the European Union, cases of card fraud have doubled in the last decade.
However, Danske Bank has taken steps to fight fraud, by linking individuals' MobilePay accounts to their national insurance numbers.
READ MORE: BUSKERS TO ACCEPT CASHLESS PAYMENTS
IS A CASHLESS SOCIETY POSSIBLE?
The change would need to be approved in a vote at the Folketing, the Danish parliament, but the timing of the vote has not yet been set.
However, in a country where cashless payments are so common, it looks unlikely that the proposal will face much opposition.
Cashless payments are growing in popularity in developing nations, as it removes costs associated with handling cash and lowers the danger of theft or extortion. Kenya's 'beba' system, seen here, allows users to transfer money via their mobiles. The Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland lead the world in cashless payments - cash payments for even the smallest items, such as a packet of chewing gum, are commonplace.
In 2013, a Swedish bank robber left empty-handed, after he found out that the Stockholm bank he held up did not carry any cash.
Denmark and Sweden have almost moved to a cashless society. The rest of the West is close behind. But the convergence of big business, banking and government has many worried. Cash represents freedom and anonymity, while governments are passing laws that strip citizens of these basic rights.
00:00 / 00:00
The man was flying on international flight from Europe to America, on an American airline. With more than 10 hours to go to get to his place, he asked the air stewardess if she would bring him an alcoholic drink. She responded that it would be a certain sum, which was more expensive than it should have been but since the man was, as economists call it, a captive audience, he agreed. Upon receiving the drink, he attempted to pay with Federal Notes, also known as dollar bills or greenbacks. The flight attendant recoiled in horror. “Oh, we don’t accept cash” she said, “and haven’t for some time now. Do you have a credit or debit card?” The man proceeded to pull out his wallet and handed her his plastic while thinking to himself, “Although it is written on the dollar bill – this note is good for all debts public and private- at what point in time did cash literally become worthless?”
The move to a cashless society is well underway. According to Denmark’s Central Bank, “Danish customers have already moved away from metal and paper money.” Furthermore, last year Denmark’s Central Bank decided that it would no longer print banknotes and coins. As a result, local media in Denmark has recently reported that stores could begin rejecting cash on January 1, 2016, if a government proposal is approved.
Other countries are seeing similar trends. The Independent recently noted that — “In Sweden, four out of five purchases are made electronically, either by debit or credit.” CNBC noted that — “In Sweden, only 3 percent of transactions are made with currency. In fact, the decline in cash use has become so pronounced in Sweden that homeless beggars have been given card readers by Situation Stockholm to sell freely distributed newspapers and to receive alms, since potential donors no longer carry cash.” Huffington Post noted that a survey done for the Bank of Canada suggests — “Canadians are now using cash for fewer than half of their transactions”.
In many ways, Americans also appear to be moving in a cashless direction as well. Since 2013, U.S. Social Security benefits have been mostly paid through direct deposit or prepaid debit cards. A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found 40 percent of all payments made by Americans in a typical month are in cash. Yet, one out of 10 no longer carry paper money on a daily basis. Local media Ksl recently ran a story on this and quoted a woman as saying — "… most of the time I have a debit card. It's pretty standard for me. Usually, I have less than $20 on me at any time.”
And that is the state of the Western world. The use of cash is on the decline, while the use of digital money is growing. Many pundits are researching this transition. For instance, a study by McKinsey explains that “electronic payments make banking systems more productive and lessen the need for an informal or shadow economy, which isn’t taxed nor monitored by the government.” So, it would seem as if the banking system and governments benefit from the rise of the cashless society due to the transparency of transactions. Banks can add on fees to every minor transaction while governments could collect taxes. But there are also cons. The oldest members of society may not be able to use cards. Negative interest rates or even high fees from banks could eat away at deposits. And the poorest members of society don’t have access to the banking systems and as a result, would become even more dependent on big government.
However, the real problem with a cashless society lies in the control grid. For instance, CNBC noted that — “in 2010, Visa and MasterCard, bowed to government pressure — not even federal or state law — and banned all online-betting payments from their systems. This made it virtually impossible for these gambling sites to continue operating regardless of their jurisdiction or legality.”
The article went on to ponder a possible future when it wrote — “It is not too far-fetched to wonder if the day might come when the health records of an overweight individual would lead to a situation in which they find that any sugary drink purchase they make through a credit or debit card is declined.“ That’s right. If your BMI is too high, you can’t buy a Coke, you can only buy water.
And while that hypothetical scenario is still in the distant future, there is every indication that governments all across the West are becoming more restrictive by passing more and more laws that strip citizens of their basic rights. And that really is the catch. Cash represents freedom and cash represents anonymity. With cash, you are able to purchase what you want, when you want, without “Big Brother” following your every move. As society moves to a digital cashless society, things will become more stratified. Gone are the days when a person will be able to moonlight. Gone are the days when a person will be able to work as a babysitter or a yard worker or even as freelance instructor. And what about the extra money sent via cards on birthdays? A $20 gift voucher at a big box retailer just doesn’t evoke the same emotions.
Of course, these concerns are small potatoes compared to the bigger issues at hand, such as the fact that a cashless society would give governments unprecedented access to information and power over citizens. It is easy to conceive that an agency such as the NSA would be able to monitor any company or consumer transaction in real time, 24/7.
The fact that United States government is using “civil forfeiture” more and more, which is basically — “take the cash first and ask questions later” should scare citizens. Remember, the US government is allowed by law to do this, even if it is only government workers who have a suspicion, not proof, of wrongdoing. By seizing a citizen's or a firm's money, the victim/defendant has almost no choice but to settle for pennies on the dollar, since they are basically guilty until proven innocent.
Taking this all into consideration, CNBC in an article asked readers to — “Imagine a future in which soon, a government staff member could suspect an individual of some misconduct, or perhaps deem that person's politics or speech unacceptable. It would take just a few keystrokes to order all financial institutions to decline any withdrawal or payment from that individual and to transfer any deposits or payments of that person to the government, or at least freeze any access to funds. Perhaps this would need to be reviewed by a secret court that would approve 99.7 percent of all requests, but would provide a veneer of due process. It is fair to think that the targeted individual might starve to death. This could be insured by cutting off access to the payment system of anyone suspected of helping the targeted individual.”
Now, if that situation sounds strangely familiar, that may be because of a certain bible verse. Revelation 13:17 states — “And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark…”
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2568 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 8:42 pm Post subject:
Certainly seems more likely than it did 40 years ago when Barry Smith and others were predicting it _________________ JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12
Just three short years ago, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane appeared a lone voice of sanity in a world fanatically-religious Keynesian-esque worshippers. Admissions in 2013 (on blowing bubbles) and 2014 (on Too Big To Fail "problems from hell") also gave us pause that maybe someone in charge of central planning might actually do something to return the world to some semblance of rational 'free' markets. We were wrong! Haldane appears to have fully transitioned to the dark side, as The Telegraph reports, he made the case for the "radical" option of supporting the economy with negative interest rates, and even suggested that cash could have to be abolished.
Speaking at the Portadown Chamber of Commerce in Northern Ireland, as The Telegraph reports, Mr Haldane's support for a possible cut in rates came as the Bank as a whole has signalled that the next move in rates would be up.
Andy Haldane, one of the Bank’s nine interest rate setters, made the case for the "radical" option of supporting the economy with negative interest rates, and even suggested that cash could have to be abolished.
He said that the "the balance of risks to UK growth, and to UK inflation at the two-year horizon, is skewed squarely and significantly to the downside".
As a result, "there could be a need to loosen rather than tighten the monetary reins as a next step to support UK growth and return inflation to target".
But recent volatility in financial markets, prompted by China, and a decision by the US Federal Reserve to delay rate hikes, have pushed back expectations of the Bank's first rate rise to November 2016.
Traditionally policymakers have resisted cutting rates below zero because when the returns on savings fall into negative territory, it encourages people to take their savings out of the bank and hoard them in cash.
This could slow, rather than boost, the economy. It would be possible to get around the problem of hoarding by abolishing cash, Mr Haldane said
Interestingly, one idea, Haldane told an audience of business owners in Northern Ireland, could be to scrap cash and adopt a state-issued digital currency like Bitcoin. Although widely reviled as the currency for drug dealers and criminals, Haldane said Bitcoin’s distributed payment technology had ‘real potential’. Which may explain the Fed's sudden fascination in the virtual currency.
NIRP - it would appear - is about to global.
So Haldane has gone from worrying that "financial markets were detaching themselves too materially from fundamentals" and fearing the "biggest risk to global financial stability right now it would be a disorderly reversion in the yields of government bonds globally," the BoE's chief economist has not only called for policies which will enable an even bigger bond bubble but will also remove freedom from the people to do what 'they' think is best with their capital. Indoctrination is complete (or more ominously, is there something Haldane sees that has driven him to this extremist perspective?)
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Fri, 09/18/2015 - 11:59 | 6565491SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture
They've gone beyond the "trial balloon" phase, he really means it.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:01 | 6565509coinhead
coinhead's picture
DO IT! And ban gold, silver and Bitcoin too! No really, we want you to!
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:10 | 6565552Captain Debtcrash
Captain Debtcrash's picture
The understanding of the freedom cash provided died with those who were adults during the great depression.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:12 | 6565563pods
pods's picture
Another banker with a lead deficiency.
pods
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:22 | 6565618DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture
"option of supporting the economy with negative interest rates"
I never knew stealing supported the economy.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:24 | 6565627New England Patriot
New England Patriot's picture
Can't have cash around with NIRP, because then you're making money stuffing it under your mattress.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:34 | 6565646Element
Element's picture
This is easy to prevent, you just have an nation wide unlimited strike action of all industries, and tell these * to go to hell.
And I guarantee you the anti-cash idiocy will almost immediately collapse and run for cover.
They do not want such a strike because they do not want human beings having a mechanism of power that will defeat them every time.
Hence they try to pretend it is somehow illegal to withdraw your labor and not participate at all until things change.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:40 | 6565724BurningFuld
BurningFuld's picture
Call a national strike over banning cash? * that. Call a National strike over the fact that all the * bankers should be in prison.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:49 | 6565760coinhead
coinhead's picture
What could be a bigger blessing to someone holding cash, gold, silver and Bitcoin than a cash ban? This is the ultimate failure signal for the entire world.... (And did any of us really think when we were entering this "trade" that it was not teh ultimate rebellion and sedition against a morally bankrupt state?)
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 14:04 | 6566118Captain Debtcrash
Captain Debtcrash's picture
By the way what this "economist" is now advocating is exactly what I predicted that they would attempt with the E Dollar.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 14:55 | 6566396Stuck on Zero
Stuck on Zero's picture
End the bankers before they end civilization.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:48 | 6565764Money Counterfeiter
Money Counterfeiter's picture
The British are brainwashed Zionist Zombies. No way.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:56 | 6565805coinhead
coinhead's picture
A bunch of creepy zombies repeating platitudes about equality, social justice and whatnot.... oh yes... and "knife culture" they really don't like that either!
own the throat of the people. Cant think conceptually when bogged down into issues or details now can we?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 13:17 | 6565910Big Brother
Big Brother's picture
I guess you can make a equilateral pyramid, but 6-6-6 and what units? If John who wrote Revelations was taking about a pyramid like of an Egyptian persusasion, the pyramid would have ratios not of 1-1-1 (I divided by 6 through your ratios), but rather of 1 X 1 X 1.618 (base X width X height) and is a golden ratio of base to height.
Also, "6-6-6" is an incorrect translation from the Vulgate to the King James Bible. It should actually be 6-1-6, which was hebrew number code for Nero, who was emporer when the temple of Jerusalem fell in 70 AD. Tons of reading available, a brief synapsis located here:
The irony HH, is that by the time this does indeed roll around, it will be accepted with open arms and the verse quoted above, along with its parent book, will have long been outlawed as 'terrorist' propaganda.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:47 | 6565758Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture
The number 666 is geometry. One can draw it out on paper. It is a pyramid. Note the pyramid on the back of your one dollar bill on that federal reserve note. Of course few realize the Federal Reserve (the Fed) is a private corporation that controls the currency, not the government.
As for mark of the beast, see this article about the company that created RFID chips back in 1994 called Digital Angel. http://www.gizmag.com
They have since changed there name. I guess Jews dont read Revelations. Also, the seal of Nero was a stamp of 666.
The seal on the dollar bill and what it says around it in latin is interesting. With this in imfo in mind now reading Revelations makes it more interesting.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:02 | 6565507tocointhephrase
tocointhephrase's pictureRevelation 13:17King James Version (KJV)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
2030 agenda in a few days Boys and Girls.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:25 | 6565634PoliticalRefuge...
PoliticalRefugeefromCalif.'s picture
No clearer signal can be either given or ignored.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:28 | 6565650Consuelo
Consuelo's picture
2030...? How about within the space of (5) years...?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:54 | 6565798Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture
I know it is fashionable to ridicule religion these days...I'm not one for fairy tales either.
But only a fool would underestimate the power religion HAS cover its adherents. That 'mark of the Beast' thing is taken very seriously by a LOT of people, and in a cash-ban you will get tens of thousands more popping out of the woodwork.
A religion on the march DEVOURS countries, crushes empires, and redraws borders with ridiculous speed. And what do the leaders of those crushed empires end up doing if they want to stay in power?
They get on their knees and convert to it. And converts tend to be even more aggressive in pushing it than the faithful themselves.
Any chaos would be short-lived. The backlash would be twice as hard as the initial attack. Trying to ban cash could very well end in a slaughter of creative finance types. The road to Washington lined on both sides with the crucified, like the Appian Way.
Of course, then we'd all be living in a theocracy, but you know...six of one, half-dozen of the other...
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 14:15 | 6566204DosZap
DosZap's picture
Revelation 13:17King James Version (KJV)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
2030 agenda in a few days Boys and Girls.
Yep, and the MARK could easily be a Credit card,or facsimile therof.
Use it, or you do not eat,buy or sell,and no WORKEE,Christians will never accept this, ever at least TRUE believers.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:03 | 6565513Kaiser Sousa
Kaiser Sousa's picture
yeah let me see....
1) negative interest rates.......CHECK.
2) ban debt based worthless currencies......CHECK.
wait for it..........................
3) Bit Coins offer promise......CHECK.
and there u have it......
There are only 2 forms of REAL MONEY that also offer freedom in the face of the Bankers tyranny...
DEATH TO THE MONEYCHANGERS....
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:05 | 6565533Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture
Leave hookers and blow out of it.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:34 | 6565686TBT or not TBT
TBT or not TBT's picture
And the toilet paper / hand job barter economy.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:36 | 6565701BC6
BC6's picture
It's an interesting point WC.
How would hookers and blow work in a cashless society being that both are "illegal" in "advanced" Western societies?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:03 | 6565516Turin Turambar
Turin Turambar's picture
Why doesn't the Fed just punch a couple of keys and buy all of the bitcoins in existence with their free money? That's what those sociopaths are doing with everything else.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 15:57 | 6566668Pseudonymous
Pseudonymous's picture
You don't know what they are and aren't doing with Bitcoin. You don't quite understand Bitcoin itself. A couple of weeks ago you said something to the effect that Bitcoin depends on a good justice system (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-02/china-scrambles-enforce-capi tal-controls-capital-flight-threatens-economy-which-grea#comment-65002 29), which is false. I don't know if you saw my reply back then: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-02/china-scrambles-enforce-capit al-controls-capital-flight-threatens-economy-which-grea#comment-650362 7
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 15:09 | 6566440Pseudonymous
Pseudonymous's picture
That's not what they are doing with everything else.
Whatever one might think they would be achieving following such a childishly naive strategy, the actual effect would be transfer of wealth from those with stakes in the fiat currencies towards those with stakes in cryptocurrencies. Thus, a positive risk for people like me, present bitcoin holders. As much as I don't mind windfalls, I see it as very unlikely.
More subtle things are often done by central bankers and their commercial bankers. Like some bankers offering credit for bitcoin speculation and bitcoin related activities and thus get some control over some share of the whole bitcoin economy. So just "join them". They would never dominate the whole cryptocurrency economy and if they ever got close to it, they would quickly find out that a new one has emerged, unnoticed, and they would be back to square one.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:04 | 6565524TalkToLind
TalkToLind's picture
Uh oh, gold and silver always get smashed whenever these ban cash media campaigns hit.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 13:18 | 6565917PTR
PTR's picture
Explain how something of value going on sale is a problem?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:04 | 6565525Enginer01
Enginer01's picture
what part of "The efficient market cannot work with free money" don't they understand?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:04 | 6565528TheFreeLance
TheFreeLance's picture
He has seen that the future is either bitcoin or yuan.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:04 | 6565529sandiegoman
sandiegoman's picture
we are in the begining stages of a deflationary spiral and everyone is scared *.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:11 | 6565557Wannabe_Oracle
Wannabe_Oracle's picture
I think you are correct.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:24 | 6565629LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
bs. When it comes to the resources and energy required to maintain a high standard of living, there will be no such thing as "deflation" so long as there are 7+ billion people, and growing...
Another brainwashed sap of modern eCONomics...
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:29 | 6565662DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture
don't worry they'll be 9 billion in twenty-five years so I'm sure it will all work out
that is if 5 don't die by then
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:35 | 6565699Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture
What you consider a high standard of living might be quite different from what many of the world's people would want.
Most folks are quite happy to have a secure roof over their heads, and food on the table. Medical care when needed...that sort of thing.
That kind of lifestyle does NOT require I-Phones, or stock portfolios, or expensive underfunded pension plans.
Deflation is coming because most of the world doesn't NEED what we sell, and are starting to realize this.
In truth, a good life really isn't all that expensive. 7 billion people can indeed live quite happily in a world of lowered (realistic) expectations.
I wouldn't count on that 7 billion to prop up the values of your "investments".
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:44 | 6565749Bastiat
Bastiat's picture
In the US access to medical care (insurance) costs as much in a month as the poor in many places make in a year.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 13:11 | 6565888Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture
That's because our economy inflates the costs of everything. There's no reason medical care should cost so much more, except for the way our economy distorts prices and values.
Get that out of the way, and medical care, as well as everything else, becomes very do-able at much lower prices. The only ones hurt are those who depend on revenue streams from the 'skim'.
* them. Get up from the computer, put some pants on, and go get a real * job.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 14:33 | 6566287Bastiat
Bastiat's picture
There's also an issue with advancing medical technology and costs. For instance: the overall costs of medicine when up permanently with the invention of the dialysis machine. It may be that dialysis machines are now cheaper (in real terms) than they were at the beginning but the point is that it is a new, expensive treatment modality. There are more people alive but health care costs are up.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 15:01 | 6566415Jack's Raging B...
Jack's Raging Bile Duct's picture
There is no correlation between increased cost and technological advance in medicine, only the semblance of one. The amount of “regulation” in medicine is astonishing. From FDA restrictions, AMA restrictions, the illegality of selling any sort of medical device to anyone other than an MD, all of the insurance rackets, etc. The list is all but endless. I once worked at a beautiful $250,000,000.00 brand new hospital, which had an alcove built specifically to hold a blanket warmer outside of our nuclear medicine department. We had to ultimately relocate it behind not one, but two security doors “because of regulations”. Yes.
The world would be awash in physicians, medicine, and medical devices at (relatively) low cost were it not for The State.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 17:01 | 6566951Bastiat
Bastiat's picture
"There is no correlation between increased cost and technological advance in medicine"
Absurd.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 17:06 | 6566978Bemused Observer
Bemused Observer's picture
The dialysis machines are cheaper, but because of the way our economy is set up, there are more people skimming a revenue-stream off them, so up goes the price.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 12:46 | 6565753LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
What part of all fiat will die, don't you understand.
Even if we were all living in mud huts, you would still have massive inflation.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 22:18 | 6567889StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture
Anyone looking for a Weimar wheelbarrow?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 13:01 | 6565834Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture
Some truth to that. I live great on less than 25% of my monthly net income. Drive a $60K car, take half a dozen or more vacations every year, etc. Got a bunch of expensive tech toys.
What's my secret? Not married and not a beta male that lets women use me like a slave. I use them and dump them like the worthless whores Western women are.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 13:05 | 6565857Likstane
Likstane's picture
Wow...When do you get time to dead lift?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 14:25 | 6566252Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture
I see you're a fan and follower of my hilarious commentary on this website. Good. I like an audience.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 13:54 | 6566095Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture
Enjoy it while it lasts.
When things go really pear-shaped you'll be quite alone in the world.
Your paper wealth will be worthless, your PMs a target for younger and stronger thieves.
You won't even be the hit with the ladies you used to be.
Then what? Save the last bullet for yourself? Or what's the plan?
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 14:29 | 6566265Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture
Plan is to marry a non-feminist Eastern European white woman that doesn't have a ruined vagina from being * thousands of times by dozens of men like a fat disgusting Western whore. Father many children. Raise them to resist the genocide of all white people. Ensure my children can flee to whatever white nations are left by 2040.
Fri, 09/18/2015 - 15:55 | 6566654Calmyourself
Calmyourself's picture
Captain Capitalism, is that you?? _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2016 11:27 am Post subject:
The abolition of cash is being openly considered (previously this policy was worked up in secret).
Bilderberg 2016 SPEAKS. Cashless society: Martin Wolf FT 'How Low Can Rates Go'
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 10:25 pm Post subject:
Plans to overhaul cash machine network in UK could cut ATM numbers
Members of UK Link system are debating how to reduce its £900m a year cost as customers move to new payment methods
Customers using Lloyds cash machines
Customers using Lloyds cash machines. The bank has raised the need for a review of ATM locations to reduce the cost of the Link network. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Jill Treanor
Monday 17 October 2016 13.59 BST Last modified on Tuesday 18 October 2016 00.20 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/oct/17/cash-machine-network-pla ns-overhaul-uk-cut-atm-numbers
A major overhaul of the UK’s 70,000-strong cashpoint network, Link, is under discussion in a move that could lead to the closure of a large number of hole-in-the-wall machines.
The 30 or so members who make up the automated teller machines (ATMs) network are debating what would be the first major changes in 16 years. There are fears the system could break up unless agreement can be reached.
It comes at a time when the number of cashpoints is at a peak but withdrawals are declining as customers use contactless cards and other payment methods.
The system costs £900m a year to operate and is based on a fixed formula under which card issuers pay an interchange fee to machine providers to cover the costs. It is calculated by dividing the cost of running the free-to-use network by the number of transactions and is between 20p and 30p.
This means the cost of the system is rising for some members of the network, which includes banks, building societies and independent providers, and now operates more than half of the UK’s ATMs.
It would be the first overhaul since 2000 when a row erupted over potential charges and led to many ATMs provided by banks and building societies becoming free to use.
One of the new ideas has come from Lloyds Banking Group, which has raised the need for a review of machine locations – such as too many in some areas and not enough in others – to reduce the network cost.
Link said the review was of its “multilateral interchange arrangements, which is one aspect of the fee mechanism paid to ATM deployers”, and said it was a business decision for ATM providers to decide how many to operate.
The siting of ATMs was highlighted on Monday by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which raised concerns about towns and villages running out of cash because of bank closures, not enough cash machines, and poor-quality ATMs. The FSB quotes a member in Lochinver in the Scottish Highlands as saying: “The ATM is currently causing a lot of headaches in the village. The machine is past its sell-by date. There was an ATM in the post office but it was costing them a lot of money to run so it had to go.”
Of the UK’s 70,000 ATMs, some 40,000 are provided by independent suppliers. Machines that charge customers for withdrawing cash - about 25% of the network – set the costs in agreement with the owner of the location, such as a corner shop. These machines account for about 3% of transactions.
Lloyds said it was “committed to ensuring that our customers can access their banking in the easiest and most convenient way possible. As part of Link’s network members council, we work with all ATM service providers to understand how we best serve our customers.”
A Cashless Society: Orwell's Perfect 1984 Scenario
"In the mind of an economic tyrant, banning cash represents the holy grail." --Michael Krieger
When authoritarian government wants to exert a new dictatorial program, it's often first floated in reduced or localized form so as to observe public reaction. The "bail in", forcing depositors and investors to bear the losses of a failing financial institution, became news in 2013 when many depositors in troubled banks on the island nation of Cyprus literally had money in their accounts confiscated while a "bank holiday" was declared. Googling "Cyprus bail in" garners more than 400,000 hits, so there is detail for anyone interested. As a practical matter, though, for depositors whose accounts were given a "haircut", it amounted to legalized theft.
The bail-in story was mainstream news for a week or so, then essentially disappeared. Something that happened on an island the size of Connecticut far, far away wasn't a big deal for the public, although some did understand it as a precedent applicable to future situations and part of an emerging strategy to eliminate physical cash. To the extent that "money" can be confined exclusively within the electronic realm, cash, as material carried on the person, would become history.
Now consider the concept of "negative interest", such that one's savings account, rather than accumulating interest actually gets a periodic reduction "" as a sort of economic punishment for not spending money." Negative interest rates are a powerful control mechanism for central planners to discourage "excessive" saving and to promote spending as a path to stimulating the economy.
But the twin prospects of bail-in and negative interest have diminished public trust of the financial system even further, so that the withdrawing and stockpiling of cash is on the increase . Because such hoarding is counter to the interests of the masters of monetary policy, there is a growing movement within financial circles to do away with cash altogether, this to begin with large denomination bills. Earlier this year, Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary and director of the White House National Economic Council, published "It's time to kill the $100 Bill " in the Wash ington Post, that prime launch pad for governmental intention.
There is no more prominent advocate for "phasing out anonymous paper currency" [yes, "anonymous", his choice] than Harvard professor, Federal Reserve board member and International Monetary Fund economist Kenneth Rogoff , who objects to the fact that cash "handcuffs central banks". If the banks "try setting rates [i.e., interest] too far below zero", he worries, "people will start bailing out into cash." Rogoff claims that a cashless society would benefit everyone in that tax evasion would become more difficult, and criminal enterprise that thrives on bills would be thwarted. In fact, such a society would represent the last gasp of personal privacy. Rogoff, a chess grandmaster, has applied his intellect to the service of a cold theory of efficiency and regimentation that is at war with the creative, autonomous, democratic chaos of real life. Recently, he expanded his philosophy into a book, "The Curse Of Cash".
Point: We "ordinary people", of whom Lawrence Summers refers, are being "trained" to use cards -- credit and debit. It's an interesting but dystopian example of governmental modification of mass behavior, a little at a time. My credit union, for example, now provides a monetary incentive if I use my debit card a specified number of times monthly, and I admit to have fallen into line. Each month I'm reminded, like a kindergartener getting a gold star, that I've fulfilled the required number of debits. I must not be alone, because everywhere now I see cards rather than bills being presented at cash registers. How much more time and coaching would be needed before our use of electronic money is so ingrained that a final phasing out of paper money would be accepted by "ordinary people" without a riot ensuing?
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Edward Snowden revealed that government can actually observe our thinking even as we type, back up occasionally and revise sentence structure here and there. He, bless him, revealed to us that everything electronic -- everything -- is available for government's permanent record -- data for every individual's "chip", as it were. Although Rogoff makes casual reference to "anonymous electronic money", surely he knows that electronic anonymity is pure pipe dream any more. The ability to observe and record, whether by government or hacker, improves practically by the day.
Even though every citizen's most casual online exploration -- political, religious, sexual, literary -- may be recorded, conversation and material exchange person-to-person is still possible away from the Internet Eye. But where every buy/sell transaction is electronic, there could be no "black market", the only truly "free" supply/demand marketplace. The only alternative to electronic money would be gold or other precious material (which, as the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 has shown, can be outlawed by governmental decree) or simple barter.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of cities throughout India to protest an economic policy you probably haven’t heard of before: demonetization.
Three weeks ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised his country with an announcement banning 500- and 1,000-rupee notes — worth about $7 and $15 respectively — in a bid to tackle corruption and terrorism.
He estimated that forcing people to exchange the country’s largest currency bills for new banknotes would allow the government to crack down on “black money” — unaccounted-for cash holdings that haven’t been taxed but, under the law, should be. He also argued that it would strike at domestic terrorist financing operations by capturing counterfeit money and rendering the legitimate cash they kept in the shadows worthless.
Banning widely used banknotes would have a huge impact on any economy, but in India the policy is transformative. Modi’s sudden ban instantly meant that 86 percent of all the cash in circulation in India was no longer considered legal tender, which means that businesses could refuse to accept those bills as a form of payment. And the Indian economy simply runs on cash: It’s estimated that between 90 and 98 percent of all transactions in India, measured in terms of volume, involve it.
Unsurprisingly, Modi’s demonetization initiative has caused chaos across the country. People want new banknotes, but the current supply of them isn’t close to meeting demand. That’s created headaches for people as they wait in long lines outside ATMs and banks, which routinely run out of cash. For people who rely on daily cash earnings to survive, it can mean not being able to obtain food.
The temporary shortage of banknotes is having other far-reaching effects. Farmers looking to sow their next set of crops can’t buy the full quantity of seeds they need. Property sales, which typically require huge cash investments, are slowing. It’s even reshaping cultural life: Weddings, which can cost millions of rupees, are taking a serious hit.
“A lot of marriages are being postponed, and those that are managing are doing so by borrowing from relatives and friends,” says Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi.
Modi’s agenda to crack down on black money makes sense in theory but it isn't working smoothly in practice. It's hitting individual Indians hard, and the country itself may pay a heavy price: Many economists expect the growth of India’s booming economy to slow substantially in the final quarter of 2016.
How does the ban work?
As of November 8, old 500- and 1,000-rupee notes are no longer legal tender. That means if you try to buy lunch with them, a restaurant owner can refuse to accept them.
People in India have until the end of the year to go to banks and replace those notes with other bills, including the new 500- and 2,000-rupee notes.
If someone wants to convert more than 250,000 rupees — roughly $3,650 — they’re required by law to provide an explanation for why they have so much cash and prove that they’ve paid tax on it. If they don’t, they’re expected to pay a fine of 200 percent of the tax they owe.
Why is this happening?
The primary reason Modi initiated the ban is to force people with illegal cash holdings to deposit the money into bank accounts and pay taxes on them.
India’s government collects a tiny fraction of the taxes that advanced democracies do. The government recently released data that showed that in 2013, merely 1 percent of Indians paid taxes. As Kaushik Basu, former chief economic adviser to the Indian government, recently noted at the New York Times, the most reliable estimate of India’s “shadow economy,” or the untaxed part of it, puts it at one-fifth of the country’s GDP.
The demonetization scheme is also a way to crack down on criminal activity. It will be hard for people with large cash holdings from purely criminal enterprises to explain how they paid their taxes, and so they won’t be able deposit their money. And the government expects to be able to use the ban as an opportunity to round up counterfeit currency minted by terrorist operations.
In addition to all this, the ban also serves as a natural prompt for India to transition to a cashless society, dovetailing nicely with Modi’s bid to digitize services in the economy.
What are the effects so far?
The currency ban has been a huge headache for millions of Indians. Since the old 500- and 1,000-rupee notes are the bread and butter of most financial transactions in India, everybody has been rushing to exchange them. But because the supply of new banknotes is far smaller than the supply of old ones, there are currently strict regulations on the quantity of new banknotes that people can withdraw at any given moment. And even with these regulations, reports of banks running out of cash abound.
“Every day — and today is the 20th day — you can see there are long queues for ATM machines and banks,” Sahoo says.
The cash shortage has been particularly hard on destitute Indians, many of whom don’t have bank accounts. Some of them have to choose between waiting in line for a day to exchange their defunct currency or working for a day’s wages. And Basu estimates that many poor people may simply end up losing their savings because of their mistrust of financial institutions and concern about being harassed about where their cash came from.
“The policy is poorly implemented and has a high cost for those who are least able to bear it,” Rohini Pande, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School, said. “Even if [the government is] able to reduce corruption somewhat, you have to balance that against costs or other ways of reducing black money.”
Many experts don’t even have faith that this is an effective way to counteract tax evasion. Basu says that most black money doesn’t take the form of cash held in india but is instead held in gold, silver, real estate, and overseas bank accounts.
A Financial genocide, if there was ever one. Death by demonetization, probably killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, through famine, disease, even desperation and suicide – because most of India’s money was declared invalid. The official weak reason for this purposefully manufactured human disaster is fighting counterfeiting. What a flagrant lie! The real cause is of course – you guessed it – an order from Washington.
On 8 November, Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, brutally declared all 500 (US$ 7) and 1,000 rupee-notes invalid, unless exchanged or deposited in a bank or post office account until 31 December 2016. After this date, all unexchanged ‘old’ money is invalid – lost. Barely half of Indians have bank accounts.
The final goal is speedy global demonetization. India is a test case – a huge one, covering 1.3 billion people. If it works in India, it works throughout the developing world. That’s the evil thought behind it. “Tests” are already running in Europe.
The Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, are moving rapidly towards cashless societies. Electronic money, instead of cash, allows the hegemon to control the entire western world, all those who are enslaved to the dollar monetary system. Meaning literally everybody outside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that includes, China, Russia, most of Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan and – yes, India is an apparent candidate to join the SCO alliance.
There was no limit set in rupee amounts that were allowed to be deposited in bank or postal accounts. But exchanges or withdrawals were limited the first two days to 2,000 rupees, later to 4,000 rupees, with promises to further increases ‘later on’. The restrictions have to do with limited new bank notes available. The new money is issued in denominations of 500 and 2,000 rupee-notes.
On 9 November, none of the country’s ATM machines were functioning. Withdrawing money was possible only from banks. Queues behind bank counters were endless – lasting hours and in some cases days. Often times, once at the teller, the bank was out of cash. Imagine the millions, perhaps billions of labor hours – production time and wages – lost – lost mostly by the poor.
The banned bank notes constitute about 85% in value of all cash in circulation. India is a cash society. About 97% of all transactions are carried out in cash. Only slightly more than half the Indian population has bank accounts; and only about half of them have been used in the last three months. Credit or debit cards are extremely scarce – basically limited to the ‘creditworthy’ elite.
In rural areas, where most of the poor live, banks are scarce or none existent. The poor and poorest of the poor, again – as usual – are those who suffer most. Hundreds of thousands of them have lost almost all they have and will be unable to fend for their families, buying food and medication.
According to most media reports, Modi’s demonetization was an arbitrary decision. Be sure, there is nothing arbitrary behind this decision. As reported on 1 January 2017 by German investigative business journalist, Norbert Haering, in his blog, “Money and More”, this move was well prepared and financed by Washington through USAID (http://norberthaering.de/en/home/27-german/news/745-washington-s-role -in-india). Mr. Modi didn’t even bother presenting the idea to the Parliament for debate.
In November 2010 President Obama declared with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Strategic Partnership with India. It was to become one of his foreign policy priorities which was renewed during Obama’s visit to India in January 2015 with the current PM Modi. The purpose of this partnership was not just to pull one of the most populous BRICS countries out of the Russia-China orbit, but also to use it as a test case for global demonetization. Mind you, the orders came from way above Obama, from the omni-potent, but hardly visible Rothschild-Rockefeller – Morgan – et al, all-domineering bankster cartel.
This horrendous crime that may cost millions of lives, was the dictate of Washington. A cooperation agreement, also called an “anti-cash partnership”, between the US development agency (sic), USAID, with the Indian Ministry of Finance, was worked out. One of their declared ‘common objectives’ was gradually eliminating the use of cash by replacing it with digital or virtual money.
It takes two to tango. The PM of the second largest nation in the world, one would expect, would have a say in the extent to which a foreign country may interfere in India’s sovereign internal affairs, i.e. her monetary policies – especially a foreign country that is known to seek only Full Spectrum Dominance of the globe, its resources and its people. The head of India, a prominent BRICS country (BRICS = Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), one would expect, could have sent the naked emperor to climb a tree – and say NO to this horrendous criminal request. But Modi did not.
Is India with PM Modi still a viable BRICS country? Or more importantly, India is currently poised to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Is India under Modi worthy of being admitted into this powerful Asian economic and military block, the only authoritative counterbalance to the west? – At this point, putting hundreds of millions of his countrymen at peril by obeying Washington’s nefarious dictate, Modi looks more like a miserable traitor than a partner of the New East.
——
USAID calls this operation “Catalyst: Inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership“. Its purpose is “effecting a quantum leap in cashless payment in India” – and of course, eventually around the globe. According to the Indian Economic Times, this program had been stealthily financed by USAID over the past three years. Funding amounts are kept secret. Who knows, where else in the world Catalyst is quietly funding and preparing other human financial disasters.
All fits into the Big Scheme of things: Reducing the world population, so less resources are needed to maintain 7.4 billion people – and growing – many of them finite resources that can be used by a small elite, supported by a few million slaves. This is the world according to still ticking war criminal numero UNO, Henry Kissinger. Forcefully reducing the world population is his one big objective since just after WWII, when he became a key member of the Rockefeller sponsored Bilderberg Society.
Some of the same people are currently spreading neo-fascist mantras around the world, at the infamous WEF (World Economic Forum) in Davos, Switzerland (17-20 January 2017). WEF attendees (by invitation only) are a mixed bag of elitist ‘private’ billionaires, corporate CEOs (only corporations registering at least US$ 5 billion in sales), high-flying politicians, Hollywood’s cream of the crop, and more of the kind. Pretty much the same definition applies to the Bilderbergers.
Like with the Bilderbergers, the key topics discussed at the WEF, those themes that are supposed to guide the world further and faster towards the New (One) World Order, are discussed behind closed doors and will hardly surface into the mainstream. It is, however, highly likely that the “Cashless India” decision – a trial for the rest of the world – had previously been discussed and ‘ratified’ by the WEF, as well as the Bilderbergers. None of this is known to the common people, and least to the Indians.
All-out efforts are under way to maintain highly lucrative disaster capitalism, or at least to slow down its decline – because its end is in sight. It’s just a question of time. Hence, the term Catalyst (accelerator) for the USAID program is well chosen. Time is running out. One of the best ways of controlling populations and unbending politicians is through financial strangleholds. That’s what a cashless society is all about.
According to Badal Malick, former Vice President of India’s most important online marketplace Snapdeal, later appointed as CEO of Catalyst: “Catalyst’s mission is to solve multiple coordination problems that have blocked the penetration of digital payments among merchants and low-income consumers. We look forward to creating a sustainable and replicable model. (…) While there has been (…) a concerted push for digital payments by the government, there is still a last mile gap when it comes to merchant acceptance and coordination issues. We want to bring a holistic ecosystem approach to these problems.“
This is further supported by Jonathan Addleton, USAID Mission Director to India: “India is at the forefront of global efforts to digitize economies and create new economic opportunities that extend to hard-to-reach populations. Catalyst will support these efforts by focusing on the challenge of making everyday purchases cashless.”
What an outright heap of bovine manure!
——–
Those who are supporting the Catalyst idea in India – and presumably elsewhere in the world, are, as per an USAID Beyond-Cash report, more than 35 Indian, American and international organizations (http://cashlesscatalyst.org/), mostly IT and payment service providers, including the Better Than Cash Alliance, the Gates Foundation (Microsoft), Omidyar Network (eBay), the Dell Foundation Mastercard, Visa, Metlife Foundation. All of them want to make money from digital payments – another transfer from the poor to the rich – another catalyst for widening the rich-poor gab – worldwide.
Interestingly, the USAID – Indian partnership to temporarily banning most cash coincides with Raghuram Rajan as President of the Reserve Bank of India (September 2013 – September 2016). Mr. Rajan has also been chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and there is talk that he may be poised as Mme. Lagard’s successor at the helm of the IMF. It is clear that the IMF, and by association the World Bank, is fully aboard with this project to transform western society into slavehood of digital money – with emphasis on wester society, because the East, the Russia-China-Iran-SCO axis, where the future lays, has already largely detached itself from the dollar based western – and fraudulent – monetary scheme.
Mr. Raghuram Rajan is an influential but also highly controversial figure. He is also a member of the so-called Group of Thirty, “a rather shady organization, where high ranking representatives of the world’s major commercial financial institutions share their thoughts and plans with the presidents of the most important central banks, behind closed doors and with no minutes taken. It becomes increasingly clear that the Group of Thirty is one of the major coordination centers of the worldwide war on cash. Its membership includes other key warriors like Rogoff, Larry Summers and others” (N.Häring, 1.1.2017). On the other hand, Rajan is extremely disliked by the Indian business society, mostly because of his tight monetary policy as head of the Indian Central Bank (go figure!). Under pressure, he did not renew his term as India’s central bank governor in 2016.
The Group of Thirty sounds akin to the highly secretive Board of Directors of the infamous Basle-based BIS (Bank for International Settlement), also considered the central bank of all central banks, which meets once a month in secret (during a weekend for lesser visibility) and no minutes taken. The BIS is a Rothschild controlled private bank, close associate of the FED, also privately owned. It is clear, with the FED, BIS and IMF in connivance, the dice are cast for a cashless (western) society.
Washington’s interest in a cashless society goes far beyond the business interests of IT, credit card and other financial institutions. More importantly is the surveillance power that goes with digital payments. As with electronic communications today – every one of them read, listened to and spied on throughout the world – some 7 to 10 billion electronic messages per day – every digital payment and transfer will be controlled and checked worldwide by the Masters of the dollar-based hegemony. Every transfer will be registered and monitored by an American-Zionist control mechanism. This is the only way (totally illegal) sanctions can be dished out to governments that refuse the dictate of Washington and its western European lackeys. Cases in point are Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria — the list is endless. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) recently reported that Employees of a German manufacturing firm doing completely legal business with Iran were put on a US terror list, which meant that they were shut off most of the financial system and even some logistics companies would not transport their furniture any more.
Norbert Häring concludes, “Every internationally active bank can be blackmailed by the US government into following their orders, since revoking their license to do business in the US or in dollars, basically amounts to shutting them down. Deutsche Bank had to negotiate [in September 2016] with the US treasury for months whether they would have to pay a fine of 14 billion dollars and most likely go broke, or get away with seven billion and survive. If you have the power to bankrupt the largest banks even of large countries, you have power over their governments, too. This power through dominance over the financial system and the associated data is already there. The less cash there is in use, the more extensive and secure it is, as the use of cash is a major avenue for evading this power.”
———-
Back to India. It is not difficult to imagine what the implications of such a massive demonetization operation might have in a country like India, where hundreds of millions live in or near poverty, with a large rural population, where almost all transactions are carried out in cash – and where cash is everything for survival. This is death by financial strangulation.
No blood, No traces – no media coverage. It is a clandestine willful mass-murder, carried out by the Indian government on its own people, while instigated by the chief assassins, operating from within the Washington Beltway killer farms, no scruples, no morals, no ethics – what Washington knows best to achieve its purpose.
This no-holds-barred strategy is accelerating, as time runs out. The ship is slowly but surely turning towards another dimension, another world view – one of in which humanity may gain back its status of a solidary being. These atrocities around the globe may go some ways – but I doubt they will go all the way. There is a spiritual limit on how far evil can go.
Britain's competition watchdog has voiced concerns over Mastercard's £700 million acquisition of VocaLink, which runs Bacs, Faster Payments and Link cashpoint services for banks.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) believes the deal gives rise to competition concerns in the Link ATM network.
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It said the merger would "reduce the number of bidders and limit the ability of the Link scheme to obtain good value" when tendering for an infrastructure provider.
The companies can avoid the merger being referred for an in-depth CMA investigation if they offer a remedy to address the concerns, the watchdog said.
Andrea Coscelli, acting chief executive of the CMA, said: "The Link ATM network provides an essential service for millions of customers. It's important that Link has a good choice of providers when it comes to supplying the necessary infrastructure so it can take advantage of the opening up of payment systems to competition.
"These concerns warrant a closer investigation in the event that Mastercard cannot address them at this stage."
A group of 18 banks - including HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays - owns VocaLink, which processes more than 90% of salaries, over 70% of household bills and almost all state benefits in the UK.
Mastercard said in a statement: " The thoroughness of the CMA's review reflects the significance of this deal and its potential for the industry. In its announcement, the CMA noted that it has no concerns related to providing payment infrastructure services to Bacs or the Faster Payments Service.
I found this today, slightly different but essentially the same project.
Skip the first ten minutes brainwashing exercise. The last eight minutes are hilarious.
All having a wonderful time at Davos....wooo augmented reality....that'll be the adverts that flash up when you walk down the street. Someone shoot me before 2030.
A while back i bought some cloud based software from a company in Israel. THey gave me a good deal and i tried it out. It sucked, and i had the usual trouble cancelling the subscription. Eventually i did manage to get it cancelled, or so i thought.
A few months later, around £500 got charged on my credit card. So i contacted them and they played dumb, until i mentioned that the name on the card wasn't my name, and was therefore fraud. Instantly it got reimbursed.
Now every April the same thing happens, even though the company behind the payment, Bluesnap had 324,000 accounts hacked. At least that is how it was reported.
It’s kinda sneaking up on us like an East Texas copperhead pit viper. It began to get some wide attention in 2016, with prominent economists and financial media suddenly talking about the wonderful benefits of a “cashless society.” Then the government of Narenda Modi completely surprised his citizens by suddenly announcing withdrawal of larger denomination currency notes from circulation, forcing Indians to put their cash into banks or lose it. Now, everywhere we turn, it seems, someone is arguing the Nirvana benefits of a cashless, “digital” money world. It reminds me in an eerie way of a statement attributed to then US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger in the 1970’s. He reportedly stated, “If you control oil, you control entire nations; if you control food, you control the people; if you control money, you control the entire world.” Consider the following in this regard.
Modi and a USAID ‘Catalyst’
On November 8, 2016 in a surprise televised address, Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi announced that, within a deadline of days, all Indian currency notes of 500 and 1,000 Rupees must be put in a bank account and exchanged for smaller denomination notes. At today’s exchange rate 1,000 Rs is roughly equal to $15. This would perhaps be equivalent to the US Treasury outlawing all cash notes larger than a $10 bill.
Overnight, Modi’s government de facto outlawed an estimated 86 percent of all cash in circulation by value. People had 50 days to hand in the notes or they become worthless. Yet the government, despite stating it would issue new, more secure 500Rs and 1000Rs bills, had nowhere near the equivalent value of new notes ready for replacement. They say it may take up to a year to print enough, which means confiscation, de facto. Faked opinion polls with slanted questions done only via smart phone apps of which only 17% of the population has access, claimed that “90% of Indians approve” the demonetization.
Yet it’s far worse. India is an underdeveloped country, the largest in the world in population terms with more than 1.3 billion people. By demanding Indians turn in all 500Rs and 1,000Rs bills to banks, Modi is forcing major change in how Indians control their money in a country high on the corruption scale where few trust government let alone private banks, and prefer to deal strictly in cash or hoard gold for value. Nearly half the population, some 600 million Indians, do not hold a bank account and half of those, some 300 million Indians, lack a government identification, necessary to open an account.
When he presented his shock announcement, Modi pitched it in terms of going after India’s black economy. Soon he shifted gears and was praising the benefits of a “cash-less society” to enable Indians to enter the digital age, appealing to younger Indians, savvy in smart phones and digital networks, to convince the older of the benefits of online banking and consuming. The drastic demonetization declaration was planned by Modi and five other inner-circle ministers in complete secrecy. Not even the banks were told before. The question is what is behind, or rather who is behind this drastic form of monetary shock therapy?
Beyond Cash
The answer is as sinister as it is suggestive of a larger global agenda by what I call in one of my books the Wall Street “Gods of Money.” The Modi cash-less India operation is a project of the US National Security Council, US State Department and Office of the President administered through its US Agency for International Development (USAID). Little surprise, then, that the US State Department spokesman, Mark Toner in a December 1, 2016 press briefing praised the Modi demonetization move stating, “…this was, we believe, an important and necessary step to crack down on illegal actions…a necessary one to address the corruption.”
Keep in mind that USAID today has little to do with aiding poorer countries. By law it must follow the foreign policy agenda of the President’s National Security Council and State Department. It’s widely known as a conduit for CIA money to execute their dirty agendas abroad in places such as Georgia. Notably, the present head of the USAID, Gayle Smith, came to head USAID from her post as Senior Director at the US National Security Council.
German economist and blogger, Norbert Haering, in an extensive, well-documented investigation into the background of the bizarre Modi move to a cash-less India, found not only USAID as the key financial source of the project. He also uncovered a snake-pit of organizational vipers being funded by USAID to design and implement the India shock therapy.
USAID negotiated a co-operation with the Modi Indian Ministry of Finance. In October, 2016 in a press release USAID announced it had created and funded something it named Project Catalyst. The title of their report was, “Catalyst: Inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership.” Its stated goal it said was to bring about a “quantum leap” in cashless payment in India.
They certainly did that. Maybe two quantum leaps and some.
If we dig a bit deeper we find that in January, 2016, USAID presented the Indian Finance Ministry a report titled, Beyond Cash: Why India loves cash and why that matters for financial inclusion. Financial “inclusion” for them means getting all Indians into the digital banking system where their every payment can be electronically tracked and given to the tax authorities or to whomever the government sees fit.
Astonishingly, the report, prepared for USAID by something called the Global Innovation Exchange, admitted that “97% of retail transactions in India are conducted in cash or check; Few consumers use digital payments. Only 11% used debit cards for payments last year. Only 6% of Indian merchants accept digital payments…Only 29 percent of bank accounts in India have been used in the last three months.” The US and Indian governments knew very well what shock they were detonating in India.
The Global Innovation Exchange includes such dubious member organizations as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major donor to the Modi war on cash initiative of USAID. It also includes USAID itself, several UN agencies including UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR. And it includes the US Department of Commerce and a spooky Maclean, Virginia military contractor called MITRE Corporation whose chairman is former CIA Director, James Rodney Schlesinger, a close associate of Henry Kissinger.
The USAID Project Catalyst in partnership with the Indian Finance Ministry was done, according to the USAID press statement, with a sinister-sounding organization called CashlessCatalyst.org. Among the 35 members of CashlessCatalyst.org are USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, VISA, MasterCard, Omidyar Network of eBay billionaire founder Pierre Omidyar, the World Economic Forum-center of the globalization annual Alpine meetings.
War on Cash
However, a most interesting member of the USAID Project Catalyst together with the Indian Ministry of Finance is something called Better Than Cash Alliance. In point of fact the US-government-finance Project Catalyst grew out of a longer cooperation between USAID, the Washington-based Better Than Cash Alliance and the Indian Ministry of Finance. It appers to be the core public driver pushing the agenda of the global “war on cash.”
India and the reckless (or corrupt) Modi government implementing the USAID-Better Than Cash Alliance agenda is clearly serving as a guinea pig in a mass social experiment about how to push the cash war in other countries. The Better Than Cash Alliance is described by the UNCDF, which is its Secretariat, as “a US $38 million global alliance of governments, private sector and development organizations committed to accelerating the shift from cash to electronic payments.”
The Better Than Cash Alliance website announces that the alliance, created in 2012, is a “partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to digital payments in order to reduce poverty and drive inclusive growth.” It’s housed at the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in New York whose major donors, in turn, surprise, surprise, are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and MasterCard Foundation. Among the Better Than Cash Alliance’s 50 members are, in addition to the Gates Foundation, Citi Foundation (Citigroup), Ford Foundation, MasterCard, Omidyar Network, United States Agency for International Development, and Visa Inc.
Recently the European Central Bank, which has held negative interest rates for more than a year, allegedly to stimulate growth in the Eurozone amid the long-duration banking and economic crisis of almost nine years, announced that it will stop printing the €500 note. They claim it’s connected with money laundering and terror financing, though it ominously echoes the Modi India war on cash. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, whose shady role in the 1990’s rape of Russia through his Harvard cronies has been documented elsewhere, is calling for eliminating the US $100 bill. These are first steps to future bolder moves to the desired Cash-less society of Gates, Citigroup, Visa et al.
US Dual Standard: Follow the money…
The move to a purely digital money system would be Big Brother on steroids. It would allow the relevant governments to monitor our every money move with a digital trail, to confiscate deposits in what now are legal bank “bail-ins” as was done in Cyprus in 2013. If central banks move interest rates into negative, something the Bank of Japan and ECB in Frankfurt are already doing, citizens have no choice than to spend the bank money or lose. It is hailed as a way to end tax avoidance but it is far, far more sinister.
As Norbert Haering notes, “the status of the dollar as the world’s currency of reference and the dominance of US companies in international finance provide the US government with tremendous power over all participants in the formal non-cash financial system. It can make everybody conform to American law rather than to their local or international rules.” He adds, referring to the recent US Government demand that Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank pay an astonishing and unprecedented $14 billion fine, “Every internationally active bank can be blackmailed by the US government into following their orders, since revoking their license to do business in the US or in dollar basically amounts to shutting them down.”
We should add to this “benevolent concern” of the US Government to stimulate a War on Cash in India and elsewhere the fact that while Washington has been the most aggressive demanding that banks in other countries enact measures for full disclosure of details of Swiss or Panama or other “offshore” secret account holders or US nationals holding money in foreign banks, the USA itself has scrupulously avoided demanding the same of its domestic banks. The result, as Bloomberg noted following the suspiciously-timed Panama Papers offshore “leaks” of May, 2016, is that the United States is rapidly becoming the world’s leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners.
Perversely enough, in 2010 the US passed a law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FACTA, that requires financial firms to disclose foreign accounts held by US citizens and report them to the US IRS tax office or the foreign banks face steep penalties. The EU signed on to the intrusive FACTA despite strong resistance. Then, using FACTA as the model, the Paris-based OECD drafted an even tougher version of FACTA in 2014 to allegedly go after tax avoiders. To date 97 countries have agreed to the tough OECD bank disclosure rules. Very few have refused. The refusers include Bahrain, Nauru, Vanuatu—and…the United States.
World’s Biggest Tax Haven
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, a financial wizard or a Meyer Lansky to see a pattern. Washington forces disclosure of secret bank accounts of its citizens or companies abroad, while at the same time lifting control or disclosure inside the United States of private banking accounts. No surprise that such experienced private bankers as London’s Rothschild & Co. have opened offices in Reno Nevada a stone’s throw from Harrah’s and other casinos, and according to Bloomberg, is doing a booming business moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, or Switzerland which are subject to the new OECD international disclosure requirements, into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt from those disclosure rules.
Rothschild & Co. Director, Andrew Penney noted that as a result, the United States today, “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world.” Today Nevada, Meyer Lansky’s money laundering project of the 1930’s with established legalized gambling, is becoming the “new Switzerland.” Wyoming and South Dakota are close on the heels.
One area where America’s institutions are still world class is in devising complex instruments of financial control, asset theft and cyber warfare. The US War on Cash, combined with the US Treasury and IRS war on offshore banking is their latest model. As Washington’s War on Terror had a sinister, hidden agenda, so too does Washington’s War on Cash. It’s something to be avoided at all costs if we human beings are to retain any vestige of sovereignty or autonomy. It will be interesting to see how vigorously Casino mogul Trump moves to close the US tax haven status. What do you bet he doesn’t?
A Starbucks logo is seen on an espresso machine in a store inside the Tom Bradley terminal at LAX airport in Los Angeles, California, United States, October 27, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Starbucks Corp will open a dedicated mobile order and pay store next week in its Seattle headquarters building as it tests how to best serve convenience-oriented customers, the company said in a letter to employees on Thursday.
The coffee chain has been looking for ways to ease bottlenecks at cafe drink delivery stations, which suffered peak-hour backups due to a pileup of mobile drink orders.
Starbucks' headquarters has two cafes that serve the more than 5,000 company employees who work there. One of those cafes, which is available only to company employees, is among its top three stores in the United States for mobile ordering.
Mobile orders from the building will be routed to the new store, which will have a large window where customers can pick up drinks and see them being made.
This fall, Starbucks also will convert an existing cafe in the building into the first of its new, premium Reserve stores. That store is open to the public. A second Reserve store is slated to open soon after in Chicago.
Contactless cardAnyone who has travelled on public transport in crowded cities like London will be only too aware of how you can end up pushed up tight against complete strangers in conditions which we would probably feel uncomfortable subjecting animals to.
But, if it gets us to work on time, we somehow seem prepared to put up with the risk of having people with only the vaguest notion of bodily hygiene thrust inside our personal space as we trundle between tube stations.
But what if that person who just lurched into you, as the train began to move again, took those few seconds of close to contact to steal money from your bank account?
That appears to be what happened recently to Roi Perez, one of the team who works at SC Magazine.
In his report, Perez explains how he became the victim of contactless card theft - where a thief took the opportunity of being in close contact to his RFID-chipped payment card to surreptitiously deduct the sum of £20.
Fortunately, Perez was suspicious that something strange had occurred - and after calling his bank was able to get the twenty quid reimbursed.
Tube train crush
Contactless payments are becoming more commonplace, requiring just a wave of a card to make a modest payment and none of the hassle of entering a PIN code.
It never feels as secure to me as a payment made alongside a PIN code, but that presumably is why the banking industry has put a tight limit on the maximum that can be purchased through this means.
I imagine the banks feel that they have weighed up what they believe to be the risks, and that they have limited their exposure to an acceptable level by stopping anything other than small amounts from being paid in such transactions.
(In the UK, the limit per transaction for contactless cards was raised to £30 last month. Your mileage may vary depending on where you are in the world.)
Furthermore, the contactless payment process is not supposed to transmit payment information more than that about 10cm from a reader - although some researchers have claimed to intercept payment data from further distances.
But if you're in the middle of the hustle and bustle of a big city, crammed on public transport, there clearly are opportunities for criminals to try to take a payment from you without your knowledge, just as if you were buying a quick coffee in a cafe.
Is this something you are concerned about? Have you shielded your RFID contactless card with some tin foil layers to block out unauthorised transactions, or asked your bank to provide you with a card *without* the ability for contactless payments?
Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
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Tags: contactless, payment card, rfid
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Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
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