Introduction:
Cash is being removed from circulation in other countries, and North America may not be far behind.  Paper money is the vehicle that allows nominally free people to transact their personal daily business in relative anonymity.  Governments don't like this, because every time a dollar changes hands, the government wants to tax it, or at least see where it's going.  Currency is being taken out of circulation in other countries already, under the guise of fighting crime.  Eventually, credit cards (or the equivalent) will be the only money, and ultimately you will be expected to have the RFID chip of a credit card embedded in your hand or your forehead.  Without it, you will not be able to buy or sell anything.  That's where all this is headed.

America's poorly-educated young people probably don't see the elimination of cash as a serious problem, because they rely on debit cards and cell phones already, and have greatly excessive confidence in computer systems and have been taught to have complete faith in the all-powerful government.

A Fed-Controlled Digital Dollar Could Mean The End Of Freedom In America.  Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are a threat to liberty.  Sixty-eight countries, including communist China, are exploring the possibility of issuing a CBDC.  CBDCs are essentially government-sponsored cryptocurrencies pegged to the value of a national currency that allow for real-time payments.  The European Union has a digital euro CBDC pilot program, and all BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are working to stand up CBDCs.  China's CBDC pilot, the largest in the world, is being used by 260 million individuals.  While faster payments are a positive for markets and economic growth, CBDCs present major risks.  They would allow governments to meticulously monitor transactions made by their citizens, and CBDCs open the door for government planners to limit the types of transactions made.

Amazon Fresh kills "Just Walk Out" shopping tech — it never really worked.  Amazon is giving up on the cashier-less "Just Walk Out" technology at its Amazon Fresh grocery stores.  The Information reports that new stores will be built without computer-vision-powered surveillance technology, and "the majority" of existing stores will have the tech removed.  In the early days, Amazon's ambitions included selling Just Walk Out to other brick-and-mortar stores.  The problem was that the technology never really worked.  As it says on the tin, Just Walk Out was supposed to let customers grab what they wanted from a store and just leave, skipping any kind of checkout process.  Amazon wanted to track what customers took with them purely via AI-powered video surveillance; the system just took a phone scan at the door, and shoppers would be billed later via their Amazon accounts.

Canada: The Royal Bank Won't Let You Withdraw Your Own Money Without An Interrogation First.  Apparently, you can't even withdraw your own money from the Royal Bank of Canada without being thoroughly interrogated.  How is it any of their business what you do with your money?  [Video clip]

Australia's Banks Are Already Refusing Cash Withdrawals For Their Customers.  [Tweet with video clip]

Costco Selling Up To $200 Million In Gold Bars Per Month, Wells Fargo Estimates.  "You've probably read about the fact that we're selling one-ounce gold bars.  We sold over $100 million of gold during the quarter," sad CFO Richard Galenti.  Now, Wells Fargo estimates that Costco "may now be running at" $100 million to $200 million per month in gold sales.  "Our work suggests there has been significant interest given COST's aggressive pricing and high level of customer trust," said analyst Edward Kelly in a Tuesday note to clients.  "The accelerating frequency of Reddit posts, quick on-line sell-outs of product, and COST's robust monthly eComm sales suggests a sharp uptick in momentum since the launch," CNBC reports.

The Editor says...
I would be happy to buy some bullion.  But first, show me the grocery store that will give me a cart full of groceries in exchange for a gold bar.  Show me a gas station or pizza joint that accepts gold coins.  Or silver coins!

Maine Banking Exec Argues For "Cashless" Economy.  A Maine banking executive says that for the United States, "evolving to a cashless environment" should be a priority because digital transactions allow for more oversight, tracking and control of payments.  Lucie Hannigan, senior vice president of cash management at Machias Savings Bank, argued in favor of creating a cashless society in an article entitled "How to make cashless payments work for your nonprofit," published Friday by Mainebiz.  "Reducing paper financial transactions and evolving to a cashless environment should be a priority," Hannigan wrote.  "Cashless payments provide a range of benefits to nonprofits, their boards, and their customers — if organizations are careful about what processes they implement and how systems are managed."

Maine.  The quoted banker does not specifically talk about the Central Bank Digital Currency that lays at the end of the promoted rainbow; the author does.  However, the banker does outline a familiar step in the current process.  As a result, it is worth drawing attention to the continuum. [...] There is a BIG difference between electronic funds (current), and a digital dollar (future).

Beware the Digital Dollar and CBDCs.  The New York Federal Reserve Bank has entered a partnership with major global banks to test the concept of a digital dollar, according to a Reuters report Tuesday.  The NY Fed's "Innovation Center" will join Citigroup, Mastercard, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and other major financial players to run tests in a simulated environment.  That might all sound like gobbledygook to you, but you should be paying attention.  Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) constitute the single greatest threat to the future of economic liberty in our lifetimes.  These tools, which come dressed as fancy financial innovations, are inimical to the principles of individual liberty and economic liberty.  To illustrate the dangers of CBDCs, let me offer a few hypothetical examples of how a digital dollar controlled by a central government might work in practice: [...]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Issues Dire Warning Over CBDC Adoption.  Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) pave the way for an authoritarian government in America similar to the Chinese communist regime.  "I'm against central bank digital currencies because that is part of the path to getting us where China is today.  That's where they started, that's where all these other countries started with central bank digital currency, and it's the end of freedom.  We will be slaves if we allow that to happen," Mr. Kennedy said during a March 22 event.  He pointed to the Canadian trucker's protests to explain why CBDCs were dangerous for freedoms.  The Canadian government portrayed the truckers "as right-wing, fascist, and racist" when they were not, he said.

SWIFT Planning Launch of Central Bank Digital Currency Trading Platform in 12 Months.  If you followed my research on banking and the reality of the Russian sanction regime, this report from Reuters today takes on an entirely new dimension. [...] I first started to deep dive research into these CBDC datapoints when the Russian sanctions were triggered.  You see, nothing about the sanctions really made sense from the way they were structured.  Never before, not with Iran, North Korea, Venezuela or Cuba was the dollar weaponized against any entity who did not conform to the sanctions.  Additionally, the intensity of the drive to make the sanctions the tip of the Western spear was just too pointed; something about it didn't make sense.  That's what took me to dig deep into the sanction impact and realize nothing said about these financial sanctions made sense when compared against their actual outcome.

Australia's transition to a fully cashless society now in full swing as major bank closes all physical branches.  Bankwest, a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), has announced that it is closing 45 of its branches and transitioning the remaining 15 CBA branches in an effort to go fully digital by October 2024.  This announcement comes as Sydney-based banking software company Constantinople, a startup founded by two former executives of major bank Westpac, unveil a new app called Business+.  They claim that this app will be an all-in-one mobile app that can offer Australia's first end-to-end digital banking platform for the country's 2.4 million businesses with fewer than 10 employees.  CBA and Westpac are two of Australia's "Big Four," or the four largest banks that have traditionally dominated Australia's banking industry in terms of market share, revenue and total assets.  The two others are ANZ and National Australia Bank.

National Park Service sued over cashless entry at parks, historic sties across US.  Three Americans are suing the National Park Service over the agency's refusal to accept cash payments to enter parks across the U.S.  The Americans — from California, New York and Georgia — filed the lawsuit earlier this month in federal court in Washington, D.C., saying that the park service is violating federal law by not allowing guests to pay cash to enter various parks, monuments and historic sites.  The lawsuit says the park service's police violates a U.S. law that says that "coins and currency ... are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes and dues."

Investing in Bitcoin requires a lot of faith.
The Gospel of Bitcoin.  [Scroll down]  In other words, anarcho-capitalism requires that everyone move away from all existing institutions.  It requires migration to a new fantasy home in cyberspace ether, where anonymity reigns, guaranteeing not equality of economic opportunity, but erasure of material existence.  Since there is no meaningful attachment to the current world, the only life left would be an existence in which one's tokenized self lives forever in a tokenized Potemkin cyber-village in the Cloud.  It is a peculiar and dangerous thing to advance economic instruments detached from the material world and its institutions.  It is odd to be persuaded to invest and perhaps even live in a pseudo-spiritualized cyber-city in which cyber-monies are created from a mystical formulas of seemingly irreproachable mathematics magically transformed into economic energies.  It is amazing to see "work" defined as "mining," which evaporates much needed and increasingly scarce energy.

Woman Sues National Park Service After Being Told She Can't Use Cash to Pay Entry Fee.  When Elizabeth Dasburg tried to use cash to pay the entry fee to the Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia, she was told that the site, part of the U.S. National Park Service, could accept cards only, no cash.  An employee suggested she go to the local grocery store or "big chains like Walmart" to purchase a gift card.  "Since those are cards, we can accept them in leu [sic] of cash," the site employee wrote.  Dasburg and two others who also were denied entrance to a national park unless they used a card to pay the entrance fee on Wednesday sued the National Park Service, challenging its cashless fee collection policy.  In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs allege the federal agency is violating U.S. law by refusing to accept U.S. currency as entry payment.

American Totalitarian "Crypto Dollar" May Come Before the Election.  Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) threaten to replace the cash we use with programmable, trackable, and censorable tokens controlled by governments.  Your financial choices could be suppressed, and privacy eliminated.  Based on what I've learned and experienced directly, this could happen before the 2024 election.  The best way to stop it is through direct action, not through politics.  In my 30 years as a serial entrepreneur and liberty activist, I have never encountered a more significant or urgent threat to human freedom and liberty than CBDCs.

The Western Sanctions Against Russia and U.S. CBDC.  [Scroll down]  Crypto users are likely familiar with stories like Binance and the US regulatory control therein.  Factually, outside the USA Binance is being used to purchase and trade crypto without issue, but inside the USA it is regulated.  That brings me to the MEXC crypto exchange, a Mexican version, again available globally but not allowed in the USA.  The same applies to Metamask, used all over Europe but not permitted in the USA.  Start to ask yourself, why all these crypto exchanges are available to the rest of the world but not the USA, and you start to suspect the Russian sanctions, just like the Patriot Act, are something else entirely.  Then there's app wallets.  You might be familiar with Apple Pay as a process to handle transactions from your iPhone.  Apple Pay is linked to your bank account.  Well, the "wallet feature" exists on other apps also, like Telegram; however, you can find the wallet feature, but if you try to use it from a USA cell phone... "This feature is not allowed in your region."  Why are digital wallets available for the rest of the world but blocked by the U.S. government?

Veronique de Rugy:  The CFPB is Putting Our Banking Arrangements at Risk.  Nobody likes paying fees.  A fee, however, is a transparent way to reflect the price of something.  And in a market economy, prices convey vital information that consumers and producers use to make good decisions.  A rise in the price of apples tells producers that consumers want more apples.  This prompts more apple production (and eventually, lower prices).  And so, when political interference keeps prices from fluctuating freely, the result is inefficiency and waste.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), calling the prices of bank overdraft protection "junk fees," now proposes to interfere with these prices.  We've been down this road before.  Last year, the CFPB proposed capping credit card late fees at $8 as part of President Joe Biden's populist appeal to consumers who dislike this cost, which is obviously everyone.  The problem, as I and many others explained at the time, is that late fees encourage timely payment, and their practical elimination leaves lenders unable to offset the risk of working with people who have lower credit.  The result will be fewer lines of credit available to those who need credit the most.

Australia [is] Rushing To Become [the] World's First Functionally Cashless Society.  Australia has begun unleashing a digital revolution to possibly become the world's first functionally cashless nation by 2025 after a digital identity (ID) document scheme will be rolled out across the country by July, Worthy News learned Tuesday.  Yet not everyone is happy to jump on board the fast-moving digital 'train' with residents living outside metropolitan areas and elderly Australians expressing concerns about these developments.  The government argues that the digital ID removes the pain of handing over physical copies of a driver's license, passport, or birth certificate, making setting up a new bank account easier.  The center-left administration of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claimed that digital ID is a "secure, convenient, voluntary, and inclusive" way for Australians to verify their identity online.  However, critics say a digital ID can result in errors and bias, aggregation of sensitive personal information, hacking and identity fraud, and denial of access to essential services and entitlements.

The war on cash.  Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.  This push for a digital currency dovetails with the government's war on cash, which it has been subtly waging for some time now.  In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal.  Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have been associated with some criminal scheme.  These programs push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.  In this way, the groundwork is being laid for a new kind of government where it won't matter if you're innocent or guilty, whether you're a threat to the nation, or even if you're a citizen.

Every Opaque Action in Western Government is Aligned Toward a Dollar-Based CBDC.  In this brief video below[,] former Blackrock portfolio manager, Ed Dowd, explains why every last remnant of human freedom depends on mass resistance to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).  "Once the central bank digital currency is linked to all your credit cards and bank accounts, then social controls can be implemented.  If you're a dissenter like me, talking about truth, they shut you down."  [Video clip] [...] I first started to deep dive research into these CBDC datapoints when the Russian sanctions were triggered.  You see, nothing about them really makes sense from the way they were structured; additionally, the intensity of the drive to make the sanctions the tip of the western spear was just too pointed, something about it didn't make sense.  That's what took me to dig deep into the impact and realize nothing said about these financial sanctions makes sense when compared against their actual irrelevance.

This article is written with a British perspective:
Cash and its Enemies:  A Rough Guide to the War on Cash.  What is cash?  An amazing variety of objects have been used as currency, from giant 12-foot stone discs in Micronesia to ramen noodles in U.S. prisons.  For the more inconvenient forms of tender, including gold, the receipt for its safe deposit formed the earliest banknotes.  Once everyone had got used to the idea of using notes as currency it was only a matter of time before the gold itself could be sold off, at which point we only had the paper notes and were left with what is known as a fiat currency, the value of which rests on nothing more than social and legal consensus.  This is cash and maintaining that legal and social consensus is the job of the Bank of England (BoE).  What is legally cash can be tricky.  Take the much misused term 'legal tender'.  It has a narrow technical meaning relating to what is allowed to be used to settle past debts in court.  What is allowed isn't much, only coins of the Royal Mint, so strictly speaking Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes are not legal tender in either Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The Problem with Digital ID & CBDCs — No Freedom Ever Again.  The problem of Digital ID and CBDC's is the end of freedom forever.  This is a totalitarian movement, and it could even be tied to their depopulation goals.  [Two tweets with video clips]  The EU parliament agreed to introduce digital IDs and the pro-censorship chief Theirry Breton suggested integrating it with soon-to-be CBDCs.  We're well on our way to losing control over our money.  The Euro leftists are leading the way.

The Open Conspiracy Against Cash.  Sometimes in life there are genuine conspiracies afoot, not mere theories.  One of these is the plan to abolish cash.  This is happening in plain sight, and governments show little intention of grappling with the problem. [...] The fact that cash is disappearing will be clear to all readers.  It is sometimes believed that this happening through market forces alone — as though people are simply spontaneously giving up the habit of using physical money.  This may to a certain extent be happening (and it was certainly the case that people, entirely irrationally, gave up using cash during the lockdown era). But anyone who thinks this is the only reason it is taking place simply isn't paying attention.

2024: Do We Hit the Iceberg or Finally Change Course?  You do not hand a private central bank the power to print dollar bills, unless you expect those dollars to become untethered from any gold standard.  You do not print and spend money without budgetary constraints, unless you never intend to pay down those debts.  You do not engage in such a monetary Ponzi scheme that artificially raises the prices of stocks and real properties while depreciating the common person's meager savings, unless you plan on precipitating the mother of all economic crashes in the future.  You do not start seeding the idea of a new central bank digital currency, unless you intend to take advantage of that economic crash and transition the whole population onto a mandatory system of government welfare.

CBDC — The End of All Freedom.  CBDCs are intended to control our social behavior.  This transforms society into a digital prison, which is why the Founding Fathers outlawed Direct Taxation.  The rally to Marx at the end of the 19th century led to the introduction of the Income Tax in 1913, and they swore they were going only after the [rich].  By World War II, they introduced the Payroll Tax because Roosevelt's Marxist agenda was to include Social Security, and we, of course, had to be FORCED to save for our own future.  That became a slush fund that was restricted to buying only government debt to fund this Marxist agenda.  You are being imprisoned with every piece of legislation, like reporting $600 transactions through various cash apps.  You have lost ALL your LIBERTY — you don't know it yet.

Money for Nothing and Nothing for Money.  [Scroll down]  Inflation, of course, is one way of going broke.  You have a lot of money that is increasingly worthless.  The other way of going broke is deflation, where you have no money.  In the aggregate of a deflation, nobody will have any money, so at least you'll have company in the misery of being broke.  My guess is that a grievous deflation is where the current situation is headed.  Deflations are provoked when people and companies can't meet their debt obligations — can't "service" their loans (pay interest), or pay back contracted sums of borrowed money, or simply can't pay their bills.  Every loan that goes bad causes some money to disappear — poof! — and when a whole lot of that happens there is no money.  The Federal Reserve digital currency is a kind of last resort way around that.  It is a simple way for the system to pretend there is a lot of money around when there really isn't any.  It has the huge additional advantages, by way of computerized accounting, to allow the authorities to control what everybody spends their money on, especially the ability to block the purchase of this or that:  a train ticket, gasoline, meat, if the authorities feel like it.  It also enables the authorities to extract taxes, duties, and penalties at will, without any cooperation from the citizen.  A Fed digital currency would be a giant step into the worst kind of exquisitely targeted tyranny.  The excuse, of course, would be a "national emergency."

Australians To Be 'Fined' For Using Cash.  The new governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has warned that access to cash will become harder for Australians and that banks and other users of banknotes or coins should face fees for moving it around.  Michele Bullock suggested that having cash users bear additional costs "would aid" the country of 26.5 million people moving towards a cashless society.  Speaking at this week's Australian Payments Network Summit, Bullock also said Australians may need to travel further to access cash services in the future.  She noticed that cash access points, including bank branches and automated teller machines (ATMs), continue to disappear.  "The declining use of cash is ... challenging the provision of retail cash services," she stressed in published remarks.  "This has been evident in the significant reduction in the number of cash access points over recent years, including ATMs and bank branches."

Pirate Money:  A Surprising Constitutional Bulwark Against the Tyranny of the Great Reset.  Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will be a major weapon of the Great Reset, a.k.a., Agenda 2030, the elitist plan to dominate the world.  They are a threat to individual sovereignty as they will allow governments to track citizens' spending and control behavior.  By linking them to social-credit systems of the kind China has implemented, they could be used to induce conformity.  Through restrictions, penalties, programming of transactions, or turning off access outright, whole populations could be coerced into buying only what elite-controlled governments want them to. [...] In the name of revolutionizing the financial system and promoting inclusion, an unelected elite is effecting a global takeover, gradually working towards abolishing private property, curtailing individual freedom, and impoverishing the masses.

Landlord left 'incandescent' with rage after Barclays closes family business account 'with no warning'.  A retired accountant was left 'incandescent' with rage after a bank shut down his family business account after 85 years.  Clive Sparks, 73, was furious when his family property letting business was thrown into 'chaos' after Barclays suddenly 'de-banked him' — and announced it was to close the account.  Despite a flurry of phone calls and form-filling Barclays shut the account after just 14 days.  The move left his firm struggling to pay builders and provide a means for tenants to pay their rent.  Mr Sparks, of Seaford, East Sussex has condemned a culture of cost-cutting in banking and demanded an explanation from the bank.

IMF Intensifies Call for Cashless Society, Replacing the Dollar with Central Bank Digital Currencies.  Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, stated last week that there should be more adoption of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) allegedly to help developing populations throughout the world.  "CBDCs can replace cash which is costly to distribute in island economies," Georgieva said Wednesday while appearing at the Singapore FinTech Festival.  "They can offer resilience in more advanced economies.  And they can improve financial inclusion where few hold bank accounts."  "CBDCs would offer a safe and low-cost alternative [to cash]. They would also offer a bridge to go between private monies and a yardstick to measure their value, just like cash today which we can withdraw from our banks," she added.  Georgieva stated that 60 percent of the world are currently considering adopting CBDCs right now.

IMF Releases Digital Currency Handbook For World's Central Banks.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a handbook for global central banks regarding the development and implementation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).  The IMF's "Central Bank Digital Currency Virtual Handbook" published last week pointed out that the increased use of CBDCs can "reduce dollarization" of the global economy — a situation where countries move away from relying on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.  De-dollarization would push up borrowing costs in the United States, making loans expensive for businesses and individuals, thus affecting economic growth.  Stock market values can also crash, reducing the savings and investments of Americans.  In addition to de-dollarization, a CBDC "could increase risks of flight to safety from retail bank deposits in periods of market stress."  During times of market volatility, customers withdraw their deposits and move it into safe assets to avoid losing money in scenarios like bank collapses.  If CBDCs were available, pulling out funds from a bank and putting them in such assets will come across as a safe option for many people, thus triggering a bank run.

Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Down Customer Accounts.  The reasons vary, but the scene that plays out is almost always the same.  Bank customers get a letter in the mail saying their institution is closing all of their checking and savings accounts.  Their debit and credit cards are shuttered, too.  The explanation, if there is one, usually lacks any useful detail. [...] "Oh, no, so sorry," they say.  "We'll do whatever we can to fix this."  But then comes the telltale pause and shift in tone.  "Per your account agreement, we can close your account for any reason at any time," the script often goes.  These situations are what banks refer to as "exiting" or "de-risking."  This isn't your standard boot for people who have bounced too many checks.  Instead, a vast security apparatus has kicked into gear, starting with regulators in Washington and trickling down to bank security managers and branch staff eyeballing customers.  The goal is to crack down on fraud, terrorism, money laundering, human trafficking and other crimes.

Banks Are Now Asking 'What Is It For' When You Want To Withdraw Your Own Money.  This is in Australia but I'm sure it's coming to a "free" country near you soon.  [Video clip]

Cash Beats Electronic Money, but Real Money Beats Cash.  Today's world is awash with electronic money.  But last week, much of Australia's electronic money disappeared for up to 14 hours with the crash of the Optus electronic network.  The disruption to business and the community was "immediate and profound" with rail networks, hospital services, retailers, and banking establishments affected.  Naturally this was not helped by babbling politicians waving big sticks.  Shoppers rushed ATMs to get cash for a cup of coffee.  Some were unable to pay for meals they had already consumed. [...] Most governments are good at destruction — concentration camps, gulags, dictatorships, genocide, mob rule, world wars and... the destruction of sound money.  Fiat money is their underhand method of official larceny, and few people realize that the robbery is happening until it is too late.

It Appears That We Have A Major Problem With The Banks.  In recent weeks there have been numerous high profile bank "glitches", accounts are being shut down without warning at a staggering rate all over the nation, and more institutions continue to get into very serious financial trouble.  For a while, I was ignoring some of these reports because I thought they were isolated issues.  But when you step back and take a bigger picture view of things, it really does appear that we have a major problem with the banks.  According to CNN, on Friday many of our largest banks "were hit by deposit delays" [...] This caused a tremendous amount of distress, because paychecks were not showing up in the accounts of a lot of people.  And considering the fact that more than 60 percent of the country is currently living paycheck to paycheck, that is a big deal.  Incredibly, some banks are still trying to fix the problem.

Welcome to the cashless dystopia.  In early August, thousands of Kenyans queued up in Nairobi to have their eyeballs scanned by an ominous silver orb, in a Faustian bargain with Open AI chief, Sam Altman.  In exchange for handing over their biometric data — or, as Altman's company puts it, "verifying your uniqueness" — users received 25 free "Worldcoin" crypto tokens, worth approximately $50, which would be transferred directly via Kenya's mobile payments app, M-Pesa.  If it sounds too good to be true, that's because it is.  Altman has promised that his Worldcoin project, which he eventually hopes to roll out around the globe, will bring millions of "unbanked people" — that is, people without bank accounts — into the economic and biometric fold.  But his Orwellian scheme will likely do more harm than good to the most financially vulnerable people on the planet.  Despite the word "coin" in the title, it's unclear whether Worldcoin is trying to create digital money — or to colonise global identity.  Or perhaps it is angling to do both.

9,000 ATMs Have Shut Down Across US as the Govt Prepares to Roll Out CBDC Digital Currency.  Thousands of ATM cash machines and local bank branches have been closing down as we move toward a cashless society and the government pursues the roll out of digital surveillance and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).  The excuse for shutting down ATMs was to prevent COVID germs from spreading on cash.  In the UK, over 8,000 ATMs were shut down, amounting to 13% of all cash machines.  In the US, over 19,000 ATMs were shut down and access to cash is becoming more scarce.  Catherine Austin Fitts said that unless we have a sovereign state government protecting sovereign individuals who are free to transact, including transacting privately, without invasive technology, we will have no sovereignty.  It will be replaced with central control by the bankers.

End Fiat Money, End Forever Wars.  By abandoning the gold standard and instituting a financial system predicated on inherently worthless fiat monies, governments have constructed the "most effective and ruthless manner of enslaving whole populations while enriching the elite.  If there is a far-reaching, multi-generational global conspiracy — it is one that brainwashes the masses into trading their time, wealth and property for meaningless chits backed by nothing."  With the last century's monetary destruction laid bare, Jeftovic asks dryly, "Who needs global Communism?"  By manipulating the value of currencies in ways that empower the "ruling class" while impoverishing the middle class, privately controlled central banks have conquered the world.  Where Bolshevism failed, Marxist globalism has regrettably succeeded.

Gates Foundation Wants Help to Create Digital ID and Payments System.  "Financial inclusion" seems to be the buzzword that proponents of digital IDs, payments, and data exchange have picked for their PR sloganeering in favor of something that is, objectively, very controversial.  And where better to "test" something of that kind than among those who due to their economic circumstances don't have much of a say — like a number of African countries.  But don't expect those behind the effort, juggernauts like Mastercard or the (Bill) Gates Foundation, to ever spell it out in those stark terms.  After all, it's genuine concern for other humans, equity, equality, and kindness that's been behind the billions, if not trillions of dollars they have amassed thus far, right?  Clearly not.  But what are they up to now?  "Stakeholders" they call themselves — self-appointed though, and their goal — other than, ostensibly, to keep the "global south" in check — is to make sure that digital public infrastructure projects, "including digital IDs," get as much traction as possible in developing countries (first).

Indians have just a few days to return billions in banknotes.  The country's highest-value banknote will be withdrawn by the end of September - $3 billion worth of which is still in circulation.  India's highest-value banknote will soon be out of business: the 2,000-rupee currency notes are going to be withdrawn in five days, but $2.9 billion worth of them is still in circulation.  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered the withdrawal of the note on 19 May, giving people until the end of September to exchange or deposit them with banks.  After that, people will have to explain why they couldn't meet the deadline.

Australia's Fifth-Largest Bank Announces Digital-Only Transactions Starting Next Year.  Australia's fifth-largest bank, Macquarie Bank, has announced its transition to digital-only transactions.  Starting from January 2024, the bank will begin phasing out all cash, cheque, and phone payment services in its 80 branches.  By November 2024, all in-branch cash transactions will be completely discontinued.  "Between January 2024 and November 2024, we'll be phasing out our cash and cheque services across all Macquarie banking and wealth management products, including pension and super accounts," the bank said in a statement.

What Will America Be Like Under Biden's Digital Dollar?  Look At Communist China.  President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order last year on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which "places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC."  The Biden administration and its corporate media echo chamber want Americans to focus only on CBDC's many benefits.  But experiences in China, a nation that launched a digital currency in 2020, have shown that a CBDC considerably expands government power at the expense of individual freedom.  China's digital currency, e-CNY, differs significantly from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.  For instance, neither central banks nor governments have the power to program or manage Bitcoin.  The total amount of Bitcoin was capped at 21  million by its mysterious creator.  Such a finite supply gives Bitcoin its anti-inflation property.  While Bitcoin transactions are transparent for all to see, users remain anonymous.

Wells Fargo Customers Rage Over Missing Deposits From Bank Accounts.  Wells Fargo customers raged over missing deposits from bank accounts this week.  This is the second time this year Wells Fargo customers have complained about deposits missing from their accounts.  One customer took to Twitter this week to complain about a $4,000 deposit missing.  Wells Fargo then overdrafted the customer's account.

The Editor says...
Under the digital currency scheme, you will have only as much money in the bank as the bank says you have.  To go along with the elimination of cash, you have to trust the banks completely.

The Antichrist System Is Being Positioned Right Before Our Eyes.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 190 countries. [...] An IMF staff report dated March 29, 2023, said, "The global central banking community is actively exploring Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which may have a fundamental impact on both domestic and international economic and financial stability."  This report also said, "Over 40 countries have approached the IMF to request assistance through CBDC capacity development."  A recent CBDC survey "covered a record 81 central banks, representing close to 76 percent of the world's population and 94 percent of global economic output.  The survey found that nine out of 10 central banks are now exploring CBDCs, with half developing or running concrete experiments."

Piers Corbyn Goes Off On An Aldi Market For Not Accepting Cash.  Piers Corbyn has been spotted in Aldi getting into an altercation with staff, after they refused to let him pay with change in one of their cashless stores.  The store, located in Greenwich, London, is operated entirely from the Aldi app, and has no checkouts.  However, Corbyn appeared disgruntled that he couldn't purchase his box of strawberries, even telling staff to call the police.  [Video clip]

Banks [are] trying to drive cash out of society, warns Nigel Farage.  Banks are trying to drive cash out of society, Nigel Farage warned as he said he would welcome a Royal Commission into the sector.  The former Ukip leader has launched a campaign to tackle the "major national scandal" of de-banking after his Coutts accounts were closed because of his political views.  Pointing to figures showing that more than 1,000 accounts are being shut every day, Mr Farage argued that Britons' difficulties in accessing funds go far beyond his own experiences.  "Our taxes went up to bail out the banks in 2008 and 2009, and in return they've closed 5,000 branches around the country," he told the Camilla Tominey Show on GB News.  "They're saying to businesses — some are running a fish stall — 'sorry, we don't want cash', 'well, I haven't got a credit card machine', 'we don't want your business'.  They are trying to drive cash out of the economy.

How does Whole Foods' new palm reader payment system work?  Thanks to new technology, paying for groceries at Whole Foods Market stores is now, quite literally, in the palm of your hands.  Amazon is set to roll out its new palm recognition payment technology at the 400-plus Whole Foods Market U.S. stores by the end of 2023.  The technology is created by Amazon One, Amazon Web Service' palm recognition system that works for identification, payment, loyalty membership and store entry.

10 Paradigm Shifts that Shatter Establishment Illusions.  [#7] More and more people realize that free markets cannot exist alongside central banks that engage in rank manipulation of the economy.  Fiat currencies unbacked by precious metals are dying.  While private investment bankers and multinational corporations have benefited generously, central bank policies have destroyed ordinary Americans' economic security.  Before the privately run Federal Reserve came into existence, Americans' intergenerational social mobility was the highest in the world.  A century after its creation, income inequality has never been higher.  Now, in order to avert a looming economic Armageddon caused by a century of profligate spending, private banks and coercive governments seek to force everyone into a surveillance system based on central bank digital currencies.  Until we free our money from government control, totalitarian governments will use money to enslave the people.

Tucker: Are you concerned about Central Bank Digital Currencies?  DeSantis: "They want to get rid of cash.".  [Video clip]

Don't Kill Cash.  Britain is fast becoming a cashless society.  In the wake of the Covid pandemic, more and more shops, cafes and pubs are choosing to only accept card payments.  And with the rise of Apple and Google Pay, vulnerable people who rely on cash are increasingly being left behind by the relentless march of technology.  More than five million adults still rely on cash in the UK and it's used in six billion transactions every year, but there are strong vested interests pushing for it to be permanently replaced by debit and credit cards and other electronic payments.  These cost you more in the long-run and enable 3rd parties to track you and your spending.

Brazil's CBDC pilot contains code that can freeze or reduce funds, dev claims.  A blockchain developer who claims to have reverse-engineered the source code of Brazil's pilot central bank digital currency (CBDC) has discovered functions in the code that would allow a central authority to freeze funds or reduce balances.  He has since argued, however, that there might be situations that such functions could be beneficial.  On July 6, the source code of the digital Brazilian real pilot project was posted on GitHub portal by Brazil's central bank.  It was explained at the time that the pilot project is intended for use only in a test environment and that the "presented architecture" may be subject to additional changes.  Pedro Magalhães — a blockchain developer and founder of tech consulting firm Iora Labs — later that day claimed to have been able to "reverse engineer" the open source code of Banco Central do Brazil's digital real, revealing functions in the code.  The functions included freezing and unfreezing accounts, increasing and decreasing balances, moving currency from one address to another, and creating or burning digital real from a specific address.  [Tweet]

Intrusive bankers and government overreach.  Under the Biden Administration, leftist zealots are increasingly seeking to control everything.  They want to know where every dime goes.  It could be only a matter of time before they raid bank accounts to pay for all the crap they have in their budget.  I wouldn't put it past them.  Imagine for a moment that we switch completely to a digital currency.  That would mean that every time you ever spend any sum, for the rest of your life, it can be traced.  That is synonymous with knowing what you've been doing virtually every day for the rest of your life because, indeed, our expenditures largely provide a map of our activities.  The survivalists likely are right:  Don't keep your money in only one bank anymore.  Employ two or three or four banks.  You won't know which bank is going to go belly up first.  You never know which one is going to submit to the leftist's communist interests.

Somewhat related:
Former Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage Deplatformed by Entire UK Banking System.  In an editorial entitled "After my banking travails, I fear Britain is lost," Farage tells a hair-raising tale of institutionalized political bigotry and discrimination.  It combines the kind of systemic abuse once associated with Soviet rule but now sadly common in the United States with the sort of social credit tyranny one sees in China.  "...We are living through the politicisation of our corporate sector.  Woe betide you if you do not conform with its worldview," writes Farage.  "This was brought home to me when I was recently told by my bank [since 1980] that it is closing all my accounts without explanation.  It is impossible to function without a bank account.  It should alarm everybody that a bank has the power to punish those it considers to have erred or strayed."

Governments can program CBDC to restrict undesirable purchases, set expiry dates.  Governments can program Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) with expiry dates and to restrict undesirable purchases, according to a discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) "Summer Davos" meeting in China.  Today at the WEF's 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, aka "Summer Davos," in Tianjing, China, Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad said that "we are at the cusp of physical currency essentially disappearing," and that programmable CBDCs could take us to either a better or much darker place.

A Global System Of Digital Identification "For All" That Would Be Connected To Our Bank Accounts.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out where this could be heading.  For a moment, I would like for you to imagine a rather chilling "fictional" scenario.  Not too far in the future, all "global citizens" are required to possess proper "digital identification" or else they will not be permitted to access the new global digital financial system.  Central banks all over the globe have rolled out their new "central bank digital currencies", but in order to use those currencies you must "prove that you are who you say you are", and the only way to do that is with the new global system of digital identification that has been introduced.  As cash is phased out, those that resist being part of the new global system are increasingly pushed to the outer fringes of society. [...] Once a global system of digital identification is introduced, it will rapidly become our most important form of identification.  It will become more important than your driver's license and more important than your Social Security number.

Bank of International Settlements Publishes Its Blueprint for CBDCs, Praises Programmable Money.  In a press release earlier this week, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced that it was throwing its weight behind central digital currencies (CBDCs), publishing a blueprint of a future monetary system "underpinned" by this type of money.  And the BIS also heaped praise on the concept of programmable money.  The announcement of the blueprint that's supposed to represent the foundation of the world's new financial and monetary system came just a day after reports that the BIS and the Bank of England had completed a CBCD project.  The project — dubbed "Rosalind" — is described as a joint experiment by the BIS Innovation Hub London Center and the Bank of England, that produced 33 API functionalities and looked into over 30 retail CBDC use cases.

Resistance.  It's a wholesale betrayal we're enduring: betrayal of our military leadership, of our legislative bodies, the medical profession, the teaching profession, but more specifically and more intentionally the economic system.  They all think the CBDC will bail them out of their complicity in the economic disaster that is soon to unfold.  When the banks fail, they want to just shift gears and put us all under a social credit score type of economic slavery.  Okay, I'm not having any of it.  If I'm to labor in the fields, I want to be compensated in currency, preferably backed by gold or silver, not some fiat currency that's worth less every hour, or some digital currency where they can grant or deny any purchase based on their political beliefs and typically against those of the person who labored for the money.

In Oakland, Many Businesses Are Going Cashless To Ward Off Armed Robberies.  A number of Oakland businesses are getting rid of cash registers amid crime concerns.  After suffering their third break-in in less than a year, Asha Tea House in Oakland's Uptown neighborhood decided to go cashless.  There's a sign announcing the policy on its storefront.  Across the street on Grand Avenue, Cafe Umami also put up a similar sign stating: "no cash on premises."  It was targeted multiple times by thieves.  [Video clip]

House Bill Would Ban the Federal Reserve from Exploring "Digital Dollar" Creation.  Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to close a "loophole" that the Federal Reserve Bank could exploit to create the exploratory Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot program.  H.R. 3712 defines CBDC as "a form of digital money or monetary value, denominated in the national unit of account, that is a direct liability of the Federal Reserve."  "Congress cannot give an inch when it comes to CBDCs," said Mooney. "CBDCs would threaten the liberties of law-abiding Americans and are being used by authoritarian countries right now to crack down on dissent."  H.R. 3712 would amend the Federal Reserve Act to deny the Federal Reserve the power to "establish, carry out, or approve a program intended to test the practicability of issuing a central bank digital currency, including by partnering or coordinating with a private sector entity to carry out such a program."

This article is somewhat of an infomercial, but it might still be informative.
IRS Agents Are Watching Your Digital Money Transactions.  If you remember, just two years ago, President Joe Biden asked Congress to authorize the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data collection on bank accounts with more than $600 in annual transactions.  But banks and depositors pushed back, and the $600 figure was raised to $10,000.  Everybody was happy.  But guess what didn't change?  The reporting of all digital transactions of $600 or more.  That means that digital payment platforms like Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, Square Cash, and other Digital Wallets are required to report your transactions of $600 or more to the IRS.

States Setting the Table for a Central Bank Digital Currency, Part I.  Without public debate or involvement by the US Congress, Biden has signed Executive Order 14067, Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets, on 9 March 2022 that the White House advertises as a "whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology."  Buried in the altruistic fluff is the real purpose of the EO:  "[to] explore a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)." [...] A central bank is defined as "a financial institution given privileged control over the production and distribution of money and credit for a nation," including the issuance and regulation of the money supply and setting of interest rates on bonds and loans.  The Federal Reserve System acts as the central bank for the US and has a legal monopoly on the issue of bank notes and cash.  A key function is to regulate the reserve requirements for commercial banks, i.e., how much cash/liquidity that banks must keep on hand and how much banks can loan out based on deposits. [...] Fiat currencies facilitate inflation as a debt management tool for the government.

The coming globalized digital money system just got the endorsement it needed to proceed as the replacement for fiat paper currencies.  I have been warning for more than two years that the global beast system will be fully in place when we see the globalists succeed at implementing two key components: A global digital ID for all people and a new form of global digital money that will be designed to replace cash.  They have been racing toward reaching each of these two goals and 2023 may be the year they succeed, although that still remains to be seen.  One thing's for sure.  If they don't succeed, it won't be for lack of trying. [...] The Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA) announced on April 10 it will be launching a new global central bank digital currency, or CBDC, calling it an "universal monetary unit," also known as the Unicoin, which all of the world's central banks and commercial banks will be able to use for settlements of trade among each other.  The April 10 announcement took place at the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund.

Danger — Government Digital Currency.  President Joe Biden and the media are excited about something new: a Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC.  It's a currency like Bitcoin, except controlled by the federal government.  Not everyone is a fan.  "Sometimes government does things that may appear to be benevolent but really are kind of like a wolf in sheep's clothing," says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in my new video.  "This is a wolf coming as a wolf."  For months, I've tried to get DeSantis to sit down for an interview.  What finally got him to agree was government's plan for digital money.  "If you don't trust central authority," DeSantis says, "then you should see this immediately as something that is very problematic." [...] "They want to move to a cashless society, which would basically mean the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department would have supervisory jurisdiction over all of your transactions."  "Cash is independence," adds DeSantis.  "You have the cash in your wallet ... It's not dependent on somebody else."  In other words, cash is private.  So is cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin.  People can buy gas and guns without using government money at all.  Advocates of government digital money don't like that.

American Despotism.  The banks are the government, public-private partnerships in the most regulated industry.  The Justice Department instructs Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank to lock out political dissidents marked as "high risk"; Visa blacklists companies and persons for "hate speech."  The IMF recommends that one's "history of online searches and purchases" be used in assigning credit scores.  PayPal cooperates to shut out online purchases.  Periodically the kleptocrats extort industries and billionaires to make them fall in line.

The war on cash poses an existential threat to our financial independence.  Shops that refuse cash?  Councils that require maddening parking apps?  Tradesmen who demand bank transfers?  I'm part of the problem, dear reader.  The virtual penny finally dropped when I flew to the Middle East recently without first bothering to visit a bureau de change, or even to withdraw local currency from an ATM.  Every shop, taxi and restaurant accepted contactless payments; there was no need to fumble through my wallet trying to decipher unfamiliar notes.  My smartphone's mobile payment service was sufficient, a physical credit card largely unnecessary. [...] A cashless economy compels everyone to carry a smartphone all the time, and to have access to at least one payment card.  It requires the use of multiple apps, and substantial levels of technological literacy.  This discriminates against the elderly, and anybody who finds technology difficult.  It is a disaster for those on the margins of society, without a bank account or who lack a good credit score.  Many older voters are incensed at the way their choices have been curtailed.

A Centralized Bank Digital Currency would harm our economy.  While the Federal Reserve touts CBDCs as a means to improve payment efficiency and better facilitate monetary policy, CBDCs could have a negative impact on financial stability and banking at both the micro and macroeconomic levels.  The first concern facing policymakers is CBDCs' potential to destabilize the traditional banking system.  CBDCs could eventually require — and upon establishment of their infrastructure, facilitate — conversion of deposits in commercial banks into the Central Bank's digital currency.  By allowing bank members to transfer their funds from commercial banks and private financial institutions directly to the federally controlled central bank, CBDCs would leave these smaller institutions vulnerable to sudden and rapid closure in the event of a bank scare (such as the ones which followed the Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank closures earlier this year).  The Federal Reserve of St. Louis stated in a 2013 workshop for economic education that bank failures cause bank runs, and bank runs cause contraction of the money supply, which in turn causes a decline in spending, investing, and GDP.  Centralizing digital currency could exponentially exacerbate these problems.

It's Not Paranoid to Worry about a Central Bank Digital Currency.  In a recent NYT column, economist Paul Krugman mocks Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who warned that a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would give the government too much power over Americans.  Specifically, DeSantis argued that the feds could use a CBDC to further implement the "woke" agenda, penalizing Floridians if they bought too much gas or guns.  Krugman ridiculed the very notion that a CBDC might threaten civil liberties:  ["]If this sounds crazy, that's because it is.  I have no idea whether DeSantis believes any of it, or even knows what a central bank digital currency is or what it would do.  And it's possible that he's taking this stand out of general paranoia.["]  But Krugman doesn't actually think it's mere paranoia that explains DeSantis' opposition to a Fed-issued CBDC. Instead, Krugman thinks big Republican donors are currently benefiting from using anonymous currency as a way to shield their nefarious schemes.

Uh-oh.
The IMF Has Just Unveiled A New Global Currency Known As The "Universal Monetary Unit".  A new global currency just launched, but 99 percent of the global population has no idea what just happened.  The "Universal Monetary Unit", also known as "Unicoin", is an "international central bank digital currency" that has been designed to work in conjunction with all existing national currencies.  This should set off alarm bells for all of us, because the widespread adoption of a new "global currency" would be a giant step forward for the globalist agenda.

ECB's prez falls for "Zelensky" phone prank, spills beans on digital currency.  There were howls about us creeping closer to that when Biden got his $600 electronic transaction IRS reporting requirement passed.  Little old ladies who sold chipped ceramic planters on FB Marketplace are now going to be scofflaws if they don't report their cumulative earnings from their clandestine trading.  Better yet, the cash apps that handle the transactions for you will make sure they report it just in case it slipped your mind.  Well, in Europe at the end of March, the Central Bank announced new "cash" limits for business payments, ostensibly to curb terrorism and money laundering, but it also makes it [very] easy to keep track of what the average person is doing with their euros.

For once in your lives fight back!  It's the globalists that plan to tie the death of the dollar as the world reserve currency and the end of the petrodollar as the time to unleash the CBDC. Right now, they're calling it FEDNOW, watch for that term, it's the Central Bank Digital Currency.  It is the death of your rights and your freedoms. [...] This is THE point that cannot be passed without recognizing that individual rights and sovereignty have been abandoned.  I will not do it and I know I will be the only one, but I will accept no payment for labor that is not tied to either the cash dollar, or a currency backed by some form of commodity.  I will NOT accept any digital currency for my labor.  I will not accept some form of payment, of compensation, that is tied to my own imprisonment.  That's it, it's that simple.  If enough, even a quarter of the workers, recognize that they are being suckered into imprisoning themselves by taking the CBDC and they rebel, refuse to accept it, you get past that initial response, that initial repudiation and the powers that be seek to find another way; they look to accommodate you and those like you.  But if you give in this one time, right here, you are done.  You will never exert the power of the individual again, not as a union, not as a political party, not as a professional.  You will condemn yourself to a slave from that moment on.

Three congressmen introduce bill to once again back dollars with gold.  In the lead-up to Easter, three United States congressmen, all Republican, have introduced a bill that would once again back the U.S. dollar with gold rather than nothing.  Reps.  Alex Mooney (R-W.V.), Andy Biggs (R-Az.), and Paul Gosar (R-Az.) say that HR 2435, also known as the "Gold Standard Restoration Act," will help to restabilize the dollar amid growing inflation and continued bank failures.  If passed, HR 2435 would give the U.S. Treasury and the private Federal Reserve central banking cartel 24 months to publicly disclose all gold holdings and transactions.  After that, the Federal Reserve note "dollar" would have to be formally re-pegged to the fixed weight of gold bullion.

The Editor says...
We all assume, without being able to verify, that the U.S. Treasury is in possession of physical gold (at Fort Knox or elsewhere) in at least the quantity that it claims to have.

Central Bank Digital Currencies are the Bullet Train to Digital Concentration Camps.  The White House published a "comprehensive framework" on Friday attacking decentralized cryptocurrencies while promoting a U.S. government-controlled programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), per an official press release.  Agencies that were chosen to lead the ongoing working group for the research and possible development of a CBDC include the Federal Reserve, the National Economic Council, the National Security Council, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Treasury Department.  CBDCs are digital currency issued directly from a nation-state's central bank and serve as legal tender.  Critically, CBDCs are controlled by governments and therefore represent the polar opposite of the ideas — decentralization, open-source software, permissionless, peer-to-peer transactions — that made Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such a revolutionary technology.  As you can guess, CBDCs will be tied to user identities and Digital IDs, which will allow for total surveillance by the State and eliminate any chance of financial privacy.

Texas Bill Would Create State-Issued Gold-Backed Digital Currency.  Bills introduced in the Texas House and Senate would create a state-issued, gold-backed digital currency.  Enactment of this legislation would create an option for people to transact business in sound money, set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve's monopoly on money and create a viable alternative to a central bank digital currency (CBDC).  Sen. Bryan Hughes (R) introduced Senate Bill 2334 (SB2334) on March 10.  Rep. Mark Dorazio (R) introduced a companion, House Bill 4903 (HB4903) on the same day.  The legislation would require the state comptroller to establish a digital currency that is fully backed by gold and fully redeemable in cash or gold as well.  The comptroller would also be required to create a mechanism to use this gold-backed digital currency in everyday transactions.

No Internet?  No Groceries: The Dangers Of A Cashless America.  In France, it's illegal to make and accept cash payments larger than €1,000, and in Italy it's €2,000.  This is a global, decades-old trend.  In 2016, India Prime Minister Modi announced that bank notes of ₹500 and ₹1,000 would be removed.  Citizens were given 50 days to deposit these bills.  One thousand Indian rupees sounds like a lot, but it's not.  It's about $14 US dollars.  Modi's justification?  Fighting corruption, black markets, and crime.  However, a recent UK-based study found it was actually banks and accounting firms that are the leading facilitators of illegal transfers and funding.  The study found that banks are almost twice as likely to be involved in money laundering than cash transactions.  Given this risk assessment, we should ban banks before cash.  In a cashless society, you don't have custody of your own money.  Wells Fargo or Goldman Sachs does.  You can claim that number on your account balance belongs to you, but ultimately your claim only means as much as it can be enforced.

Will Economic Freedom End this July?  From the dawn of time, currency was the one thing that governments had difficulty tracking.  I am not considering checks, bills of credit, something written.  Those are easy to trace.  I am talking about real currency.  Currency in one's hand, cash pressed in the flesh.  Bribery was always the province of the dishonest, but it often became the last resort of the honest: a war refugee wanted to cross a border before an invading army swoops in, a Jew wanted to evade a Nazi patrol, an Irishman wanted to get out of Ireland one step ahead of the Crown's authorities.  Cash became the vehicle of freedom.  So what happens when that option is removed... by digital currency?  What happens when fungible cash is made null and void? [...] Yes, the Fed is finally converting to digital currency with the FedNow Service.  We are told it is only for banks... now.  But how soon after that will America go totally cashless?

Florida Proposes Landmark Bill that will Ban Central Bank Digital Currencies in the State.  A bill introduced in the Florida House would ban the use of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the state.  Rep. Wyman Duggan (R) brought House Bill 7049 (H7049) to the House Commerce Committee on March 28, and the committee voted along party lines to officially introduce the bill.  The legislation would explicitly exclude a CBDC from the definition of money in Florida, effectively banning its use in the state.

Finance and the 'Great Reset'.  Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Academia, Big Government, and its Media Complex have all failed us.  Now Big Finance, which is made up of "too big to fail" banks — such as JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo — appear ready and willing to help the Fed roll out a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).  CBDCs will be presented as a technological development that provides more convenience and security than physical currency.  But make no mistake a CBDC is more social control than currency.  A CBDC would end freedom and the privacy of consumer choice in the U.S.  It would politicize the economy — distorting and undermining the efficient allocation of resources by directing capital to government-favored sectors and defunding out of favor industries.  Just two weeks after the failure of two major banks — Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and the forced bailout of a third, First Republic Bank — the second largest cluster of bank failures in American history, the Fed undertook "stabilization" measures that will benefit large money center banks at the expense of smaller banks.

The one-world beast system is roaring into reality, but is anyone listening?  [Donald] Trump is the perfect polarizing figure to distract Americans at this key moment in history.  Keep your gaze on him and you're guaranteed to miss the bigger picture.  This has to do with the fast-approaching beast system, which is marching us toward World War III and economic slavery through cashless payment systems, 24/7 biometric surveillance and even death.  Yes, World War III and mRNA injections will provide the global culling of human populations that Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, the Rockefellers and other powerful interests have been advocating for decades.  With that background, let's get to the main point of this article:  Cashless electronic payment systems that feed on your personal biometric data.  Last week we learned that the restaurant chain Panera Bread is rolling out a new biometric payment option offered by Amazon where customers have their palms scanned with no cash or credit cards necessary.  Now JP Morgan has announced it's also rolling out a new biometric payment system with plans to make it available to all the retail businesses it deals with. [...] As WEF advisor Yuval Noah Harari has already warned us, the next stage in the global technocracy movement is for 24/7 surveillance tools to go "under the skin."  I'm old enough to remember when debit cards were controversial and now we're scanning people's body parts as a mode of payment.  This is just part of the long-planned, incremental evolution toward the full-on cashless society that "conspiracy theorists" have been warning about since at least the 1980s.  They were not wrong; they were just ahead of their time.  The way to defeat this beast, or at least slow it down, is not politically through human messiah figures, but personally through our own human agency.  We must resolve to never comply with these systems.

The Fed Proposes a 4th Function of Money: Means of Social Control.  The Fed is sending "confidential, not-for-distribution research" to select members of the House Financial Services Committee espousing money as a means of social control.  The confidential Fed research express concerns over income inequality and fears of Bitcoin. [...] There's nothing like a Fed-sponsored bank crisis coupled with zero reserves on deposits to help aid the goals of using money as a means of social control.

Ted Cruz Introduces Bill To Stop Creation Of A 'Central Bank Digital Currency'.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill on Tuesday that would prevent the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration from establishing a central bank digital currency.  Opponents of a potential central bank digital currency observe that the asset, which would be managed by the Federal Reserve and tethered to the value of the dollar, may increase government surveillance and control of private citizens.  The legislation submitted by Cruz, as well as Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), would ban monetary policymakers from implementing the technology.  "The federal government has no authority to unilaterally establish a central bank currency," Cruz remarked in a press release.  "This bill goes a long way in making sure big government doesn't attempt to centralize or control cryptocurrency and instead, allows it to thrive in the United States.  We should be empowering entrepreneurs, enabling innovation, and increasing individual freedom, not stifling it."

Federal Reserve announces July launch of central bank digital currency infrastructure.  The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced a July launch of its FedNow service, which will enable all U.S. banks to offer instant payments 24/7, and will constitute the infrastructure of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by linking each banking node directly to the Federal Reserve, according to financial experts.  FedNow "will enable all the banks — any bank in the United States, not just the big ones — to offer instantly available funds in real-time payments to their customers", explained Fed Chair Jerome Powell before the House Financial Services Committee on March 8.  According to a Federal Reserve press release, "many early adopters" plan on using the FedNow service in July upon its launch, "including a diverse mix of financial institutions of all sizes, the largest processors, and the U.S. Treasury."

The Creepy Advent of Digital Currency.  In response to a burgeoning banking crisis, many state governments are moving to criminalize competition in monetary policy.  These moves have done little to assuage the concerns of cash-holders who've predicted moves by the feds to replace the bastardized dollars they've printed with a more centralized and controlled digital currency, or Central Bank Digital Currency.  Since the currency crisis is a factor of money creation and lending policy and not the form of the money, these bank crises and resulting campaigns for digital currency look like solutions in pursuit of problems to solve.  Why are governments pursuing CBDC?  Simply put, control.  What is a Central Bank Digital Currency?  Much like cryptocurrency, CDBCs are digital assets that represent a store of value.  They are digitally minted, and they utilize unique serials or hashes that inhibit counterfeiting and should be completely trackable via systems like blockchain technology.  With blockchain technology, every time digital assets change hands, a transaction record is created and stored in a digital sequence like a chain link.  The advantages of this are self-evident if your objective is to increase security or reduce financial crimes.  However, the true insidiousness of a Central Bank Digital Currency comes into play when you consider that most financial crimes will occur with alternate stores of value.  Tracking every transaction of the commoners is the true nature of CBDC, and our overlords seem hell-bent on just that.

Banks Facing Reality Ditch the Climate Foolishness!.  As I noted yesterday, John Kerry wants to use the climate change narrative as leverage to bring banks into his elitist campaign for control — of us.  He wants a world of only big banks merged with government who can utilize digital currency as the vehicle for a CCP type social credit system.  But, Kerry is not a particularly smart fellow.  He just uses his NPR type voice to make it seem so.  Reality, though, has suddenly slammed into his agenda and big banks are backing away.

Tucker Carlson Goes There: "If People Don't Start Making a Lot of Noise — It Will Mean Digital Currency".  Tucker Carlson went there tonight — Tucker told his audience if people don't start making lots of noise we're going to see a government controlled digital currency.  Tucker Carlson opened his show on Monday by discussing the banking crisis in the country today.  On Monday morning trading was halted on 20 banks as the markets opened.

Central Bank Digital Currency Is the Endgame Of Total Control.  Central bank digital currency (CBDC) will end human freedom.  Don't fall for the assurances of safeguards, the promises of anonymity and of data protection.  They are all deceptions and diversions to obscure the malevolent intent behind the global rollout of CBDC.  Central Bank Digital Currency is the most comprehensive, far-reaching, authoritarian social control mechanism ever devised.  Its "interoperability" will enable the CBDCs issued by various national central banks to be networked to form one, centralised global CBDC surveillance and control system.  Should we allow it to prevail, CBDC will deliver the global governance of humanity into the hands of the bankers.

Biden's Executive Order Nightmare: Government Will Track Every Dime You Spend.  When I was a sparring partner for professional boxers many, many years ago, I was taught to be wary of the jab.  It is a tactic used to distract an opponent while setting him up for a devastating power punch that takes him down for the count.  Biden is throwing jabs.  The power punch is a little noticed Executive Order with the innocuous number 14067 and its title, "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets."  In a 21st Century world where cryptocurrency and cybercrime are now embedded threats to our collective financial security, this Executive Order would seem to address these issues.  That is the jab.  In fact, this order includes language that allows the Federal Reserve System to "explore" the possibility of introducing digital currency into the United States.  This means that your cash becomes so much colored paper.  That would not be the only catastrophic impact on our society and the nation's economy.  Under this new digital currency, any transfer of funds to family, friends, charities, or clients would be able to be tracked by the nation's central bank that issued this virtual money.  Big Brother will be in your wallet every hour or every day.  You will not be able to buy a stick of gum without a Federal Reserve computer knowing where, when, and to whom you just put down a buck.

The Editor says...
Sounds bad.  But it's only bad if the Congress and the Supreme Court play along with it.

How To Resist CBDCs - 5 Ways You Can Opt Out Of This Dystopian Future.  There's an excellent chance governments worldwide will soon force their citizens to use central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).  CBDCs enable all sorts of horrible, totalitarian things.  They allow governments to track and control every penny you earn, save, and spend.  They are a powerful tool for politicians to confiscate and redistribute wealth as they see fit.  CBDCs will make it possible for central banks to impose deeply negative interest rates, which are really just a euphemism for a tax on saving money.  Governments could program CBDCs to have an expiration date — like some airline frequent flyer miles — forcing people to spend them, for example, before the end of the month when they'd become worthless.  CBDCs will enable devious social engineering by allowing governments to punish and reward people in ways they previously couldn't.

A very dark digital currency experiment is under way in Nigeria, with deadly consequences.  The whole point is to use poor third-worlders as lab rats in an experiment so they can bring it to the civilized West.  What they are doing to the poor people of Nigeria is just a test-run for what they want to do to you.  We need to pay attention to this dire situation, because as Nick correctly stated, the digital currency way of life is coming for us all.

Riots erupt in Nigerian cities as bank policy leads to scarcity of cash.  Rioters have attacked bank ATMs and blocked roads in three Nigerian cities as anger spilled on the streets over a scarcity of cash, just days before the country's general election.  Nigeria has been struggling with a shortage in physical cash since the central bank began to swap old bills of the local naira currency for new ones, leading to a shortfall in banknotes.  Banks have limited access to cash for withdrawals because of a scarcity of the new notes, and some businesses refuse to accept old naira, causing huge queues, angering customers and disrupting businesses.

This is what happens when all your transactions go through your credit cards and your cell phone.
Lakeview Robbery Victim Says His Bank Advised Him to Contact Thieves For His Money Back.  A Lakeview man says he was recently robbed twice:  First, by a pair of muggers, then by his bank.  Much of 24-year-old Colin Johnson's savings account was drained by thieves who used a popular banking app to do the damage; one that is now under fire by lawmakers.  The trouble started on a hot and humid Saturday night last August when Johnson said after a night out with friends, he decided to call it early and head home, walking down Belmont Avenue.  Before he could process what was going on, Johnson said two men approached him out of nowhere, demanding everything he had. [...] Banking records show where they went next:  Johnson's savings account.  "They were able to get into all of my apps right away," he said.  "They were able to change all of my passwords.  That's where the real damage started."  The thieves did not force Johnson to unlock his phone, yet somehow they managed to do that on their own and immediately began transferring funds from his savings to his checking account.

Why can't we ban cashless shops?  The government and Bank of England seem to have finally woken up to one of the many glaring problems with trying to achieve a cashless society: that there are 1.3 million people in Britain who do not have a bank account.  Whether that is because of long-established habit, because they don't trust banks or because banks don't trust them, it is an awful lot of people to contemplate shutting out of the economy.  Presumably, they would have to resort to some form of barter, or to establish unofficial currencies such as cigarettes, used in jails.  But the solution suggested by Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Bailey seems itself wrapped in problems.  They have suggested creating a Bank of England digital pound by 2030 which could be used without a bank account.  Trouble is that four per cent of the population — almost the same proportion who do not have a bank account, and quite possibly the same people in many cases — don't have internet access either.  To use a digital currency in a shop would presumably require either a prepayment card or a smartphone.  Still, 16 percent of the population do not own a smartphone.  Presumably, that might rise if a digital currency became the only means of going shopping.

Lightfoot: don't use cash.  Street vendors in Chicago are getting robbed at gunpoint, and are demanding more police presence to deter the criminals.  Apparently, the vendors have this bizarre idea that thugs pointing guns at them shouldn't be occurring.  Lori Lightfoot has a better solution:  don't take cash from customers.  After all, if you have money on your person you really do deserve whatever you get.  Criminals gotta eat too.  Haven't you ever heard the term "you eat what you kill?"

We Are About To Witness A Major Move Toward A Cashless Society.  The war on cash has just gone to an entirely new level.  When I heard that the European Union was planning to completely ban all cash transactions above 10,000 euros, I had a hard time believing it.  There are so many wild rumors flying around on the Internet these days, and so I wasn't going to write about this unless I could confirm it.  Unfortunately, this particular rumor is quite real.  Under the pretext of fighting "money laundering and terrorist financing", the European Union will be entirely outlawing all cash payments greater than 10,000 euros.

Reinventing the Root of All Evil.  Money is perhaps one of humanity's most important inventions.  But what is it really?  Credit?  A medium of exchange?  A store of value?  All of the above?  On Dec. 8, 2021, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried told the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services how digital assets could be that and more.  Sam was a Big Guy, and regulation was his chance to shape the playing field, to define the network.  This highlights an underappreciated aspect of the digital money concept.  It is defined as much by the network it inhabits as the instruments that circulate within it.  Digital currency never leaves a computer network, and it is exchanged exclusively via digital means.  (Even in the case of "Cold Wallets" it is the credential or private key, not the token, which is taken offline.)  The properties of the network are therefore part of the properties of the money.  Eventually, the network will strive to become the only game in town.  For example, if a bank charges negative interest on deposits, the public is much more likely to withdraw money in paper cash, which would be inconvenient.  But abolishing paper cash will prevent bank runs and stabilize the financial sector by confining all the tokens to the system.  Like the Hotel California, ideally, you can never leave.

NY Fed and Major Banks Make Announcement That Should Concern Us All.  We saw large-scale changes in how elections were conducted using the pandemic as an excuse.  We can see the harmful results of a lot of those changes now, as they now try to sell us on it being "normal" that it may take days in some places to count elections.  If that weren't enough, be prepared for something else that has been bandied about as a "conspiracy theory" but may now be on the immediate horizon.  The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and several banking conglomerates are partnering on a 12-week "digital dollar" pilot program.  They will "explore the feasibility of an interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger."

Transcommunism is coming.  [The] "Known Traveler Digital Identity (KTDI)" was a pilot project of the WEF in 2018. Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada is a Young Global Leader of the WEF.  The other partner in Canada's KTDI programme, by the way, is the Dutch government.  That includes Sigrid Kaag (D66), an 'agenda contributor' to the WEF.  Kaag is pretty much the Netherlands' shadow prime minister and finance minister.  She reported a few days ago that she wants to oblige banks to put all transactions above 100 euros into a large database, under the guise of fighting fiscal fraud.  That in itself is a huge breach of privacy law.  The Dutch government's plan to track almost all transactions of its citizens could also be a preparatory step towards the implementation of a digital central bank currency (Central Bank Digital Currency).  That digital euro is again not a fairy tale of conspiracy thinkers, but was also previously announced by the European Central Bank.  Such a digital Euro, centrally controlled by the ECB is the prelude to a total social control society on the Chinese model.  With it, every financial transaction can not only be monitored but then adjusted or even banned.  Linked to credit or debit cards, your spending patterns can be accurately tracked.  Linked to your "Covid Safe" card or app (which will be soon renamed as a Health Certificate) your money can be blocked in case of 'undesirable behavior'.  Bought too much meat or avocados from Africa this month causing your carbon footprint to go into the red?  Then your digital money for these products will be blocked.  Put too many bottles of Moët et Chandon Champagne in your shopping basket while your digital health certificate knows you have high blood pressure?  "Better not drink any more alcohol this month anyway" your digital money will say to you.  Anyone who already takes a plane once in a while will not be able to book their next flight if as a result your 'CO2 plane points' have been exceeded.  Airmiles will suddenly take on a whole new meaning.

How the Enemy Plans Disasters.  We all know, to our cost, how the enemies of humanity used the so-called covid "pandemic" to try to destroy us.  They imposed draconian shutdowns on the economy, pressured and in many cases ordered us to take killer vaccines and blocked young people from the contact with their friends they need to grow up properly.  Some people, such as the monster "Dr." Anthony Fauci, would like to shut us down again. [...] But the situation is even worse than we thought.  Michael Rectenwald has written a brilliant new book, The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda, and in it he shows how the anti-human plotted to use a pandemic to impose totalitarianism on us.  I'm going to talk about some of his findings, and then combine this with evidence that the "pandemic" was made in America.  The implication of this is mind-blowing.  Rectenwald first identifies a person and the group he founded behind the "Great Reset."  The person is Klaus Schwab and the group is his World Economic Forum. [...] In terms of economics and monetary policy, the Great Reset amounts to a great consolidation of wealth, on the one hand, and the planned issuance of universal basic income (UBI) on the other.  Its goals include a shift to a central bank digital currency (CBDC), including a consolidated centralization of banking and bank accounts, the possibility of immediate real-time taxation, negative interest rates, and centralized surveillance and control over spending, debt, and savings.

Canada's Dilemma.  Canada is in serious trouble.  To arrive at that conclusion, all one need do is pay attention.  In evident violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms embedded in the Constitution, essential to a functioning democracy, Canada was one of the few countries in the world determined to coerce vaccine mandates and impose possibly illegal travel apps and quarantine protocols.  These measures have been paused, but the government obviously maintains the right to re-impose them at a moment's notice. [...] Undeterred in his march toward despotic rule, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is poised to introduce a digital currency, which will give the government financial control of banking and discretionary spending at the expense of private citizens and consumers.  He is simultaneously engaged in implementing a Digital Identity Program, associated with the World Economic Forum's Known Traveler Digital Identity initiative, on the way toward establishing a Social Credit State which Trudeau blazons as "the most advanced digital jurisdiction in the world."

Federal Reserve announces major 'pilot exercise' for ESG social credit score system.  The Federal Reserve has taken a major step in the direction of facilitating an ESG compliant monetary network that effectively acts as a parallel system to that of the Chinese Communist Party's infamous social credit scoring system.  The Fed said in a statement Thursday:  "Six of the nation's largest banks will participate in a pilot climate scenario analysis exercise designed to enhance the ability of supervisors and firms to measure and manage climate-related financial risks.  Scenario analysis — in which the resilience of financial institutions is assessed under different hypothetical climate scenarios — is an emerging tool to assess climate-related financial risks, and there will be no capital or supervisory implications from the pilot."  In other words, The Fed is working with the big banks to monitor their ability to comply with the ruling class's preferred enviro statist technocratic tyranny.  The unaccountable people behind the American money printer claim that this exercise is "exploratory in nature and does not have capital consequences."

Digital Currency Can Be Programmed With An Expiration Date.  As I hold on to the last of the electricity before Hurricane Ian hits the Carolinas, I'm scrolling through social media accounts I've never been on before and learning all kinds of new things.  This is not new information, but did you know that China's digital currency that rolled out last year was programmable to have an expiration date?  Imagine just wanting to be a normal person and save money to start a business, get out of debt, or even just give someone a gift.  And the bank is like nah, you didn't use it so we got rid of it.

Zimbabwe Hails Success Of Gold Coin Issuance — Lower Denominations Coming.  Declaring its July launch of one-ounce gold coins a success, Zimbabwe's central bank says it will begin issuing and selling coins in smaller gold denominations this fall.  "Following the successful launch of the gold coins on 25 July 2022 and in response to public demand, the bank shall introduce and release into the market gold coins in units of a tenth ounce, quarter ounce and half an ounce for sale with effect from mid-November 2022," Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya said this week.  The coins, which can be purchased from approved banks, were introduced to combat rampant inflation driven by locals exchanging Zimbabwean dollars for US dollars.  In July, Zimbabwe's price inflation rate was over 250%.

US Treasury Just Published a Working Paper Pushing for Central Bank Digital Currency to Counter 'Bank Runs'.  The Office of Financial Research (OFR) is the independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury which was formed in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08 — and the subsequent Great Recession that ensued.  The OFR's responsible for collecting financial data and making recommendations to the Treasury's Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) based on that data, who then "responds to emerging risks to the stability of the United States' financial system."  This is the same department, who for the last 2 years, oversaw one of the largest transfers of wealth in the history of the world — and they approved every bit of it.  Their influence in the global economy cannot be understated which is why the OFR's recent white paper is particularly troublesome.

A Dark Age in America.  [Scroll down]  Digital currencies as called for in the WEF plan are the next major shift.  Digital money, couched as "freedom from cash," is nothing but enslavement.  If no one has cash, if we are all reliant on binary code in an "account" someplace, government has absolute power.  If we do as they say, a push of the button adds funds, rewarding us.  If we rebel or try to stand up for basic rights — as was done in Canada during the not so distant revolt against mandated vaccines — government will block your account, take your wealth, and leave you with nothing.  This is a digitized form of Stalin's rule during the 1930s.  Everything happening in America today points directly to the dark lessons of the past.

Global reset fully underway as 90% of central banks push for digital currency that governments can control.  If you've been paying any attention at all to the stock market over the past several days, you are aware that stocks have been rapidly declining.  Individual retirement accounts have lost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, in the blink of an eye as the Biden economy continues to tank and take Americans' financial security with it.  Without any doubt, Joe Biden has turned out to be the very worst president in the history of our country, and it's not even close.  But the tanking of our economy and those of countries around the world is purposeful:  It's being done as part of a global 'reset' that was launched by the planetary elite as a means of solidifying their control over literally every person and every activity, every day.  And one way they plan on doing so is by taking over complete control of the money supply.

Ten Steps to Totalitarianism.  Does anybody still think totalitarianism can't happen here?  Ask yourself how many of these steps we've already galloped past. [... #10] Digital Identity Tracking:  What started with Obamacare and socialized medicine and quickly expanded with Democrat cities' experimentation with COVID-19 digital passports is set to go into overdrive with the introduction of central bank digital currencies.  If government-issued cyber-monies replace the relative anonymity of physical cash, then no purchase, donation, or investment can be free from the prying eyes of the State.  Combined with government control over health care and the imposition of mandatory digital IDs, the State will have created the perfect surveillance system.  When all human activity is monitored and social credit scores are the norm, personal choice disappears.

Bank of England teams with MIT to create State-controlled digital currencies in scheme to exert complete control over citizens.  What made Barack Obama's effort to implement 'universal healthcare' via his "Obamacare" fiasco so evil was that he knew that all Americans, at some point in their lives, require medical care.  By implementing a full-on, government-controlled healthcare system, Obama knew how that would have given central planners nearly complete control over American citizens.  Now, the next phase of that authoritarian plan is coming into view:  Controlled citizens' finances.  According to Reclaim The Net, the Bank of England has announced that it has partnered with the Digital Currency Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the objective being to conduct joint research into developing a central bank digital currency.

How the Government Digital Dollar Will Control You.  The Biden Administration is currently building an infrastructure to eventually replace cash with a digital dollar and a central bank controlled by government.  At the same time, Democrats and Western leaders are pushing hard for ESG for corporations on the Stock Market.  They will all tie together in the future.  ESG is a social credit system that subjugates corporate product quality to leftist values.  How well a company obeys the leftist dictates will determine how successful that company will be.  The left gets to pick winners and losers and it will always be in accordance with their ideology.  The digital dollar will destroy the Bill of Rights.  Privacy and freedom will be dependent on government beneficence.  If your social credit scores are low, they could take away your digital dollars if they choose.  Will they?  Judge their behavior now as a determinant of what they will do in the future.

The Editor says...
Even today, if you wake up one morning and the bank says you only have one percent of what you thought you had, that's just the way it is.  The bank teller always believes the computer terminal more than he or she believes you.

The Canadian 2022 Budget Authorizes a Central Bank Digital Currency.  CTH noted earlier, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 control mechanisms, things were being done legislatively to follow a 'new world order' for western democracies.  One of the nations we noted following this new direction, was Canada.  Today [4/7/2022], a review of the proposed Canadian 2022 budget finds something to align with the new version of democracy — the establishment of funding to create a central bank digital currency.  That should not necessarily come as a surprise.  After all, despite a massive amount of denial from the Canadian Finance Minister and Canadian Prime Minister toward the context of CTH research, the direct evidence we were looking for is now discovered.

Understanding the Progressive Mind.  Money is a social glue.  It provides incentives to work and to be law-abiding.  It is a bargaining chip that can deflect and avoid social violence.  When you destroy the value of money you destroy an indispensable social bond.  That is what happened to the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, and what led to the election of Adolf Hitler in 1933.  What, then, could the Democrats be thinking in pouring fuel on the fires of inflation?  The Biden Democrats who have poured trillions of dollars into an already heated economy look on the United States Treasury as a bank, which can be robbed.  As progressives, they feel licensed to rob the nation's bank by the nobility of their mission, which is to save the planet.  In their eyes, the money represents the fruits of exploitation made possible by a "white supremacist" capitalist system.  In such a system, money is not earned but is extracted by socially sanctioned power.  This is a system which they are pledged to destroy.

Biden's Central Bank Digital Currencies:  The Most Dramatic Expansion of Federal Powers Ever Made.  As we have reported the Biden agenda has a single goal — to increase the power of the federal government at the expense of the freedoms enjoyed by we the people.  Over time we have seen the healthcare industry, major corporations and the legacy and social media submit to the mandates of the federal government.  The federal government has been complicit in spying on presidents and the American people.  Under the current administration there is a new and more dangerous threat looming — Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).

Digital Money and Liberty.  The Biden Administration is considering the implementation of digital money.  This transition has some time urgency because the Chinese consider digital money to be a financial opportunity by which they can displace the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.  There are tremendous advantages to being the world's reserve currency, so this is a matter of national interest.  Any transition to digital money poses a challenge to liberty.  For example, the Chinese consider digital money to be another step further down their totalitarian social scoring system.  Controlling money digitally provides the power to cut off an individual completely from a financial system.  This directly threatens an individual by withholding the means to eat, be clothed, and have shelter.  Liberty is directly in the crosshairs because property can be impounded or seized.  Without private property, which provides the means to be independent of government, there is no liberty. [...] Before the U.S. implements any system of digital money, a constitutional amendment addressing several important points is needed to protect individual rights and liberty.  A statute is unacceptable because it is too easily undone by progressives with authoritarian inclinations.  More permanent protection of individual rights and liberty is needed.

The coming federal weaponization of banking.  The largest shake-up in finance since the formation of the Federal Reserve is nearly here.  The establishment of a government-backed cryptocurrency is a threat to the freedom of commerce and would give Washington the ability to weaponize banking against political dissent, or even block Americans from accessing their own money altogether.  A digital version of the dollar has been in the works for over a year now.  Earlier this month, President Biden signed an executive order both curtailing existing cryptocurrencies and laying the groundwork for a federal digital currency.  Crypto regulations have been a favorite topic of Democrats on Capitol Hill and regulators in the federal bureaucracy.  Biden deployed numerous excuses, including the risks of money laundering and the carbon emissions needed to produce crypto, to justify cracking down on these currencies.  But the kicker of the statement is the regulatory groundwork for the coming "digital dollar."  The United States will be the second major power to foster such a move, after China, where efforts to create a digital currency as part of its social credit system are a sign of what might be coming here soon.

Blackrock CEO Advances Proposal for Global Digital Payment System and Digital Currency.  When CTH outlined the 'Destination Handbasket' framework, we had no idea Blackrock CEO Larry Fink was essentially going to confirm the premise of our prediction.  Keep in mind, any digital currency can only work if there is a digital identity attributed to it — what some have called a digital passport which then creates a crypto wallet.  I have based the framework, of what appears to be over the horizon, on a set of inevitable geopolitical outcomes if the current path is continued.  The letter by Blackrock CEO Larry Fink seems to affirm the strongest likelihood of a western-inspired digital currency eventually replacing the dollar.

The Three Cs Preventing Total State Control.  If you were a time-traveling supervillain intent on world domination, how might you change the past in order to seize total control of the present?  I'd get rid of the personal automobile, unsupervised cash transactions, and uncontrolled mass communication.  If you take away freedom of movement, freedom of commerce, and freedom of speech, then you can keep people isolated, dependent on government welfare, and ignorant of any ideas that might threaten the power of the State.  Cars, cash, and communication are tools for promoting and protecting freedom, so if your goal is total State control over the individual, the three big Cs must go.  Is it a coincidence, then, that Western governments today seem committed to following that very playbook?

This might be related:
Biden's Crypto EO Weighs Climate Change, Ponders Digital Dollar.  President Joe Biden's Wednesday executive order on cryptocurrency outlines a range of new policy objectives and measures, including language on the climate-related effects of cryptocurrencies and on the potential for a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).  "We must take strong steps to reduce the risks that digital assets could pose to ... climate change and pollution," the executive order states; "climate change and pollution" come at the end of a long list of prospective dangers.  Section 5 of the EO, "Measures to Protect Consumers, Investors, and Businesses," includes a subsection, (b) vii, telling the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to lead work on an interagency report examining climate and energy concerns around cryptocurrency.  The OSTP is currently led by Alondra Nelson, a social science professor at the Institute of Advanced Study with a doctorate in American studies, who has been a member of the World Economic Forum's Network on AI, IoT, and The Future of Trust.

Gates, Fauci, and Daszak charged with Genocide in Court Filing.  [Scroll down]  Klaus Schwab, a wickedly intelligent, perhaps diabolical German with double doctorate degrees in Economics and Engineering, is the founder of the World Economic Forum, a club for the wealthiest percentile of the world's corporate and political elite.  He is a power broker who has groomed many presidents, prime ministers, and tech CEOs who now view him with reverence and unswerving loyalty.  Schwab, an economist, and technocrat has befriended many nations, most significantly China's Xi Jinping, who delivered a key speech at Davos.  He praised his vision of a New World Order.  On January 25, 2021, Klaus Schwab vowed his support for Xi Jinping with these words, "Mr. President (Xi Jinping) I believe this is the best time to reset our policies and to work, jointly, for a peaceful and prosperous world.  We all welcome now, his excellency, Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China."

The End of Privacy:  PayPal, Venmo, Cash App to Report $600 in Total Transactions, Require Your Tax Info.  Starting this month, third-party payment vendors will report $600 in total annual transitions to the IRS.  That's not every transaction of $600 or more.  That's if you do more than $600 worth of business with any of them over the course of an entire year.  Vendors will also need to see your tax information, comrades.  PayPal, Venmo, and others are acting in compliance with the American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Democrats on a strict party-line vote in both houses, and signed into law last year by Presidentish Joe Biden.

When Fiat Currency Stops Being Money.  [Scroll down]  The policies implemented by global central banks are as aggressive or even more so than those of the Federal Reserve but without the global demand that the US dollar enjoys.  If global nations with sovereign currencies continue to play this dangerous game, local and international demand for their currency will evaporate and dependence on the US dollar will rise.  More importantly, if the Federal Reserve continues to put its global reserve status to the test, all fiat currencies may suffer a loss of confidence and a move to other alternatives.  If the private sector does not accept this currency as a unit of measure, a generalized means of payment, and a store of value backed by reserves and demand from the mentioned private sector, the currency becomes worthless and ceases to be money.  Ultimately, it becomes useless paper.

Technical Error Leads To Incorrect SmarTrip Card Balances Showing Up For Some Metro Riders.  Commuters returning to Metro for the first time might be surprised to have a lot more money on their SmarTrip card than they should — and even more surprised when that dollar amount drops suddenly.  A technical issue with SmartBenefits — the system used by employers to deposit money onto their employees' SmarTrip accounts — is causing higher amounts of money to be displayed for some riders when they swipe into the system.  Once the rider uses up the actual amount on the card, it will display zero dollars, despite the prior swipes showing much more.  The problem comes from a lot of people stopping SmartBenefits during the pandemic.  People who haven't ridden the system for a year and a half likely don't remember how much money they had on their card when they last traveled.

The Editor says...
The balance available on your card — no matter what you remember it was — is no more and no less than the government says it is.  The bureaucrats and pencil-pushers will claim their computers are always right.  At that point, you have no recourse.

UK proposing bank-controlled digital currency amidst warnings of state control, loss of freedom.  The U.K government has partnered with the Bank of England to draw up plans for a digital currency for use "alongside" cash, in a move which some have warned will usher in a "dramatic increase in state control of our lives."  Back in April, Her Majesty's Treasury and the Bank of England announced their decision to investigate the benefits of a central bank digital currency, Associated Press News reported.

Governments are using credit card purchase data as "contact tracing' COVID surveillance.  The ongoing "war on cash" that far preceded the pandemic, whose goal is to steer people towards using traceable forms of payment, is coming in very handy in the COVID era precisely for the reason the policy is criticized in the first place — it makes it easy for authorities to keep tabs on individuals who use card transactions.  Reports now mention instances of Australian residents receiving a mandate to quarantine after using their credit card to pay at an establishment, where somebody known to be infected with the virus had stayed.  Credit card receipts led back to the person that was then forced to self-isolate (although they did not have coronavirus) — and apparently led the person to consider what, if anything, is left of their privacy in a world where more and more people leave long "data trails" behind them. [...] As for using card transactions to do COVID contact tracing, Australia is far from being the only country that is doing it.  In fact, those lauded as most successful in even getting their contact tracing efforts off the ground, like South Korea, pioneered the practice.  Data surveillance, reports said, was used by authorities there to make sure that people who were either unable or unwilling to share their every move are eventually forced into doing it.  Australia has "distinguished" itself for being willing to jeopardize people's privacy with a series of COVID surveillance and control measures over the past 18 months, and last November, the National Contact Tracing Review, whose chair is Australia's Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, recommended using consumer credit card data for track and trace purposes.

Fed explores 'once in a century' bid to remake the U.S. dollar.  The Federal Reserve is taking what may be the first significant step toward launching its own virtual currency, a move that could shake up banks, give millions of low-income Americans access to the financial system and fortify the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.  The idea of creating a fully digital version of the U.S. dollar, which was unthinkable just a few years ago, has gained bipartisan interest from lawmakers as diverse as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) because of its potential benefits for consumers who don't have bank accounts.  But it's also sparking strong pushback from those with the most to lose:  banks.

Report:  Banks Discouraging Cash Deposits.  Banks have announced they no longer want cash deposits, particularly from their corporate customers who say they're flushed with cash.  According to recent reports, banks are describing their current cash flow as "too much."  With companies loaded with cash and interest rates near zero, banks are stressing they are unable to make a profit by lending the cash to borrowers.  Reports said deposits have surged this year, jumping from $411 billion to more than $17 trillion between the months of March and May. [...] This comes as the Biden administration is flooding the country with more cash and is seeking even more spending amid inflation concerns.

We Are Doing Harriet Tubman a Disservice.  I am sure there is something ironic about finally putting a person of color onto our money, all while it ends up with the lowest value in our history.  We have been through decades of the Dollar's domination in world markets, however, those days have come to an end, as we continue to feed inflationary policies that send the value of the dollar down the tubes.  First is in the continued printing of money.  This goes back to simple Economics 101 theory.  The prevalence of something reduces its value.  If there are 1 trillion dollars issued in the world, and suddenly we increase that number to 2 trillion, one could expect that the value of the dollar would drop, as there is more of the currency currently flowing.  It is part of what makes blockchain so valuable — the scarcity of it.  With the dollar, there is not a fixed and finite amount of which the Federal Reserve can release.  COVID-19 policies have simply required that the Fed make more printed money available to cover the bills which Congress has written.  Just how exactly did you think the US Federal Government was going to afford trillions of dollars of stimulus bills absent increasing the amount of money available to do so.  Either we have to borrow the money, or we have to print it.

The Great Reset and Klaus Schwab.  [Scroll down]  Instead, the Great Reset will remake the world — in Schwab's words, "to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward," all the platitudes neatly packed into one sentence.  Private property deforms the natural relations between human beings and must be abolished.  Private transportation will not be allowed.  "Contrary content" in the printing or production of materials will not be permitted, at the cost of access to social media and Internet domains.  Fossil fuels will be replaced wholesale by Green technologies.  Home gardens will be outlawed.  The Christian faith will be gradually suppressed (as is happening today).  Vaccines will become mandatory.  Society will become "cashless" and all standard monetary transactions replaced by digital currency and governed by electronic means, which can be cancelled by reigning authority at the slightest provocation.  Debts will be forgiven and creditors will face the prospect of bankruptcy.  The middle class and small entrepreneurs will be wiped out.  Commerce will become progressively "contact-less."

Corriher: This Is Why They Want to Go Cashless.  Venmo just refused to do business with a conservative, Jaden McNeil, because they didn't like his political views and activities.  There are dark times ahead if banks and financial processors can prevent a person from feeding his family if he dares to speak out against our oligarchs.  This is why they are using the fight against a supposed "pandemic" to promote the cashless society that the elitists have wanted for decades.  [Video clip]

7 Things That Used to Be "Crazy Conspiracy Theories" Until 2020 Happened.  [#4] Cashless societies:  Somehow, the United States ran out of change.  There were no coins to be had - anywhere - for a while.  Bloomberg reported in August:  ["]As if a deep recession and a never-ending pandemic wasn't enough, the U.S. now faces another crisis:  a coin shortage.  Thanks to the lockdowns, fewer coins are in circulation, leaving businesses unable to make change when customers hand over paper money.["]

A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal?  [Scroll down]  The playbook is already being expanded to banking and credit.  To be on the wrong side of elite-woke opinion increasingly is to find yourself locked out of the financial system: no bank account, no credit card, no ability to get a loan, or pay a mortgage.  Pay cash?  The move to a "cashless society" — purely to prevent drug lords and Russian spies from laundering money, you understand — will obviate that option right quick. [...] Britain's nationalized healthcare service now denies medical care to those deemed "racist, sexist, or homophobic."  What's to stop the wokerati from pressuring America's patchwork of public and private healthcare providers to do the same?  And why stop there?  Why should "racists" even be allowed to buy food?  That is, assuming they can even earn the money to pay for it.  But that problem can probably be taken care of by denying the bad guys credit or debit cards and phasing out cash.

Media Deems Cashless Society a 'Conspiracy Theory' — After Admonishing Cash Use.  Before there was a coin shortage, cash was under attack in the media, and ridiculously hailed as a COVID-19 hazard.  Now, it seems that news outlets have pivoted to making sure the public thinks of a looming cashless society as a "conspiracy theory." At the height of anxiety over the coronavirus, CNN berated the American people for using cash.  "Do NOT take a bunch of cash out of the bank," rang one headline; "Dirty money:  The case against using cash during the coronavirus outbreak," read another.  CBS News similarly ran an anti-cash story at the time, as did other mainstream networks.  More recent stories, however, have pivoted to feign concern about the growing suspicion of an impending digital coup against paper and coined money.  (It's always fascinating to see how the media manipulates emotions, giving us something to be outraged about one day, and trying to calm us down the next day by trying to convince us we're outraged about the wrong thing.)

Pa. lawsuit alleges Chipotle keeping the change with cash-paying customers.  A lawsuit seeking class-action status contends that Chipotle stores in Pennsylvania are not giving proper change to customers and instead are lining their pockets with it.  The complaint, filed Thursday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, alleges hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars in consumer losses.  It provides two examples — on Aug. 13 at a store in Pine and on Tuesday in Hampton, in which customers were not given the change they were entitled to when they paid their bills.  A spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office said that they have received five complaints similar to those filed in the lawsuit.

How a coin shortage is hurting US laundromats.  The coin shortage is changing the laundry industry.  Mom and pop laundromat owners are considering pivoting payment systems from cash-only to credit card-loaded machines as a result of the coronavirus-fueled coin shortage following nationwide business shutdowns.  But cash is still king for many customers who may not have access to credit cards or smartphone-linked apps.

Why are coins hard to find during the pandemic?  The Federal Reserve has seen a significant decline of coins in circulation because people are not spending them as regularly at businesses, many of which are either temporarily closed or not accepting cash.  Coins are still plentiful.  In April, the U.S. Treasury estimated more than $47.8 billion were in the market, up by more than a billion dollars compared to last year.

Kroger Stops Giving Customers Change As Nationwide Coin Shortage Worsens.  Due to an ongoing, and in some respect, a worsening nationwide coin shortage, The Kroger Company has stopped returning coins to cash-paying customers.  At the same time, remainders can be donated to a charity or transferred to the customers' loyalty cards, reported NewsChannel 5 Nashville WTVF.  Kroger officials said, "at Kroger, we are implementing several creative solutions to minimize the impact to our customers... We know this is an inconvenience for our customers, and we appreciate their patience.  The Treasury Department expects the shortage to diminish as more regions of the country reopen." [...] Last month, the Federal Reserve warned coin disruptions were coming due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown of the economy.

Editor's note, expanded on 8/2/2020:
[#1] Fortunately, I've only lost 34 cents to this  scam  new policy.  I was caught by surprise the other day, agreed to donate 34 cents to the charity of  their  Kroger's choice, which the friendly checker did not name, and was not told that I could apply 34 cents to my "loyalty" card.  Maybe the checker himself didn't know.  [#2] Is there really a shortage of coins?   The coins are all being collected  Many of the coins are being collected by the Coinstar machine at the front of the grocery store.  People dump jars and buckets of loose change into these machines every day, and the coins are eventually collected and taken away.  (Poorly-educated millenials probably see loose change as a nuisance, since the use of various denominations of coins requires a lot of mental arithmetic, for which they are not prepared.)  Somewhere, there may be a Coinstar warehouse full of coins, most likely waiting for the day when it's legal to melt them down and recover the copper and silver content.  At least it would be easy to arrive at this inference.  In my opinion, Coinstar appears to be a mining operation.  (I wish I had thought of it first.)  In the long run, this means that the government will start making coins out of zinc instead of copper, pennies (which are already zinc) will be eliminated soon, and nickels most likely will, too.  If nobody has coins, it's a bad year to be in the vending machine business.  If pennies and nickels are eliminated, that leaves dimes and quarters, since there are no half-dollar coins any more and the one-dollar coins, sometimes called the Carter Quarter (since they are easily mistaken for quarters), are unpopular.  The alternative to Coinstar, for small amounts of change, is the self-checkout machine at the grocery store, which has a big advantage:  The self-checkout machine will give you credit for 100 percent of the coins' value, whereas the Coinstar machine will not.

(See also "A few words about pennies.")

It's not about the virus any more.  Maybe it never was.
How COVID-19 is accelerating the shift to a cashless society.  Tom Ivory, the founder of the Baker Street Bread Co. in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill section, fought a valiant effort for years to rein in bank fees by imposing a minimum credit card purchase of $10.  But more customers wanted to go cashless, and Mr. Ivory eventually relented and accepted plastic for any transaction, no matter how small.  About 78% of the purchases at the cafe and store are now paid through credit cards or other electronic transfer — up from 10% just five years ago.  "You have to keep up with technology," Mr. Ivory said.

The Editor says...
Cash is unpopular because millennials are lazy and most of them can't do arithmetic in their heads, so they never know how much money they really have, and wouldn't know if they were being shortchanged.  It's far easier to use a debit card and keep spending until it bounces.

Meijer Stops Accepting Cash As Nationwide Coin Shortage Erupts.  We recently penned a piece on a developing nationwide coin shortage sparked by the virus pandemic.  As a result of the shortage, at least one major supermarket chain has removed the ability to pay in cash at self-scan checkout machines.  Meijer Inc., a supermarket chain based in the Midwest, with corporate headquarters in Walker, Michigan, announced last Friday, that self-scan checkout machines at 250 supercenters would only accept credit or debit cards, SNAP and EBT cards, and gift cards.

The Editor says...
Without accepting cash, how will they sell you a gift card?

The Sneaky Covid War on Cash.  UN One-Worlders will not let this Covid crisis go to waste.  They dream of one-world government (the "National Cabinet" writ large) with no circulating cash and mandatory use of Digital Money (Credit Card currency.)  The Climate Alarmists would also like to use a digital money monopoly to promote their war on carbon.  They could control and ration what we buy and consume — lettuce, tofu, bicycles and green energy only, with no overseas trips and no secret buying of diesel, bacon or beef.  We have already seen the start of their war on cash [...]

Why People Are Hoarding Cash in the Coronavirus Panic.  To keep the COVID-19 economy rolling, the Federal Reserve pumped in trillions of dollars — mostly by buying securities to increase the lendable reserves of commercial banks.  The people behind all this didn't ignore us little folks, either:  according to the most recent Fed data, they increased the amount of currency in circulation too.  That's money that folds folks — over 65 billion more dollars during the last sixty days alone. [...] It's not being spent.  Credit and debit card use at retail stores — mostly grocers these days — is way up.  The popular story being bandied about is that cash carries the virus, so people are avoiding its use. [...] However, if that's really the case, then why are ATM withdrawals up so much that many banks are having to order extra currency just to keep them stocked? [...] So that brings us to the reasoned conclusion that people are hoarding cash while using cards and cellphones for their transactions.

In a pandemic, no one wants to touch it.  Why cash has become the new Typhoid Mary.  The Almighty Dollar has lost some of its might in the time of COVID-19.  While most struggling businesses will take payment in any form to make ends meet during the economic downtown, a minority reject cash, fearing that it could be a transmission vehicle for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  Some experts predict that the pandemic will accelerate a steady flight by American consumers away from dollars and cents.

The Editor says...
The abolition of cash has been a goal of the political left for a long time.  The coronavirus hysteria is just a little leverage toward that end.  Nobody other than the one-in-a-million germophobe like Howie Mandel or Howard Hughes is afraid to handle money.  Bank tellers are wearing gloves these days because they're "just following orders," like everyone else.

COVID-19 and the War on Cash:  What Is Behind the Push for a Cashless Society?  Cash may well become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.  As these COVID-19 lockdowns drag out, more and more individuals and businesses are going cashless (for convenience and in a so-called effort to avoid spreading coronavirus germs), engaging in online commerce or using digital forms of currency (bank cards, digital wallets, etc.).  As a result, physical cash is no longer king.  Yet there are other, more devious, reasons for this re-engineering of society away from physical cash:  a cashless society — easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down — would play right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).  To this end, the government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been waging a subtle war on cash for some time now.  What is this war on cash?  It's a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

"Social Distancing" Just Made Accessing Your Cash A Lot Harder.  [Scroll down]  A big problem is that people have been voluntarily distancing themselves from money in favour of technological convenience.  Who is to say that restrictions on bank opening hours and access to ATM's won't eventually extend to the banking system itself coming under pressure?  Back in 2007 when the Bank of England provided liquidity support to the now defunct Northern Rock, the reaction from account holders the next morning was to start withdrawing their savings.  Is it not feasible that the economic fallout from Covid-19 could lead to liquidity problems for banks?  Recent signs of severe dollar liquidity stress in global markets would suggest that it is.

Cashless Society:  Democrats Propose 'Digital Dollar' Run By The Fed.  In the latest step toward a cashless society, House Democrats have proposed a "digital dollar" currency controlled by the Federal Reserve that's meant to make payments to people and businesses forced to shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic.  What could possibly go wrong?  House Democrats included a provision for a digital dollar in their $2.6 trillion draft stimulus bill they introduced Monday that would provide monthly economic relief to "qualified individuals."  According to the draft, a digital dollar is defined as "a balance expressed as a dollar value consisting of digital ledger entries that are recorded as liabilities in the accounts of any Federal Reserve bank; or an electronic unit of value, redeemable by an eligible financial institution (as determined by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)."  The digital dollar would also be managed and controlled solely by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Amazon selling cashier-free technology to other retailers.  Amazon has a new weapon in its war against checkout lines.  The e-commerce colossus is reportedly launching a new business to sell other retailers the technology it uses in its cashier-free Amazon Go stores.  Amazon has already inked several deals to sell the so-called "Just Walk Out" technology and will launch a new website Monday to field inquires from other interested customers, the Seattle-based company told Reuters.

Amazon debuts its first supermarket with no checkout lines.  An automated gate equipped with a series of scanners greets the mid-morning wave of shoppers entering the first bricks-and-mortar Amazon Go Grocery store on Tuesday [2/25/2020] in Seattle.  It was opening day for the supermarket, and one by one each visitor placed their phone, with the Amazon Go app open, on to a clear square, allowing them access to pristine aisles of everything from oranges and avocados to yogurt and bacon.

Trump's Presidency Reveals 7 Undeniable Facts About The Swamp.  Although Trump may appear invincible at the time of this writing, ask yourselves who controls the helium to the biggest economic balloons.  The stock market is the pressure release valve.  But when the bond market blows, the USD is toast.  And, as supply chains snap and the bankers foreclose on the world, there will be ever-expanding pain for everyone to varying degrees, as the earth exhales.  Therefore, all current global trends,  including  especially Coronavirus®, are about establishing control prior to the advent of a new order.  Although the immediate future will be anarchy, out of that chaos will come order administered by technological switches and gates.  And the future will be cashless because slavery is rooted in economics.

Steven Mnuchin explains why nearly $1.5 trillion worth of $100 bills reportedly disappeared.  Almost $1.5 trillion of the world's cash, with U.S. $100 bills making up a great deal of it, is reportedly unaccounted for.  So what happened to the money?  "Literally, a lot of these $100 bills are sitting in bank vaults all over the world," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told FOX Business' Lou Dobbs during an interview on Tuesday [12/17/2019].  Mnuchin pointed to the negative interest rates causing people to turn to American dollars as a solid investment.  "The dollar is the reserve currency of the world, and everybody wants to hold dollars," Mnuchin said on "Lou Dobbs Tonight."  "And the reason why they want to hold dollars is because the U.S. is a safe place to have your money, to invest and to hold your assets."

How my iPhone landed me with a £476 fine and made me a criminal.  The digital payments revolution was meant to make things better for the consumer.  No more banknotes falling out of your back pocket; no more waiting days on end for cheques to clear; no more missing your train because the tourist at the front of the queue doesn't know how to use the ticket machine.  Or it was for me, anyway — I'm fully signed up to the digital revolution, you see.  Not only do I rarely carry cash, but I hardly ever leave the house with my wallet.  I'm one of the estimated 8m Britons who use their smartphones to make contactless payments.  But smart though my phone is, it is not infallible.

How Dystopian Los Angeles Measures Up to Rwanda.  [Scroll down]  I asked our guide how the Rwandans manage to keep their city so clean. "Umuganda!" he shouted.  "Before Umuganda, there were piles of garbage everywhere!  Look!  Now, no one is now allowed to even use a plastic bag, no one is allowed to buy water in a plastic bottle.  We are solar.  Rwanda is green!"  He explained that on the last Saturday of every month, all able-bodied Rwandans (18-65), including the president and his Cabinet members, are required by law to go out and clean the areas around their homes and businesses.  The police fine eligible citizens who fail to participate 5,000 Rwandan francs (about U.S. $5.00).  These fines and traffic tickets are sent via text to the violator's mobile phone.  The fine is paid via the phone.  Mobile phone transactions have all but overtaken those involving currency in Rwanda.

Facebook unveils 'its most invasive and dangerous form of surveillance yet' with launch of Libra cryptocurrency.  Facebook is launching cryptocurrency next year that will allow people to move money from their smartphone into a digital "wallet".  The currency is known as Libra, which the social network says it has "no special role" in governing and will manage equally with a group of big companies.

Experimental cashless stores.  Cashless stores are experimental at the moment, as cutting-edge businesses try to figure out ways to trim costs and improve efficiency.  Dos Toros, which has 17 outlets in New York and four in Chicago, says that its restaurants haven't been robbed once since going cashless.  It's also cut down on employee theft, and spared managers the time and expense of counting and reconciling cash.  Those savings can get passed on to its customers.  Good for them.  But if other companies find that going cashless means cutting off too many customers, they will find a way to accommodate those carrying around wads of bills.  Which is exactly what's happening.  Shake Shack, for example, was considering converting stores to cashless, but decided against it when it realized how many of its customers paid with cash.

In Money We Trust?  Look at the dollar bills in your wallet.  They say they are "legal tender for all debts."  But are they?  What makes them valuable?  What makes them worth anything Each bill says, "In God We Trust."  But God won't guarantee their value.  The $20 bill depicts the White House.  Congress is on $50s.  But neither guarantees the value of our dollars.  I wouldn't trust them if they did.  I don't trust politicians, generally, but I especially don't trust them with money.  Since President Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard, the dollar has lost 80 percent of its value.  So what makes money trustworthy?

Cash is still king:  San Francisco bans credit-only stores.  San Francisco officials voted Tuesday [5/7/2019] to require brick-and-mortar retailers to take cash as payment, joining Philadelphia and New Jersey in banning a growing paperless practice that critics say discriminates against low-income people who may not have access to credit cards.

Philadelphia becomes the first city in the US to BAN 'discriminatory' cashless stores and restaurants.  Philadelphia has become the first US city to ban cashless stores and restaurants, amid backlash from critics that legal tender-free shopping is discriminatory.  Retailers who've adopted the practice may argue that eradicating cash makes for more convenient shopping, but many believe the policy actually discriminates against those without bank accounts or credit cards.  Siding with the critics, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed a motion last week banning stores in the city from enacting a cashless service.  As of July 1, any businesses failing to comply with the law will face fines of up to $2,000.

How bad is Venezuela's economy?  Even the criminals are struggling to get by.  In one of the strangest consequences of this oil-rich country's collapse, cash has virtually disappeared.  With soaring hyperinflation, the government can't print money fast enough to keep up, so many Venezuelans have switched to debit cards — not that they have enough money on them.

Australia Inserting Nano-Chips in $50 & $100 Bills to Track Underground Economy & Coming Barter System.  While the BitCoin people have hated me for not agreeing with them that a private currency could displace the currencies of all nations and BitCoin would be the new "reserve currency" killing the dollar, to me they are in serious need of help.  They have ZERO comprehension of governmental power and ZERO understanding of what is going on behind the curtain.  The IMF has come out and stated that each nation should issue their own cryptocurrency and these fools cheers claiming I am not with it and do not get this new age of technology.  Sorry, but these people are really clueless if not perhaps undercover people with a mission to get people willing to surrender their final liberty — paper money.

Your Cash Is No Good Here.  Literally.  More and more businesses like Drybar don't want your money — the paper kind at least.  It's making things awkward for those who come ill prepared.  After all, you can't give back a hairdo, an already dressed salad or the two beers you already drank.  The salad chain Sweetgreen has stopped accepting cash in nearly all its locations.  Most Dig Inns — which serve locally sourced, healthy fast food — won't take your bills either.  Starbucks went cashless at a Seattle location in January, and at some pubs in the U.K., you can no longer get a pint with pound notes.  The practice of not accepting cash has become popular enough to catch the attention of American lawmakers. [...] Despite the popularity of debit- and credit-card transactions, plenty of people do still pay for things with actual money.  Cash represented 30% of all transactions and 55% of those under $10, according to a Federal Reserve survey of 2,800 people conducted in October 2017.

Looks Like Cash Is No Longer King.  The WSJ reports that an increasing number of US retailers and restaurants are no longer accepting cash payments.  Most of us use credit cards to pay for larger purchases.  However, for smaller purchases, such as a cup of coffee or a small order at a fast-food restaurant, we often pay in cash.  Now a growing number of businesses have shifted to "no-cash" policies.  A Starbucks in Seattle adopted a cashless policy earlier this year joining a growing number of similar businesses.

On the Coinage.  The value of coinage is twofold.  First, there is its natural value based upon the quality and quantity of the metal used, which can be called its "intrinsic" value.  The second value is its legal and "extrinsic" one, which the prince sets by law, as he does the prices of other goods so that they are not sold for more than what the law without question has ordained.  He is a fool who so separates these two values such that the subsequent legal value does not stick to its natural value.

How many passwords can you remember?  Get ready to remember more.  Got too many passwords to remember?  Just wait.  It's going to get a lot worse.  Average consumers five years from now may face double the demands for passwords, said Emmanuel Schalit, chief executive of Dashlane, a consumer password security company.  Schalit and other experts predict that passwords will explode in further use before they eventually fade, replaced by new technology.  Digital devices in homes are growing more numerous, but Schalit said the real driver behind the steady increase in the need for passwords are the sprawling number of accounts for consumers to obtain public services, interact on healthcare and education websites and deal with retailers.

The Editor says...
As digital transactions become more ubiquitous and less anonymous, and data breaches become more likely to affect more users, and cash is accepted in fewer places, the pressure will build to adopt some sort of digital verification, most likely in the form of a National ID number, carried on an RFID chip in your hand or your forehead.  The convenience will only be temporary.  The repercussions will last literally forever, according to Revelation, the last book in the Bible:

Revelation, Chapter 13: [Verse 11]  And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. [...] [Verse 16] And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [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. [...] Chapter 14: [Verse 9] And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, [10] The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: [11] And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

In Sweden, cash is almost extinct as people implant microchips into their hands to pay for purchases.  More than 4,000 Swedes have implanted microchips in their hands, allowing them to pay for rail travel and food, or enter keyless offices, with a wave.  Just a few years ago, there were a couple of hundred of people in Sweden using human implantable microchips.  The a thousand, then a few thousand, and now Sweden leads the world in microchip purchases.  Cash in Sweden now accounts for only 1% of all transactions, and a full 50% of all Swedish banks will not accept cash deposits.

Sweden's Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, 'Not So Fast'.  Cash is disappearing in the country faster than anyone thought it would.  Now, officials are trying to slow its demise as they determine the societal costs.  Few countries have been moving toward a cashless society as fast as Sweden.  But cash is being squeezed out so quickly — with half the nation's retailers predicting they will stop accepting bills before 2025 — that the government is recalculating the societal costs of a cash-free future.

Sweden Tries to Halt Its March to Total Cashlessness.  A key committee of Swedish lawmakers wants to force the country's biggest banks to handle cash in an effort to halt the nation's march toward complete cashlessness.  Parliament's Riksbank committee, which is in the process of reviewing the central bank law, proposed making it mandatory for banks to offer cash withdrawals and handle daily receipts.  The requirement would apply to banks that provide checking accounts and have more than 70 billion kronor ($8 billion) in deposits from the Swedish public, according to a report.  The lawmakers said there needs to be "reasonable access to those services in all of Sweden," and that 99 percent of Swedes should have a maximum distance of 25 kilometers (16 miles) to the nearest cash withdrawal.  The requirement doesn't state how banks should offer those services, and lenders can choose whether to use a third party, machines or over-the-counter services.

Federal Reserve Nominee Wants To Take Your Cash And Track How You Spend.  [Scroll down]  Not only will you not be getting paid interest for your keeping your savings in a bank account — you will now be charged for having one.  The way around this, of course, is to simply take your money out of the bank and keep it under your mattress.  In fact, this is what we have seen in Japan and various European countries who own banks that have tried this very policy.  And [Marvin] Goodfriend has a solution for this, too:  eliminate cash entirely.  A cash-free society may not seem like a big deal in an age where debit cards and mobile payments are often more convenient than dealing with loose change, but it's important to understand that the goal is not convenience, but control.  The elimination of cash also eliminates the ability to avoid banks and therefore gives more power to the Federal Reserve and other central banks that regulate and back those institutions.

Texas's Gold Depository — A "Bank" For Gold-Based Money — Has Now Opened.  In 2015, the Texas State government announced plans to create a "gold depository."  At the time, we reported this could be a significant step toward wider use of gold and silver as legal tender by essentially creating a parallel banking system based on precious metals.  The basic idea has always been simple:  create a place where gold and other precious metals could be stored.  The implications, however, are for far ranging in that over time, such an institution has the potential to function as a bank that could potentially offer the ability to facilitate the use of gold as money.

New Technologies Nurturing Big Brother.  Centralized control over all financial activity has reached the point where there is talk of abandoning cash for all-0electronic transactions, the better to flesh out the state's dossiers on all of us.  Various security measures allow eavesdropping on our telephone conversations, monitoring our internet access, and taking photos of us in public places. [...] Money was created as a vehicle to grease the wheels of commerce, a way to transact business without having to trade two swords for a horse.  And money provided an accurate method of valuing disparate objects:  a pair of shoes is worth three chickens, but you no longer need the chickens to acquire the shoes. [...] Money's only purpose is to facilitate free trade.  But in a Big Brother state, free trade will wither and die, eliminating the need for money.

In Defense of Cash.  [Scroll down]  Classical liberals believe an individual has the right to pursue her own ends up to the point where [his or] her actions violate the rights of another.  In general, therefore, they think the power of the state should be limited.  Sure, governments might be used for good.  But both theory and experience show that they will not always make the right choices.  It is more important to limit the harm such a powerful institution might cause.  It is easy to see how these two views can lead to opposite conclusions regarding the desirability of cash.  Physical currency enables one to disobey the government.  If the government is a force for good, efforts to circumvent its orders are generally bad for society.  On the other hand, if the government must have a compelling interest before it can justifiably interfere in people's lives, a blanket ban on cash is too broad.  Individuals should be more or less free to act privately.  And governments should only invade those private spaces if there is sufficient reason to believe someone is being harmed by someone else.  Call it a moral presumption of liberty.

This item may be slightly off-topic:
Kansas woman reportedly sued by bank after ATM dished out $100 bills instead of $5s.  A Kansas woman is facing a pricey lawsuit after a bank accused her of making dozens of withdrawals from a faulty ATM that was dispensing $100 bills instead of $5 bills, a local report said Tuesday [2/27/2018].  The Central National Bank in Wichita claimed in a Jan. 22 lawsuit that Christina C. Ochoa knew the ATM wasn't functioning properly and used it to receive as much money as possible, The Wichita Eagle said.  Ochoa reportedly made more than 50 withdrawals over five days in mid-January, several of which were done in the middle of the night, according to documents obtained by The Eagle.  The bank wants her to pay back $11,607.36 plus interest, the outlet said.

Governments Hate Bitcoin and Cash for the Same Reason:  They Protect People's Privacy.  Why are government officials sounding such similar notes of hostility to increasingly popular non-state cryptocurrencies?  "The core technology underlying cryptocurrencies, known as blockchain, is premised on anonymity," Richard Holden, an economics professor at the University of New South Wales, and Anup Malani, a law professor at the University of Chicago, explain.  "But anonymity is also the main fuel for the underground economy, which is now conducted largely via cash."  They add, "If cryptocurrencies were to replace cash as the preferred anonymous medium of exchange, they could significantly expand the underground economy because they are so much more convenient than cash."  It's worth remembering that India's government hates cash, too.  Less than two years ago, India demonetized all [Rs]500- and [Rs]1,000-notes — the highest denominations in circulation — turning them into worthless paper overnight.  Officials happily plunged the economy into chaos, and forced many people to resort to barter, in an effort to force the private cash holdings powering the country's vast shadow economy into official view, subject to tracking and taxation.

Companies like Amazon and Starbucks want to kill cash.  Companies like Starbucks and Amazon are testing stores that do not accept cash.  Going cashless can provide key advantages for retailers, such as boosting efficiency and preventing robberies.  However, for the 7% of Americans without a bank account, a cashless society would mean complete exclusion.

Cryptocurrency and Fiat Money.  In the twenty-first century, cryptocurrencies have entered upon the world stage.  The biggest criticism of cryptocurrencies is that they have no backing — but neither does the dollar, if you get right down to it.  It has been said that if some way is found to counterfeit cryptocurrencies, then no government will have jurisdiction to prosecute the counterfeiter under counterfeiting laws, which is true.  However, prosecution could proceed as a case of fraud.  Clearly that is as much a deterrence as any other law.  The concept that cryptocurrencies embody is that they are a currency free of government or banking restrictions.  The Federal Reserve has zero authority over this modern currency, nor does any other central bank.

Civil War.  In a civil war, the tools of finance would come to bear.  Assuming the civil war began as a revolt, the ruling class would first attempt to squeeze the rebels financially, by cutting them off from the financial system, making it hard to raise money.  In this age, that means shutting down their PayPal accounts and booting them from crowdfunding systems. Credit card processors would be pressured to discontinue service.  When that failed, banks would be forced to close accounts and the seize assets of trouble makers.  This would also discourage members of the elite from getting any ideas about supporting the rebels against the senior elements of the elite.  This would be augmented by the use of information war to undermine the moral authority of the rebels, thus starving them of ability to gain popular support.

Is Bitcoin Leading to a Cashless Society?  Predictions by financial and technology experts tell us our world is headed for a cashless society, and that's not for our benefit.  There might be merit to the claim, but we probably won't know until it may be too late.  The signs are generally pointing in that general direction, however, so it would be a smart idea to stay informed about the developments.

Is Bitcoin Leading to a Cashless Society?  At the RFID tags were introduced as a convenient way to keep track of pets, it seemed like a reasonable move.  When someone brings a lost dog to the vet, if the owner can't be found, the animal gets sent to a shelter.  If the dog has been microchipped, it can be reunited with its owner fairly easily.  But then people began to tag their children and even themselves, which raised some concerns.  Those red flags were subsequently validated when RFID tags became mandatory for employees of Cincinnati's video surveillance company CityWatcher.com.  Since then, RFID tags have been pushed as an easy way to manage one's finances:  the suggestion has been made that an implant in your body may make your physical bank card superfluous someday.  The idea would be to implant everyone with an RFID chip that not only serves as a locator, but also connects you to your individual bank account wirelessly.  If you don't pay your taxes or behave responsibly, access to your funds may simply be shut off.

Here Comes the 'Cashless Society'.  When that day comes — and we may be only one more "market correction" away — the call will go out to have all disposable cash surrendered in exchange for bank accounts or money funds.  A time period will be set up.  Possibly two months, extended one or two times to make the bureaucrats appear merciful.  Fluff stories will appear in the press to ease the process.  There will be stories about a seventy-year-old granny who marches in with a mattress containing $100,000 of her life earnings.  She will smile, and tell the announcer, "I was always afraid of a fire; but now I feel safer."  It will look so cute on the Five O'clock Action Report News.  Kids will turn in their piggy banks at school — does anybody still use piggy banks anymore? — for prepaid money cards.  They won't be told the cards depreciate one or two percent a month, if they do not spend it immediately.  Remember, that in all of these transactions, the central government/bank wins.

Fed's Dudley Sent Puerto Rico A "Plane Loaded With Cash".  In the days following Hurricane Maria's devastating blow to Puerto Rico, air traffic on the island came to a complete standstill as airport damage prevented commercial pilots from servicing the island.  That said, with the island economy grinding to a halt, San Juan International apparently managed to find a way to accept one very important plane... a "jet loaded with an undisclosed amount of cash" from New York Fed president William Dudley.

The Editor says...
What does that mean?  Where did the money come from and what was it for?  Was the money evenly distributed to everyone, or was it all delivered to one place?

Cash demand soars in Puerto Rico after hurricane hit ATMs, card systems.  Demand for cash in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico is "extraordinarily high" after power outages knocked out electronic transactions and ATMs but needs were being met for now, a Federal Reserve branch said on Wednesday [9/27/2017].

The Perfect Robbery, The Cashless Society.  The dwindling share of cash-based transactions in the world has made online payment a profitable market, on which the operating companies (online payment solutions and banks) are keen to pursue the expansion, all around the world.  Recently, Mastercard convinced the Kenyan government to push the cashless front nationwide.

Cash would have already been outlawed if it were not for incidents like this:
Here Are The Major Scandals That Took Place When Robert Mueller Was FBI Director.  [#2] Vanishing Currency (2003): the US sent $12,000,000,000 in $100 bills to the Iraq War combat theater, which mostly went unaccounted for once it entered the country

Cashless Society Alert:  Visa Will Be Giving Up To $500,000 To Restaurants That Go '100% Cashless'.  The food industry is still one of the last bastions where cash is used very heavily, and so it makes sense that Visa would want to target that segment.  Of course the more people that use cards to pay for meals, the more money that Visa will make.  When I go to restaurants, I almost always use cash, and I know a lot of other people that very much prefer to use cash in those situations as well.  But if Visa has their way, soon all of us will be forced to use some form of digital payment instead.

Visa Begins Bribing Merchants To Stop Taking Cash.  The war on cash is escalating.  A big driver isn't central banks who want to be able to inflict negative interest rates on savers, or Treasuries who see cash transactions as hiding revenues from their tax collectors, but the payment networks that want to kill cash (and checks!) as competitors to their oh so terrific (and fee-gouging) credit and debit cards. [...] In the meantime, those of you who like cash should not just make a point of paying in cash, but also tell the employees and in particularly, anyone who appears to be a manager that they will lose your business if they stop taking cash.  Vocal customers may be the best way to head off Visa's profiteering.

In Cashless Sweden, Even God Now Takes Collection Via an App.  In the most cashless society on the planet, even God now accepts digital payments.  A growing number of Swedish parishes have started taking donations via mobile apps.  Uppsala's 13th-century cathedral also accepts credit cards.  The churches' drive to keep up with the times is the latest sign of Sweden's rapid shift to a world without notes and coins.  Most of the country's bank branches have stopped handling cash; some shops and museums now only accept plastic; and even Stockholm's homeless have started accepting cards as payment for their magazine.  Go to a flea market, and the seller is more likely to ask to be paid via Sweden's popular Swish app than with cash.

Arizona Bill to Restore Sound Money Awaits Governor's Signature.  Arizona advocates of sound money landed a solid body blow to fiat currency on May 10 when the state Senate voted 16-13 to end the taxation on income derived from the purchase and sale of gold and silver.  The bill — HB 2014 — would further bolster the strength of sound money in Arizona by encouraging the use of specie as currency.  Although it seems self-evident, the condition of the U.S. economy, as (mis)managed by the Federal Reserve, makes it necessary to point out that it is financially unjust to tax the profit "derived from the exchange of one kind of legal tender for another kind of legal tender."  If a person goes to the bank and exchanges a twenty-dollar bill for two tens, there's no tax on that transaction.  Likewise, there should not be — and in Arizona soon won't be — a tax on the exchange of paper currency for specie — coins containing precious metals.

Cashless tolling at Rockaway bridges.  Starting Sunday [4/30/2017], the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge in Queens will no longer accept cash or metal tokens at toll booths.  Instead, cashless tolling will be in place, through sensors suspended over the highway.

The end of cash?  Canadian retailers, consumers shifting to cards, apps.  Shoppers looking for the cash register to pay for their purchases at Vancouver's Kit and Ace active apparel stores in Gastown and Kitsilano will find a complete absence of banknotes.  The Vancouver-based brand — founded in 2014 by family members of Lululemon Athletica founder Chip Wilson — is one of the most notable cases of retailers abandoning bills and coins, which some observers have heralded as "the beginning of the end" for cash transactions in Canadian society.  In September, payment technology company Moneris said in a report that cash will make up only 10 percent of the money spent in Canada by 2030, with credit or debit card payments and mobile solutions like Apple Pay making up the vast majority of day-to-day transactions.

Cash is passé. But digital money makes you easier to track.  Our transactions are increasingly digital (and thus easily tracked), and in places like China many companies are adopting biometrics (like fingerprints or eye scans) to verify who we are (see "10 Breakthrough Technologies:  Paying with Your Face").  In India, the government has taken biometric data from 1.1 billion people.  But these developments alone don't give us a good answer to the question of what we should do with good old-fashioned paper currency.  The demand for cash has dwindled in the legal, tax-compliant economy, but the underground economy uses it as much as ever.  Incredibly, given that 95 percent of Americans report that they've never held a $100 bill (the rest say they hold one occasionally), there are 34 $100 bills floating around for every man, woman, and child in the country.

Bank of America opens its 3rd employee free branch.  An alarming trend is emerging throughout society; companies are ditching humans and replacing them with automation.  We mostly hear about these situations in tech and supply chain companies and even fast food restaurants, but now we see this come to fruition in banking as well.  Banks already operate with little to no physical cash on hand, making the elimination of the bank teller that much easier.  Armed guards will be replaced as biometric eye scanning software contracts become the next big thing in banking security.  The loss of these jobs alone will result in hundreds of thousands without work in the next ten years.

EU Seeks Cash Limits in Push for Orwellian "Cashless Society".  As the establishment's global push for an Orwellian "cashless society" kicks into high gear, the European Union is pursuing a plan to impose limits on cash transactions as the next phase in the war on cash.  The goal, according to the unelected EU bureaucrats behind the plot, is to fight "anonymity" in economic transactions — or, said another way, to crush privacy and give authorities the power to monitor every exchange.  Amid a United Nations-led effort to sideline cash and privacy around the world, the EU's anti-cash move follows similar schemes by a number of national governments within and beyond the EU in recent years.  However, as the effort picks up steam, critics are lambasting the controversial agenda from all angles, highlighting the dangers of the plan and the huge threat it poses to privacy, freedom, and real human rights.

Washington is behind India's brutal experiment of abolishing most cash.  In early November, without warning, the Indian government declared the two largest denomination bills invalid, abolishing over 80 percent of circulating cash by value.  Amidst all the commotion and outrage this caused, nobody seems to have taken note of the decisive role that Washington played in this.  That is surprising, as Washington's role has been disguised only very superficially.

Greece bans cash:  Tax-allowance possible only through payments via plastic money.  Greece is banning the use of cash the soft way.  As of 1.1.2017, taxpayers will be granted tax-allowance and tax deduction only when they have made payments via credit or debit cards.  The new guidelines refer to employees, pensioners, farmers but also unemployed.

India's Currency Ban Hits Real-Estate Market.  [Scroll down]  Prateek Patel, the cousin of the developer, complained that he hasn't sold an apartment since early November, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shocked the country by announcing an unprecedented currency overhaul.  Mr. Modi's move took aim at the heart of India's black-market economy by taking out of circulation existing 500- and 1,000-rupee bills in an effort to reduce corruption, counterfeiting and tax fraud.  Much of the country's real-estate transactions, particularly land and home sales, have been conducted on a largely cash basis to avoid taxes.  With many buyers now on the sidelines, sales have evaporated and huge price discounts are expected when the market gets its bearings back.

Globalist War on Cash Accelerates.  As part of the globalist establishment's on[-]going push to create a totalitarian "cashless society" where every transaction can be tracked and controlled, Indian authorities last week suddenly demonetized the two largest denomination bills in circulation.  In Sweden, where government already tracks and monitors almost everything, central bankers are plotting the creation of a "digital currency" that could be completely controlled — along with those who use it — by authorities.  And in Australia, establishment-minded mega-banks are plotting with politicians to force everyone into a United Nations-backed "cashless society" where banks and government have total control over the population.  In each case, different excuses have been used.  But taken together, it is obvious that something major is going on, worldwide.  Liberty and privacy are literally at stake.

These Countries Have Nearly "Eliminated Cash From Circulation".  The cashless society is catching up to all of us.  Most of Europe has shifted that way, and now India is forcing the issue.  In the United States, people are being acclimated to it, and may soon find that no other option is practical in the highly-digitized online world.  Once that takes hold, the banksters, bureaucrats and hackers will have total information on all your transactions, purchasing behavior, profiles about consumers, political and social background history and even predictive behavior, allowing them to control the population with ease.  If/when a major crisis hits, nothing will work if the grid goes down; nothing will take place that isn't strictly authorized — apart from a barter and precious metals exchange system that will be marginalized to the pre-digital ghetto.

The Abolition of Money.  Some people believe that money is the root of all evil.  At least to the government of India it is the root of all corruption and tax evasion and consequently it is doing everything in his power to withdraw cash from circulation.  "On Nov. 8, the Indian government announced an immediate ban on two major bills that account for the vast majority of all currency in circulation.  Indians would have until the end of the year to change those notes for other bills, including newly minted ones" reported the New York Times.  All that will be left is small change.  Ramesh Thakur a professor at the Australian National University explained in the Japan Times what the new policy was supposed to do and why it won't work.

Cash is for Criminals — Taxing Cash Withdrawals from ATMs.  We are entering a very dark phase in this battle to retain our liberty.  A proposal now being whispered behind the curtain in Europe is to impose a tax on withdrawing your own money from an ATM.  The banks support this measure as a whole because they see this as preventing bank runs.  Nobody will look at the direction we are headed.  I am deeply concerned that these type of proposals will send the West in a real revolution not much different from that of Russia in 1917.  The divide between left and right is getting much deeper and the left is hell bent on stripping those who produce of their liberty and assets.

Indians Angry As ATMs Run Dry After Cash Ban.  The blowback from the world's latest strike in the war on cash is unraveling fast in India.  This week's decision by PM Modi to ban some high-denomination banknotes (on the premise of fighting corruption) has left "chaos everywhere" according to one official who accused the prmeier of wreaking havoc on the poorest Indians.  As Reuters reports, nearly half of India's 202,000 ATMs were shut on Friday [11/11/2016] and those that operated quickly ran out of the new notes as scores of people descended upon them.

Cashless Society:  India Bans Currency Notes Sparking Chaos At Banks.  The government in India has recently made a move to ban large currency notes, continuing the push towards a cashless society, an effort that the country has been working on for decades.  500 and 1,000 rupee notes were banned throughout the country, which may seem like large currency notes, but they exchange for just a few American dollars, and represent 85% of the cash transactions in the country.  The ban sparked a run on the banks in India this week, with customers forming massive lines at banks attempting to get cash notes out while they still could.  Banks then shut down on Wednesday [11/9/2016], and limits were imposed on ATM withdrawals.

Washington's Endgame:  First Your Guns, Then Your Cash?  Ken Rogoff, economics professor at Harvard (and previously an economist at the IMF and at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System), wants to take that liberty away.  He has a new book out on the wickedness of cash, calling out the usual suspects — tax evaders and other criminals — to justify doing something about it. [...] His solution is to eliminate all denominations of currency above ten dollars.  This sounds suspiciously like the argument for taking away firearms from law-abiding citizens to keep criminals from using guns.  It makes no sense unless your ultimate goal is to disarm the population — or, in this case, take one more step to tracing, taxing, and then controlling the spending habits of law-abiding citizens.  The plan is quite devious.  It is probably backed by credit card companies.

The War On Cash:  Your Money Or Your Life.  What is this war on cash?  In this episode of On Target, John W. Whitehead discusses the government's concerted campaign to do away with large bills such as $20s, $50s, $100s and shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce — one that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.  [Video clip]

The Sinister Side of a Cashless Society.  Some on the left are proposing the elimination of currency bills larger than $10.  This may seem like an insignificant matter, but if adopted, the proposal would be a giant step in the direction of totalitarianism.  By forcing Americans to use an electronic means of payment, government would gain the power to monitor and manipulate every aspect of one's finances.  Washington would know what you buy, where and when you buy it, where you travel and eat, and whom you associate with.  Granting government this kind of power is madness unless you're one of the political elite.  They seem to be lining up in favor of a cashless society.

The Shift To A Cashless Society Is Snowballing.  Love it or hate it, cash is playing an increasingly less important role in society.  In some ways this is great news for consumers.  The rise of mobile and electronic payments means faster, convenient, and more efficient purchases in most instances.  New technologies are being built and improved to facilitate these transactions, and improving security is also a priority for many payment providers.  However, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins explains, there is also a darker side in the shift to a cashless society.  Governments and central banks have a different rationale behind the elimination of cash transactions, and as a result, the so-called "war on cash" is on.

The War Against Cash, Part III.  Although it doesn't get nearly as much attention as it warrants, one of the greatest threats to liberty and prosperity is the potential curtailment and elimination of cash.  As I've previously noted, there are two reasons why statists don't like cash and instead would prefer all of us to use digital money. [...] In general, they don't talk about taxing our savings with government-imposed negative interest rates.  Instead, they make it seem like their goal is to fight crime.

German Banks Told To Start Hoarding Cash.  German newspaper Der Spiegel reported yesterday [3/3/2016] that the Bavarian Banking Association has recommended that its member banks start stockpiling physical cash.  Europe, of course, has been battling with negative interest rates for quite some time.  What this means is that commercial banks are being charged interest for holding wholesale deposits at the European Central Bank.  In order to generate artificial economic growth, the ECB wants banks to make as many loans as possible, no matter how stupid or idiotic.  They believe that economic growth is simply a function of loans.  The more money that's loaned out, the more the economy will grow.  This is the sort of theory that works really well in an economic textbook.  But it doesn't work so well in a history textbook.

Sweden Begins 5 Year Countdown Until It Eliminates Cash.  How much louder can the "ban cash" calls get?  Recall it was just last year when we catalogued the growing cacophony of crazies for whom banning physical currency is the only way to ensure that depositors can't simply reassert their economic autonomy under a low or zero rate regime. [...] Now, the excuse given for banning big bills is that it combats crime.  And maybe it does.  But in the end the rationale is simple:  if there are no more physical banknotes, people have no economic autonomy.

Suggestions for [the next] Presidency: Issue $500 Bills.  When I graduated high school, in 1969, a $20 bill had about as much value as a $100 bill today.  Inflation has taken a toll.  In 1969, $500 and $1,000 bills were still in reasonably common circulation.  They had been issued up until 1945.  With the turn toward ever increasing government snooping and tracking of financial transactions, the bills were taken out of circulation with an executive order by President Richard Nixon.  It is long past due to bring the $500 bill back into common use.  The European Union issues 500 Euro bills.  Cash is useful for preserving privacy and transportation of value to those who wish to avoid the electronic trail that follows digital transactions everywhere.  All it took to remove the bills from circulation was a simple executive order.  That is all it would take to bring them back.  But more should be done.  The insane tracking of every one's financial transactions should be scaled back.  The forfeiture laws that allow legal theft of property need to be revised or repealed.

Chase Bank Decides ATM Withdrawals Over $1000 Are Shady.  Not kidding.  Regular Americans must be stopped from taking out $1001 at a cash machine because it's probably shady, but Iran getting $150B is just fine.  The new ATM rule, f[o]r the moment, applies to non-Chase account holders.  Give it a little while and I bet it'll apply to Chase accounts sooner than later.

Call Cease-Fire in the War on Cash.  Last summer, London buses stopped accepting money.  To pay your fare, you now have to wave either a prepaid Transport for London Oyster card or a contactless payment bank card at a receiver.  For some, not having to dig out a handful of coins is a welcome relief.  For others, though, the disappearance of cash represents a dangerous threat to our liberty.

Largest Bank In America Joins War On Cash.  Just a week ago, the infamous Willem Buiter, along with Ken Rogoff, voiced their support for a restriction (or ban altogether) on the use of cash (something that was already been implemented in Louisiana in 2011 for used goods).  Today, as Mises' Jo Salerno reports, the war has acquired a powerful new ally in Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which has enacted a policy restricting the use of cash in selected markets; bans cash payments for credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans; and disallows the storage of "any cash or coins" in safe deposit boxes.

Paying Cash for that Latte? It May Land You on FBI's Terrorist List.  Really?  Yes, crazy as it sounds, in our post-9/11 snitch/spy/surveillance society, if you "always pay cash," you may be marked as a potential terrorist.  That's according to an FBI flyer that appears to be aimed at proprietors and employees of Internet cafés.

Digital Totalitarianism — The Conspiracy to Abolish Cash.  For many years figures on the political fringe, especially on the right, have claimed that the government and its corporate owners want to transform us into a cashless society.  Their warnings about the conspiracy against paper money fell on deaf ears, primarily because the digitalization of financial transactions seemed more like the result of organic business trends than the manifestation of some sinister conspiracy.  Now, however, those who want to do away with liquid currency are stepping out of the shadows.

The Political War on Cash.  These are strange monetary times, with negative interest rates and central bankers deemed to be masters of the universe.  So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that politicians and central bankers are now waging a war on cash.  That's right, policy makers in Europe and the U.S. want to make it harder for the hoi polloi to hold actual currency.  Mario Draghi fired the latest salvo on Monday [2/15/2016] when he said the European Central Bank would like to ban €500 notes.

Establishment Pushing "Cashless Society" to Control Humanity.  Proponents of the government-enforced move away from physical currency cite a wide array of potential real and imagined benefits.  Among them: possible reductions in armed robbery, tax evasion, black-market commerce, the cost of printing and securing physical cash, and more.  Critics, though, are warning of the dangerous and Orwellian schemes that could be unleashed in a world where out-of-control governments can monitor literally every purchase, transaction, and bit of economic activity.  In light of the recently exposed NSA snooping scandal, the possibilities for abuse and total surveillance are more than hypothetical, obviously.

Cash is the currency of freedom.  Former Treasury secretary Larry Summers wants to get rid of the $100 bill.  But I think he has it exactly backward.  I think we need to restore the $500 and $1000 bills.  And the reason is that people like Larry Summers have done a horrible job.  Summers wrote recently in The Washington Post that the $100 bill needs to go.  The reason, he says, is that it's a favorite of criminals, along with the 500 euro note, which is likely to be discontinued.

A Quiet Revolution In Money:  The long-predicted "cashless society" has quietly arrived, or nearly so; currency, coins and checks are receding as ways of doing everyday business; we've become Plastic Nation.  In the tangled history of American money — from tobacco receipts to gold and silver coins to paper money and checks — this is a seismic shift.  Time to pay attention.

Cashless Society "Inevitable;" a Boost to Globalist Taxers?  Money won't be around anymore in just a few years, according to trend watchers.  And the same globalist taxers that are already trying to confiscate your hard-earned money can't wait for the cashless era to begin.

The hazards of a cashless society are very clear to those who will observe.
Man charged $23,148,855,308,184,500 for one pack of cigarettes.  A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars.

The Editor says...
First of all, how is a pre-paid debit card capable of incurring a 23 quadrillion dollar charge?  And secondly, if the customer had been charged $23 instead of $23 quadrillion, what are the chances that he could have recovered his money?

Glitch hits Visa users with more than $23 quadrillion charge.  A technical snafu left some Visa prepaid cardholders stunned and horrified Monday [7/13/2009] to see a $23,148,855,308,184,500 charge on their statements.  That's about 2,007 times the size of the national debt.

Is 23,148,855,308,184,500 a magic number, or sheer chance?  Anyone have any thoughts about what programming error would have caused this? [...] Add the cents to the number and you get 2314885530818450000, which in hexadecimal is 2020 2020 2020 1250.

U.S.'s dilemma:  It costs 1.7 cents to make a penny.  The U.S. penny is not what it appears to be, and some in Congress would like to see it change further, if not disappear entirely.  Because of a surge in the price of copper, the U.S. Mint decided 25 years ago to manufacture the coins almost entirely with zinc, save for the coating on which Abraham Lincoln's profile is engraved.

Lawmakers Consider Elimination of Pennies.  The rising cost of metals isn't just hurting jewelry makers and aluminum consumers.  The price of copper and nickel, the very materials used to make U.S. currency, is on the minds of House lawmakers trying to find a way to cut production expenses.

Ditch The Penny.  Giving money away for free is not behavior one expects from ordinary, rational Americans.  But it's something they do every day in massive numbers — that is if you consider the penny to be money.  At store counters around the country, people will leave pennies for the next customer, something they'd never do with a dime or quarter or any piece of currency they actually value.

Coin shortage could turn pennies to nickels.  Sharply rising prices of metals such as copper and nickel have meant the face value of pennies and nickels are worth less than the material that they are made of, increasing the risk that speculators could melt the coins and sell them for a profit. [...] The best solution, [Francois] Velde said, would be to 'rebase' the penny by making it worth five cents rather than one cent.  Doing so would increase the amount of five-cent coins in circulation and do away with the almost worthless one cent coin.

The Editor says...
A penny very clearly has "ONE CENT" printed on it.  That's an iron-clad (or at least copper-clad) guarantee that it is never going to be worth five cents.]

Congress looking at steel pennies and nickels.  Further evidence that times are tough: It now costs more than a penny to make a penny.  And the cost of a nickel is more than 7½ cents.  Surging prices for copper, zinc and nickel have some in Congress trying to bring back the steel-made pennies of World War II, and maybe using steel for nickels, as well.

House passes bill to make coin-making cheaper.  The House voted for cheaper change Thursday [5/8/2008], the kind that would make pennies and nickels worth more than they cost to make and save the country $100 million a year. [...] The bill would require the U.S. Mint to switch from a zinc and copper penny, which costs 1.26 cents each to make, to a copper-plated steel penny, which would cost 0.7 cents to make, according to statistics from the Mint and Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, one of the measure's sponsors.  It also would require nickels, now made of copper and nickel and costing 7.7 cents to make, to be made primarily of steel, which would drop the cost to make the five-cent coin below its face value.

Do pennies still make sense?  Penny haters [...] love Lincoln.  It's the zinc lobby they're after.  As an "act of civil disobedience" among the scones, Concord Teacakes became the first retailer in the nation Thursday [2/12/2009] to refuse to accept pennies as payment, rounding down all transactions to bypass small change.

Will Nickel-Free Nickels Make a Dime's Worth of Difference?  It costs the federal government up to nine cents to mint a nickel and almost two cents to make a penny.  So, in addition to overhauling Big Finance, President Barack Obama wants to tinker with America's small change.  The president's plan to save money by making coins from cheaper stuff seems simple on its face.  But history shows it would rekindle an emotional debate among Americans who fear changing the composition of their currency will hurt its value.

Keep the change.  The American people have never loved the Susan B. Anthony, nor the Sacagawea.  Even the presidential $1 coin has been a total flop.  Yet Capitol Hill commands the production of five new dollar-coin designs every year, with a 20 percent quota for Sacagawea, an Indian guide on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Aside from a handful of numismatists who enjoy adding new specimens to their collections, the coins simply aren't used.

Kill the dollar bill, some lawmakers say.  Some House Republicans have introduced legislation to phase out the paper bill we all know and crumple in our pockets and replace it with coins that'll likely wear a hole in our pockets instead, The Hill reports.

It's time to eliminate the penny.  Increasingly, Americans have stopped using the penny, as we turn toward electronic payments and away from cash.  Sadly, inevitably, like so many other beautiful, venerated historical objects, it appears that the penny now belongs in a museum.

If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash in on Thousands of Dollars.  Joe Henry is on a first name basis with bank tellers across his hometown of Medford, Ore., scouring 15 banks a week with one thing on his mind:  pennies.  Henry is often seen toting around bags of pennies, some he buys, others he changes back in for cash, which seems a little strange at first.  He's not a collector, he is what's known as a "penny hoarder" and he is not alone.

Canada to Stop Making Pennies.  Say goodbye to the Canadian penny.  Lawmakers in Canada have decided it makes little sense — or cents — to continue making the 1-cent coin.  Canada's Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, announced the penny's demise during his 2012 budget speech Thursday [3/29/2012].  "Pennies take up too much space on our dressers at home.  They take up far too much time for small businesses trying to grow and create jobs," Flaherty said.  He said each penny costs Canadian tax payers one and a half cents to make.

Canada ditching the penny; is US next?  It costs the Canadians 1.6 cents to produce a penny — about what it costs the US mint.  Now Canada has decided to stop minting pennies as a means to save money.

Canada penniless as it marks coin's end.  Canada's last penny was struck Friday [5/4/2012] at The Royal Canadian Mint's manufacturing facility and will become a museum piece as the one-cent coins are withdrawn from circulation.  "For over a hundred years, the penny played an important role in Canada's coinage system," said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. [...] The last penny struck for Canadian circulation will be entrusted to the Currency Museum of the Bank of Canada in Ottawa, he said.

Penny-wise, pound-for-pound foolish?  The cost of zinc, one of its main current component elements, is rising.  A penny was worth just under a cent (.97 to be exact) in metal last year; each one is worth 1.4 cents now.

Lawmakers (again) propose replacing $1 bills with coins.  Eliminating the dollar bill in favor of the coin would save $13.8 billion over 30 years, says the consumer group Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW).  At a Capitol Hill briefing on Monday [7/22/2013], the group said printing dollar bills may be cheaper than minting coins, but they last only about four years compared with 30 years for a coin.