Found on MeWe (clickit to biggit):
Sounds pretty accurate to me.
If you want government and big business to exercise that level of control over you and your finances, you haven't learned a thing from the COVID-19 lockdowns and excesses - particularly Canada's seizure of control over protesters' bank accounts without due process of any sort.
Equal protection under the law? Don't make me laugh . . .
As for the "digital currency" that many governments are talking about introducing:
Programmability changes everything:
The people issuing the money would have the power to control how it is spent.
That’s not an interpretation or a “conspiracy theory”, just listen to Agustin Carstens, head of the International Settlement Bank, speaking earlier this year: …
The key difference [with a CBDC] is that the central bank would have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and they have the technology to enforce that.An article in the Telegraph, back in June, was just as candid:
Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible.China: As they progress toward the release of their digital currency, they are banning all cryptocurrencies to remove competition and it’s already known the digital yuan will be programmable.
Britain: Britcoin will likely be programmed in only “special circumstances”. Starting, as the Telegraph says, with state benefits. They will be flagged to be spent only on “essentials”. .. It’s also not hard to see programmable money feeding into the “protect the NHS narrative”, where people aren’t allowed to spend state money on sugar, cigarettes or alcohol. …
. . .
So the UK government will make a big show of renouncing their own power to program the money ... but at the [same] time will take no steps to prevent large companies “programming” the wages they issue.
McDonald’s, for example, will make it impossible to spend their wages at Burger King, and vice versa. Coke and Pepsi. Starbucks and Costa.
Companies could commit to “combatting hate”, and stop their employees from donating money to black-listed political parties, religious groups, charities or individuals.
Imagine a world where companies could “renounce those who spread misinformation”, by making it impossible to spend wages they issue on art/films/music/books by outspoken critics of the government.
Maybe an unvaxxed paycheck can’t be spent at cinemas or nightclubs, to “stop the spread of the virus”.
Now imagine the nascent “Green New Deal”. Hard limits on how much money you can spend on petrol, plastic, or meat.
Authoritarians will love programmable currency.
There's more at the link.
So much for the "cashless society"!
Peter
17 comments:
Reminds me of the abuses related to payments in scrip in company towns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
Don't know about your neighborhoods, but around Florida every weekend is Garage Sale time. I can't imagine the level of totalitarian control that would be required to stop that. For millions of people, it's a major hobby.
Imagine those stories about little kids having their lemonade stand busted by the local police. Multiply that by a few tens of millions.
Cash = Freedom.
Period.
The opposite is also true.
And there's no such thing as "a little bit" of either.
It will be all or nothing.
We love flea markets and garage sales. And often halfway houses sell hand made items or baked goods to help people in need.
+1
"'Bitcoin!', he said brightly." (avoids some of this, but still requires the Internet to be functional, all the time.)
Peter, you and I both know what human nature really is. That being said, I think this would be too much of a power grab. I think many would resist, rebel, find some work-around (barter, hard currency, etc.) or revolt. Think of how this would impact organized crime, gambling, the black market, and the drug trade, to name just a few illicit and/or illegal sectors that would be affected. Not a threat, just a prediction; I do not think it would be pretty in this country if this were implemented.
Re the comment at 0913 about scrip abuses...
My grandad was a train engineer in Birmingham, AL, starting in the mid-20s, and retiring in the mid-60s.
The white guys would be paid in cash, but the black guys were paid in scrip which could only be spent in the company store.
Every payday, the black guys would buy tires, etc. from the company store and sell them at a loss to get actual cash.
I expect a robust black market or barter system if this cunning plan of digital money becomes reality.
I agree with "Trailer for Sale or Rent" - if the government goes to digital money along with all of the associated controls and abuses such a system would surely have - the already flourishing black market economy will grow even larger.
hell reached by hand basket
In my cardiologist's office today a sign on the receptionist desk - "NO CASH ACCEPTED".
It's beginning...
It would appear that part of the basis for the "plandemic" was to accustom people to get used to using their debit cards for most all purchases. Lots of businesses resisted using cash to avoid the potential of infection. The .gov made it more difficult to use cash by telling the banks not to issue coins, so as to make transactions more annoying.
From the pic above: “All your movements and transactions are traceable”. I would add to that “Taxable”. Think of how many things you buy or sell used that go entirely under the radar. EVERYthing would be taxed in a cashless system. Or at least could be.
People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think. Don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.
River Tam - Serenity
In every country and society I've ever read about where taxation becomes onerous, a black market evolves to work around it. It becomes so ingrained that people accept it as "the way things work". Digital currency can attempt to eliminate "cash" transactions; it won't work. We'll always find ways to trade under the table. Maybe not in stores, but barter will come back in a big, big way.
Exactly my thoughts.
Look at how available foreign currencies are in countries that officially ban foreign currencies.
If cash were banned, it would be hoarded and spent in the black market, along with other currencies.
A cashless society would never happen, and the attempt would only last until a big city for hit by a natural disaster where it stopped working.
Don't forget that even today large chunks of the US don't have good cell service or reliable internet of any kind.
One more point... with cashless transactions, and everything traceable, how would corrupt government officials get their kickbacks?
I really don't see them giving that up... which means there WILL be some type of non traceable currency available.
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