With all the talk of a cashless society afoot, it’s worth exploring what the consequences might be. In short, nothing good can come of this.
Now, let’s say that cash has been eliminated by some legal means and that you have angered the powers that be for some reason—probably for opposing them and asking others to oppose them too. All the banks must do is to freeze your bank account or eliminate it entirely. There are two examples of this very thing happening in the recent past.
First, the government of Canada froze the bank accounts of all those participating in the Canadian truckers’ general strike plus those who helped them. Second, British politician Nigel Farage had his accounts closed for political reasons and found that no other British bank would serve him. Without the means to use money, Farage came very close to emigrating. Just think about that for a moment. You could not fuel your car, buy groceries, pay your rent, or do a hundred other things without access to a bank account.
Combine this with everything being electrical (elimination of gasoline, natural gas) and smart electrical meters and you got yourself a nice system to put the boot on the neck of the unruly. Social credit scores will be tied to rationing.
You don’t need social credit scores for rationing. Rationing is the foundation for “climate change”. You will be issued a carbon card that will track your carbon footprint – units thereof will be deducted from your monthly allotment. For everyone except the elites.
Tech to do this is already built and in place – switch just need to be thrown.
On today’s shopping list is a stop at the bank to withdraw more cash to keep handy.
Just in case “gov’t” attacks me once again.
When they are ready they will simply ban cash transactions and decree a short period in which coin and currency notes can be surrendered to you bank in exchange for value added to your account. After the deadline banks and businesses will be forbidden to accept cash for value and they will comply because there will be nothing they can do with it.
Make sure you buy enough tar and feathers while you can still use cash.
Elimination of paper currency, in the above ground economy, is essentially the closing of the gate of the feral pig trap that has been constructed one fence line at a time over the years while the pigs have been eating their “free” corn. The inevitable end of all democracies.
The initial rationale will be that it protects women and children, because it will prevent the sale of illegal drugs and weapons.
In a cashless society, guess how people will pay for drugs and guns ?
In the past, when cash became worthless due to hyperinflation, people figured out how to buy food. People with frozen bank accounts will use similar methods.
This also removes the ability to earn any money in any underground economy if you fall out of favour with your government and banking institution. People will be back to bartering for goods and services.
Already started, if you are smart.
Have you heard of Gold, Silver, and Copper, you know, 5000 year old “money”. You can live without the state but the state can’t live without you.
A local fisherman where I live needed his horse tended by the vet. Cost $300. Exchange? 30 pounds of frozen pickerel fillets. Anything can become money under the right circumstances and will.
If the government (you know the people looking out for us) is for it we are screwed.
This ongoing trend of destroying freedoms one-by-one + the craziness around eco/climate change + Canada’s MAID + the upcoming move to digital money and social score stuff from China made me think of a dystopia let’s call it 2084:
– main currency is not money but a quota of O2 to breath – O2 Allowance (O2A)
– you strive every day, go to work etc to have a positive O2A, money as well but positive O2A is more important (see next point why)
– if you’re O2A negative and for a long time (months? a year max?), you have mandatory appointment to MMAID (Minister of MAID) – basically you need to go and meet your maker
– of course, black market/dark web strives to cheat the system and have O2A faked/increased etc.
This or some Marxist version of Islam, choose your poison.
In reality, how many of us have enough cash that it would matter? Most people don’t receive an actual pay check anymore. It’s all digital. I rarely have more than a few hundred dollars in cash around. If the powers that be decided to shut you down, there wouldn’t be much you could do about it short of criminality or rebellion. Of course, they would already have made many into criminals. What we’ll see is a barter and black market system. Buy more ammo.
I emptied all the spare cash I could muster during the trucker strike. I’m keeping it for an emergency. It’s not a huge sum but it would cover my expenses for a few months.
Right and then what? My point is, if it gets that far we are ****ed. If not immediately, eventually.
It’s a start. Better than nothing. We can’t shoot them yet.
Ammo will be barterable and worth more than gold.
Yes, the real precious metals will be steel, lead, copper and brass.
Isn’t buying more ammo controlled too?
No.
There is one main reason I moved to the US. The 2nd.
This was prophesied already in a rather famous book, if I recall correctly.
Another prophecy fulfilled.
Denmark will do this next year . which is only months away . we were there in the summer and only 25% of stores took cash . I was in Germany in sept. and it was quite the opposite most asked for cash when presented with a card.
I emptied all the spare cash I could muster during the trucker strike. I’m keeping it for an emergency. It’s not a huge sum but it would cover my expenses for a few months.
Kremlin, 1936. Stalin is alone, signing papers. Mironov, an NKVD chief, is announced. Mironov approaches Stalin and with trepidation informs him that Kamenev is refusing to confess.
“You think that Kamenev may not confess?” asks Stalin.
“I don’t know,” Mironov answers. “He doesn’t yield to persuasion.”
“You don’t know?” inquires Stalin with marked surprise, staring at Mironov. “Do you know how much our state weighs, with all the factories, machines, the army, with all the armaments and the navy?”
Mironov looks at Stalin with surprise.
“Think it over and tell me,” says Stalin.
Mironov smiles, believing that Stalin is getting ready to crack a joke. But Stalin is not joking. He looks at Mironov in earnest. “I am asking you, how much does all that weigh?” he insists.
Mironov is confused. He waits, still hoping Stalin will turn everything into a joke, but Stalin keeps staring at him waiting for an answer. Mironov shrugs his shoulders and, like a schoolboy undergoing an examination, says in an irresolute voice, “Nobody can know that, Yosif Vissarionovich. It is in the realm of astronomical figures.”
“Well, and can one man withstand the pressure of an astronomical weight?” asks Stalin sternly.
“No,” answers Mironov.
“Now then, don’t tell me any more that Kamenev, or this or that prisoner, is able to withstand that pressure. Don’t come to report to me until you have in your briefcase the confession of Kamenev!”
The ability to disable a person’s access to money is only the most obvious aspect of the “cashless” society. The real value of a digital currency is that it will give the banks (and therefore the government) the the ability to have detailed records of each and every financial transaction. At a minimum, that would include who paid whom, how much was paid, when it was paid, likely where it was paid, and probably what goods/services were exchanged for that payment. Sure, the government will put “safeguards” in place to prevent abuse of this financial information, but that doesn’t provide much comfort. All it takes is a warrant (valid or not), a government “emergency” declaration, or a rogue civil servant/contractor for this information to become suddenly available and useful to the right parties. And based on past abuses of access to private financial information, you know that it’s unlikely that anyone responsible for that wrongful access would ever suffer real consequences.
I thought I would take a small pack of cash out from the ATM as my bank always wants to know “what are you using the cash for”. Went a few times to the same ATM and it has since run out of cash. So that’s a good way to end the cash economy.
Hookers and Blow is my standard response.
I like to give my address as “the corner of Hookers and Blow”. I actually did live at a corner of hookers and blow for a few years, so it suits me.
Ah, now I’m all nostalgic for the corner of Bleecker and Carleton in old Cabbagetown. When I first moved there, if a girl in Toronto had sunk to the point where she was on the corner, she was on that corner.
One morning I was walking down Bleecker to catch the Carleton streetcar, and one of the local girls had just run into two of her colleagues whom she hadn’t seen in a while. (Were they “colleagues”? Perhaps “cohorts”?) As I came walking up she was filling them in on her recent adventures. “I had a guy the other day, he walks up and says, ‘How much for a blow job?’ I tell him, ‘Twenty bucks’. He hands me a twenty. And then he just stands there looking at me. And then he says, ‘Well, take your pants off!'” They were rolling on the ground laughing at this, and she saw me looking at them from across narrow Bleecker Street, and pointed at me and shouted, “Hey mister! Give me twenty dollars and blow me!” And they were still laughing helplessly at that when I rounded the corner.
Those were the days. After a couple of years they cleaned the neighbourhood up, and the serious corner moved across town to Parkdale. Other than the rich hooker humour, I didn’t really miss it.
It’s all about control and taxes. It gives the government total control of the people – obey or die. And every transaction is thus known and can be taxed.
It’s Orwell’s 1984 coming to be, just a few decades later than he predicted.
Isn’t that theft?
What laws are broken, and what are the maximum financial penalties allowable?
Don’t you have to have day in court before those fines can be assessed?
This is not legal ANYWHERE!
what laws were Brocken when fdr seized
the gold and proclaimed those keeping it
were criminals??
One simple statement. You go digital then you sure as hell better be able to keep the power on. If you don’t know that then you do not know anything.
And if you are denied banking services,you have no reason to allow the electricity to stay on..
The idiocy of a “cashless society” is rubbed in with every power outage.
And under the current management,more blackouts are guaranteed.
One kid,with good aim can blank out a whole city.
Ceramic Insulators are wonderful targets.
And the things you can do with a nylon rope and some chain.
Those who need to transact life deals,will find a way around government and their fiat paper.
And they will do it a whole lot faster,if denied the use of government paper..
Faster harder.
Everything government touches,turns to shit.
Our “helpers” are our real enemy.
Cutting citizens off,from trading,because Feelz,is certain to provoke some very interesting results.
Such as destroying what is left of our banks.
They cannot be trusted.
So are useless for trade.
Heh..Banker CEO’s so smart.
I predict the first thing thy will do is withdraw large bills from circulation – first the $100, then the $50 – making it inconvenient to pay for large purchases in cash.
At some point the gloves will be off. When it openly becomes us versus them, then all bets are off. I have all the metals I need. Gold, Silver, Brass, Copper, and lead. I also have powders, and reloading equipment.
Those in charge had better wake up and think this through, because I will not be alone, or the only one.
When push comes to shove, “we” will also be shoving back!
I sincerely desire that this never comes to pass, but I will not meekly comply if it does!
American 100 dollar bills is what Canadian politicians stack in their freezers.
So can we.
Excellent point, richfisher.
That may be a sticking point for the switch. All the cash bribes to our moral and intellectual superiors are incentives for them to delay the cashless society. If there is a “turn in your dollars” period to receive e-cash credit for the bills, how do they explain a quarter or half a million dollars (or more!) in cash? Ummm… awkward.
Also, right now, I’m pretty sure there are more people who believe in the worthless printed dollars than some unknown digital currency. I think that US dollars may have at least a few months and maybe longer where they will still be accepted in an underground economy.
Of course, barter and metals will also flourish, but so many people are still leery of digital currencies right now, and I think paper dollars will have a longer run than the GEBs suspect. Definitely, older, pure metal coinage will hang around for a bit.
My 2¢. …What?! You don’t accept cash? ;o)