The War on Cash
Many of you are not familiar with this concept, so let me explain it to you what is going on. As you might or might have not noticed, cash, and by that I mean: banknotes, coins and the ability to transact with them is slowly going away.
The Government and the banks are expanding their influence and control:
- On one hand you have the Government trying to phase out cash to stop money laundering, which is just a poor excuse to gain more power and control over your finances if you are a honest citizen.
- On the other hand banks have a 1.6 quadrillion derivative bubble that is going to explode on their watch, and they need full bank accounts in order to bail them in later.
Alright let's look at this objectively. I am an expert in economics, I have pretty good understanding how the economy works, and of course I follow real Austrian Economics, not the scammy manipulated Keynesian/Monetarist one.
I acknowledge that a digital economy is better than a paper economy, I pretty much think nobody would be against a digital economy. Just the amount of potential that can be unleashed if transactions were frictionless, is enormous and we could double or triple the size of the global economy if this would happen.
You know I am obsessed with efficiency, I use mathematical tools to make things more efficient where I can, and most economists do the same, of course if their models are junk, that is another issue. But usually, if the models are good, then we can always see that there is always room for improvement. Nothing is perfect, you can always make things better.
Now I put the above section in highlighted mode, because the problem is the if
, if transactions were frictionless then this would be a wonderful improvement for the global economy and humanity.
The problem is that a bank-based economy is not frictionless. It's horrible, all these regulations, the SWIFT system is very obsolete, the banking fees, and the rest of it.
This is so bad for people. Cash is not good: it can be stolen, destroyed and inflated away, but you still have control over your money to a large extent.
If banks control all your finances via a bank account, then you are toasted. Your credit card can be frozen, your bank account can be audited/frozen for an indeterminate amount of time. Yeah, how are you going to buy your daily bread then? What if you are an activist and speaking out against the government or the bank your are a client of? What if you are in a group that is discriminated? Do you think they won't abuse their powers to shut you down?
Do you see where I am going? A digital economy is wonderful, but not at the expense of our financial liberty!
We just see India banning the 1000 and 500 Rupee, another step in that wrong direction:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5civ5f/india_chaos_anger_as_cash_stock_runs_out/
There is already talks about banning the 500 EUR:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-15/war-paper-currency-begins-ecb-votes-scrap-500-euro-bill
And make no mistake about it, they will get away with this, they will slowly phase out all large banknotes, and then the rest of it later.
Cash will be probably gone by 2020, globally.
THE SOLUTION: CRYPTOCURRENCY
We felt for a long time that paper currency will go away in the digital age, but we don't really want to be slaves of the banks and the Government. So to our luck Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 invented something called: Bitcoin.
And this Bitcoin thing that is obscure and I barely heard about but I have ~80% of my wealth in it, should be something worth looking into.
I am just joking, I have been investing in Bitcoin right after 2013, and still doing it. I love the digital economy, but only for cryptocurrencies, they are the real frictionless finance instruments, not banks!
Photo: My own work, LICENSE: CC BY 4.0
☆☆☆☆ Excellent post.
Money - The root of all evil....... I followed you.
Correction:
Money is not the root of all evil, the love of money is the root of all evil.
Money is a tool. But, the people that think nothing but of money go to extremes.
If bankers were balanced men, when faced with the new bail-in laws, would shut the doors of their banks, saying, we cannot do this to people. But they are not balanced, they must have more and more money. (look at derivatives a ghost of a ghost of money... but it still increases the number in your bank account, so its all good)
Fiat money is theft, because its fractional reserve based. So it can be argued that its evil.
Bitcoin on the other hand, is just a freedom of expression of value and relationship between people.
Yes, fractional reserve fiat currency is evil. Stealing is bad. Defrauding is bad. Usury is bad.
Fractional reserve fiat currency is from its inception set up to steal, usure and defraud all that come in contact with it, that is evil.
The Federal Reserve Bank is the root of evil. Its criminal.
cash is not banned in India , old notes are demonetized with new ones .
Which means that the 1000 and 500 are taken out of circulation, and the rest of them will follow.
Then there will be no cash,only digital money.
I am an Indian , I know old 500rs and 1000rs have been taken out of circulation and u have to exchange with banks to get new 500rs and 2000rs note .
Second this has been done to tackle corruption and black money .
But if there are not enough bills to exchange, like we see the shortage happening. Then you are persuaded to open a bank account and keep your money in bank.
I think its a covert marketing in order to make many people there open a bank account. This is in order for banks to have control over your finances.
i agree with you @profitgenerator. it was a necessary move as 80% of india economy is cash, and most of it black. It was poorly manage as they don't have enough new bills ready in time to exchange the old, this show the willingness to keep all the money in the Banks and an incentive to open new account in the future.( they are not accepting new account right now.) even if you get 500 and 2000 new bill in this moment you can't get change as the 100 rs notes are disappearing very fast . it is definitely an example of how government can decide from one day to the next what value the money you have is. Cryptocurrency is indeed the future for now praying that the net doesn't crash. Then gold remain the most stable.
The future cryptocurrency! Definitely!
The thing that gets me most is just how backwards and outdated the banking system is. To wire transfer money... for the love of all that is good, how can it be so difficult!?? I want this piece of machinery, dear bank, please withdraw funds from my account and pay them. What? I have to wait a week? Then I have to wait 3 days while the transfer happens? And at any time during this, I am not in control of my money, nor can I stop the transaction? And a million things could happen that WILL stop the transaction, many leaving both (the buyer and seller) without the money... How is this even possible in the days of the internet?
Even Western Union is hella slow, hella frought with problems and hella expensive.
Bitcoin transactions are so much easier. If we could just get everyone to use them once, the banks would be dead.
(Crypto-currencies still have a long way to go in securities, ease of use and contracts)
It's funny how much banks dont care about their customers. They are in monopoly, so of course they are sloppy.
But after they face competition, they will scramble to make themselves more competitive. The financial system really needs a shakeup, because they have been asleep for a lot of time.
Have you heard of the controlled blockchain experiment the banks are trying? Why would they use a blockchain if they are going to control all of the servers? That is what they think about blockchain, that it is just a new buzzword.
And banks will implement blockchain, just about the time when altcoins make their next leap in technology. Something that will probably be called SuperBitcoin because it is a quantum leap beyond bitcoin. Something that will be both completely invisible and completely traceable. So, you can state this bitcoin is yours, and someone stole it, as well as being able to prove it. While simultaneously being completely invisible from anyone outside trying to compute the size of your wallet.
Their private blockchain initiative is still better than what they have now.
Of course it wont be
blockchain
with miners and public nodes, it will likely just be some kind of cryptographic connection/database between banks.I think its good if they look into this, at least if they look into more secure payment systems between then the amount of hacks could diminish.
Over the long term though ,I think bitcoin will outcompete them, but at least they familiarize themselves with the technology.
I sell real estate. I know what is going on. To test this, after I sold a $1.2M commercial building, I walked into my TD Bank in Canada here and purposely asked for my whole $30k paycheck in cash. Knowing the outcome would be a NO. - LOL> You should have seen the girls face saying they DON'T KEEP THAT KIND OF CASH AROUND !! I just wanted to really test the system. They can give out $3, 4 or $10 k easily, my ask for MY money in the $30k range was a solid test and they failed, again. #FIAT Fraud
Well M2 > M0, so of course the amount of paper money doesnt exist to cover all monetary transactions. It is nothing surprizing, this is how the system is.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/m2.asp
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/m0.asp
In the US only 28.5% of the electronic money is covered by cash:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m0
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2
And given the fact that M2 is rising rapidly, this ratio will be less and less!
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