Cashless Society War Intensifies During Global Epocalypse

By David Haggith, 22 January 2016

The Economist predicted thirty years ago that by 2018 a global currency would rise like the phoenix out of the ashes of the world’s fiat currencies:

"THIRTY years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries, and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let’s say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today’s national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the last twentieth century. At the beginning of 1988 this appears an outlandish prediction."

As we near their prescient date of 2018, The Economist’s prediction doesn’t appear even slightly outlandish.

The Russian ruble crashed to record lows this week.

"The ruble has fallen for three consecutive years and is now under immense pressure both from Western economic sanctions and from crude’s inexorable decline…. The ruble has collapsed to fresh record lows and on Thursday marked its steepest two-day decline in nine months." (“Russian Ruble Crashes To Record Lows In ‘Panic’: ‘Some Investors Are Selling At Any Price’“)

Panic selling of the Russian ruble coincides with major bank collapses unfolding this week in Italy. Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog writes,

"The Italian financial meltdown that we have been waiting for has finally arrived…. Italian banking stocks continued their collapse for a fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, and nervous Italians are beginning to quietly pull large amounts of money out of the banks. In particular, Monte dei Paschi is a complete and utter basket case at this point. A staggering one-third of their loans are “non-performing”, and the stock price has fallen a staggering 57 percent since 2016 began. (“A Run on the Banks Begins in Italy as Italian Banking Stocks Collapse“)

One doesn’t have to look far back into the unfolding global economic collapse to recall people rapidly pulling money out of banks in Greece. Before that it was Cyprus. Brazil is facing similar problems. Soon it may be Puerto Rico as that government moves into bankruptcy.

The stock markets of eleven European nations have fully succumbed to becoming bear markets. China’s is a bear market. Russia’s is a bear market, and the US is within an easy day’s journey of becoming a bear market. It is now bobbing along on the price of crude oil. Probably the only thing holding the US market’s head above water is the flight of capital from everywhere else in the world.

Because the Epocalypse is a global economic collapse that is creating global currency wars and national currency collapses, it will beg for a global economic and monetary solution.

The war on cash is happening openly now in societies that have pushed economic stimulus as far as they can. This is why governments are no longer the obstacle that The Economist thought they would be. Proof that we are entering the Epocalypse that will pave the way for acceptance of a global cashless monetary system can be seen in the now-obvious failure of the zero-interest polices of central banks. When hitting the zero bound failed to lift economies that crashed in the Great Recession, some central banks moved to force negative interest rates on people who save their money in banks.

Charging people to keep their money in the bank is hard to do so long as cash is available, as people may just withdraw all of their money from those banks in the form of the national cash and squirrel the cash away. In order to penetrate the twilight zone of economics, central banks need to abolish cash to terminate this escape route.

Cashless Canada comes within view

One recent headline in the intensifying war against cash is “MasterCard is at war in Canada, and it’s not against who you’d expect.” The battle described is MasterCard’s war on cash in hopes of establishing a cashless society in Canada because she who owns the money owns the country:

In Canada, the biggest rival MasterCard Inc. is working to obliterate, according to its local president Brian Lang, isn’t Visa Inc., American Express Co., Interac Association or Bitcoin dealers. It’s cold, hard cash.

As national currencies now collapse, governments will find themselves scrambling for an answer to the Epocalypse — and answer they already want. Many want a currency that ends US hegemony, and President Obama seems more willing to end US hegemony than other presidents have been. All want a currency that smooths international trade. What The Economist thought some might find “outlandish” thirty years ago is now the clarion call of economists around the world and a move that has already begun in many nations:

"The fact that people treat cash as the go-to safe asset when banks are teetering is heavy with historical irony…. Even as individuals have taken recent crises as reasons to stock up on banknotes, authorities would do well to consider the arguments for phasing out their use as another “barbarous relic….” Even a little physical currency can cause a lot of distortion to the economic system. (“The Financial Times Demands End Of Cash, Calls It A ‘Barbarous Relic.'”)

According to the Financial Times,

The existence of cash — a bearer instrument with a zero interest rate — limits central banks’ ability to stimulate a depressed economy.

The Financial Times also notes government has its reasons for wanting to create a cashless society:

"Electronic money also permits innovations to reward law-abiding businesses. Value added tax, for example, could be automatically levied — and reimbursed — in real time on transactions between liable bank accounts. Countries that struggle with tax collection could go a long way in solving their problems by restricting the use of cash. Greece, in particular, could make lemonade out of lemons, using the current capital controls to push the country’s cash culture into new habits."

The writer says that governments should make cash users “pay for the privilege of anonymity” so they will choose to work more with electronic money and, thus, “remain affected by monetary policy.”

“Affected” is a nicer word than “manipulated” or “controlled.”

A former Bank of England economist, Jim Leaviss, wrote a similar article in the London Telegraph in May of 2015, describing the move to becoming a cashless society as a panacea:

"A proposed new law in Denmark could be the first step towards an economic revolution that sees physical currencies and normal bank accounts abolished and gives governments futuristic new tools to fight the cycle of “boom and bust”.

…"Officially, the aim is to ease “administrative and financial burdens”, such as the cost of hiring a security service to send cash to the bank, and is part of a programme of reforms aimed at boosting growth – there is evidence that high cash usage in an economy acts as a drag."

"But the move could be a key moment in the advent of “cashless societies”. And once all money exists only in bank accounts – monitored, or even directly controlled by the government – the authorities will be able to encourage us to spend more when the economy slows, or spend less when it is overheating."

Isn’t that nice? The aim is to encourage us to spend in ways that are helpful to all.

You cash hoarder! You are the reason the economy is dying, not the central banks!

Leaviss’s article in The Telegraph recommends,

"Having everyone’s account at a single, central institution allows the authorities to either encourage or discourage people to spend. To boost spending, the bank imposes a negative interest rate on the money in everyone’s account – in effect, a tax on saving."

You see, you don’t know what you’re doing with your money. Government know best. Leaviss goes on to say, as if this is a cheery-good thing,

"Faced with seeing their money slowly confiscated, people are more likely to spend it on goods and services."

You see how much nicer that would be for all of us? If you don’t, you’re a cash hoarder, one of the criminal segment that destroys national economies by not participating enthusiastically in the government’s debt spending spree.

What about the opposite situation – when the economy is overheating? The central bank or government will certainly drop any negative interest on credit balances, but it could go further and impose a tax on transactions.

So whenever you use the money in your account to buy something, you pay a small penalty. That makes people less inclined to spend and more inclined to save, so reducing economic activity.

Such an approach would be a far more effective way to damp an overheated economy than today’s blunt tool of a rise in the central bank’s official interest rate.

"Electronic money is an inclusive and convenient system, giving poor and rural sectors of an economy – where cash machines and bank branches may be few and far between and not all people have accounts – a tool for easy participation in the economy."

The prediction of a final, global, economic system goes back a very long way:

He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark…. (The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ 13:16 & 17 “The Book of Revelation”