Readers of this publication will know that for some time, I’ve forecasted the creation of a new monetary system by which governments and banks gain total control over all monetary transactions.
On the surface of it, this may seem an impossible goal, as it would be so all-encompassing and would eliminate economic freedom entirely. Surely, it would not be tolerated. However, I believe that it’s not only relatively easy to create, but it will be sold in such a way that the public will see it as an absolute panacea to their economic woes. Only those who are far-sighted will understand its level of destruction in advance of its implementation.
It might transpire like this:
Part 1: The Currency
Any one of a number of triggers (decline of the petrodollar, dumping of US debt back into the US market, Europe defaults on its debt, sanctions backfire, etc.) causes a crash in markets.
Deflation kicks in.
The Fed creates massive QE to reverse deflation, ending in dramatic inflation and possibly hyperinflation.
[Editor's Note: these 3 almost done by the US federal government caused housing market collapse.]
Government declares a state of economic emergency, states that cash is (and has been) the problem and must be done away with for recovery to occur.
A new electronic currency is created, to be issued by banks.
All economic transactions of any kind—both debits and credits—are to be done through a currency card (purchases as small as a candy bar or as large as a home; all credits, including wages, dividends, sales of goods, etc.).
Entire economic system becomes greatly simplified, as only the currency card (or smart phone) is now needed by anyone.
At this point, every transaction, no matter how small, is on record, so government can assess the cardholder’s income to the penny, without the need to file for income tax each year.
Government announces that the tax system is a mess and that it must be simplified to relieve the people of the burden. In future, tax will be taken by direct debit from the currency card account.
Government later announces that, as the annual filing is such a hardship on the average person, tax debits will in future be done monthly.
It would be easy to present the above as a boon to all citizens. Indeed, it might well be peddled as “the only possibility for a return to prosperity.” It will take a while for the fact to sink in that citizens have entered into a state of complete economic bondage to their bank and government, and that to operate outside the system is difficult in the extreme.
There can be no doubt that barter would become more common (whether legal or not), but virtually all other transactions would be centrally controlled and audited.
David Stockman, in a recent edition of Zero Hedge, stated,
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff even argues in the daily paper FAZ that cash currency should be banned altogether. Central banks could impose negative interest rates more easily that way, he explained. Tax evaders and criminals would also find life more difficult. From this perspective, banknotes and coins appear superfluous, he said at a presentation at the IFO institute in Munich. Measures to spur the economy could be implemented more easily that way.
This, of course, is the concept detailed above, although he adds two nice touches. First, he suggests that negative interest rates are desirable; that cashless currency is the answer. He also adds that a new system will help to eliminate criminal behaviour.
Socialism Foothold
In 1936, John Maynard Keynes published his signature book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. It was an instant success with both socialists and governments around the world—the latter, because his new “economic principles” stated that governments should control the monetary system—full stop. It was music to their ears, and most governments have been devotees ever since.
Mister Keynes was, first and foremost, a socialist. Although he received his education in economics, right from the start, he treated economics as a philosophy, not a science. By his own admission, he sought to redraft the laws of economics to serve an unrelated end: the advancement of socialism. Like the best socialists, he believed that truth was irrelevant; all that mattered was the objective.
However, in recent years, we’ve seen a small rebirth in the popularity of Classical Economics. More and more people, observing the repeated failures of Keynesian Economics, have been crediting Adam Smith and likeminded economists as having had the right idea all along. After all, economics is the science of how money works, not an art form that may be altered at the whim of the theorist to fit some political preference.
And so, there are many (myself included) who are eager to see what we believe would be the well-deserved downfall of Keynesianism, as the debt-ridden, entitlement-driven economies of the world collapse under their own ponderous weight.
[Editor's Note: The US and Europe with their entitlement-driven (48% of US population is on foond stamps) economies are near collapse.]
But this hope may well be premature. In my belief, there is a final rabbit in the Keynesian hat, and that rabbit is the electronic currency described above. And if such a currency could be sold to a gullible public in one country, it could be sold just as easily in other jurisdictions.
This being the case, it would not be much of a leap if the concept were to be discussed universally and many governments were to announce that an international electronic currency, issued by the IMF, would solve all the currency problems, including those of currency exchange and international trade.
For at least one hundred years, there have been those who have hoped for and worked toward a one-world currency. There can be no doubt that the push for such a creation would receive support at the highest levels, internationally. If so, daydreams of a return to Adam Smith or a realisation of the dreams of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek may, for the foreseeable future, be just that: daydreams.
As to what the overall effect might be, we might consider the words of uber-financier Mayer Rothschild:
“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”
Herr Rothschild knew whereof he spoke. This principle led him and his descendants to become immensely wealthy and powerful on an international scale.
An electronic currency leads directly toward the bondage of the people—directly away from freedom. As a hedge against such controls, diversification into hard assets such as precious metals and real estate might be considered. Just as important, assets held outside any country that is increasing its controls might be a positive move.
The ultimate way to diversify your savings internationally is to transfer it out of the immediate reach of your home government and into something tangible. Something that cannot be easily confiscated, nationalized, frozen, or devalued at the drop of a hat or with a couple of taps on the keyboard—while retaining as much privacy as legally possible. Physical gold and silver stored abroad in a non-bank vault fits the bill.
Gold and silver have served as money for centuries and across many different civilizations. They have always been inherently international assets. There is nothing at all particularly American, Chinese, Russian, or European about gold or silver. Buying gold and silver is perhaps the easiest step you can take toward internationalizing your savings. The next step is to store your precious metals in a safe foreign jurisdiction.
Today it is easy and convenient to own physical gold and silver offshore in places like Singapore and Switzerland in a non-bank private vault. Find out how you can internationally diversify your precious metals by downloading this guide.
Those who seek out positions of power tend to be paranoid, hypocritical wimps. Consider the issue of firearms. Politicians have many thousands of mercenaries (soldiers and "law enforcers") wielding all sort of deadly weapons--guns, tanks, missiles, drones, etc. Yet those same politicians pee themselves at the thought of the rabble owning semi-automatic rifles. From their twisted, elitist perspective, it's perfectly fine for them to swipe many billions of dollars from their subjects to spend on all manner of armaments, but if YOU want to possess a rifle, they think you should have to ask their permission, and register it, and make sure they always know what you own.
They also expect to be allowed to do things in secret, while claiming the right to spy on you and everyone else. As far as they are concerned, it's none of your business what they do, or what weapons they have, but it is their business to know everything that you do and everything that you have. Of course, they will pretend that their goal is to protect you from the "criminal element," but you'd have to be pretty dense to actually believe that. Why do you suppose they mostly whine about civilians having weapons that:
are used in only a tiny percentage of actual crime, and;
are the most effective types of weapon for resisting "government"
aggression?
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. People who gravitate towards political office think they have the right to rule you. That's the job they applied for. And, of course, extorting you and bossing you around could be rather more difficult if you are better armed than their enforcers. So they hand out machine guns to their mindless thugs, but have tantrums about you having a 30-round magazine.
A new Congress has been seated, and it brings the prospect of perhaps, maybe, potentially, in a possible way doing something about the runaway federal deficits. And in other news, several New York area bridges are for sale, which you can acquire at a bargain price.
Excessive Spending Destroys!
Feds Have a Spending Problem — DO NOT RAISE THE CEILING!
Feds Have a Sewage Problem!
Becky Gerritson: "...government is out of control!" and "...our representative government has failed us."
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the IRS to detail under oath how some of former agency official Lois Lerner’s emails went missing, as well as any potential methods for recovering them.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington gave the Internal Revenue Service exactly a month — until Aug. 10 — to file a report, which he demanded as part of a lawsuit from a conservative watchdog, Judicial Watch, against the agency.
Judicial Watch is seeking a wide range of documents from the IRS, including Lerner’s emails, as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. It has complained that the IRS didn’t tell it that the agency couldn’t recover all of Lerner’s emails from 2009 to 2011.
Sullivan cast his ruling as a compromise, and a potential way for Judicial Watch to get answers without the court wading any deeper into the matter. Judicial Watch had asked the court to potentially compel IRS officials to testify about the lost emails, through a process called limited discovery.
The FairTax is a consumption tax unilaterally applied to all Americans at the same rate. For businesses, payroll taxes would no longer exist. Our exports would include a heavy tax for overseas buyers purchasing our products, while our imports would be cheaper for us to purchase. I'm not sure how this would affect GDP, as more information is necessary.
According to the FairTax website, "Under the FairTax, every person living in the United States pays a sales tax on purchases of new goods and services, excluding necessities due to the prebate." The prebate gives every legal resident household an "advance refund" at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free.
So a family of four making something like $50,000/year should not have to pay taxes, thus preventing an unfair burden on low-income families. Since the FairTax eliminates both federal and payroll taxes, you get to keep your gross pay amount of each paycheck earned.
John Adams said, “Without [term limits] every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey”. That being said, here are some of the reasons we believe our country needs Term Limits.
Term Limits can help break the cycle of corruption in Congress. Case studies show that the longer an individual stays in office, the more likely they are to stop serving the public and begin serving their own interests.
Term Limits will encourage regular citizens to run for office. Presently, there is a 94% re-election rate in the House and 83% in the Senate. Because of name recognition, and usually the advantage of money, it can be easy to stay in office. Without legitimate competition, what is the incentive for a member of Congress to serve the public? Furthermore, it is almost a lost cause for the average citizen to try to campaign against current members of Congress.
Term Limits will break the power special interest groups have in Congress.
Term Limits will force politicians to think about the impact of their legislation because they will be returning to their communities shortly to live under the laws they enacted.
Term Limits will bring diversity of people and fresh ideas to Congress.
[Editor's Note: If you want to get rich, i.e. advance from a low paying government bureaucrat job on the local or state level, THEN GET ELECTED TO THE US CONGRESS (House or Senate). Once you're elected, it's easy to steal from your campaign contributions or the Congressional budget allocated to your seat and staff. You can go on a government-funded junket with 'lavishly' paid expenses. The list of ways to steal from the government while in office is inexhaustible. There are only a few Congressmen who left Congress just wealthy instead of a multi-millionaire. Of course, there are several who arrived in Congress as multi-millionaires and don't need to steal from the government.]
