Cash may well become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic...

COVID-19 & The War On Cash: What Is Behind The Push For A Cashless Society?

As these COVID-19 lockdowns drag out, more and more individuals and businesses are going cashless (for convenience and in a so-called effort to avoid spreading coronavirus germs), engaging in online commerce or using digital forms of currency (bank cards, digital wallets, etc.). As a result, physical cash is no longer king.

Yet there are other, more devious, reasons for this re-engineering of society away from physical cash: a cashless society—easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—would play right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).

To this end, the government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been waging a subtle war on cash for some time now.

What is this war on cash?

It’s a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

According to economist Steve Forbes,

“The real reason for this war on cash - start with the big bills and then work your way down - is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.

Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.

In much the same way that Americans have opted into government surveillance through the convenience of GPS devices and cell phones, digital cash—the means of paying with one’s debit card, credit card or cell phone—is becoming the de facto commerce of the American police state.

So what’s the deal here?

Despite all of the advantages that go along with living in a digital age—namely, convenience—it’s hard to imagine how a cashless world navigated by way of a digital wallet doesn’t signal the beginning of the end for what little privacy we have left and leave us vulnerable to the likes of government thieves and data hackers.

First, when I say privacy, I’m not just referring to the things that you don’t want people to know about, those little things you do behind closed doors that are neither illegal nor harmful but embarrassing or intimate. I am also referring to the things that are deeply personal and which no one need know about, certainly not the government and its constabulary of busybodies, nannies, Peeping Toms, jail wardens and petty bureaucrats.

Second, we’re already witnessing how easy it will be for government agents to manipulate digital wallets for their own gain. For example, civil asset forfeiture schemes are becoming even more profitable for police agencies thanks to ERAD (Electronic Recovery and Access to Data) devices supplied by the Department of Homeland Security that allow police to not only determine the balance of any magnetic-stripe card (i.e., debit, credit and gift cards) but also freeze and seize any funds on pre-paid money cards. In fact, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment for police to scan or swipe your credit card.

Third, the war on cash is about giving the government the ultimate control of the economy and complete access to the citizenry’s pocketbook.

Fourth, every technological convenience that has made our lives easier has also become our Achilles’ heel, opening us up to greater vulnerabilities from hackers and government agents alike.

Fifth, if there’s one entity that will not stop using cash for its own nefarious purposes, it’s the U.S. government. Cash is the currency used by the government to pay off its foreign “associates.”

Sixth, this drive to do away with cash is part of a larger global trend driven by international financial institutions and the United Nations that is transforming nations of all sizes, from the smallest nation to the biggest, most advanced economies.

Finally, short of returning to a pre-technological, Luddite age, there’s really no way to pull this horse back now that it’s left the gate. While doing so is near impossible, it would also mean doing without the many conveniences and advantages that are the better angels, if you will, of technology’s totalitarian tendencies: the internet, medical advances, etc.

Silly that he just thinks it's about Big Macs. It's much more than that of course. It's too control us. Plain and simple and if we step out of line then they can just cut off our funds. Even this is too simplistic. This has been on the horizon for a long time and once again I thought I'd be dead before it happened here. This is not going to happen this year, but it is coming. Of course though it won't be in effect for rich people and corporations. They still get to put their money offshore or in Delaware and even.

Many of us have been writing about the restrictions that came from Russia Gate. This COVID epidemic is just more of the same. Rahm said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." The PTB are not.

ICYMI

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Back in the 80s I tried to write a book where every worst case scenario happened - economic, social, governmental, ecological. But every time I wrote a chapter everything I wrote about was already worse than my "worst case".

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14 users have voted.

On to Biden since 1973

= Enslaved Society.

The authoritarians will be using the double whammy of global depression
and the collapse of fiat currencies plus pandemic to push for this.

Expect to hear a lot about convenience, safety, efficiency and how well, it's just inevitable - can't fight progress... not so much about what happens when networks go down.

I say line in the sand time.

In the way of positive ways to fight this, a few states have enacted legislation in recent years
to require retailers to accept cash, could be worth finding out where your state stands with this.

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12 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

required cash only. I think their satellite credit system was down.

I do use a credit card to buy stuff online, but I use cash elsewhere. I've been getting extra every week on my weekly jaunt to town to build a cash stash. I use the ATM. The drive-thru is still open, but you have to make an appt. to go in the bank lobby. We have a safety deposit box there, and they did call to let us know to call them and arrange a time to access it. We just keep paper work, wills, deed, passports, etc. in it so really don't need access now.

I still pay a couple of bills with checks. Otherwise I use cash.

The world economic forum loves the idea...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/benefits-cashless-society-mobile-...

and they've been pushing the idea in India (of all places)
http://cashlessindia.gov.in/

This might usher in wider acceptance of bitcoin. If I've got to go digital cash, I want non-governmental currency.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

gulfgal98's picture

@Lookout Some time ago, C99 user Tony Wikrent wrote a very good essay on India going cashless. The idea of forcing a society to go cashless has haunted me ever since. Even though I tend to put nearly all my purchases on a credit card, I am doing so of my own free will. If money as we know it, i.e. cash, disappears, that removes free choice from the equation.

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10 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

wendy davis's picture

@gulfgal98

in india, it was a nightmare of poverty for the lower castes,the elites did quite well. iirc, i posted it, but you get the gist: recalling all large bill denominations, forcing plastic the poor weren't even able to keep up with, etc.

but that's the other place i think this is headed.

i've featured a couple other of john whitehead's savvy op-eds, too, and as i remember them: civil and privacy rights v. pandemic fears.

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Lookout's picture

@gulfgal98 @wendy davis

About the power of the Fed with digital money. A little long at 30 min

I think the probability is high the US moves to a government backed digital currency in the future. From the governments position it makes too much sense to ignore. A government backed digital currency gives them and the Federal Reserve COMPLETE CONTROL over spending, money supply, inflation, and your life. If that sounds alarmist you haven't thought this through well enough.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkgV7LJv5Os]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Interesting how the CC web site went down as well for one of them.
Entangling insecure tech with finances is problematic.
We should switch to chits. Everybody gets 2:
one for you owe me and one for I owe you.

No banks or electronics involved.
Good for local transactions perhaps.

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7 users have voted.
Jen's picture

I pay the electric and water bills in cash. They charge an extra $3.10 to use a card. Since they are separate bills from 2 different places, it would cost over $6 extra just to use a card at both places. Also, gas (for my truck) costs 10 cents less per gallon if I use cash.

Then there's the problem of how would I give my (adult) kids money if they need some? What will my granddaughter get from the tooth fairy if there's no cash?

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Is it great yet?

CB's picture

@Jen
What is is the current going rate? Also, does the tooth fairy know if it is your own tooth or would any tooth do? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Jen's picture

@CB Well, I got quarters for mine. My kids got dollars. By the time Little Bit is old enough to start losing teeth, it will probably be at least $2. Pretty sure the tooth fairy only takes baby teeth. Biggrin

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7 users have voted.

Is it great yet?

gulfgal98's picture

@Jen When I was a kid, the tooth fairy left me dimes. Either I am older than dirt or I had a cheap tooth fairy. Something tells me that it might be both. Lol

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Granma's picture

@CB tooth on a camping trip. He got a $20 bill because that was all his dad had and was the child’s 1st tooth. Pretty sure he got less for the other teeth though.

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@Jen A lot of people just don't want to support the war machine. They pay cash. They only accept cash. I've long thought about going from Cash or check only to cash only.

The elites won't win that battle.

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Hawkfish's picture

I was outside my local grocery store and one of our local panhandlers was complaining getting nowhere. I had to tell him (through a mask from 6 feet away) that no one had any cash because it is dirty and no stores are accepting it. He started cursing out the virus and he had left when I came back out.

Yet another way the poor get hit harder than everyone else.

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8 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg