(Thomas Dishaw) The worldwide war on cash continues, as more and more nations aggressively put restrictions on the use of physical currency, inching us closer to the inevitable cashless society where no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast.
On September 1st France announced new regulations that ban cash transactions of 1,000 euros. This comes as a surprise since France originally set the threshold at 3,000 euros. Non-residence and tourists transactions also declined from 15,000 to 10,000 euros.
The Ministry Of Economy, (how Orwellian) continues to blame the money laundering underworld for the Dubai flowers, Adding that more draconian measures will take effect next year:
A second measure, which comes into force on 1 st January 2016 For individuals who perform foreign exchange transactions of their currency against euros. From next year, they will have to provide an ID from 1000 euros. Until the end of the year, this obligation is applicable only on foreign exchange of more than 8000 euros.
Also as part of the fight against money laundering, banking institutions will, as from 1 st January 2016, report to Tracfin anyone carrying deposits or withdrawals of cash superiors to 10 000 per month.
France isn’t the only one that has declared a war on cash. Many economists and big banks have followed suit by instituting policies that make it harder to spend, withdraw, or store cash, essentially putting us inline with biblical prophecy.
Louisiana Makes It Illegal To Use Cash For Secondhand Sales
One of the good features of cash is the fact that it can be used anonymously. It’s no surprise that the government hates that, but would you ever expect the government to actually outlaw the use of cash? Down in Louisiana, a recently passed law completely outlaws the use of cash in transactions for secondhand goods. When I read the story, I thought it was so crazy that it had to be a misunderstanding. I looked up the bill, and the original version of the bill actually does not have this clause. Instead, it requires that anyone selling secondhand goods make a detailed recording of any cash transaction. But somewhere along the way, that bill was amended, and the final version (embedded below) does, in fact, appear to ban cash transactions:
A secondhand dealer shall not enter into any cash transactions in payment for the purchase of junk or used or secondhand property. Payment shall be made in the form of check, electronic transfers, or money order issued to the seller of the junk or used or secondhand property and made payable to the name and address of the seller. All payments made by check, electronic transfers, or money order shall be reported separately in the daily reports required by R.S. 37:1866.
Denmark is set to become the first country in the world to make cash payments obsolete
DENMARK is on track to become the world’s first cashless nation, with its government pushing to free some stores, restaurants and petrol stations from accepting cash payments.
The proposal to scrap cash transactions is part of a package of cost-saving measures being introduced ahead of the Danish election in September, the Independent reports.
It is understood the government is hoping to get rid of the option to pay by cash by as early as 2016.
Nearly a third of all Danish citizen prefer to use Danske Bank’s official app,MobilePay, to pay for services and transactions, and it is expected that the proposal will be met with little opposition.
Spain Cash-Transaction Ban Begins as Rajoy Targets Tax Fraud
Spain began prohibiting consumers from paying cash to settle bills of 2,500 euros ($3,190) or more in legislation designed to curb tax evasion.
The ban, which became effective today, will be applied when at least one party to a transaction acts in a professional or commercial capacity, according to a law published Oct. 30 that contains a series of measures it says are “designed to prevent and fight against tax fraud.”
“The social and economic reality in a situation of crisis and budgetary austerity makes tax fraud today even more reproachable than ever,” the law’s preamble says.
Outlawing certain cash transactions that are commonplace across the country, such as paying a carpenter for home remodeling, is the latest in a series of revenue and spending changes that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has pushed in a bid to close the budget deficit and avert the need for a second bailout.
Article 7 of law 7/2012 targets the custom of paying cash for goods and services to avoid value-added and income taxes. Economists say the practice is particularly widespread in Spain, a country tax inspectors estimate is one of the European Union’s largest generators of undeclared earnings.
Welcome to Sweden – the most cash-free society on the planet
Four out of five purchases are now made electronically in Sweden, according to associate professor of industrial dynamics at Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology, Niklas Arvidsson – and going totally cash-free is the next step. “Banks and merchants invested heavily in card payment systems in the 1990s and these days consumers are used to it,” says Arvidsson.
Uruguay bans all cash payments over US$5,000
Uruguay yesterday sanctioned its Financial Inclusion Law, which will ban cash payments worth more than US$5,000 as of May 1 next year. Property transactions and car purchases will thus have to be made through banking mechanisms.
The measure will affect thousands of Argentines who have snapped up properties across the River Plate, primarily in the summer-favourite destination of Punta del Este.
According to Uruguayan daily El País, if a property is bought with funds located in another country, deeds will have to include details on how the transaction was made, including account numbers and the names of the buyer and the bank where the funds came from.
The recipients of income from rent contracts already in place before May 1 of 2015 will have to declare a bank account to which the funds should be deposited.
Management firms,’ lawyers’ and notaries’ fees as well as the commissions of real estate agencies will also have to be made electronically should they exceed the US$5,000 limit.
In addition, all taxes will have to be paid electronically, regardless of the sum that is owed.
Germany to Ban Paper Money and Dry out the Drugs Market
Germany might be the next country to take definitive steps towards the removal of hard currency. The economist Peter Bofinger has been campaigning for the abolition of cash in Germany.
His primary merits for the removal of hard currency apparently targets the markets for undeclared work, those earning a little cash in hand and wanting to avoid declaring this and being taxed. And allegedly Bofingers proposals would dry out the drugs market. This is assuming that people trading in illicit markets would simply not choose something else to use for barter.
A couple of dangerous assumptions from Bofinger that seems to be present in those declaring a cashless society is the belief that the banking sector has fully penetrated the human world. Meaning that nothing would be possible without a bank account, mortgages, getting a job, paying staff, starting a business, etc.
Financial Times Calls For Abolishing Cash
The Financial Times has published an anonymous article which calls for the abolition of cash in order to give central banks and governments more power.
Entitled The case for retiring another ‘barbarous relic’, the article laments the fact that people are stockpiling cash in anticipation of another economic collapse, a factor which is causing, “a lot of distortion to the economic system.”
“The existence of cash — a bearer instrument with a zero interest rate — limits central banks’ ability to stimulate a depressed economy. The worry is that people will change their deposits for cash if a central bank moves rates into negative territory,” states the article.
Complaining that cash cannot be tracked and traced, the writer argues that its abolition would, “make life easier for a government set on squeezing the informal economy out of existence.”
Abolishing cash would also give governments more power to lift taxes directly from people’s bank accounts, the author argues, noting how “Value added tax, for example, could be automatically levied — and reimbursed — in real time on transactions between liable bank accounts.”
The writer also calls for punishing people who use cash by making users “pay for the privilege of anonymity” so they will, “remain affected by monetary policy.” Dated bank notes would lose their value over time, while people would also be charged by banks for swapping electronic reserves for physical cash and vice versa.
Economist: Ban Cash and Force Everyone to Have a government bank account
A former Bank of England economist has called for a total ban on cash and its replacement with credit accounts controlled directly by governments.
In a column for the London Telegraph, fund manager Jim Leaviss all but advocates economic fascism as a means of enabling authorities to respond to financial crises better by implementing a “cashless society.”
“Forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank would give the authorities far better tools to deal with recessions and economic booms,” states the introduction to Leaviss’ article.
If you think that sounds authoritarian enough, it gets worse. Leaviss then suggests that your hard earned money be “monitored, or even directly controlled by the government,” with authorities then working to “encourage us to spend more when the economy slows, or spend less when it is overheating.”
Once wonders what form this ‘encouragement’ will take. A tax on bank deposits? Negative interest on savings? Limits on how much you can spend each month?
Citigroup’s Gold “Expert” Demands A Cash Ban
“The world’s central banks have a problem. When economic conditions worsen, they react by reducing interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. But, as has happened across the world in recent years, there comes a point where those central banks run out of room to cut — they can bring interest rates to zero, but reducing them further below that is fraught with problems, the biggest of which is cash in the economy.
In a new piece, Citi’s Willem Buiter looks at this problem, which is known as the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates. Fundamentally, the ELB problem comes down to cash.According to Buiter, the ELB only exists at all due to the existence of cash, which is a bearer instrument that pays zero nominal rates. Why have your money on deposit at a negative rate that reduces your wealth when you can have it in cash and suffer no reduction? Cash therefore gives people an easy and effective way of avoiding negative nominal rates. Buiter’s note suggests three ways to address this problem:
- Abolish currency.
- Tax currency.
- Remove the fixed exchange rate between currency and central bank reserves/deposits.
JPMorgan Chase Bans Storage of Cash in its Safety deposit boxes
Some JPMorgan Chase customers are receiving letters informing them that the bank will no longer allow cash to be stored in safety deposit boxes.
The content of a post over on the Collectors Universe message board suggests that we may be about to see a resurgence of the old fashioned method of stuffing bank notes under the mattress.My mother has a SDB at a Chase branch with one of my siblings as co-signers. Last week they got a letter outlining a number of changes to the lease agreement, including this:
“Contents of the box: You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value.”
Another change is that signatures will no longer be accepted to access the box. The next time they go in they have to bring two forms of ID and they will be issued a four-digit pin number that will be used to access the box then and in the future.
Chase Bank Limits Cash Withdrawals
Numerous business customers with Chase BusinessSelect Checking and Chase BusinessClassic accounts have received letters over the past week informing them that cash activity (both deposits and withdrawals) will be limited to a $50,000 total per statement cycle from November 17 onwards.
The letter reads;
Dear Business Customer,
Starting November 17, 2013:
– You will no longer be able to send international wire transfers. You will still be able to send domestic wires and receive both domestic and international wires. We’ll cancel any international wire transfers, including reccurring ones, you scheduled to be sent after this date.
– Your cash activity limit for these accounts(s) will be $50,000 per statement cycle, per account. Cash activity is the combined total of cash deposits made at branches, night drops and ATMs and cash withdrawals made at branches (including purchases of money orders) and ATMs.
These changes will help us more effectively manage the risks involved with these types of transactions.