Category World Economic Form

Dec 5 2016

The War on Cash – One Giant Leap Forward For Government


Armstrong Economics Blog

Re-Posted Dec 5, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

smart-phone-money

The European Payments Council (EPC), a subdivision of the European Central Bank, is taking one giant step forward in their quest to eliminate all cash to increase taxes. They have gone ahead and set up the technical bases last week to enable the immediate payments system throughout Europe. One of the stumbling blocks has been the fact you cannot transfer money same day for banks like to play with your money and holding it for a few days. If the payment comes from overseas, the bank will not “clear” the funds usually for six weeks.

Unless money can become instant, it is really impossible to eliminate cash. The SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme will move to allow instant transfers. The goal is to eliminate ATM machines and force people to pay using their mobile phone beginning in November 2017. Of course, there is nobody thinking about tourism. How will an American pay for something on a vacation in Europe? One suggestion behind the curtain I was recently briefed on was they could pay in advance and have an app that then pays for things in Europe.

The hunt for taxes is getting pretty bad. The entire reason for the introduction of passports was by the Roman Emperor Diocletian following the collapse during the 3rd Century. Diocletian introduced wage and price controls, and doubled the number of bureaucrats at the government’s command; Lactantius was to claim that there were now more men using tax money than there were paying it. A form of introducing a passport not to travel to foreign lands since civilization was the Roman Empire, but to be able to travel within the Empire because you could not leave your home town until you paid your taxes.

King Henry V of England (1387–1422) is credited with having invented what considered the first true international passport. The king saw this as helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands and not the subject of the king where they traveled. The reason for this 1414 Act of Parliament was legal. You were the property of your King. If you committed a crime in France, the French king could not punish you. He had to send you back to your king in chains noting the crime you committed and asked that you be punished by your king. This legal foundation of “jurisdiction” was not overthrown until the American Revolution, which gave birth to territorial jurisdiction. Since it was a revolt against monarchy, it was seen as implausible that if an Englishman committed a crime in America, that they would still recognize the authority of the king and send him in chains to Britain to be punished. This new idea of territorial jurisdiction is directly outlined in the 6th Amendment:

6th-amendment

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Dec 4 2016

Russian navy on combat alert as Ukraine begins missile launch drills near Crimea


More things to worry about!

Dec 4 2016

Renzi to Resign – Italy Follows the Global Trend – Votes NO


Armstrong Economics Blog

Re-Posted Dec 4, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

renzi-votes

We are witnessing what a Private Wave is all about. The Italian Referendum came in on point with the NO vote at  59.4% against 40.6%. Our model is now four for four with BREXIT, Trump, Hollande in France exiting the election, and now Italy. We will see the same defeat for Merkel.

What politicians do not grasp is that they have destroyed the world economy with taxes and regulation. Enough is enough. In Europe, the single currency has totally failed because it required a single debt. The refusal to consolidate the debts has been the death of the Euro.

This is all playing out into a major dollar rally for like a game of musical chairs, it’s the last place to park money.

Dec 4 2016

And Then There Was One


Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge Dec 4, 2016 8:39 PM

So much has changed in just the 8 months since April 25, 2016, when this “White House Photo” of the day was taken.

As Will Jordan notes, the photo showed a meeting of the world’s top political leaders, President Barack Obama talking with European leaders before their meeting in Hannover, Germany.

From left: British Prime Minister David Cameron, the President, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

As of this evening, of the five, just one remains on the global political scene. The real question is for how much longer.

Dec 4 2016

These Countries Have Nearly “Eliminated Cash From Circulation”


Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge Dec 4, 2016 8:15 PM

The cashless society is catching up to all of us. As SHTFPlan.com’s Mac Slavo notes,

 Most of Europe has shifted that way, and now India is forcing the issue. In the United States, people are being acclimated to it, and may soon find that no other option is practical in the highly-digitized online world.

Once that takes hold, the banksters, bureaucrats and hackers will have total information on all your transactions, purchasing behavior, profiles about consumers, political and social background history and even predictive behavior, allowing them to control the population with ease.

If/when a major crisis hits, nothing will work if the grid goes down; nothing will take place that isn’t strictly authorized – apart from a barter and precious metals exchange system that will be marginalized to the pre-digital ghetto.

In fact, as The Daily Coin’s Rory Hall explains 1 out of 3 people in the world never uses cash…

We recently learned how serious these criminals are about stealing the sovereignty of every person on planet earth. Actually, most people are willingly handing over their sovereignty to the banks/government and have no idea what they are actually doing.

When India banned (made illegal) the 500 and 1000 rupee banknote this move effected every 1 out of 7 people on planet earth. That means that every 7th person, anywhere and everywhere, you come in contact with may have been effected by this cash ban.

Our individual sovereignty is tied directly to our ability to move freely about. When every step we make is tracked by the bank/government our sovereignty is gone forever. Freely trading commerce is one of the cornerstones of human sovereignty. Without the ability to conduct business with whom we wish, when we wish we are nothing more than cattle to the overlords of the land.

An expat living in Thailand sent me an email last week, at the height of India blowing apart because the idiotic decision by Prime Minister Modi to eliminate the two most used bank notes in India. The email was to inform me that Thailand would be implementing a new policy in the early part of 2017 to completely eliminate coins from circulation. South Korea has already taken measures to eliminate coins from circulation.

Here is a google translation from the Korean website wikitree.co.kr (once you arrive you will need to translate from Korean language)

 From next year, you can get the change of cash that you bought and paid at a convenience store on your transportation card.

In the mid to long term, not only transportation cards but also remittance to credit cards and accounts will be promoted, and the industry will be expanded to retail sector such as marts and pharmacies.

The Bank of Korea announced on the 21st [November] that it will provide a service to charge prepaid transportation cards at convenient stores from the first half of next year (2017) as the first stage of the demonstration project to realize “a society without coins”.

What’s happening in Thailand? Well, the government doesn’t even bother with trying to cover up the “scheme” to move people onto the tax farm – currency enslavement awaits for all that enter the great Bangkok Baht giveaway!!!

According to Bangkok.Coconuts.co (published in July 2016):

  “Want to win a million baht? Go for e-payment,” says Thailand’s junta, offering a lucky draw as an incentive to use the new online payment scheme “PromptPay.” The government wants to encourage citizens to use the service for business, in an effort to bring some of the massive informal Thai economy onto the books and boost tax revenues.

As Southeast Asian economies struggle and tax income misses budget targets, Thailand’s finance minister is hopeful that a nationwide e-payment scheme can add tax revenue of THB100 billion a year to the coffers.

Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong has estimated the move will save banks and businesses a combined THB75 billion a year, though other policymakers expect it could take some time for businesses to change their habits. Cash and checks now make up 80 percent of transactions.

A coup in May 2014 ended months of political unrest, but the generals have struggled to revive Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy as exports and consumption remain weak.

What about the most populace country on the planet: China? Well, they are, currently, in fourth place in use of digitized currency behind the U.S., Europe and Brazil. While none of these countries have eliminated cash from circulation, the banks/government make is sound “trendy”, convenient and oh so cool to never use cash. Why force a policy change when you can convince the people to hand over their freewill?

Although China still has some way to go before it catches up with countries such as the US and Sweden, the speed at which China has made the shift from cash towards cashless has surprised many. Non-cash payments have been growing by around 40 per cent a year and last year China moved into 4th place in the world for non-cash payments after the US, Europe and Brazil.
There are many reasons for China’s rapid transition away from cash. One is urbanisation, as non-cash payments are becoming both easy and popular. This is especially the case in top-tier cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing where it is both trendy and convenient to pay without using cash.
There is a huge variety of choices when it comes to making cashless payments and China UnionPay has definitely helped to encourage this, particularly in the case of debit cards, which outnumber credit cards in China by 10 to one. China has more than 4 billion cards on issue – almost enough for each adult to have about three each.
Mobile payments have also taken off in China – it has the largest proportion of people in the world using their mobile phones to make payments, online and physically. Source

The purpose of going cashless is not for our “convenience”, it is specifically for the purpose of “saving the banks” and tax collections. Governments and banks could care-less about what is convenient for us. They are only concerned with how much of our wealth they can extract from every person who has any currency.

The population of South Korea is 50.22 million people or said another way about 1/6th the size of the United States. India, on the other hand, is populated by 1.33 BILLION people while there are 7.4 BILLION populating the world. With Thailand making moves to remove cash/coins from the people we need to add their population to the mix as well. With more than 68.22 Million people this brings the number of people that are being forced by their government to use digital currency to a whopping 1.45 BILLION people. If you add 40% of China’s population of 1.35 BILLION that equates to approximately 540 million people the number of people currently living within a cashless society breaches 2 Billion people or said another way 1 out of every 3.5 people we come into contact with everyday. Every 4th person you greet has nothing to do with cash. This does not take in account the top 3 nations using digitized currency for their transactions. If the U.S., Europe and Brazil were calculated we would be well below 1 out of 3 people never using cash for any transaction.

Some people that are reading this are telling themselves “so what?” those are distant far off lands that have nothing to do with the U.S. and this will never happen here. Well, not so fast.

Larry Summers, who is like an embedded tick at the Treasury Department of the United States, has called for the elimination of the $100 bill. With the elimination of the largest denominated bank note from circulation this would effectively kill the use of cash. Why? Because it would eliminate most of the total cash value from circulation in one-fell-swoop.

With $1.2 trillion in cash in circulation, as of July 2013 (now three year old information), not just in the United States but around the world, removing the $100 bill would deal a serious blow to the cash balance in circulation. Maybe not the amount of pieces of paper, but the cash value removed would be huge. Imagine going to a casino and hitting a blackjack table for $2,000 and the cashier hands you bundles of $50 bills (40) or worse, bundles of $20 bills (100)! $2,000 payout at a casino is not that a big deal. Having to handle the sheer volume of bank notes could potentially be a problem for the person receiving the windfall of paper.

If you have any misguided notion that a cashless society is not coming, just keep telling yourself that every time you use a debit card, credit card or your phone for your next purchase. With the elimination of cash we effectively hand over our individual human sovereignty to the banks and the government.

*  *  *

Finally we leave you with Harvard’s latest study on which nations would ‘benefit’ the most from going cashless…

Dec 4 2016

Putin Says Trump Is “A Smart Man”, Will Adapt To Responsibilities As “Unipolar World Model Fails”


Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge Dec 4, 2016 11:51 AM

Following Trump’s phone call on Friday evening with the Taiwan president, which led to scathing response by the US press and diplomatic corps, both of which were shocked to see Trump threaten the “One China” status quo by taking foreign policy matters into his own hands (the same media and diplomats who were just as shocked to see Trump win the presidential election) , on Sunday morning Trump got some words of encouragement from none other than Vladimir Putin, who in an interview with Russian NTV TV, said that Trump is “a clever man” and will quickly adapt to his new responsibilities and new role as president.

“Trump was an entrepreneur and a businessman. He is already a statesman, he is the head of the United States of America, one of the world’s leading countries.”

“The fact that Trump managed to achieve success in business, suggests that he is a smart man,” Putin said in the NTV interview.  “And as he is smart, that means he will fully and quite quickly be aware of a different level of responsibility. We assume that he will be acting this way,” he added.

Putin has spoken previously of his hope that Trump will help restore U.S.-Russia relations, and analysts said he was unlikely to want to dial up anti-Western rhetoric before Trump’s inauguration in January.

“Because he achieved success in business, it suggests that he is a clever man. And if (he is) a clever man, then he will fully and quite quickly understand another level of responsibility. We assume that he will be acting from these positions,” Putin said.

Putin’s comments seemed to address criticism from Trump’s opponents who say his unconventional actions since the election – including railing at the cast of a Broadway show and early-morning invective on Twitter – show Trump is out of his depth.

Discussing Russia’s poor relations with the West, Putin touched upon the current geopolitical situation, saying that he could see it changing, as attempts to establish a unipolar world have failed.

“I believe that it is not a secret, everyone can see, that many of our partners prefer to refer to the principles of the international law, because the balance of power in the world is gradually being restored,” he said. “But this is inevitable!

Finally, Putin said when building relationships with other countries, Russia would respect their interests: “Attempts to create a unipolar world have not succeeded. We are living in a different dimension. Russia has always held this point of view – that, while protecting our national interests, we must respect the interests of other countries. So, this is the way we establish relations with other countries.”

Dec 4 2016

Battle for Aleppo Over, Real War Has Begun


I’m with Trump ISIS is our enemy not Russia or al-Assad!

Dec 3 2016

France’s Worst-Rated President in Modern History Will Not Seek Re-election


Good BY and good riddance!

Dec 3 2016

Why Politics is So Important Right Now – Markets Depend On The Confidence


Armstrong Economics Blog

Re-Posted Dec 3, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

Merkel-Hollande

Our computer has been doing a fantastic job forecasting BREXIT, then Trump and that Hollande would not make the final round for elections in France. But why are these events even important? No it is not that Trump will save the day. He will perhaps help give the USA some breathing room. But the collapse that is underway started in Europe. It will then migrate to Japan, and finally come to the USA.

Merkel and Hollande were the pillars of Europe. Taking out BREXIT was the first leg of the stool, Hollande was the second leg of this three-legged stool holding up Europe. The collapse of confidence behind the euro is directly tied to politics. Remove Merkel, and we will begin to see how quickly Europe will unravel.

This is the Year from Political Hell. Keep in mind that CONFIDENCE underscores EVERYTHING. You accept a dollar bill for your labor only because you have the CONFIDENCE that someone else will accept it in return. All markets rest upon a seabed of CONFIDENCE. Undermine that foundation, and then the house of cards will fall. It will not fall without changing the mindset of the majority. You will never convince them with stories of fiat, money supply, or gold. Undermine their belief system, then you will see change – not before. You will NEVER convince the majority with stories of hyperinflation, quantity of money theories, or any economic theory. Once the political world changes, then there is no certainty left to support the future. Santa Claus is not there to make sure your life will be the dream. Sudden, those in the West will have to leave the same lesson of those in Russia and Eastern Europe – you just cannot count on government for anything.