The war on cash has just gone to an entirely new level. When I heard that the European Union was planning to completely ban all cash transactions above 10,000 euros, I had a hard time believing it. There are so many wild rumors flying around on the Internet these days, and so I wasn’t going to write about this unless I could confirm it. Unfortunately, this particular rumor is quite real. Under the pretext of fighting “money laundering and terrorist financing”, the European Union will be entirely outlawing all cash payments greater than 10,000 euros. The following comes from the official website of the Council of the European Union…
By limiting large cash payments, the EU will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money. An EU-wide maximum limit of €10.000 is set for cash payments. Member states will have the flexibility to impose a lower maximum limit if they wish.
So this means that in some countries the upper limit could potentially be a lot lower than 10,000 euros.
But instead of framing it as a major move toward a cashless society, the EU is trying to claim that this is all about fighting terrorists.
The following is what Zbyněk Stanjura, the Minister for Finance in the Czech Republic, has said about this upcoming change…
Terrorists and those who finance them are not welcome in Europe. In order to launder dirty money, criminal individuals and organisations had to look for loopholes in our existing rules which are already quite strict. But our intention is to close these loopholes further, and to apply even stricter rules in all EU member states. Large cash payments beyond €10.000 will become impossible. Trying to stay anonymous when buying or selling crypto-assets will become much more difficult. Hiding behind multiple layers of ownership of companies won’t work any more. It will even become difficult to launder dirty money via jewellers or goldsmiths.
Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has been actively considering the possibility of introducing a “digital euro”. The following comes from the official website of the European Central Bank…
We are working with the national central banks of the euro area to investigate whether to introduce a digital euro. It would be a central bank digital currency, an electronic equivalent to cash. And it would complement banknotes and coins, giving people an additional choice about how to pay.
Well isn’t that convenient?
As they take cash away from the general population, it turns out that they have already been working on the replacement.
Incredibly, the ECB even has the gall to claim that this new digital currency will be “like cash”…
A digital euro would offer an electronic means of payment that anyone could use in the euro area. It would be secure and user-friendly, like cash is today. As central bank money issued by the ECB, it would be different from “private money”, but you could also use a card or a phone app to pay with digital euro.
Yes, you will be able to spend it just like you can spend cash.
But unlike cash, a digital euro will allow authorities to track whatever you buy and sell with it.
Won’t that be wonderful?
By the way, the Federal Reserve is currently working on a digital currency as well.
And this is all happening as the private cryptocurrency industry is imploding all around us.
Many had believed that decentralized cryptocurrencies would be the future of commerce, but global central banks were never going to allow that to happen.
Instead, it appears that they intend to force all of us onto a cashless grid in which everyone uses digital currencies that are issued by them.
Needless to say, a lot of people out there are quite wary of any moves toward a cashless society because they believe that it is part of the “end times” scenario described in the Bible. According to one recent survey, approximately 39 percent of all Americans are convinced that we are living in the “end times” right now…
Nearly two in five Americans, including half of self-identified Christians and a quarter of the religiously unaffiliated, agree “we are living in the End Times,” a new study has found.
That’s about 39% of Americans who believe we are living in the End Times, according to Pew Research, highlighted by Lifeway Research.
Other surveys have come up with similar results.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us, because global events have definitely started to spin out of control in recent years. At this point, even secular websites are publishing articles about the surging popularity of “apocalyptic scenarios”…
There’s no denying that the apocalypse is currently having a moment, culturally and politically. It could be driven partly by the pandemic and fears of climate change. Those are actual, frightening apocalyptic scourges. Russia’s war has also set off alarm bells for certain evangelicals, as there was a Cold War tradition of identifying the country, variably, with Gog or Magog.
Seeing Slate discuss such things made me chuckle.
But this is where we are.
Just about every day, more crazy things take place that have literally never happened before. For example, I came across the following story earlier today…
For past 12 months, scientists have been studying a 50-second burst of energy from over a billion light-years away that could change how we understand how stars live and die.
In December 2021, a massive blast of energy hit the Earth’s atmosphere. Its source was a gamma-ray burst – one of the most powerful explosions in the universe – but not just any gamma ray burst.
One scientist said at the time that the event – named GRB 211211A – “looks unlike anything else we have seen before”.
As time rolls along, things are only going to get even weirder.
If you have been waiting for life to “return to normal”, you can stop right now.
It simply is not going to happen, and I believe that global events will accelerate even more during the early stages of 2023.
Are you ready for the government to monitor what you buy and sell on a daily basis? Because that is what could happen if you start using the new “digital dollar” that they are now testing. Of course, using the new “digital dollar” would be voluntary at first, but what if it eventually becomes mandatory? The use of physical currency continues to decline year after year, and some governments in Europe have already taken radical measures to phase out the use of cash. Many among the elite consider digital currencies to be the key to a whole new era of strict governmental control over the way that we live our lives, and there would be so much potential for abuse.
On Tuesday, an extremely ambitious 12-week test of the “digital dollar” was publicly announced. As you can see, some of the biggest companies in the financial world are participating…
Global banking giants are starting a 12-week digital dollar pilot with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the participants announced on Tuesday.
Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Mastercard Inc and Wells Fargo & Co are among the financial companies participating in the experiment alongside the New York Fed’s innovation center, they said in a statement. The project, which is called the regulated liability network, will be conducted in a test environment and use simulated data, the New York Fed said.
When asked about his firm’s participation in the project, a Citigroup executive sounded very enthusiastic…
“Programmable US dollars may be necessary to support new business models and provide a foundation to much-needed innovations in financial settlements and infrastructure,” Tony McLaughlin, managing director for emerging payments and business development at Citigroup’s treasury and trade solutions division, said in a statement. “Projects like this, that focus on the digitization of central bank money and individual bank deposits, could be expanded to take a broader view of the opportunity.”
This is something that the Federal Reserve has been working on for a long time.
Back in January, the Fed released a “much-anticipated discussion paper” on the possibility of a “digital dollar”, and they invited the public to comment on the paper for four months…
In January, the Fed took a first step toward weighing the use of a central bank digital currency when it released its much-anticipated discussion paper and opened a four-month public comment period to receive input.
The paper said that a CBDC could streamline cross-border payments and could further enshrine and preserve the dominance of the dollar’s international role, including as the world’s reserve currency.
Obviously, the Fed did not meet with too much resistance during that stage, and so now they are moving on to fully testing the “digital dollar” that they have come up with.
The fact that they are going to spend an enormous amount of time, money and energy testing this new “digital dollar” strongly indicates that they already have plans to introduce it.
The “digital dollar” would be very similar to Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies.
But instead of a decentralized system, the government would control the currency and would have the ability to track every single transaction.
And as Michael Maharrey of Schiff Gold has noted, there would even be the potential for the government to “turn off” the ability of certain individuals to make purchases…
Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from government eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched its digital yuan pilot program, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”
The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases.
We don’t want the government to have that much power over our lives.
Thankfully, some members of Congress are sounding the alarm. In fact, Senator James Lankford has actually introduced a bill “which would require the U.S. Treasury to keep printing and coining money if the government issues an official digital currency”…
On September 29, Republican Senator James Lankford introduced the No Digital Dollar Act, which would require the U.S. Treasury to keep printing and coining money if the government issues an official digital currency.
Lankford said in a news release: “While some Oklahomans are open to digital currencies, many still prefer hard currency or at least the option of hard currency. There are still questions, cyber concerns, and security risks for digital money. There is no reason we can’t continue to have paper and digital money in our nation and allow the American people to decide how to carry and spend their own money. As technology advances, Americans should not have to worry about every transaction in their financial life being tracked or their money being deleted.”
Unfortunately, that sort of bill is extremely unlikely to get through Congress.
Most of our leaders seem quite eager to explore the “possibilities” of implementing such a system.
And as we have seen over the past few years, those with authoritarian tendencies are not afraid to push the envelope to frightening extremes.
In an article for MaineWire, Steve Robinson listed several hypothetical scenarios that we could potentially see if a “digital dollar” starts being used on a widespread basis…
1.) To protest governmental limits on personal freedom, liberty activists stage a peaceful protest around the nation’s capital. That nation’s leader, wanting to quell the protest and protect his power, instructs his Minister of Economic Control to reduce the protesters’ CBDC balances by 50 percent everyday until the protest ends. The protest ends shortly after the message pings on the CBDC smartphone app.
2.) Economic growth is lagging, and the economists in the federal government suspect it is because consumer spending isn’t strong enough. People are saving their money, rather than spending it. To fix this problem, the Ministry of Economic Control announces a new year-long negative interest rate for all CBDC accounts. Unspent balances of CBDC will be reduced by 10 percent every month. As a result, no one saves, every one spends, and the economists have saved the economy.
3.) You’re at the grocery store picking up some ribeye steaks because some friends are coming over for a barbecue. When you get up to the counter, there’s a problem. The cashier says the payment isn’t going through. You check the CBDC app on your smartphone. There is an alert: “You have exceeded your monthly carbon credit usage; please remove the following items from your grocery cart in order to proceed…”
4.) You want to pick up a new firearm for hunting season, so you swing by the local sporting goods store. But when you go to transfer CBDC credits for the purchase, you’re denied. The trusty CBDC app explains: “We’ve detected activity on your social media accounts that suggests you are at risk of causing harm to yourself or others. You are prohibited from purchasing a firearm for one year.”
Maajid Nawaz leaves Joe Rogan speechless by explaining how the World Economic Forum (WEF) is infiltrating governments around the world to bring in vaccine passports, digital IDs, and a social credit system. pic.twitter.com/GyIw1SPpIr
Skynet is an interlinked system of facial recognition software-enabled surveillance cameras currently in operation in 16 Chinese provinces used to help public security organs crack down on crime and identify citizens in public through cross-reference with criminal and national identity databases held by the Ministry of Public Security and the National Citizen Identity Information Center (NCIIC). According to the CCP-owned tabloid Global Times, the system is fast enough to scan the entire population of the People’s Republic of China in under a second and allegedly has an accuracy rate of 99.8%.
A few years ago, in a book called The Game’s Afoot (published in 2018), I wrote that the Chinese Government was giving people marks according to behaviour. It was I wrote, called social engineering, and citizens were being ranked and rated according to their behaviour.
‘The Government,’ I said, ‘will measure people’s behaviour in order to decide what services they are entitled to. Anyone who incurs black marks for traffic offences fare dodging or jaywalking will find that they are no longer entitled to the full range of public services and rights. Moreover, internet activity will also be used to assess behaviour. Individuals who do bad things on the internet (or whose searches are considered questionable) will find themselves ‘black marked’. Individuals who have ‘responsible’ jobs will be subjected to enhanced scrutiny.’
It was called a social credit score and I wrote then that it was likely that Western Governments would soon follow suit.
And they are doing so with great enthusiasm. It might not have obviously reached your town just yet – but it will, oh it will.
China has led the way because the Chinese system is more ruthlessly efficient than anything the West can offer. The Chinese government has more control over everything and the people don’t have much control over anything.
It works very easily.
Everyone starts off with so many points.
And a smart app on every phone measures behaviour and helps the authorities decide whether or not you are a good citizen.
There are, of course, video cameras absolutely everywhere watching to see whether you cross the road at the wrong time, smoke in public, throw down litter or do anything considered anti-social or inappropriate. If you talk to the wrong sort of people you’ll find your credit rating goes down. Stand and talk to me and you’ll get black marks.
China has one camera for every two people and they’re equipped with facial recognition technology that can pick an individual out of a football crowd in less time than it takes to say `surely they can’t do that!’
Supermarket computers watch to see how much you spend on alcohol, cigarettes, sweets and fatty foods. You’ll lose points if you spend too much on the wrong sort of food.
Local authorities measure how much recycling you put out and cameras in the bins will tell computers how much food you’ve thrown away and how much excess packaging you’ve had to discard.
Of course, social credit scores are already here in the West and they have been introduced slowly.
In the UK for example, drivers of more expensive motor cars have to pay a special, massively increased tax to use a motor car on the roads. That’s a blatant punishment for spending a lot on a car.
On the other hand, citizens who drive electric cars do not have to pay anything towards the building, maintenance and repair of roads. They are exempt from the tax because they are `good’ citizens. Their cars use the roads just as much as cars which are powered with petrol or diesel but they are exempt. Drivers of petrol or diesel-powered cars are punished for being `bad’ citizens and must pay ever-rising annual taxes to pay for the roads. The system ignores the fact that electric cars have been proven to be no better for the environment than petrol or diesel-powered cars. Drive your car into a city and you’ll have to pay a special penalty.
If you live in a house that is bigger than you need then you will be marked down and your taxes will rise. If you have spare rooms you’ll be punished. If you do a useful job and give money to charity you’ll get extra points. If you criticise the Government then you’ll lose points.
When you’re away from home, the authorities will, of course, know where you are all the time.
Indeed, if you behave badly you won’t be allowed to go far from home. If you haven’t obeyed all the health regulations you won’t be allowed to travel on public transport, fly anywhere or go abroad.
If your social credit rating goes down you won’t be able to borrow money, buy a house or book a decent room in a hotel.
If your rating goes down too far you won’t be allowed to go into hospital, and if you get in by accident they’ll slam a Do Not Rescusitate notice around your neck before you can say `what’s that for?’
You’ll receive bonus points if you live in a tiny, modern, poorly built flat with thin walls and absolutely no privacy but you’ll lose those points if you keep a pet or complain about absolutely anything.
If you spend too much on clothes or shoes your rating will go down and saving money will mark you out as guilty of something or other and you won’t be able to hire a car, get a promotion at work, use a gym or get your children into a school with textbooks.
If you are a lot of trouble you’ll find that your internet speeds will slow to a crawl and if you have your own business and talk back to council officials you won’t get any help with planning problems or be able to obtain any official government contracts.
If you don’t dress appropriately when out in public or are spotted crossing the road when the lights are against you then you’ll be photographed and your picture displayed. If you have a row with a neighbour then your pictures will be put on a billboard near your home and you’ll be shamed. If you are late with your taxes you’ll be marked down for regular audits, your business will be inspected once a week and your picture will appear on a shame board on the internet. You’ll find it impossible to obtain licences, permits and loans you might need.
In restaurants, the cameras will study your manners and your eating habits and the amount of food you leave on the plate – all likely to damage your social credit rating.
Snitches, sneaks, police officers and over-compliant government employees will mark you down for any sin of commission or omission.
And by now you probably think I’m making this up and I wish I were but I’m not. We’re not talking about the far distant future. We’re talking about the very new future.
You’ll receive points if you give blood, lose points if you associate with people with low scores, be punished if you spend frivolously or don’t praise the Government on social media.
Eating meat or indulging in unsuitable activities will result in a severe points loss, as will putting too much refuse into public bins. Facial recognition cameras in bins will see and punish you and reduce food credit.
Not having the correct number of children, being overweight and owning land will result in a loss of social credit points. In the UK the Office for National Statistics has already claimed that childless women will be a burden on the state because they’ll have no one to look after them).
Not having a smart meter will result in a loss of points as will any example of civil disobedience. Chronic sickness, mental illness, being old and being disabled will lose you points as will being arrested (it doesn’t matter whether you are found guilty).
Having too big a carbon footprint, being middle class or white or asking too many questions will all result in a loss of points as will being too protective of your family.
You’ll lose social credit points if you cause some `identity harm’, say something that makes someone feel uncomfortable about who they are, where they are from or what they look like – or don’t say something that causes them to feel good.
If you show any micro-aggression, exhibit white privilege or stir up hatred you’ll be punished. If you behave in a threatening or abusing or insulting manner you will be in trouble as you will if you communicate threatening abusive or insulting material to another person.
Your intention will be irrelevant. The complainant only has to say he was hurt. Writers, actors or film or stage directors could be charged if anyone finds any of their material offensive. Shakespearean plays won’t appear much in the future.
You probably think I’m really kidding now. If you do just check out what is happening in Scotland.
In the UK, the police now define a crime or incident as hateful based on the perception of the victim (and not on the intent of the offender).
Naturally, the police and politicians have been encouraging citizens to snitch on those breaking laws.
You can get into serious trouble for playing loud music or having trees in your garden. Trees are bad because they may interfere with communications and have no practical purpose. There will be no place for aesthetics or nature in the New World Order.
What else will be bad?
Eating on public transport, missing a medical appointment, parking in the wrong place, missing a job interview and jaywalking will all lose your points and make your life more difficult.
If you think I’ve gone mad you should know that cybersecurity experts have discovered that 32% of adults between 25 and 34 in 21 countries (a total of 10,000 individuals) have already had difficulty getting a mortgage or loan because of their social media activity.
So far around 4.5 billion people around the world use the internet and most have social media accounts.
A fairly scary survey found that two-thirds of individuals are willing to share information about themselves or others to get a shopping discount while half are willing to do so if it helps them skip queues at airports. One in two individuals say they are happy for the government to monitor everyone’s social media behaviour if it means keeping the public safe.
Of course, it will be impossible to find out what your social credit score is, to find out exactly how scores are made up or to correct any error. And scores will be changed in real-time. So you could join a queue thinking you are entitled to hire a car or board a train and find when you get to the front of the queue that your rating has changed and you can’t do either of those things.
Governments, big companies and local authorities are already gathering information about you from facial recognition cameras, biometric studies at airports, drones, surveillance planes and social media. This is the technocratic state in full fly. Using a silly name or avatar on social media will provide you with absolutely no protection. They know exactly who stinkyfeet of Weymouth really is and they know the name, address and inside leg measurement of bumfluff from Colorado.
You can forget about privacy, freedom or rights.
We will soon all be living in China.
If one person in a family breaks the law, the whole family will be punished.
Taking an active part in a religious ceremony will result in punishment. You may, for example, be sent to an education and training centre where the inmates study political propaganda.
Every time you give information online they are storing up information about you, your views, your personality and so on.
And there are so, so many ways in which your social credit score can be adversely affected.
If you drop rubbish in a public place you will be shamed and will lose points. In Thailand, tourists who drop rubbish in a national park must give their name and address. If they leave rubbish behind they are in trouble.
All this is known as social engineering. It’s something politicians have been trying to do for many years since, when it works, which it does, it gives them complete control over the population. There is no longer any need to worry about opposition or criticism.
In China, citizens who do `good’ things for the State and their community are rewarded by having their photographs and names on a local wall. This is exactly what I remember seeing in East Germany in the 1970s. And back then people vied with one another to please the State and win a place on the wall.
So, again, if you want to know the sort of society you and your children will live in then look at China now where what people do, say and think is being monitored.
But our future won’t be so free and easy as life in China is at the moment.
We are moving rapidly into a dystopian, digital dictatorship.
Good behaviour will be rewarded and bad behaviour punished. But who defines what is good and what is bad?
Geotracking is the new normal now. Your financial records are combined with your criminal record, academic record, medical record and shopping patterns. They’re keeping an eye on the type of friends you have, the videos you watch, the people you date or marry or meet.
This is Big Brother on speed
In the brave new world, those with a low credit score won’t be able to move an inch.
People who speak out about corruption or who question the propaganda will be punished. If they are fined then their fine will be higher because they are seen as bad people.
And it’s already all happening.
Computer games are training us for our future.
I’m banned in China because I wrote a column for a Chinese newspaper which was considered unacceptable. My books in Chinese were instantly removed from sale.
I leave you with this fact.
There are public loos in China which won’t let you in without first checking your face and identifying you. Only then will the machine dispense the small quantity of loo paper you are allowed.
How many sheets will you be allowed if you have a low credit score? Two? One? None at all?
You may be smiling now.
But see if you’re still smiling in twelve months’ time.
Vernon Coleman’s book Endgame: The Hidden Agenda 21 explains how we got here and where the conspirators are taking us. If you want the truth about the past, present and future then read Endgame.
According to Corriere di Bologna, users of the “smart citizen wallet” will receive “digital points” for “virtuous behavior,” like recycling. The points can be used for purchases and discounts.
The Italian city of Bologna is set to launch a social credit score style system, dubbed the “smart citizen wallet.” Participating in the program is voluntary, for now.
According to Corriere di Bologna, users of the “smart citizen wallet” will receive “digital points” for “virtuous behavior,” like recycling. The points can be used for purchases and discounts.
“The citizen will [get rewards] if he recycles; if he uses public transport; if he manages [energy consumption] well; if he does not receive sanctions from the municipal authority; if he actively uses the Culture Card,” said councilor Massimo Bugani.
Bologna’s social credit score will differ from the one in China in two ways; it is voluntary and people will not be penalized for bad behavior. The municipality hopes that by treating the program like a reward card, adoption will increase.
“Obviously, no one will be forced to participate, and whoever wants to give consent can download and use a special application, but I believe there will be many to join,” Bugani continued. “We want citizens to understand that they are not losers but that their behavior is rewarded.”
The success of the Bologna social credit score program could have a significant impact on Italy and the EU and, if the government likes the results, the scheme could be broadened.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 