By Dan Harkey
Real Estate & Finance Consultant
m: 949 533-8315 | e: [email protected]
Introduction:
Banks began using computer technology to automate manual processing in the mid to late 1940s. Bank credit cards were created in 1950 as a portable payment solution.
Online electronic banking first started in the U.S in the 1970s. That was followed by a proliferation of electronic payment systems. Businesses and individuals rely on online banking for credits and debits from accounts and wire transfers to third parties as a standard payment method and money transfer.
https://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html
https://www.britannica.com/technology/automation/Modern-developments
All electronic transfers of money are a form of electronic digitalization or digital currency.There is nothing new here. However, the definitions, technology, and government financial control techniques in the new digital currency world will change.
This article is about digital currency and government control of all decisions about how and where we spend our hard-earned money.
Where’s the cash?
97% of the money in the U.S. economy exists in digital form. Only 3% is in physical cash. The government has instituted an ongoing war on cash to force the 3%, or roughly $2.1 trillion cash money, into the banking system for control and taxation. “A billion here, and a billion there, and soon you’re talking real money.” That was attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen, an Illinois Republican (1959-1969). 2 trillion in cash is of 2000 times 1 billion. Everett was seriously on to something!
Cash will be portrayed as a dirty byproduct of the underworld. I do not accept this proposition one ounce. Hard cash money provides a safety net when all other payment methods are frozen, fail, or are unavailable. Cash ensures personal security and flexibility.
Cash is your insurance policy for individual sovereignty. Individual sovereignty refers to self-ownership with the moral or natural right to be the exclusive controller of one’s body, mind, and life. Relinquishing these rights is a submission to the new global digitalization of the entire world economy.
Digital Currency Research:
The G20 economies and others represent more than 80% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of approximately $95 trillion (2022). The U.S. GDP alone is $22 trillion or approximately 20% of the world GDP. About 90 different central banks worldwide are currently experimenting with implementing some form of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) system.
Below is an article about building a hypothetical central bank currency which is a collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
https://dci.mit.edu/project-hamilton-building-a-hypothetical-cbdc
The new digital currency structure will differ from today’s digitalization of bank accounts, credits, debits, credit cards, investment accounts, and online banking. A user must open an (e-cash) account at a bank.
Upon Initial Implementation:
Upon request, the bank deposits the e-cash into a customer’s “digital wallet.” The digital wallet is an online payment tool, usually in the form of an application located on your cell phone. The app has all your data so that the user does not have to enter a card number or identification to make payments. When the consumer requests a certain amount of e-cash, the bank will issue a corresponding amount of digital coins of $1 each. Each e-coin will have a unique mark or number on it.
When the e-coins are conveyed (transferred) to a different consumer or a vendor, the number or identification will change. Digital currency units of CBDCs can be transferred between private parties and retailers seamlessly.
The consumer may request that the bank cancel the e-coin transaction and return the deposit to the customer’s account.
The new form of e-cash doesn’t require any unique encryption methods, although a lot of research is going on about blockchain, cryptos, and bank transactions. The digital currency has the exact security mechanisms as a bank transaction or a vendor payment. Those security mechanisms will probably increase over time.
Both e-coins and Cryptos are stored in a digital format. The distinction between digital e-cash and other cryptocurrencies is that cryptos are stored on a blockchain. Cryptos offer a super high degree of cyber security.
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a new form of U.S. Federal sovereign fiat currency issued by the U.S Treasury which appears as a liability of the Fed’s Balance Sheet. Issuing the new digital currency is the same as printing fiat currency, whereby it becomes a public liability.
If there is a question about whether a global digital currency system and the elimination of cash are about centralizing control of individual consumer purchases, watch this brief video from Agustin Carstens, the head of the Bank of International Settlements; here is the answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpNnTuK5JJU
Quoted from his speech; “For, example in cash, we don’t know who is using a one-hundred-dollar bill today. We don’t know who is using a one thousand-pesos bill today. A Key difference in the CBDC is that the Central Bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of (cash) that expression of central bank liability. And, we will have the technology to enforce that those two issues are extremely important and that makes a huge difference with respect to what cash is.”
Equally dangerous is the idea that digital currency should be “programmable.” Digital cash, most likely, will be programmed to ensure compliance with what the government deems “sensible.” Political expediency (favoritism) and persecuting enemies could be deemed as “sensible” actions. The consumer may be able to purchase sugar frosted flakes, Cocoa Puffs, twinkies, processed foods, candy, frozen tv dinners, and Oreos. Sorry, but essential groceries like vodka, bourbon, beer, and wine may not be allowed.
An appropriate opening comment for this article is that with full implementation of the new form of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), over time, will cause the death knell of personal privacy, individual freedom, and sovereignty. All forms of historically cash-based payment methods or mediums of exchange will be extinguished over time and replaced with CBDCs.
The government is currently exploring how to process tens of millions of transactions per second. The government is also exploring monitoring and controlling or limiting individual e-cash transactions and taxing each transaction.
Digital rejection of an e-cash purchase transaction will be centralized within a Federal Government agency through computers contracted as a joint venture with one or more corporate tech companies. Over time, the government will decide what is allowable and what is not. A consumer’s notice of a rejected transaction will not be given prior to the point when it occurs. The “Oh My God” surprise factor will occur when the checkout register rejects the purchase without you knowing why.
https://hbr.org/2021/10/what-if-central-banks-issued-digital-currency
Possible Social Engineering Changes:
Social engineers will create technology tools to encourage (force) members of society into compliance, conformity, and submission. The social engineer’s sales job is to promote to the people that the future elimination of cash and increased surveillance is for the benefit of the public. The purpose will be promoted as a method for a more fair and just society. The real reason is to promote statism-corporatism-and crony capitalism and to tax every dollar that changes hands in the country. Taxation will be charged on all transactions, from vendor services to the kids’ allowance, to the kid’s fee for mowing the family lawn.
The governing elites want to control all aspects of our lives, our money, how we spend it, and what we spend it on. Those, including the globalists, corporatists, and governments, will try to convince us that cash has become obsolete. In the future, we will be propagandized (drilled repeatedly) with the mantra that cash is no longer required and is a nuisance.
Comments on Social Engineering Changes:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) with highly sophisticated computer programming will monitor individual consumer preferences, habits, and purchases.
- (AI) is and will increasingly replace all-natural human intelligence reporting.
- Billions of surveillance cameras (security cameras) will be placed everywhere in the U.S.
2) Individuals will become subject to 24/7 technocratic monitoring to ensure compliance.
- Accepting a digital currency system makes all participants subject to 24/7 scrutiny of what they are purchasing and whether the establishment body approves it.
- All transaction activities, online visits, purchases, cell phone usage, movements, and personal habits will be under constant surveillance, subject to technocratic monitoring and reporting.
- With AI compilations and reporting government access and interface, it will be easy to cancel account access, freeze access, seize digital assets, and prohibit certain transactions that the establishment deems inappropriate.
- Compiling and assimilating reports will remain in digital form and will be deliverable to the appropriate government surveillance committees.
- Government/private partnerships currently provide programs for monitoring compliance using (AI). Based upon research about you, the tech companies will supply data to the government, profile you for your personal interests and subject you to constant targeted advertising or possibly terrorize you if requested by government action.
- Digital identification: A government issued national identification scheme is currently being worked on. The ID will contain your unique identity number, social security number, vaccination code and status, name, place of birth, citizenship status, biometrics, and more, as defined by a national law. Government will have immediate access and be able to affect one’s use of the ID. The government can allow, freeze transactions in an instant. They can also seize digital assets instantly.
- The U.S. is currently developing a new social credit scoring system. Everyone in the U.S.A. will become subject to being rated, categorized, and penalized for infractions and disobedience. The new system is patterned after China’s strategy.
- The new U.S. social credit scoring system is separate from other consumer rating systems. The new rating procedure is separate from and in addition to the already existing individual FICO based credit reporting, background records search systems, cumulative research files on individuals from both the federal and state governments, and cumulative research files on individuals by every giant tech corporation on each perceived consumer.
- Where China goes, so will America go?
If the globalization conversion and digital currency are completed, here will be the likely results for members of this society:
- The flexible and convenient payment method of cash transactions will be phased out, extinguished, or severely prohibited to the consumer public.
- Cash may not be entirely extinguished! The CIA and other 16 intelligence agencies rely on cash payments to pay off informants, hire mercenaries, and pay subversives to carry their disruptive agendas, both nationally and internationally. Subversive activities nationally and globally require large buckets of untraceable funds to carry out pre-planned disruptions.
- The well-lubricated cash-for-drugs distribution system in the U.S.A will not disappear anytime soon. Those involved may need to switch to some form of Cryptocurrency or a new method to hold illegal profits.
- Ordinary citizens who prefer cash, sorry, it will not be available for your use.
Early-term adoption of the new form of digital currency:
Early adoption will temporarily coexist with cash instruments (other dollar-dominated bills and coins). The use of digital cash (e-cash) will allow for storage, spending, transfers, and accounting of money in dollar increments. The new electronic e-cash digital wallet is essentially an additional bank account.
The bank will set up a dual system between conventional banking of checking and savings, and the new digital currency. Your bank statements will now show another account as debits, and credits, including transactions and balances in your digital wallet.
Retailers will install additional interfacing devices with e-cash banking or private company account providers. Financial Technology companies aim to compete with banks for traditional delivery methods of financial products. Companies like PayPal, Apple Pay, and Venmo will proliferate.
Mid-term adoption of the digital currency system:
E-cash commerce will mature in methods and systems. There will be a concerted effort the eliminate cash transactions. Retailers and vendors will jump on the bandwagon to eliminate cash as though they will be forced by government compulsion. Eliminating cash-based transactions will be portrayed as a convenience benefit to the public. The public will readily adopt the new electronic payment system and eliminate cash because it will be forced upon them. Most folks will comply without pushback. Most folks will fail to see the shortcomings of the new system.
Advantages of a digital currency system by the individual consumer:
- Convenience and independence of using your e-cash and making digital transfers quickly and efficiently.
Possible disadvantages of a digital currency system by the individual consumer:
- CBDCs are designed to replace all forms of exchange including, cash, checking, and savings accounts.
- Approved goods and services will be published! Rejection of a purchase and subsequent punitive actions may be taken against a person for attempting to live an everyday life and take care of his family.
- Subjects, meaning individual populations, will find themselves being monitored for almost all activities, financial and otherwise.
- One could be classified as an “enemy of the state” or a “domestic terrorist”for engaging in the most innocent activity or educational inquiry. One could be prosecuted, harassed, or publicly shamed. Social Credit Scores will be affected.
- Donating or purchasing supplies and service to promote specific causes such as Truckers for Freedom, Christians for Freedom, Bikers for Freedom, church donations, or wrong political party donations could easily be rejected as unacceptable. Your digital account could scream (decline). You will have no options other than being frozen out of the system.
- With a new government digital identity card any action taken by theconsumer may be controlled, manipulated, or cancelled. The caravan truckers could have all their gasoline and expense related purchasing frozen in one minute.
7) Purchases of products such as petroleum-based gasoline, diesel, heating oil, natural gas, and other necessary items to function in society may be limited or prohibited.
8) An electric vehicle could have similar monitoring and travel prohibitions because of potential excess electricity usage for the charging process.
9) A consumer may have appeal rights for an extended period. One could easily spend $50,000 to unwind unwarranted and unfair actions the government took.
10) Digital currency accounts to be charged an annual fee such as a 2%-5% administrative fee so that the consumer only gets 95%- 98% of proceeds, thereby limiting the amount spendable. Of course, this is just another form of hidden taxation.
11) Potentially placing you on a list to punish or harass you for noncompliance or disobedience.
Final Comments:
When the government can control all our financial purchases, prohibit certain ones, and freeze our accounts, personal freedoms in the U.S.A. will become a distant illusion. We will gradually be forced to live under a dystopian government disguised as a democracy. We will be forced to relinquish complete control of every aspect of our lives through push-button lockdowns and control systems.
Authoritarianism within the U.S. militarized police state will become the custom and practice. Subversive actions taken by the state will be viewed as usual. Those who push back will be viewed as “enemies of the state” or “domestic terrorists.”
There are things that individuals can do to fight back against megabanks,’ oligarchs, corporatists, and the government’s plans to digitize the global economy into a monitoring and surveillance nightmare. My objective is to have the reader recognize our future and fight back at every opportunity. All is not lost when most folks sternly and systematically push back.
- With a purchase of a faraday cage (sleeve) for a cell phone, one can choose to block all use, including cellular connections, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and radiation. Using this device renders the user un-detectable, un-traceable, and un-hackable.
- Catherine Austin-Fitts has so eloquently discussed the use of cash, which she refers to as Cash Friday. She elaborates on the benefits of living and keeping your lifestyle and your money off the grid.
Stopping the enemy of socialism that keeps gnawing at our heels requires the constant vigilance of those who subscribe to individual sovereignty, personal freedoms, and self-sufficiency. Creeping socialism discourages work and productive activities but encourages dependency, parasitism, poverty, and big government.
This article is intended for educational purposes only and is not a solicitation.
© Dan Harkey. This material’s unauthorized use or duplication without express and written permission from this author or owner is strictly prohibited. The article may be used in marketing efforts, provided that full and clear credit is given to Dan Harkey. The credit displayed when you forward any article must include Dan Harkey, Business & Finance consultant. You are not authorized to modify the articles title or the content.
This article is an overview for a general educational purpose only. The information presented should not be relied upon without the advice of counsel.
Dan Harkey is a contributing author to Weekly Real Estate News and is a Business & Financial Consultant. He can be contacted at 949-533-8315 or [email protected].