[NASA Test Pilot]

The fruition of a few years of work was unveiled this week as Bloomberg reported that more than 100 executives from some of the world’s largest financial institutions (Citigroup Inc., Visa Inc., Fidelity, Fiserv Inc.) gathered for a private meeting at the Times Square office of Nasdaq Inc. Where block-chain technology was discussed at an event created by Chain to transform U.S. Dollars into pure digital assets, able to be used to execute and settle a trade instantly. Previously, Chain has been working with Wall Street circles to help Nasdaq shift trading of non-public company shares onto a block-chain.

The global push toward a cashless society is going to continue to intensify as Zero interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) and Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP) move forward as well as being limited to the amount cash that you are allowed to use or the types of bills available in circulation. We will be told by those in positions of authority that they would be able to crack down on drug dealers, tax evaders, terrorists and money launderers.

Paper money is an important element of freedom, and if it is taken away, it may open the door to abuse where people could be forced to be bank customers and (non) elected entities could be gatekeepers to determine who is allowed and how they are allowed to use the cashless system as well as who is not allowed to use such a system.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...gital-cash

[MiscBrah]

I voted no

I've had problems with credit and debit cards in the past but I've never had a problem with a crisp greenback

Unlike most people nowadays, I always make sure I have cash on me.

[Luvianka]

Aboslutely not. They want to do it to avoid a bank run on international scale; but it'll also be a way of dicatorial control over people.

[bacon]

The concern of a cashless society is that a bank could use depositors money to bail in when they are in trouble. See Cyprus a few years ago. (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-28...y-near-you)

Most of the major banks are in for trillions of derivatives so these are things depositors should be concerned with happening.

[Brodiaga]

Definitely not. Without cash, the government can track every single dollar earned and spent, raise the tax rates, because paying under the table would be impossible. Also, banks can offer negative interest rates like they already do in some European countries - you have to pay to let them keep your money instead of keeping the cash in your mattress for free.

They can also come up with some other shit once they are sure people can't do anything to protect their money. Like with airmiles and hotel points - they expire if you don't use them within a certain period of time. What if the same thing happened to our hard earned money in addition to inflation which is basically extra tax on savers.

[John Michael Kane]

Society certainly would not be better off. They could track every single purchase, and quite frankly, that is none of government's damn business knowing what you and I buy. But even that isn't the biggest threat.

Because money in a bank account these days is just a number generated in a computer, if you eliminate cash altogether, all it takes is one corrupt bank or government official saying "zero out the account" and all your "digital money" is deleted, just like emptying the Recycling Bin in Windows.

When you have a physical currency, it can be stolen, but only if you can find it, then take it. When all currency is digital, it becomes far easier to steal or freeze the rightful owner from accessing their funds. If some of the world's most powerful people love the idea of a digital only currency system, how good can it really be for the average man.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Hah - fasten your seatbelts gents.

The entire agenda is far more sinister than surveillance. Of course it's also about that, but the main goal is control and total domination.

I have read old statements by the world's scientific class that the end goal is a digital currency that cannot even be saved. You get your weekly payment and then it is reset to zero every week. You cannot save zil. Of course that would happen only after attainment of their ultimate Brave New World - One World Government having been attained before that already.

In the meantime they will push for more digital currencies, only digital bank accounts, elimination of cash (recently the EU announced they would disband the 500 Euro note and Denmark had some small towns eliminate cash altogether), then later on they want that digital cash to be combined in your own personal chip that is embedded under your skin or at least is somewhere on you.

That way when they want to grab your cash, do the next stages of bail-ins (vs bail-outs it's when a bank gets in trouble, they simply take the cash from your bank account - legal provisions in the US and Canada are already in place - the next 2008 in the US will go with massive cash grabs - that's why they need cops who look like heavy infantry), then they simply do it against your will instantly. Ask the people of Cyprus how it feels. That was the first test-bed and it was successful, as there were no major riots and civil uprisings. The sheep got fleeced and that was it.

So - theoretically digital cash could be good, but when they eliminate any other option, then it becomes bad - also in the hands of those mass-murdering psychopaths who rule our world, then it certainly is bad.

[Kona]

I can't stand to see my 20 year old sister and all her friends and girls i bang using that apple pay bullshit.

They make it so its another thing that the cool kids are doing.

You even gotta put your fingerprint on it. How stupid.

I had to get the acceptor because everyone from California uses it.

Aloha!

[Comte De St. Germain]

If they try to make this happen people will just use their own currency to exchange certain goods. Shit bitcoin started for this very reason. Just try and let them try to track transactions.

The black market is the future if it ever comes close to this.

[Fortis]

(05-02-2016 11:25 PM)John Michael Kane Wrote:  

Because money in a bank account these days is just a number generated in a computer, if you eliminate cash altogether, all it takes is one corrupt bank or government official saying "zero out the account" and all your "digital money" is deleted, just like emptying the Recycling Bin in Windows.

can this really happen? Holy shit.

[John Michael Kane]

Who do you bank with? Chase? Bank of America? They don't have $1 of physical cash on hand for each $1 entered into the computer. When money is all digital, a bank official, hacker, rogue government or other actor can "delete" the money. When something doesn't exist other than in a database, it can be deleted. You can't "delete"physical money, which is why elites want to do away with it.

[Atheistani]

Cashless wont happen. Anyone can buy gold or silver or any other commodity and "keep it under the mattress". Also, not every country will be 'advanced' enough to do this, so one in America only needs to exchange his digital dollars for physical yen, rupee etc and again just keep it somewhere safe. Businesses would start accepting foreign currency as tender if they want to keep it out of the system.

At most it will go part cashless.

[MrFish]

I understand everyone's concerns here but remember that a cashless society doesn't necessarily mean all your spending can be tracked. Bitcoin already provides a certain level of anonymity and there are other currencies being developed that promise complete privacy, like ZCash: https://z.cash/

[The Beast1]

(05-03-2016 04:39 AM)MrFish Wrote:  

I understand everyone's concerns here but remember that a cashless society doesn't necessarily mean all your spending can be tracked. Bitcoin already provides a certain level of anonymity and there are other currencies being developed that promise complete privacy, like ZCash: https://z.cash/

So then what will happen when the government goes and says, "All "cryptocurrencies" and their associated markets are illegal" forcing the easily convertible markets we have no into nothing?

Just because there are outside options doesn't mean TPTB will keep them open and easy to access for ever.

[Disco_Volante]

It's about controlling the population.

MrFish - don't be naïve, they will go after bitcoin eventually too. Little by little they take until you have no freedom left.

[The Beast1]

(05-02-2016 11:03 PM)bacon Wrote:  

The concern of a cashless society is that a bank could use depositors money to bail in when they are in trouble. See Cyprus a few years ago. (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-28...y-near-you)

Most of the major banks are in for trillions of derivatives so these are things depositors should be concerned with happening.

This bail in was a unique on. The Cyprus bail in only affected depositors who held a certain amount of money. If I recall correctly it was 100k euros.

The people who had more than 100k euros being stored in Cypriot banks happened to be... Russian oligarchs.

Looking at Wikipedia, it seemed that if you lost a fair amount of money as a non citizen you would be given cypriot citizenship. Whatever good that will do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80...ial_crisis

A true bail in in America on accounts over 100k will certainly piss a lot of people off. No one would trusts banks and would be the equivalent of a bank collapse. If they decide to "bail in" everyone's accounts irrespective of the amount well, you can expect riots at that point.

[PhDre]

I voted no.

I'm with Brodiaga and Zelcorpion on this subject, I also think this is only the first step.
Next step is probably negative interest rates.
Then maybe bail-ins or expiry dates on money.
Eventually it will become impossible for most people to purchase a house/land/income generating assets and most will be forced to rent for a lifetime.

The end goal is always the same: to make sure that you can never become financially independent.

[CleanSlate]

Nope. Agree with the others.

If we do move to a cashless society, I (and everyone else) will just go underground and deal in the black market. The black market will grow and the central banks will die off by their own greed.

[captain_shane]

Anyone who votes yes is out of their fucking mind. It will happen though because people are fucking morons who can be easily hoodwinked by the following positives:

Positives:

+ Fast easy transactions
+ Drug transactions will be much harder
+ Money laundering much harder
+ Tax evasion non existent
+ Instant deposits from employers

The negatives will never be brought up by the people that want this passed.

Negatives:

- No more hiring the kid next door for 10 bucks to cut your grass
- No more giving a dollar to the homeless man on the corner
- Hackers
- No more making it rain at the strip club
- Negative interest rates, you will pay to keep your money stored
- No more craigslist deals
- Automatic tracking of every dollar spent
- All your money can be wiped out within seconds and nothing you can do about it
- Someone claims you have had fraudulent activity in your account and it gets suspended. No more food money.
- Automatic removal of money from your account for bailouts

I can keep going on and on, but a cashless society WILL lead to global tyranny and a One World Government.

Any politician that proposes this needs to be voted out immediately or hung from a lamp post. But the brainless public will accept this with open arms.

Eventually you'll need a chip to access your bank account.

[MrFish]

Calling me naive is a little short sighted in my opinion.

If you'd really comprehend the implications a truly anonymous, decentralised currency will have, you'd understand that it's exactly what everyone here is pleading for. Transactions will be done anonymously without any need for- or interference of a bank or government body.

Even traditional cash is controlled by banks and the government. The only way to truly circumvent that control is by creating a new currency and start using that. And guess what? That's exactly what's happening with crypto currencies.

Will governments be able to shut down the use of these currencies? For the regular market they will but for the black market they definitely won't.

[captain_shane]

(05-03-2016 12:17 PM)MrFish Wrote:  

Calling me naive is a little short sighted in my opinion.

If you'd really comprehend the implications a truly anonymous, decentralised currency will have, you'd understand that it's exactly what everyone here is pleading for. Transactions will be done anonymously without any need for- or interference of a bank or government body.

Even traditional cash is controlled by banks and the government. The only way to truly circumvent that control is by creating a new currency and start using that. And guess what? That's exactly what's happening with crypto currencies.

Will governments be able to shut down the use of these currencies? For the regular market they will but for the black market they definitely won't.

Do you realize that once this is fully implemented, anyone that uses a black market currency will be charged as a terrorist? Do you really believe they will allow you to circumvent their policies?

[PhDre]

^MrFish, you are completely correct in that we need an anonymous, decentralised currency.

However, the problem with bitcoin is that it's a digital currency; it needs the internet to work.

What if the government decides that bitcoin is illegal and they start to take out network nodes or exchanges?

That's the beauty of cash. The government doesn't know how much you have or how much you spend.
The only real downside is that the central banks can create it as they please.

The perfect solution would be a currency that is anonymous, decentralised, offline and limited in total amount.

edit: captain_shane beat me to it. The banker elite will never allow a currency outside their control, so an alternative should at least be something that cannot be monitored.

[CaptainChardonnay]

As much as this is a problem, I don't ever see it actually working. If we were given weekly accounts that returned to zero that would really make the amounts given to use worthless. People will end up just returning to a bartering system because the only thing that would have value would be tangible items.

The only way this system would ever work is it the government running it ran their country tighter than north korea

[Saweeep]

The amount of physical cash in existence is higher than it's ever been and growing.

Lots of European countries, Germany especially, are hooked on cash...they won't be giving up their Euros anytime soon.

If what you guys think is going to happen, does happen, it's going to take longer than you think.

[Caravaggio]

definitely no! without cash we are totally at the mercy of our governments.


yet we are heading this way, and before anyone notices, cash is gone. The EZB will vote in the abolition of the 500€ note tomorrow. Germany and Austria want to keep it, but the majority wants to see it gone. The next will be the 200€ and then an already discussed limit of cash-purchases (e.g. in italy sums over 1000€ have to be payed electronically). The only thing which currently slows down the trend (at least in my view) are the pensioners. My grandfather doesn't even have a ec-card and there is no way he would manage to pay electronically, let alone doing transactions on the computer. But this generation will cease soon and that will too pave the way for our cashless society.

(05-03-2016 12:46 PM)PhDre Wrote:  

…
That's the beauty of cash. The government doesn't know how much you have or how much you spend.
The only real downside is that the central banks can create it as they please.
…

private banks can create money too.