A Cash-ionary Tale

At the time this article is being written, there are people discussing in our government representation (and in fact worldwide) the removal of cash in the form of currency from the monetary system.  While I’m no fan of the current state of our currency system, it’s important to understand the effect that such a consideration has on society and your freedom as an individual.  First, without cash, you will have to process purchases, any and all purchases, through a system that processes payments, and the entity running that system will be able to track every transaction that you make.  The standard argument is that, ‘if you aren’t doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about’, until you actually have to live under that system.  Bear with me as I illuminate the issue:

Consider paying your child for chores, whose income is now ‘taxable’ as earned income according to the government. How about the yard work that you offered to the neighbor kid down the street?  Did you fill out the forms as a ‘registered employer’ so that you can report the wages you paid and did you have the ‘employee’ fill out a W-4 form?  If he wasn’t legal working age, are they going to use your financial records as evidence of child exploitation and throw you in jail?  What about the ten dollars you’d like to give to the guy who is out of work and needs to feed himself and his wife?  What if he doesn’t have a ‘government exchange card’ because he’s unemployed?  You’d have to walk through the restaurant or grocery store with him or have a gift card at the ready, or stop and go buy one.  It would be much simpler and more dignified for the man you were helping if you could just slip him ten bucks and wish him better fortune.  Everyone makes private transactions.

Without the ability to conduct our business by cash, by default, we relinquish the right to conduct any transaction privately for any and every purpose.  ‘Oh, but the government won’t use that power.’  If they have the power, they will eventually use it.

How about this for a scary scenario? If I have type 2 diabetes and the government is in control of both the health care system and the monetary exchange system, could they decline my choice of vanilla bean ice cream through the computer system at the grocery store because ‘it’s not an approved purchase for my diabetic health condition’?  (I don’t have diabetes, it was just an example.  You’re sweet to worry about me though!)  ‘No salty snacks for you, sister… you’ve got high blood pressure!’  You might think that sounds completely ridiculous, right up to the moment it happens to you.  It’s not so far-fetched.  An income tax is a relatively new idea that spread like wildfire once politicians got addicted to using our money.  If you end up wealthy, as you may be planning on by reading my book, accessing my website, or requesting my help, your income tax could end up pushing towards the 48.5% tax bracket!  If you just shouted ‘robbery!’ in a spontaneous emotional outburst, I’m with you!

You might consider also that the banks are closely related and controlled by government regulation, and having the monetary and exchange system controlled by one or the other entity with a ‘kill switch’ can bring the entire system to a screeching halt anytime and for any purpose that they deem expedient or ‘in the interest of national security’; whatever that may grow to mean today or in the future.  Can you imagine that you might possibly say, text, or email something with a key word that triggers a security alert (by automation of course) that suspends your accounts ‘pending further investigation’?  Don’t panic.  The team of professional investigators in the FBI or Homeland Security will issue a response to your appeal in 6 to 8 weeks.  Until then all your accounts and all your ‘money’ will be frozen.  Will you have enough cash set aside in your safe?  Cash wouldn’t exist, and holding it would be illegal, remember?

Real money has intrinsic value that you can hold in your hand. Are you catching on yet?

In short, you don’t want anyone, banks, government, your broker, or anyone else to have complete and total control of your stored work energy; your wealth.  As soon as they do, it’s no longer ‘yours’.  Even the dollars in your wallet now belong to The Federal Reserve.  This is precisely what a cashless society would produce.  That decision has nothing whatsoever to do with criminals that use large denominations of currency in illegal drug and weapons deals, and don’t believe the clowns in Washington who are parading that nonsense for sound bites on news channels.

If that description of a cashless society doesn’t make immediate and frightening sense to you, I suggest you reread the last few paragraphs to make certain you understand the concept and seriousness of what I’ve tried to convey to you.

That slight diversion from my normal course of rhetoric is not a political issue, it’s an American issue of freedom that should be of utmost importance to every free citizen of the US.  The dollar, defined in the US Constitution as 371 4/16 grains of pure silver, was modeled after the Spanish Milled Dollar; a silver coin which the people were widely using in trade at the time.  Money is defined as a medium of exchange, or what the people are using as a medium of exchange, not what the government authorizes.  That’s how it worked in 1776, it’s why it’s mentioned in Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution, and why we as a people need to understand why it was that way and work to preserve that freedom, as well as many others, before it’s taken from us.  Please understand, our money was deliberately crafted that way for the same reason we’re examining this issue now: people who are able to exploit the system eventually do it.