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Covid-19 and the Collapse of Cash

Covid-19 and the Collapse of Cash

In my last article I referred to how since fears of Covid-19 in the UK took root in March, cash usage has fallen dramatically. Whilst the drop off has been substantial, the trend of cash payments being in decline is long established. Based on early evidence, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated this decline.

For context, in March 2019 an Access to Cash Review was published which detailed the precarious state of Britain’s cash network. The review, funded by Link (the UK’s biggest cash machine network) showed that over the past decade cash payments had fallen from 63% of all payments to 34%. To quote the report directly, ‘a straight-line trajectory of current trends would see an end of cash use by 2026‘.

Twelve months on, the predicament with cash is now far more serious. Before getting into that, here is a summary of where we find ourselves in regards to cash in the midst of Covid-19.

In January the severity of the coronavirus spread in China became more apparent by the day. The first case of the virus was reported in the UK at the end of the month, weeks before cash usage began its descent. To give an idea of how the cash network infrastructure looked at the time, we can use Link’s monthly ATM Footprint Report as a guide. The most recent report shows that between January 2018 and February 2020, the number of free-to-use ATM’s had reduced from 54,500 to 45,000 – a 17% drop in just two years that equates to 9,500 ATM’s.

The Trilateral Commission: Using Crisis As An Opportunity To Reform

The Trilateral Commission: Using Crisis As An Opportunity To Reform

A couple of years ago I posted an article that gave a brief overview of the Trilateral Commission, quoting directly from numerous former members of the institution and how their overarching goal was for the integration of nation states at the expense of self determination.

It was in the article where I argued that the prevailing model for globalists dating back to at least the First World War has been to use crisis as an opportunity, first by instigating periods of chaos before presenting themselves as the order to the ensuing turmoil. Four of the world’s largest global institutions – The Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations – were founded on this principle. Without a series of crises there would have been no rationale for them to exist.

A trend over the past few years has been how in the midst of geopolitical conflict global bodies and world leaders have called for the likes of the European Union and the World Trade Organisation to undergo substantial reforms in the wake of a rise in political nationalism and protectionism. The push for reform has been largely justified on the grounds that the international ‘rules based global order‘ – brought to be out of the ruins of World War II – is under threat, and all as a direct consequence of the growth in anti-globalisation movements that are often characterised as ‘populism‘.

So if global institutions want to broaden their level of power through deeper centralisation, where exactly does the Trilateral Commission fit into that? Earlier this month I happened by chance on a blog called ‘Dorset Eye‘, which launched in 2012 and describes itself as ‘an online citizen media magazine in which local, national and international members of the public have their voices heard‘.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mapping out the Banking Elite’s Goal for a Cashless Monetary System – Part Two

Mapping out the Banking Elite’s Goal for a Cashless Monetary System – Part Two

In the first part of this article we traced the development of the ‘Utility Settlement Coin‘ – a project that began in 2015 and which has now evolved through the inception of a consortium called Fnality International. Fnality are comprised of a number of the world’s biggest banks including Barclays and UBS, all of whom are shareholders in the scheme. Their objective as stated on the company’s website reads:

Fnality International has been founded to create a network of decentralised Financial Market Infrastructures (dFMIs) to deliver the means of payment-on-chain in tomorrow’s wholesale banking markets.

In practice, what Fnality are seeking to deliver is the construction of a distributed ledger technology based global payment system, one that can ‘facilitate tokenised, peer-to-peer markets‘.

Before we look into this more, let’s examine some of the key figureheads behind the project. First there is the CEO Rhomaios Ram, who for the best part of two decades worked for Deutsche Bank in roles that included European Head of Currencies & Commodities and Head of Transaction Banking in the UK and Ireland. The Chairman of Fnality, Jim Turley, has also worked at Deutsche Bank in various different positions. Outside of commercial banking, Turley once served on the board of the New York Fed Foreign Exchange Committee.

But perhaps the standout name on Fnality’s management team is Daniel Heller, the firm’s advisor on regulatory affairs. Described as an expert in financial sector regulation and financial stability, Heller has a track record of having served at both the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund. At the BIS he was head of the Secretariat of the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, whilst at the IMF he was the executive director for Switzerland, Poland, Serbia, Azerbaijan, and four Central Asian republics. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Demise of Physical Money: A Retail Worker’s Perspective

The Demise of Physical Money: A Retail Worker’s Perspective

Something I have come to realise about money is that the more you come into direct contact with it, the less alluring it becomes. That may sound like a hollow platitude, but when your history of paid work has predominately involved handling thousands of pounds through face to face transactions and back office duties, the worthlessness of fiat currency burrows into your psyche.

That is not a fatuous comment. I recognise that the entity I proclaim to be worthless is the same entity that allows me to eat and to sleep with a roof over my head. Nevertheless, it is not as simple as surmising that it is the intrinsic value of money that grants the ability to exchange funds for goods. Money has no intrinsic value as I came to discover.

This time two years ago I secured a job working in the cash office of a UK supermarket. It was an opportunity that came about just as I had begun to question the true nature and value of money.

My perception of cash changed on coming across a postcard pack published by the Bank of England called, ‘Your Money: What the Bank Does‘. The pack is no longer available through the bank’s revamped website, but fortunately I downloaded a copy before it was taken down.

Contained within the pack is a section titled, ‘Banknotes and the Promise to Pay‘. Here, the bank offers up a compelling question:

What gives modern banknotes their face value, when they cost only a few pence to make?

The answer may or may not surprise you:

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why Dismissing Globalist Warnings as ‘Project Fear’ May Prove a Mistake

Why Dismissing Globalist Warnings as ‘Project Fear’ May Prove a Mistake

In film and literature, the majority of stories feature a customary villain, either in a singular or collective sense. Someone or something that we can pour scorn on as the hero flounders in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds.

Whilst the hero invariably wins out in the world of fantasy, in reality the spoils often fall on the side of the miscreants. A discomforting fact is that throughout history a large proportion of these spoils have been claimed through the use of deception and outright conspiracy.

Authors such as Antony Sutton – who penned several books exposing the engineered conflict behind the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism – have presented irrefutable evidence detailing how world events can and are manipulated for the benefit of financial elites using what is known as the Hegelian Dialectic. This is where you create a thesis, pitch it against an antithesis, and use the ensuing conflict to engineer a synthesis that brings about significant but desired changes within society.

As I have written about previously, out of conflict generally comes the consolidation of power that works to the benefit of major global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements. They, along with the World Bank, the League of Nations, the United Nations and the makings of the European Union, were all conceived as a direct consequence of global conflict.

For globalists, chaos breeds opportunity. Historically, they have required crisis scenarios in order to both advance their goals and position themselves as the solution to instability.

We can find evidence for this from the IMF and it’s current head Christine Lagarde. In February 2010, Lagarde (who at the time was France’s Minister of Finance) was interviewed by The Globe and Mail and asked about the fall-out from the financial crisis of 2008:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Monetary Policy ‘Reset’: From Rhetoric to Actuality

Monetary Policy ‘Reset’: From Rhetoric to Actuality

A resurgence in nationalistic tendencies has been predominately associated with the advents of Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency. But have these outcomes meant that we now neglect to give due consideration to the years that preceded the supposed breakdown of the ‘rules based global order‘?

It was in Davos at the 2013 World Economic Forum – three years before the UK voted to leave the European Union – that IMF head Christine Lagarde warned an audience of bankers and economists of the dangers of renewed protectionism:

  • If we look at openness, and we see that the situation is improving, you can be absolutely sure that nations will revert to their natural tendency of hiding behind their borders, of moving toward protectionism, of listening to vested interest and will forget about transcending those national priorities. It is not the way to go.

Of paramount importance, according to Lagarde, was the removal of barriers, particularly in terms of global trade. By observing the climate in the present day, trade has become a central pillar of geopolitical disorder in the manner of ‘Trump’s Trade War‘ with China and the potential for supply chains between the UK and the EU to be compromised in the wake of Brexit.

In 2014, Lagarde returned to Davos to speak to delegates about something she called ‘reset‘. Keep in mind at this point that the world was still over two years away from Brexit and Trump’s ascension to power. There had yet to be any discernible rise in what is today characterised throughout the media as ‘populism‘.

Sharing a platform with Bank of England governor Mark Carney and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Lagarde explained what this reset would entail in regards to monetary policy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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