{"id":31503,"date":"2018-02-23T07:46:54","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T12:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31503"},"modified":"2018-02-23T07:46:54","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T12:46:54","slug":"cash-must-not-be-made-the-scapegoat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31503","title":{"rendered":"\u201cCash Must Not Be Made the Scapegoat\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2018\/02\/22\/cash-must-not-be-made-the-scapegoat\/\">\u201cCash Must Not Be Made the Scapegoat\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>In the War on Cash, a rare defense of physical money by an ECB Board Member.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The proposed EU-wide <a href=\"https:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/12\/10\/a-new-stealth-attack-in-eus-war-on-cash\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cash restrictions<\/a> could come into effect as early as this year. But defenders of physical cash have an unexpected ally in their struggle: Yves Mersch, a member of the European Central Bank\u2019s executive board. In a speech hosted by the Bundesbank last week, the Luxembourgian central banker exalted cash\u2019s value as legal tender and heaped scorn on the oft-heard argument that its anonymity only helps criminals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProtection of privacy matters to all of us. Privacy protects people from the risk of a surveillance state and thought police,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finextra.com\/newsarticle\/31679\/ecb-launches-staunch-defence-of-cash\">told<\/a> his audience. \u201cNo particular link can be established statistically between cash and criminal activities. The focus must be on the fight against crime. Cash must not be made the scapegoat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the world\u2019s biggest issuers of notes and coins, the Bundesbank was a fitting location for a speech on the virtues of physical money. In total, \u20ac592 billion of the \u20ac1.1 trillion of banknotes in circulation at the end of 2016 were issued by the Bundesbank.<\/p>\n<p>Judging by recent statements, the Bundesbank wants to preserve this arrangement. Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, who is hotly tipped to replace Mario Draghi as ECB president in 2019, has <a href=\"https:\/\/global.handelsblatt.com\/edition\/376\/ressort\/finance\/article\/the-defenders-of-cash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">warned<\/a> that it would be \u201cdisastrous\u201d if people started to believe cash would be abolished \u2014 an oblique reference to the risk of negative interest rates and the escalating war on cash triggering a run on cash.<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t stop five national governments \u2014 Cyprus, Bulgaria, Belgium, Portugal and Denmark \u2014 from approaching the ECB last year to consult on measures to limit the use of cash, according to Mersch. Meanwhile, Sweden is widely regarded as the most cashless society on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCash Must Not Be Made the Scapegoat\u201d In the War on Cash, a rare defense of physical money by an ECB Board Member. The proposed EU-wide cash restrictions could come into effect as early as this year. But defenders of physical cash have an unexpected ally in their struggle: Yves Mersch, a member of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[6119,1035,18887,1034,5660,233,282,6189,652,4927,4255,18886],"class_list":["post-31503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-liberty","tag-bundesbank","tag-cash","tag-cash-restriction","tag-cashless-society","tag-don-quijones","tag-ecb","tag-european-central-bank","tag-physical-money","tag-privacy","tag-war-on-cash","tag-wolfstreet","tag-yves-mersch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31504,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31503\/revisions\/31504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}