{"id":41648,"date":"2018-12-14T07:19:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T12:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41648"},"modified":"2018-12-15T08:04:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-15T13:04:10","slug":"the-war-against-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41648","title":{"rendered":"The War Against Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The War Against Cash<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

Where every keystroke becomes part of one\u2019s permanent record, where e-devices track one\u2019s every move, the ability to pay physical cash for a financial transaction may have become the only off-the-record action one can execute, unless, of course, it\u2019s recorded on one of the ubiquitous security cams. But signs are everywhere that this last freedom is slated for oblivion. Many paths appear aimed toward a global monetary system in which every buy\/sell exchange, from castle to candy bar, is recorded onto the accumulating history of\u00a0each human unit. The trick has been to prepare the public in step-wise, frog-in-gradually-heated-water fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing, however, in standard theories of money that requires transactions to be anonymous from tax- or law-enforcement authorities.\u201d\u00a0\u2014Kenneth Rogoff, 2014<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2014, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff (winner of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize and a former chief economist for the IMF) authored\u00a0\u201cCosts and Benefits to Phasing Out Paper Currency\u201d<\/a><\/u>\u00a0in which he wrote \u201cPaper currency facilitates making\u00a0transactions anonymous, helping conceal activities from the government in a way that might help agents avoid laws, regulations and taxes\u2026. [E]lectronic money, in principle, can be traced by the government.\u201d 78% of U.S. currency in circulation is in $100 bills, and similar high\/low denomination ratios are seen in Japan and the EU.\u00a0That large denomination bills are the preferred currency for much of crime \u2014 drug running, money laundering, tax-evasion \u2014 has become the prime argument for doing away with them in favor of electronic money.\u00a0In 2017, Rogoff published a book on his theories,\u00a0The\u00a0Curse of Cash<\/a><\/u>. Other prominent economists, e.g. former Treasury Secretary\u00a0Lawrence Summers<\/a><\/u>, have, likewise, advocated dropping currency. The discussions have generally focused on large\u00a0denomination bills only, $100, $50, perhaps $20.\u00a0Still, Rogoff has written flatly that\u00a0\u201cCurrency should be becoming technologically obsolete\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The War Against Cash Where every keystroke becomes part of one\u2019s permanent record, where e-devices track one\u2019s every move, the ability to pay physical cash for a financial transaction may have become the only off-the-record action one can execute, unless, of course, it\u2019s recorded on one of the ubiquitous security cams. But signs are everywhere […]<\/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":[23160,1035,5493,12103,1508,4948,4927],"class_list":["post-41648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-liberty","tag-bill-willers","tag-cash","tag-counterpunch","tag-electronic-currency","tag-kenneth-rogoff","tag-paper-currency","tag-war-on-cash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41648","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=41648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41649,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41648\/revisions\/41649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}