The War on Cash: How Banks and a Power-Hungry Government Want to Confiscate Your Cash, Steal Your Liberty and Track Every Dollar You Spend. And How to Fight Back.
144
The War on Cash: How Banks and a Power-Hungry Government Want to Confiscate Your Cash, Steal Your Liberty and Track Every Dollar You Spend. And How to Fight Back.
144Paperback
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Overview
Powerful forces are threatening your financial freedom. All over the world, including in the United States of America, governments, certain academics, banks and non-governmental organizations (nonprofits) are working in a coordinated way to stop you from using cash. They want you to have no option but to pay for everything you buy using electronic payment systems. They want you to be unable to go to a bank and withdraw your money in cash. They want you to be afraid to have more than a few dollars cash on your person, in your home, or in your car.
In The War on Cash, David McRee:
- Outlines the tactics being used by governments and their banking and financial services allies to restrict the public's use of cash, and to abuse the laws for their own purposes
- Explains how the huge payment processing companies understand that getting a piece of every financial transaction in the world is worth trillions of dollars
- Details why the data collection industry is also salivating over the profit potential of massive data collection, analysis and sales, costing you money and your personal privacy and freedoms
- Covers how the use and possession of cash is essential to a free and prosperous society
McRee gives the reader the information and tools to fight back against government control and collectivism and capitalism and individual liberty.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781630061531 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Humanix Books |
| Publication date: | 06/23/2020 |
| Pages: | 144 |
| Sales rank: | 220,588 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The War on Cash
Chapter 1: Money and Cash
Money can take many forms. It could be gold or silver, paper or shells. Even stolen Tide laundry detergent is being used as money in some of the inner city black markets, mostly to use in payment for drugs [1.1]. Honeybuns are used as money in some prisons [1.2]. For the most part, today's money is in the form of checks and check cards, credit (debt), and various forms of electronic currency transfers. Cash is nothing more than the physical manifestation of money.
If a check is lost in the mail, it can be replaced and nothing is lost. If a $100 bill gets lost in the mail, it is simply gone. That's the risk and the beauty of cash: it's anonymous. It's largely untraceable in its current form. Cash is always considered money, but money takes many forms other than cash.
Bitcoin is a new form of money that many people are excited about, but it is not cash.
How much money is there in the United States, and how much of it is physical cash? According to the Federal Reserve, "There was approximately $1.70 trillion in circulation as of January 31, 2019. This figure includes Federal Reserve notes ($1,655.2 billion), U.S. notes ($0.2 billion), currency no longer issued ($0.2 billion), and coins outstanding ($47.2 billion)" [1.3]. The key here is "in circulation." Currency in circulation refers to U.S. coins and paper currency in the hands of the public. That means it’s not in the bank: it's in your wallet, in a cash register, under your mattress, or buried in your back yard.
According to the New York Federal Reserve Board's web site: "... as much as two-thirds of U.S. currency in circulation may be held outside the United States...." But even though it is not present in the country, it is still counted in the money supply, because it can be spent on goods and services in the U.S. economy [1.4.]. Here's another interesting fact: the most popular denomination of Federal Reserve note outside of the United States is the $100 bill. That's right. There are more $100 bills outside the U.S. than inside. But then you probably already knew that just by looking in your wallet. Many of those foreign-located $100 bills are held by central banks, drug cartels, and perhaps oil sheiks.
So, let's do a little calculation. Don't worry: I'll do all the math. Since there is about $1,700,000,000,000 (that's $1.7 trillion) of cash in circulation and only one third of that is held in wallets inside the United States, that means about $566,666,666,667 ($566.7 billion) is in circulation inside the U.S.; since there are roughly 253,000,000 adults in the U.S. in 2018, we can say that there is enough cash in circulation for each U.S. resident adult to have about $2,240 dollars in their pockets or under their mattress [1.5]. Do you have your share?
Although it's easy to learn how much cash is in circulation, it's not as easy to figure out how much money in U.S. dollars exists in the world. It's like trying to answer the question: "How many doves are resting on tree branches in the world right now?" It’s unanswerable. Various sources put the number around $10 trillion. And, also according to "various sources," about 90 percent of that $10 trillion is electronic money. In other words, it’s not cash and never will be turned into cash. You can't see it or touch it. It exists only as digital bits on a computer in a central bank, created by monetary magic possessed only by the bank.
Table of Contents
Preface v
Introduction xi
Chapter 1 Money and Cash 1
Chapter 2 Race to a Cashless Economy 5
Chapter 3 War on Cash: First Shots Fired 15
Chapter 4 Academics Advocate for Eliminating Cash to Leverage Negative interest Rates 19
Chapter 5 Civil Societies Join the War on Cash 29
Chapter 6 Use Cash? You Must be a Criminal 37
Chapter 7 Give Up Cash, Give Up Privacy, Give Up Control 43
Chapter 8 Risks of Cash: Theft by Inflation 55
Chapter 9 Consumers, Prices, and Cash 59
Chapter 10 Hiding Inflation 63
Chapter 11 Theft by Confiscation: Civil Asset Forfeiture 65
Chapter 12 The Four-Legged Search Warrant 73
Chapter 13 Your Bank Teller is Spying on You 79
Chapter 14 Structuring: The Crime of … 85
Chapter 15 The Underground Cash Economy 95
Chapter 16 IRS Profiling of the Underground Worker 101
Chapter 17 The Patriot Act and Your Cash 105
Chapter 18 The Fourth Industrial Revolution Depends on a Cashless Society 109
Chapter 19 Hope for the Future of Cash 113
Chapter 20 What Can You Do? 117
Chapter 21 Unbanking 121
Chapter 22 Safely Hiding Cash 125
Chapter 23 Transporting Cash 129
Chapter 24 Legislation. Organization. Infiltration. Disobedience. Tactics. 133
Appendix: Wealth and Money 141
Notes 147
Preface
Powerful forces are at work, and they are not working for your personal benefit. All over the world, including in the United States of America, governments, certain academics, banks and civil service organizations (including large non-governmental organizations [NGOs]) are cooperating to stop you from using cash.
They want you to have no option but to pay for everything you buy using electronic payment systems. They want you to be unable to go to a bank and withdraw your money in cash. They want you to be afraid to have more than a few dollars cash on your person, in your home, or in your car.
Laws have already been passed in Europe and the United States to restrict the use of cash for certain things. Banks are adopting policies against keeping cash in a safe deposit box, or paying bills with cash.
Legitimate businesses and their employees are being cut off from the banking system because their customers usually pay in cash, or because the businesses sell a legal product or service that the government does not approve of.
The IRS has seized bank accounts of people and businesses that have done nothing wrong except make regular deposits of less than $10,000 to their bank account.
Law enforcement officers are seizing cash from anyone they think is carrying too much cash. If you have more than a couple of hundred bucks on you, you’re suspected of being a drug dealer or a terrorist. No drugs or bombs need be in your possession. The cash is the evidence.
In this book I have five goals:
- To show you that the outrageous attacks on your natural rights as mentioned above are actually happening.
- To convince you that the use and possession of cash is essential to a free and prosperous society.
- To show you that these attacks on your cash and your privacy are not isolated events, but are representative of a worldwide trend that is affecting everyone and involves mega-millions of dollars.
- To show you that unless something is done, there is a high likelihood that you will lose the ability to meaningfully use cash in your lifetime or you will be persecuted for your use of cash.
- And finally, to suggest how you can fight back.
When I first conceived of the idea and title for this book, I had actually not heard the phrase "war on cash" used in the media. But within a few weeks of beginning my outline, libertarian and conservative websites began using the phrase. “Cashless economy” and “cashless society” are other terms often used instead of “war on cash” and are often found in articles that stress the convenience aspect of electronic transactions and the inconvenience of cash. But there is much more to a cashless society than the aspect of convenience. It finds its dark heart in a government’s fundamental distrust of its citizens.
Although the coordinated actions that create the modern war on cash are fairly recent, the idea of a cashless society isn't. As far back as the 1960's "...it was widely predicted that electronic fund transfer [EFT]...would replace checks and even cash as the primary method for exchanging value in the United States." Of course, this did not come to pass quickly, because consumers were not particularly interested in electronic transactions. Nevertheless, banks pushed forward with EFT systems to reduce the expense of handling huge volumes of checks and to reduce the number of people needed to process them, including bank tellers [1]. The genesis of the movement toward a cashless society began as a cost-saving measure for financial institutions. It has evolved into a coordinated effort by governments, financial institutions, private foundations, NGOs and elite academics to declare war on cash as a means of exchange among people.
What exactly do I mean by "the war on cash?"
The war on cash is the effort by governments around the world to stop people from using cash to pay for things they buy. They do this by making the use of cash suspicious, by passing laws and regulations restricting the use of cash, and by requiring financial institutions to report certain types of cash transactions. The government cannot wage an effective war on cash by itself. It must recruit banks to be its eyes and ears and to put policies in place to make it hard or risky to do business in cash.
The war on cash is not being driven solely by governments. The huge payment processing companies understand that getting a piece of every financial transaction in the world is worth trillions of dollars, and the early bird gets the worm. The data collection industry is also salivating over the profit potential of massive data collection, analysis and sales.
This book is intended to be a wake-up call to anyone not familiar with the tactics being used by governments and their allies to restrict the public's use of cash, and to abuse the laws for their own purposes. It is not intended to be a scholarly or comprehensive work.
People don't need a PhD in meteorology to know when it's raining. All they have to do is open their eyes. Likewise, people don't need a PhD in economics or finance to know when they are being taken advantage of by governments and financial institutions: they just need to open their eyes. This book is intended to be an eye-opener. It covers many angles and provides both an overview for readers new to the topic and a starting point for those doing independent research.
I have provided citations for many of the statements I make in this book to allow readers to verify my sources and to learn more about topics that interest them. I have tried to use sources that are trusted and respected, and I've tried scrupulously to avoid propagandistic articles and websites. In all cases, even though I may only list one citation, I have checked that source against several others. I generally cite the source that I believe to be the most relevant, trustworthy, and complete. In many cases, an article appears on one website and is then echoed all over the web. It can sometimes be difficult to track down the original source. If I could not find a reputable source for a story, I didn't include the information in this book. In some cases, the original internet source is access-limited by a pay wall. In such cases, I have cited another source that summarized or quoted the original, if I found such a source.
Although most of my sources are popular media articles, reports and websites, I cited journal articles if I thought they were relevant. Since this book is written for the layperson, I prefer to use sources that are written for that audience rather than for academics. I do not believe that this in any way detracts from the accuracy or legitimacy of the material I present.
I have made every effort to keep this work from being political. Trying to lay blame on a political party is a distraction that does not serve us. Nevertheless, the competition between the philosophies of collectivism and individual liberty cannot always be ignored or denied.
This book is not an argument against banks, financial institutions or electronic payment systems in general. Not being able to keep your cash in a bank safe is just as bad as not being able to have cash. Without banks of some type we would constantly be targets of robberies and would have to expend a great deal of time and money to defend our money against thieves. Poor countries today, like Haiti, or people unbanked in the United States must expend time, energy and money in an effort to safeguard their cash from thieves, loss, or destruction. Neither eliminating banks nor eliminating cash is the answer.
Although in this book I heap large amounts of criticism on the IRS, it is not a personal attack on individual employees at the IRS. As a CPA, I deal with certain divisions of the IRS on a weekly basis. The IRS has many employees who are fine people and do their best to help, although their hands are tied by the system that has been put in place by politicians and perpetuated by career bureaucrats. Unfortunately, like any large organization, the IRS has its share of sociopathic personalities. All systems eventually benefit from criticisms, so if you’re a government employee, don't take it personally. Continue to do what you can from the inside to help people when you can, and blow the whistle when necessary against abuses of power.
As a final note, when I first set out to write this book, I did not fully realize how quickly the war on cash was escalating. Almost every day I find new developments and headlines on the news sources I follow. My hope is that the evidence I present will be persuasive, and that the consequences of abolishing cash will be seen for what they are: unacceptable.
David McRee
April 2020
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