Earlier this month, the European Central Bank suggested that the 500 Euro note needs to be eliminated. Not long after, academics and policy makers in the US started to call for the elimination of the $100 bill. This isn’t something that the average person really thinks about on a regular basis, or even cares about. The vast majority of our purchases are done through digital channels these days. Unless you’re about to buy a used car on Craigslist, you probably won’t be needing the hundred-dollar bill. For most people, eliminating it would be an inconvenience at best.
So what gives? Why is anyone even considering the elimination of these bills? It seems like there is simply no need for it.
The truth is there are a lot of reasons why governments and banks want to eliminate these high denomination notes, and none of them are good. It should go without saying that the people who are pushing this are not going to give you a straight answer. You’re going to hear them give the same excuse over and over again for the foreseeable future: Large denominations are indispensable for black market transactions. They enable drug dealers, tax evaders, corruption, and terrorism.
But that’s just what they’ll say in the beginning. One day they’ll give all those same excuses, except instead of suggesting the elimination of large denomination bills, they’ll suggest we get rid of cash instead.
That’s right. What the government, multinational corporations, and the central banks really want, is a completely cashless society, and they’re going to start by eliminating the bills we don’t use very often. Pro-gun supporters will recognize this strategy as the “slippery slope.” Start out with something small that sets a precedent, and quietly eliminate everything over a long period time so no one notices.
Eliminate certain bills, restrict large cash purchases, demonize people and businesses that hold large amounts of cash and confiscate their wealth through asset forfeiture, flag bank accounts that transfer large sums of money, etc. You may recognize some of those as policies that are already in place. The anti-cash crusade is happening right now, and here’s the real reason why:
For starters, there are people in both the public and private sector that want to track everything you do. Like a stalker, they just really really want to get to know you better. They want an intimate knowledge of what you buy and sell. The corporations that are in bed with our government would love to have this knowledge, so they can do a better job of tailoring their marketing to you.
The governments that are in bed with the corporations want to use that knowledge to rule every aspect of your life. You can’t live if you can’t buy and sell, so without cash you’ll be locked into a system that you can’t opt out of. They say that cash is for terrorists and criminals, but they don’t want you to realize that you’re in the same boat as them. No cash means no anonymous transactions.
The second biggest reason? They want to steal from you. Taxes aren’t enough. They can’t bring themselves to stop spending our money and putting us into debt, and we don’t want to give them anymore money, so raising taxes through a legitimate political process is off the table.
Instead they’re going to lower your interest rates. How low? Ideally they want negative interest rates. They want to make it impossible for you to save money. The excuse for this will be different from before. They’ll do it when the next major recession hits, so they can say that it’ll be good for the economy. If saving money means losing money, then you’ll spend money, thus supporting the economy. But really, they just want to legally steal from you (insert taxation joke here). They know that if cash isn’t eliminated before these negative rates are implemented, you can simply pull your money out of the bank and hide it in your mattress. They don’t want to leave you with any choice.
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