The War on Cash: Why It Matters for GGCurrency

Republished from Doug Casey’s International Man (Jeff Thomas, June 1, 2015) — the war on cash continues, and this piece explains why banks are moving to eliminate cash and precious-metals storage. It’s a clear illustration of why a currency system outside direct bank/government control matters.

So what does this mean for users of our system? First of all, the plan is apparently to force people to use an electronic form of cash in which all transactions will be visible to, and controlled by, the government and central bankers. There will be no person-to-person transactions without the government being aware.

By using local currency, which will not be controlled by the government, there will remain freedom of face-to-face private transactions. These can continue to be with scrip, or done with electronic local currency, or with electronic GGCurrency. Electronic GGCurrency will be cryptocurrency, meaning it will be anonymous and disseminated, not subject to government attack, confiscation, observation, or control.

GGCurrency, with local currencies, is the best way to maintain your commercial freedom.

The End of the Safe Deposit Box for Wealth Storage

On 1 April 2015, Chase bank in the US advised clients who rent safe deposit boxes that there would be changes in their policies, including: “Contents of box: You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value.”

Cash and precious metals are traditional primary stores of wealth — why single them out as no longer acceptable? The banking world, increasingly, is pushing people to put their wealth into cash, and their cash into banks in the form of deposits, assisted by governments rapidly increasing legislation that controls what individuals can do with their own wealth.

The existing form of paper-and-coin currency is likely to be eliminated and replaced by an electronic one wholly controlled by the banks — ending direct transactions between private parties. After that is completed, confiscations become possible: should a bank perform a confiscation on accounts, whatever was in the safe deposit boxes would remain safe from that particular grab, so removing cash and metals from boxes and pushing it into deposits makes it available for confiscation instead.

A “Reasonable” Confiscation

The EU, US, Canada, and several other jurisdictions have, since 2010, passed bail-in legislation allowing banks latitude in deciding when and how much they wish to confiscate. The EU has floated a “reasonable” confiscation threshold of deposit amounts over €100,000, though there’s no certainty confiscation would stop there. Banks are increasingly a risk for depositors, and wealth storage in safe deposit boxes looks to become a thing of the past.

What to Do?

It would be wise to retain only a few months’ expense money in any bank, and to regard even that as sacrificial. Beyond that, the most viable choices for protecting wealth are precious metals, land, and built property — and these are truly safe only in jurisdictions with no confiscatory laws. Ideally, spread wealth across several such jurisdictions.

With regard to precious metals, non-bank wealth-storage facilities are increasing worldwide in response to demand for alternatives to bank storage. The key is selecting a facility in a jurisdiction with a history of stable, non-intrusive government, no confiscatory laws, and no taxation on the purchase, ownership, transport, storage, or sale of precious metals.

The elimination of safe deposit box storage of cash and precious metals is a further sign that the ability to store wealth privately is tightening. Precious metals are one form of money that is not also the liability of any government, making them difficult to control or repatriate. Likewise, land and property in a non-intrusive, no-tax jurisdiction generally can’t be confiscated by foreign governments except as an act of war.

There will be no warning of impending confiscation. Those who escape loss of wealth will be those who moved it, in advance, into a safer form and a safer jurisdiction.