Monday, September 12, 2016

John Mauldin Warns of the Efforts Pushing Cashless Society

John Mauldin posted an astounding column opposing the coming cashless society and negative and low interest rates:  http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/economics--politics/monetary-mountain-madness?post=105833&uid=4798

He posted Fed vice Chairman Stanley Fischer's flippant comments:

DR. FISCHER: Well, clearly there are different responses to negative rates. If you’re a saver, they’re very difficult to deal with and to accept, although typically they go along with quite decent equity prices. But we consider all that, and we have to make trade-offs in economics all the time, and the idea is, the lower the interest rate the better it is for investors.
 And Mauldin's response was as follows:

I have to say, reading that last part made my blood boil. For the vast majority of people with savings all over the world, zero or negative rates are not just “very difficult to deal with.” They are in many cases the difference between living with a modicum of dignity and living in abject poverty. Or, if you’re slightly better off, you may feel forced to take too much risk in your portfolio at the very time of your life when you should be taking few risks. But that’s okay with Dr. Fischer, because negative rates also bring “quite decent equity prices.” [Emphasis mine]
After showing that the Fed is sacrificing mom and pop America, the retirement system and the insurance system, he goes on to warn that the Fed was seriously talking about negative rates at its Jackson Hole annual meeting:

Having established that it has legal authority to use NIRP, the Fed can now develop specific plans for doing so.
What better way to learn the NIRP ropes than by huddling with fellow central bankers who have actually taken the plunge? Jackson Hole gave them the chance. And sure enough, high on the agenda was that session on “Negative Nominal Interest Rates.”
The lead presenter in that session, Marvin Goodfriend of Carnegie Mellon University, is an unabashed cheerleader for NIRP. In the first paragraph of the first section of his paper, he says that he “… makes the case for unencumbering interest rate policy so that negative nominal interest rates can be made freely available and fully effective as a realistic policy option in a future crisis.”
 Then Mr Mauldin made this astonishing statement:

Again, remember that Jackson Hole is not a summer-long retreat. Whatever makes it onto the agenda is there for good reason. The attendees didn’t discuss NIRP for its entertainment value. They were carefully considering its effects and mulling over the practical aspects of implementing it. They also had the Group of Thirty leader in the room, ready to inform the big banks what was brewing.
Obviously this is all conjecture on my part, but I think it fits. I believe the Fed wants to have NIRP in its toolbox when the next recession hits. Having NIRP at the ready doesn’t mean they will actually use it, but it does mean they could. The previously unthinkable is now fully thinkable.
Wake up America, the previously unthinkable is now thinkable. 



Monday, September 5, 2016

Negative Interest Rates And The War On Cash (Part 2)

http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/global-markets/negative-interest-rates-and-the-war-on-cash-part-2?post=105362&uid=4798


From Talkmarkets is an article that will anger you and make you aware of the dangers of totalitarian banking. If this doesn't get under your skin, nothing will about this globalist cabal and what they want.

From the site:


Even in relatively untroubled countries, like the UK, it is becoming more difficult to access physical cash in a bank account or to use it for larger purchases. Notice of intent to withdraw may be required, and withdrawal limits may be imposed ‘for your own protection’. Reasonsfor the withdrawal may be required, ostensibly to combat money laundering and the black economy:
It’s one thing to be required by law to ask bank customers or parties in a cash transaction to explain where their money came from; it’s quite another to ask them how they intend to use the money they wish to withdraw from their own bank accounts. As one Mr Cotton, a HSBC customer, complained to the BBC’s Money Box programme: “I’ve been banking in that bank for 28 years. They all know me in there. You shouldn’t have to explain to your bank why you want that money. It’s not theirs, it’s yours.”
In France, in the aftermath of terrorist attacks there, several anti-cash measures were passed, restricting the use of cash once obtained:
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin brazenly stated that it was necessary to “fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy.” He then announced extreme and despotic measures to further restrict the use of cash by French residents and to spy on and pry into their financial affairs.
These measures…..include prohibiting French residents from making cash payments of more than 1,000 euros, down from the current limit of 3,000 euros….The threshold below which a French resident is free to convert euros into other currencies without having to show an identity card will be slashed from the current level of 8,000 euros to 1,000 euros. In addition any cash deposit or withdrawal of more than 10,000 euros during a single month will be reported to the French anti-fraud and money laundering agency Tracfin.
Tourists in France may also be caught in the net:
France passed another new Draconian law; from the summer of 2015, it will now impose cash requirements dramatically trying to eliminate cash by force. French citizens and tourists will only be allowed a limited amount of physical money. They have financial police searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize.

I would suggest that anyone who cares about privacy and freedom seek to understand the issues behind the article and read the entire 4 pages.