The War On Gold Has Begun

Gold

First Cash Will Be Abolished

Then Gold Will be Absorbed

"If Gold represents financial freedom, then it will be attacked next. Gold is money without borders, and will have to be controlled through nationalization in some form. It will be taxed, CUSIP labeled (branding), prohibited from being kept in a bank safe deposit box, made non-deliverable against paper Gold, and so forth."

Kenneth Rogoff is spearheading the the war on cash
the war on gold is beginning, and Rogoff will be involved

Kenneth Rogoff Wants to Abolish Cash

But Ken Rogoff Is Positive on Gold

“Some would say the high price of gold is a huge bubble. That is one interpretation, but the history of money suggests another: gold is valuable, because a society needs to have a currency, and gold has proven an attractive option for a very long time.”- Ken Rogoff

Electronic Gold is Coming. Not the Good Kind

At first glance Rogoff's statements are not contradictions. But they presuppose that Gold will be backing the replacement for FIAT paper. So how does one do that electronically? Is he contradicting himself?

To reconcile his seeming divergent points of view is actually easy: Gold has to be absorbed into the system. Via VAT, cash settled futures, and most easily CUSIPs for Gold. That way if your Gold is not tagged, it is not usable. More below. First an autopsy on how central planners killled cash.

Central Planners Are Control Freaks and Micro Managers

The IYI crowd of globalizers and bitter-clingers to their own academic ideas even when faced with contradicting realities manifests in "central planning". Ken Rogoff is part of that crowd.You know the type; "I'm here to protect you from yourself."

This man is not friendly towards financial and economic freedom of individuals. He is a central planner who thinks he knows better than you. And his book "Curse of Cash" is really an interview for a position in the Clinton Administration.

Note the chronology of the following "Anti-cash" pieces: Aug 27th, 28th, and 30th:

Aug 27th : How to Abolish Paper Currency- Jackson Hole

This piece of crap is a recipe for how to herd people towards electronic money. It masqueraded as "The Case for Unencumbering Interest Rate Policy at the Zero Bound" by Marvin Goodfriend. This document was not just a discussion on NIRP risk and how to assess if/when to use it. This was also an answer key on how to make it happen. And among those recommendations was to "Abolish Paper Currency". In all cases, the fall back will be to punish those who do not comply. For those people do not know what is best for them.

Our Full Analysis HERE

Aug 28th- The Sinister Side of Cash- by Ken Rogoff via the WSJ

The day after the abomination above was read to the Jackson Hole Crowd, Ken Rogoff floats the idea that we should remove the $100 bill.

Our comment then:

On Saturday, an echo of Friday's attack on currency was published by the Wall street Journal. If people like Prof. Kenneth Rogoff have their way In their cashless utopia, you'd have no choice - all purchases and transactions would be recorded, stored, hacked, and sold. It is laughable to say removing the $100 bill would be helpful. Removing the $1000 bill was valid, but that is a factor of 10X Ben Franklin's note. So it is 1/10 as effective practically. Professor Rogoff is also former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and about to publish a book called we kid you not " The Curse of Cash".

Aug. 30th- Ken Rogoff's "The Curse of Cash" is published

The book did porly and is already dicscounted 41% after2 months (see above). Ken gets the last laugh however. If Hillary doesn't faint again, Ken's good to go. Ken is looking for a job in the next administration. And he himself is not even an original thinker. He is merely piggybacking on an idea that is out there already. He's selling snake oil, creating false equivalencies between crime and money's existence. But sadly, no push back has occurred. And here is the result.Mon Oct 24, 2016 | 1:18am EDT (RTRS)Major banks mark first-ever international trade using blockchain tech

Sold as a convenience, it offers instant clearing and removes counterparty risk for the BANK, not the customer. This paves the way for abolishing physical cash. It is over.

The War on Cash is Over

Cash will be made 100% electronic. And that is not liberating you if the e-cash is Gov't controlled. Google Blockchain. That is the key for Banks. The government using Banks as their proxy will be the tick that sucks you dry slowly. No cash means no clearing risk for banks. And if you are not in the system, you are black market. What does that leave? Gold. It is recognized internationally, and despite every effort of Banks and Supranationals to demean it, remains valuable.

Reasons and Excuses on Cash's Abolishment:

Abolishing cash makes it easier to manage the markets especially in a NIRP environment
The rationale of transacting with ease via electronic swipes of a card is the pretense
The reality is once cash is abolished there will be no way to transact business except with a debit/credit card
And we will all be locked into the system, our choices made for us.
Net effect, reduces bank risk via no clearing time, ease of transactions for user, forces all trade to be intermediated by a bank
Banks get the ultimate exchange type franchise.
Probably right afterwards they become pure utilities for the Government again.
You would be a walking EZ Pass

Jim Rickards On Cash Trading under e-Cash

The War on Gold Has Begun

If You Can't Beat Them...

For years Supranationals have devalued Gold at every turn. They don't hate Gold, they just hate competition to their academic yet idiotic dogma.

During the FIRST Clinton era Robert Rubin suggested to Greenspan that Fort Knox Gold be lent to J. Aron so the bank could sell it, take the dollars and buy Australian Bonds in carry trades. His sales point: " You can charge us interest on it. Otherwise it is just taking up space." This was before the LTCM collapse. Since then prices have been manipulated lower by governments, banks, banks with Gov't approval and so on. Proof? That is coming during this current Gold Trial. While we wait for facts to prove what we already know viscerally, we claim it as truth on information and evidence.

Join Them

Having failed to wipe out Gold as an asset class altogether, they tried quite successfully to make it a financial instrument. In that way they could brand and control it. And in the worst scenario, they could default.

"Trade Gold ETFs if you must. But you are deluding yourself if you think that ETFs and possibly even Gold futures will be permitted/ able to actually deliver physical Bullion when you need it most."- Gold and Silver ETFs?- a Blunt Analysis

Having not been completely successful in getting people to give up Gold for promises of Gold, the war begins on 2 fronts: Attacking Vaue while Co-opting it electronically

Confiscation of Gold- in China and countries where no consent is needed
U.S. Confiscation of Gold Wealth- taxes, IRS home storage rules, Cash settled futures
Absorption into the Banking system- Gold must be CUSIP labelled to be used

Central Planners Scheme in Private

"The tension between centrality, on the one hand, and competition, on the other, is probably the oldest of all market structure issues."- Arthur Levitt
But Market Structure Reveals All
"Show me the Structure of a Market and I will tell you who benefits from that structure. Show me that and I will show you how that market is gamed"

The US War on Cash is the blueprint for the War on Gold

Kyle Bass and the Bundesbank Agree

“I think this is where the academics are kind of clashing with the practitioners. I think on paper negative rates make a lot of sense if you’re running academic models, but in reality they make no sense. Having seven or eight trillion dollars of debt trading at negative rates, having thirty year JGB’s trading at fifty basis points is absolutely ludicrous. This experiment that’s going on we all know will end poorly at some point in time, I just don’t know when that time is.”

“I think that one of the fears that they have is a run on cash. If they told you and I that they’re going to tax your deposits by a hundred basis points, well it’s better to put it in a safe or under your mattress. And that’s why you see a resurgence in gold. The more they move to negative rates, the more gold is gonna take off because there’s no carrying cost.”Perhaps Buba’s Thiele is more concerned about the longer-term social unrest that a war on cash will unleash – as opposed to the short-term monetary planners’ “whatever it takes”-ism of today. As Martin Armstrong summarizes, Thiele’s main arguments were:

Every citizen has the right, with his money to proceed as he wants. If action is taken at this point in the right to freedom of the citizen, it must be well-grounded. And so the question arises: How does a cash limit restrict crime in other countries? Thiele said he was not aware of any support where a cash limit, such as Italy or France, prevents crime. Crime should be correspondingly lower than in countries with no upper limit on cash, but that is simply not the case.

The arguments that are made against cash and cash payments, are unconvincing, Thiele said. He went on to argue that cash protects the privacy of the population. That benefit is not a reason to twist into a benefit for criminal ignoring the majority of honest citizens. The right to informational self-determination and respect for private life is a valuable asset which should not be watered down or abandoned. “Cash is coined liberty” – this modified Dostoevsky quote has not lost any of its validity.”

Good Luck