Be that as it may, those who have cash are free because they don’t have to account to anyone for what they spend it on. Neither the bank nor the minister of finance can monitor or stop the dispositions of the money holder.
The use of digital money, on the other hand, leaves traces. At the click of a mouse, it can be determined when and where what amount has changed hands. Each account can also be blocked with a mouse click. A purchase is then impossible – even if there is a power failure (keyword “blackout”). But why should the average consumer inform his bank or the tax authorities that he has just bought a tube of hemorrhoid ointment or a bottle of bubbly? After all, it’s nobody’s business!
Anonymity is a thorn in the side of the control freaks in Brussels’ central bureaucracy. For them, subsidiarity, self-determination and freedom of the individual are the stuff of the devil. Under the flimsy pretense that against money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing wanting to fight, all registers are pulled out to put an end to the use of cash. Upper limits for cash transactions and the abolition of large banknotes (500 euro bills) are two of the unmissable milestones. Ten good reasons for the cash can be found, by the way, on the website of a state institution – the Austrian Mint.
Freedom is going downhill, which many contemporaries probably don’t notice because it is being worn away in thin slices. Only when you look back over a longer period of time does the extent of your limitations become clear: What was possible 20 or 30 years ago that has long been taboo today?
There are more and more voices calling for a further reduction or even abolition of cash. The German Federal Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, has just a lance for “digital cash” (an oxymoron!) and thus declared itself the enemy of cash. This is remarkable because Mr. Lindner is not acting as an agent of the redistribution-addicted Left Party, but as head of the FDP liberal values should uphold – and that includes anonymous private money management. Lindner: „We should use the introduction of a digital euro for a major leap in innovation: digital cash can make our everyday lives easier and be a growth engine for the economy.” As I said: digital cash is something like a black mold or a economist climate activist: a contradiction in terms. If what Herr Lindner and his club, which is in the nosedive, represent is liberal politics, then liberalism is as dead as a dodo.
It is unimaginable what fairytale possibilities would open up for the political nomenklatura if only digital money existed. Not a cent of private or business assets would be safe from government access. Although expropriations are also possible in a cash system, they are much more complex than after cash was abolished. Instead of dispatching patrol crews to locate and confiscate cash in personal safes and under mattresses, a few clicks of the mouse would ensure expropriation. In addition, negative interest rates on bank deposits could be pushed to any height and no one would have the opportunity to withdraw their money from this type of devaluation. Compared to a world without cash, Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 would be paradise.
Parallel to the fight against the cash, a second one, under the name Europe-wide register of assets prevailing front cannot be overlooked. For this, too, the insult of the alleged goal of the crime fighting pretended to take a decisive step towards the confiscation of private assets. Does the high bureaucracy in Brussels think the citizens of the Union are all idiots? Quote from the study design for the creation of the asset register: “The possibility of including data on the ownership of other assets such as cryptocurrencies, works of art, real estate and gold in the register should also be considered.”
But to what extent should knowledge of the possession of works of art or gold jewelry provide a handle for fighting crime? And money laundering can certainly not be prevented because it then takes place outside the EU. Even the most naive of minds should therefore understand that it is about a preparatory act goes. Law-abiding gun owners are already familiar with the procedure: first the registration, then the confiscation: certain types of guns that are legally owned and therefore known to the authorities may not be inherited in the event of the death of their owner and are therefore temporary property.
It is the same with all private assets. When the regime feels like it, it’s over. Savings and checking accounts, as well as securities accounts, are not safe from tax authorities. And forced mortgages on unencumbered properties are registered faster than you think. Assets within one’s own four walls are therefore the last assets that have not yet been officially recorded. An EU-wide asset register would put an end to this. Let’s look forward to this together beautiful new world!
