Comments by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

There has been much written lately about how the COVID-19 “pandemic” is being used as an excuse to usher in some kind of national “Medical ID” that could be used as a tool to control our daily activities, and be used as a requirement to do almost everything in society, from buying goods to travel to receiving medical treatment and beyond.

Such concerns are certainly legitimate given what we have seen so far in the “war against the invisible enemy” and the government’s reaction to this “war.”

But opportunists taking advantage of the COVID-19 responses who would love to track and control most aspects of your personal life are not simply restricted to a medical ID card.

I was recently in a store purchasing some grocery products, and the sign at the checkout said: “Due to the Coronavirus situation we are no longer accepting cash.”

This may seen like a minor inconvenience to most people, but Attorney James Rickards, an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker with 35 years of experience working in capital markets on Wall Street, has been warning about the “War on Cash” for years now. When the flow of cash is limited to digital money and the approval of banks, near total control of the population is much more easily accomplished.

Back in 2016 he wrote:

I’ve been warning investors for months about the war on cash.

This war has been in full swing in Europe and the U.S. for a long time. Governments plan to use negative interest rates, confiscatory taxes and other techniques to rob savers of their wealth. In order to do this, they have to force savings into digital accounts at large government-controlled banks.

As long as savers can hold cash, they can avoid many of these confiscation techniques. Therefore, governments must eliminate cash.

The latest battleground in this war is India. In a shock announcement on Nov. 8, India declared that 500- and 1,000-rupee notes are no longer legal tender. Imagine that — the money in your wallet or purse is instantly made worthless by government decree. That’s what happened.

There were limited exceptions for hospitals and gas stations. Naturally, gas lines formed everywhere, and some people rushed to hospitals to prepay for future medical care with now worthless bank notes. The other exception to worthlessness was if you deposited the notes in the bank.

There you would receive “digital credit” in your account. Of course, the tax man was waiting at the bank to ask you where you got the money. Those without an acceptable answer can expect trouble from the Indian Revenue Service. this is not the end of the war on cash. It’s just the beginning. (Read the Full Article Here.)

That was 2016. Today, at the end of April, 2020, he updated his predictions based on the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions currently being taken.

In the depths of the 2008–09 financial crisis, Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, remarked that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. You probably recall him saying that.

He was referring to the fact that crises may be temporary but hidden agendas are permanent.

The global elites and deep state actors always have a laundry list of programs and regulations they can’t wait to put into practice. They know that most of these are deeply unpopular and they could never get away with putting them into practice during ordinary times.

Yet when a crisis hits, citizens are desperate for fast action and quick solutions. The elites bring forward their rescue packages but then use these as Trojan horses to sneak their wish list inside.

The War on Cash Is Decades Old

The USA Patriot Act that passed after 9/11 is a good example. Some counterterrorist measures were needed, of course. But the Treasury had a long-standing wish list involving reporting cash transactions and limiting citizens’ ability to get cash.

They plugged that wish list into the Patriot Act and we’ve been living with the results ever since, even though 9/11 is long in the past.

Obviously, the effort to eliminate cash is hardly new. It has been going on for many years and in many forms.

The U.S. discontinued the use of large-denomination bills in the late 1960s. Until 1969, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and even $10,000 bills were issued, even though they were printed decades earlier.

Today the largest bill is a $100 bill, but it has lost 80% of its purchasing power since 1968, so it’s really just a $20 bill from those days. Europe has ended the 500-euro note and today the largest note in euros is 200 euros.

Ignore the Official Reasons

Harvard professor Ken Rogoff has a book called The Curse of Cash, which calls for the complete elimination of cash. Many Bitcoin groupies say the same thing. Central banks and the IMF are all working on new digital currencies today.

The reasons for this are said to include attacks on tax evasion, terrorism and criminal activity. There’s some truth to these claims. Cash is anonymous, so it can’t be tracked.

But the real reason is because the elimination of cash would allow elites to impose negative interest rates, account freezes and confiscation.

They can’t do that as long as you can go to your bank and withdraw your cash. That’s the key.

In other words, it’s much easier for them to control your money if they first herd you into a digital cattle pen. That’s their true objective and all the other reasons are just a smokescreen.

And now, predictably, the latest attack on cash comes courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Read the Full Article Here.)