“A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.”
— Jonathan Swift
“Money is a mechanism for control.”
— David Korten
“Money often costs too much.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I have always been afraid of banks.”
— Andrew Jackson, 7th U.S. President
“Civilized countries generally adopt gold or silver or both as money.”
— Alfred Marshall, 19th century English economist
“We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.”
— Bill Gates
“He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.”
— James A. Garfield, 20th U.S. President
“All money is a matter of belief.”
— Adam Smith, 18th century Scottish economist
“Money is the probably the most successful story ever told. It has no objective value… but then you have these master storytellers: the big bankers, the finance ministers… and they come, and they tell a very convincing story.”
— Yuval Noah Harari
“The greatest power is not money power, but political power.”
— Walter Annenberg
The real action in the realm of money is changing the very nature of money itself. Once a store of value and an exchange medium replacing inconvenient gold, money is fast becoming a tool for population surveillance and control. Money will be available as permission given for allowed activities, and as a guide for approved behavior including thoughts. This can’t be good, or can it?
This is happening today, very quickly, like it or not. It is the near future, virtually everywhere, for almost everybody. Governments struggle to maintain some sort of control over their part of our 8+ billion population. Not an easy job, but somebody has to do it.
Life for governments would be so much easier and simpler if they could get folks to behave in a more civilized manner – such as by keeping track of behavior electronically via digital IDs and by changing behavior using a new digital money. And artificial intelligence could probably handle most of the heavy lifting. What could be better?
Who doesn’t want the world to be a more peaceful and orderly place?
There are, as always, a few downsides, rough edges, and inconvenient naysayers. Major changes like these are never without problems, but such problems can surely be overcome – digitally of course. Specifically, with digital money.
Digital money changes everything
We exist, and even live if we are lucky, by using money in exchange for goods and services, and by working to acquire enough money for most such purposes. Money is the lubricant of living.
Today, we have an obsolete money in the form of cash, coins, and paper equivalents. Oh yes, and digital equivalents such as crypto Bitcoin as well. Cash like the U.S. paper dollar is in reality an IOU note from the Federal Reserve Bank (“The Fed”), which is owned by a number of very large banks and handles money on behalf of the government. The $100 bill even says “Federal Reserve Note” at the top. Such a business, yes?
Anyhow, people treat these paper and electronic IOUs as having both actual value and widespread acceptance in transactions. Why? Because they seem to work okay. We trust the IOUs because – well, everybody does.
Our world is moving so quickly to an electronic basis that paper forms of value for exchange purposes are increasingly inconvenient and slow. So much buying and selling today takes place over the internet – digitally – that is far better than the old paper stuff and physical mechanics.
Why not just push hard to get rid of the paper money stuff once and for all? Apart from a few traditionalists who value such hassles and inconvenience or who fear technology, the great majority is willingly shifting to digital money forms.
The blessed days of digital money are nearly upon us. No more paper IOUs. We’ll have digital IOUs, stored safely and securely in an electronic cloud someplace. Which cloud? Who knows or cares – this is how technology today works.
Money has no intrinsic value but is based on trust
The $100 bill pictured below is just a piece of printed paper. Probably costs a fraction of a cent to print one. And yet I can buy as much as a whole tank of gasoline with this printed paper, no questions asked. Why?
Folks accept my piece of paper that says $100 in exchange for real, useful products like gasoline. The seller in turn knows that it can use the paper in a similar manner, or take the paper to a bank for deposit. The bank, then gives the depositor an IOU in the form of a “deposit record” – magically turning the piece of paper claiming a value of $100 into digital bits and bytes stored on a computer or cloud somewhere.
This deposit IOU simply says that it will give the depositor upon request another piece of paper claiming a $100 face value, assuming that the bank has not meanwhile failed or otherwise become inaccessible. A troubled bank can also do what is called a “bail-in” in which they keep your money (as bits and bytes), and give you instead some vague promise or probably worthless replacement such as the bank’s stock.
These transactions are based on a chain of trust. It says that this actually worthless piece of paper is a fair trade for $100 worth of real goods and services because, well, you trust that it is and I trust that it is. Neither of us believes – trusts – that this is truly just a worthless piece of paper. Our mutual trust makes this paper worth $100 in goods and services (but steadily declining each day).
When trust in a money or currency is lost, as happened in Germany between WW I and WW II, the currency decreases rapidly in trusted value. This is called hyperinflation, when money’s purchasing power – its real value – drops by more than 50% a month (making prices using that money rise by more or less the same amount).
Note: Faith is personal. Trust is social. These are fundamentally different.
- Trust is assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.
- Faith is something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially a system of religious beliefs.
So why can’t digital money IOUs just replace paper money IOUs?
If paper money IOU value is actually based on trust and not on the physical paper value itself, why can’t digital money IOUs be trusted similarly? Our paper money is turned into bits and bytes in so many cases today anyway, becoming in effect an alternative digital bearer of this trust. Much simpler, faster, safer, convenient – yes?
Yes – if this was the full story, but it isn’t. The glitch in the money machine, as for many other kinds of glitches, is people. Not all people, or nice people like you and I. It is people who print and control the money – in governments, banks, and kin – who occasionally do very bad things. In some cases, more than occasionally.
It is not the digital money and digital IDs that are the problem. These in fact solve a whole bunch of problems and inconveniences across a wide range of economic and personal financial transactions. The shift to digital forms of money is strongly underway and will not complete until only a small residual of traditional money forms remains. This outcome is virtually certain and near.
Such problems that persist despite this otherwise valuable advance in technology will come largely from the efforts of bad-intentioned people to use the technology for their own, largely-bad purposes. The situation is similar to that surrounding possession and use of guns. Guns are inanimate, like digital money and IDs. They cannot themselves do anything good or bad. They can do only whatever they were designed to do, and then are made to do by people.
Bad-intentioned people, as in so much of life since people were invented, are the real problem. And unfortunately, such people will be with us at least forever. The capability of any technology to be used for bad-purposes as well as good is inherent.
This means that digital money and digital IDs will attract bad-intentioned people who will use these for various flavors of bad purposes. Guaranteed.
Is there any solution here? Of course.
The solution is to keep the technology open to all, and as transparent as possible.
This potential solution means that any efforts to gain control vs. openness should be regarded as evidence of bad intentions and bad people. Similarly, any efforts to control access and information with respect to digital money and digital IDs would also indicate bad intentions and bad people.
In practice, then, we should have:
- Any form of money that people wish to use – cash, cryptos, digital currencies including CBDCs.
- Any form of IDs that people wish to use – paper, card, digital, and probably extending to voice-finger-face scans assuming these are voluntary.
This kind of situation used to be known as social, financial, and economic freedom. If either of these freedom conditions appear to be challenged by some person or group, then this would indicate the possible involvement of bad-intentioned people. Or worse.
What is the digital money and digital ID situation today?
As observed above, digital money has much to commend it. Simpler, faster, more convenient, and generally even safer. Money in its various physical forms can be stolen, lost, and taken by people with access to the storage locations and with bad intentions. Much harder to make off with digital money – unless you have access to the digital storage systems and have bad intentions.
There are, and always have been, quite a few people out there with both bad intentions and great power. Worse yet, very few of these bad-intentioned folk probably want to steal your digital money. They have a far better, more ambitious plan.
If such folks are in the world domination business, as so many appear to be, then having access to virtually all of our income and spending data might be of great value. Of course, this incidentally requires that non-digital, anonymous forms of money – the competition, if you will – be eliminated. No cash. No gold. No cryptos. Just free, super-convenient, digital money created and controlled by our well-intentioned, competent, and wise government, banks, and related entities.
This arrangement should work just fine except for one minor detail. To tie all of this income and spending data together, they need to have a digital link to the person involved in each transaction. You know, a digital ID of some sort.
No problem, yes? Today, most of us have most of our transactions tied to one or more – often many more – forms of digital identification. This makes all kinds of financial transactions more convenient, faster, and certainly safer. Good times are here, at least data-wise. But there is still one problem buried in all of this evident technological good: people. Not-well-intentioned people.
There are always some people around, often very powerful and obsessively dedicated, who try to pervert even the most beneficial of situations to serve their own bad purposes.
Such as we have today in the world-domination-wannabes and followers. Think World Economic Forum (WEF), United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and related organizations. These have openly-stated aspirations of a one-world government and associated one-world institutions. And they are well along toward achieving this extraordinarily ambitious goal. They seem likely to succeed, unless something very interesting happens.
“May you live in interesting times”
— an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse.
Tucker Carlson flew to Hungary last week [mid-August 2023] where he gave two powerful speeches – apologizing for the United States’ lack of diplomacy and its ‘cultural imperialism’:
“Carlson then warned: ‘It’s the ones who tell you the 180 degree opposite of the truth who you need to be careful of and they’re the ones who will enslave you. He also warned NATO… The world is resetting completely. The post-war order is collapsing. NATO is going to collapse. NATO cannot stand long term.’”
The Great Reset 1.0: digital ID + digital money
Leading the pack of world dominators at the moment is the WEF. This organization, founded and driven by Klaus Schwab, has become famous – or more accurately, infamous – for domination roadmaps including The Great Reset (“History shows that epidemics have been the great resetter of countries’ economy and social fabric”) and The Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The WEF itself is pushing very hard for digital IDs: “Reimagining Digital ID”:
“For centuries, ID, a way for people to prove attributes about themselves, has played a pivotal role in society. Yet today roughly 850 million people still lack legal ID, making it difficult or impossible for them to fully engage with society. Simultaneously, many of those with ID do not have privacy and control over how their data is shared.”
“Innovative approaches to digital ID are now being developed that could help expand access while offering individuals control. Decentralized ID, one such approach, could offer a secure way of managing data without depending on intermediaries. While decentralized ID presents opportunities, it also poses risks and faces challenges. Without fit-for-purpose policy, regulation and technology, the potential for these systems to have a socially beneficial impact will be limited.”
“The result of an international collaboration involving more than 100 experts spanning the public and private sectors, this report provides tools, frameworks and recommendations for government officials, regulators and executives seeking to engage with decentralized ID.”
We have today a collage of digital ID providers, platforms, and technologies. It is inherently decentralized – at least for the moment. Well over 7 billion people globally have some sort of digital ID, using the WEF estimate of 850 million without. For all practical purposes, digital IDs are here and operational. The step needed to centralize these, executed no doubt by a well-meaning one world government, should be relatively easy.
Digital money is rapidly approaching a similar ubiquity. I addressed this happening a while back in this post.
The Great Reset 2.0: digital ID + digital money = surveil + control
Money as a permission given for allowed activities. Also directional in that it guides each person in approved directions. Doesn’t sound too much like money, does it?
Pretty clearly, money is being “weaponized”, to use a currently-popular term. While still serving its traditional role as a medium of exchange and unit of account, money in its digital formats is now tightly tied to personal data via expanding use of digital IDs. The goal is to control large populations, which was very hard to do before modern technology appeared.
Surveil through comprehensively monitoring individual money usage. Control by limiting the amounts and approved uses of a narrow range of money forms. A Great Reset for sure.
The not-so-good-news in all of this seems to be that the mechanics for surveil-and-control are largely in place and operational. The final step is execution, which may be done in both meanings.
The good news is that those driving this process are deeply flawed and will inevitably fail, as I have stated hopefully a number of times. This failure unfortunately will take a while, leaving us normal folks to struggle as best we can through an extended period of pain and suffering.
Execution of the final surveil-and-control step has to strike a solid balance between outright force – that will surely result in huge resistance – and a more gradual boil-the-frog approach – that will give effective resistance a chance to organize.
My sense is that the-powers-that-wanna-be are going to err of the side of force. This force, unlike in past, will be propaganda-driven – propaganda made hugely effective and global thanks to modern communications technologies. Even today, there are large portions of national populations that appear willing and even happy to go along with whatever the propaganda directs.
But propaganda alone will not do the required job quickly enough. The winning ingredient will be fear – a core part of our human nature.
Also essential at this late point in world domination efforts is some way of making sure that the final step is successful. This means that more than one “catastrophe” situation will be needed. Three such situations – simultaneously – seems very likely. And soon.
Candidates for the coming catastrophe set are pretty clear – in part because the-powers-that-wanna-be have pretty much laid them out. Not worth trying to hide things at this stage.
Three ingredients for the coming triple whammy
The Great Reset delivered by the WEF or equivalent contender will likely be a major happening. They only get one chance at this one. Winning at whatever the cost is vital. Also, time for execution is getting very short, as the world is busy doing other things that may not be helpful.
Pandemic “COVID” 2.0
This is almost certain to be a full-scale repeat of the 2020 COVID response, which may well have been just a pilot or test run. We should expect lockdowns, masks, distancing, curfews, crowd size limitations, and other actions that were rolled out in pandemic 1.0. Because they don’t dare cut anything really dangerous loose, like the 1500’s Black Death that killed up to 50% of the population of Europe (including many elites and rulers), the COVID 2.0 must coincide with the usual flu season.
Climate Change Emergency
With everything burning up from Canada to Maui to Greece, and temperature records falling almost everywhere, it is pretty easy to make the case that climate has gone wildly out of control. Something must be done now to fix whatever is messing with the global climate. According to The Hill, “President Biden in a new interview says he has ‘in practice’ declared a national climate emergency, though he has not actually announced such a declaration.” Probably a good time for an emergency declaration is when so much else of a catastrophic nature is occurring.
Financial Systems Collapse
Fall of the year seems to be a popular time for financial collapses of all kinds. Recall The Great Depression getting rolling in September-October of 1929, the crash of Black Monday in October 1987, and the Great Recession kickoff with Lehman’s failure in September 2008. Why in Fall? Who knows, but maybe it is just a seasonal kind of thing. In any case, Fall of 2023 is nearly upon us.
These three alone should cause enough chaos to allow the final steps toward a one world government to be completed. And the chaos itself seems likely to generate some rather harsh responses from the usual suspects.
So, figure on a triple whammy in the September-November 2023 timeframe.
Facts don’t matter. Beliefs are what matters
As I have previously argued, facts – assuming that these can ever be determined – are not important. Except maybe to scientists and researchers, at times. In general, what matters in practice is what people perceive and what they believe. This is why propaganda works so well.
Applied to COVID, climate change, and financial collapse, the underlying facts do not matter. What matters is what people can be made to believe. A majority of people unfortunately want to be led. They are quite willing to believe their leaders pretty much without question. If the leaders are not-well-intentioned, then the people for the most part won’t care.
This means that those opposing such leaders cannot use “facts” in an attempt to change the minds of most people. Most people must learn for themselves – the hard way.
So, the current efforts by not-well-meaning leaders will largely succeed. Timeframe? Probably over the next 6 to 12 months. From there, we must wait for the leaders to self-destruct, as they always do. Best we can do is to help them expedite this process in any way we can.
Bottom line:
Digital money and digital IDs are virtually here. Today. They are in themselves quite beneficial – but only so long as they remain agenda-free, open, and transparent. Unfortunately, these essential conditions are rapidly vanishing under the onslaught of various world-domination-wannabes. Their success seems likely near-term, given their global reach, enormous resources, and clear progress to date. They are certain to self-destruct at some point because the world is far too complex for such mostly incompetent people to prevail beyond briefly.
Related Reading
- Lydia Saad writing in Gallup reports that people are becoming rather unhappy and unbelieving regarding our institutions “Historically Low Faith in U.S. Institutions Continues”.
- Michael Snyder in his ever-hopeful The Economic Collapse blog comments on the broader implications and examples of this loss of confidence: “Americans No Longer Have Faith In Our Major Institutions, And So Is The Collapse Of Our Civilization Inevitable?”:
“If the American people have lost faith in almost all of our major institutions, how is our civilization going to survive? If any collective effort is going to work, people have to believe in that effort. That is true whether we are talking about a sports team, a business partnership, a romantic relationship or a nation as a whole. When people stop believing, it is just a matter of time before failure arrives, and at this point the American people simply do not believe in those that are currently running our society. In fact, a recent Gallup survey discovered that faith in our major institutions has dropped to depressingly low levels. The survey asked people if they have a ‘great deal’ or ‘quite a lot of confidence in a long list of prominent institutions …”
- Martin Armstrong via The Burning Platform offers an example of what can happen and is happening under a strong central rule: “Digital IDs in China – THE GREAT RESET IS HAPPENING NOW”:
“The mainstream media does not want the West to know what is happening in China because the people would be frightened and begin to rebel. The media wants you to believe that China is ‘experimenting’ with digital IDs that are linked to bank accounts and impacted by social credit scores, but they’re already there. TikTok is one of the last platforms where users throughout the world can share personal news without censorship. In the video above, a Chinese woman is explaining how she ‘once again cannot buy food.’”
“Her story is one example of how the digital ID program will work. She attempted to buy a new phone linked to a Chinese bank account to bypass the digital ID, but since her cousin purchased the phone, she was unable to log on because the phone was flagged. China has been testing this system since 2018 and had a soft launch in March, when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced that 100 million citizens would be issued digital identification cards. As always, they market this as a mere convenience. ‘One policy from the government this year is to make ID cards electronic, so that relevant information can be accessed by a simple scan of the code on the cellphone,’ he said.”
- Michael Nevradakis writing in The Defender describes a quite troubling new system for digital IDs: “Megalomaniac Ambition for Total Control’: Governments Eye New Gates-Funded Biometric Digital ID System”:
“The Modular Open Source Identity Platform, modeled after India’s biometric database, is expanding globally despite controversy over consent and data protections, but privacy advocates warn the Gates Foundation-funded digital ID initiative could enable tracking citizens ‘from cradle to grave.’”
“Spurred in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the push for digital vaccine ‘passports,’ a growing number of global governments are considering implementing biometric digital ID programs that would require citizens to obtain digital identification credentials to access public goods and services.”
“Until recently, concerns about the global interoperability of digital systems and the risk of technological ‘lock-in’ to platforms developed by private actors stymied governments’ plans to implement such programs.”
“Now, backers of a new open-source platform called MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) — whose funders include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar — are touting the platform as a solution to both these obstacles.”
“Developed at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore in India and modeled after Aadhaar, India’s nationwide digital ID platform and the largest such system in the world, MOSIP ‘enables countries with low IT capacity to quickly roll out specialized digital identity solutions to their citizens,’ according to Identity Review.”
