CNBC: "What If We Get Rid of Cash" [Archive]

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osoab

21st December 2010, 08:09 PM

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1705701323&play=1
(http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1705701323&play=1)

First line in the segment:
"Cash is what keeps terrorist, drug dealers, and gun dealers in business."

Promoting a book called "Turn in Your Bin Ladens"

Can someone tell me how to embed this video? TIA

Kali

21st December 2010, 08:32 PM

I say lets get rid of cash too...would be safer and easier to just implant a chip in us.

Horn

21st December 2010, 08:40 PM

Yeah right, if dollars were paper.

I like tallysticks, I live in the woods now so there are plenty of them around here. ;D

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/093/Graph/tally_sticks1.jpg

solid

21st December 2010, 09:26 PM

Makes sense to me. Make cash 'contraband'. Once, folks adapt and get rid of the evil paper dollars out there, become rats feeding of the digital dollar, feed pellet...collapse the whole system. Start over under new rules. Their rules.

keehah

21st December 2010, 11:05 PM

139 billion can buy a lot of propaganda. ;)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27682726/GE_Capital_Approved_for_FDIC_Liquidity_Program

12 Nov 2008
GE Capital said it received approval for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's temporary liquidity guarantee program under which the government guarantees certain banking debt.

GE Capital can issue up to $139 billion of government guaranteed debts, the unit of General Electric said in a statement. The program will be effective on or before Nov. 14.

"This will allow us to source our debt competitively,” the company said.

It is unclear whether GE Capital is the first non-bank finance institution approved under this government guarantee program.

GE is the parent company of CNBC.

Awoke

22nd December 2010, 06:15 AM

Awoke

22nd December 2010, 06:15 AM

Well, that didn't work.

;D

Awoke

22nd December 2010, 06:49 AM

On the speaker, Jonathan Lipow, according to video credentials:

Naval postgraduate school professor (Tavistock inspired)
Former conlsultant to israels Ministry of Defense
Former BofA's representantative to israel
Served in israel defense force as a combat engineer

Fearmongering words in audio and text:

Terrorists/terrorism X 13
Bin Laden X 2
Taliban X 1
Insurgents X 2
al-CIA-duh X 1
Drug dealers X 2
Gun Dealers X 1
Illicit activity X 2
Illegal activity X 1
Gang activity X 1
Criminal activity X 5
Smuggle X 1

Plus that brainwashing bitch made the statement that the US dollar "is the fiat currency for the world", which I find misleading, because all the the worlds monetary systems are fiat, and people who are unfamiliar with the term "fiat" may think that it just means "widely accepted" when she uses it in such a context.

Also in closing, the NWO trumpeter suggests a Biometric or ID card, flat out calling it a "National ID" card, suggesting finger prints or a Social Insurance number, etc. She mentions Nation ID and Biometrics a couple times actually.

That NWO Media Whore can hardly stop herself from smiling as she carries out her act on camera.

Silver Shield

22nd December 2010, 06:53 AM

First line in the segment:
"Cash is what keeps terrorist, drug dealers, and gun dealers in business."

Wow that is bold to go on national TV and accuse the government of being the world's terrorist with 777 bases all over the world, or how the CIA imports the drugs, or how the military industrial complex is the worlds largest arms supplier.

So yeah we should End the Fed that enables this whole charade!

Can't wait to see the clip.

I am sure I won't be disappointed... ;)

Twisted Titan

22nd December 2010, 07:23 AM

Just another sign that the paradim is collapsing

Whatever they tell you bad ......you better hoard it.

T

Twisted Titan

22nd December 2010, 09:04 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/opinion/18lipow.html

THE 500-euro note is sometimes called the “Bin Laden” — after all, Europeans may never see the 500 euro, but they know it is out there somewhere. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda’s leader and the 500-euro bill are connected in another way: high-denomination bills make it a lot easier for terrorists to operate.

Organized crime has always been a cash industry. In 1969, the Treasury stopped issuing $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills specifically to impede crime syndicates — the only entities that were still using such large bills after the introduction of electronic money transfers.

Nowadays, terrorist networks have become important users of cash. No organization understands this better than the United States military. During the early years of coalition operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, American forces distributed cash liberally. From 2003 and 2008, about $19 billion in physical money was handed out to Iraqi suppliers and contractors.

But the military has gradually realized that the anonymity of cash makes it easy for terrorists and insurgents to smuggle in money and make purchases without a trace. That’s why for the past few years the military has been striving to replace its cash transactions with electronic fund transfers and debit card payments in the hopes of achieving a “cashless battlefield,” in the words of Peter Kunkel, a former assistant secretary of the Army.

Of course, in an era of global terrorism and international crime syndicates, the whole world is a battlefield. Raids on drug traffickers in Mexico often turn up tens of millions of dollars in cash. One raid netted over $200 million, mostly in $100 bills. So, why not eliminate the use of physical cash worldwide — not just a “cashless battlefield” but a “cashless economy”?

From a technical point of view, such an initiative is entirely feasible. The trick is to lower the cost of making transactions to the point where even the smallest payments can be executed efficiently. For example, a Twitter application known as TwitPay allows you to use your cellphone and a PayPal account to transfer money. In Kenya, a mobile banking system known as M-Pesa allows six million people to execute small payments using SMS messages.

Unfortunately, cellular-based systems are unsuitable as a complete replacement for physical money, particularly in the developing world. Cellphone coverage doesn’t yet extend to many rural regions or small urban centers; in addition, such systems remain too vulnerable to cybercrime and power grid or mobile service disruptions.

A better approach would be to use smart cards with biometric security features, like the Universal Electronic Payments System. In South Africa, the technology company Net1 now distributes social welfare grants to almost four million people. It’s simple: with a battery-operated, point-of-sale device akin to a credit-card terminal, money is transferred from one person’s card to another; during the process, the cards download and record each other’s transaction records.

Every few days, employees from the payments system head out to the villages and make their own money transfers, downloading the transaction histories of the cards they come into contact with, which contain the histories of the cards they interacted with, and so on. That data is then downloaded into the company’s mainframe, as a way of monitoring the flow of funds across the cards.

Best of all, the system can function offline and off the power grid, providing a secure means of payment under all conditions and without any geographic limitations. And the incremental cost of executing a transaction via this system is essentially zero. It is a promising model for the global economy.

In a cashless economy, insurgents’ and terrorists’ electronic payments would generate audit trails that could be screened by data mining software; every payment and transfer would yield a treasure trove of information about their agents, their locations and their intentions. This would pose similar challenges for criminals.

To help move to a global cashless economy, the Obama administration should push for an international agreement to eliminate the largest-denomination bills. Additionally, the United States Agency for International Development could make the promotion of electronic payments systems in developing countries one of its strategic objectives, much as the American military has done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Money’s destiny is to become digital,” announced a 2002 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In terms of public safety and national security, the sooner the world moves to a digital cashless economy, the better.

Twisted Titan

22nd December 2010, 09:35 AM

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/6966561.html

500 note Euros are dangerous

Mafia money launderers, terrorists and tax dodgers may be accumulating 500-euro bills because they're easy to hide and transport, the Bank of Italy said in a report.

As much as 6 million euros ($8.1 million) fit in an overnight bag, and 10 million euros in a 45-centimeter (18-inch) safe-deposit box, the central bank said in a 15-page internal study obtained by Bloomberg News.

“The wide diffusion of the 500-euro bill is a motive of possible concern in terms of fighting both money laundering and terrorism financing,” the June 2009 report prepared by the central bank's financial intelligence unit said. “Cash is the ideal tool for illegal payment and movement of funds” and “the high-value banknote simplifies the logistical management of large sums of money,” according to the study.

The report may boost arguments by law-enforcement officials to do away with the 500-euro ($673) note, the second most- valuable bill among the world's most-traded currencies. The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank reviewed the denominations of its banknotes in 2005, and has no plans to change the structure of its currency, an ECB spokesman said. The Bank of Italy report may foreshadow a split within the ECB on the merits of keeping the 500-euro note at the next review.

The dangers tied to the use of the 500-euro bill may “merit attention by monetary authorities and the institutions fighting money laundering and terrorism,” the report said.

The ECB had no comment on the Bank of Italy report, a spokesman said. A Bank of Italy spokeswoman had no immediate comment. The Bank of Canada withdrew its 1,000-dollar ($981) bill in 2000 “as part of the fight against money laundering and organized crime,” according to its Web site.

Latvia's 500 lati ($951) bill is Europe's highest-valued bill. Singapore's 10,000 dollar ($7,248) note is the world's most valuable, though rarely used. Among the six most-traded currencies, the 500-euro bills and the Swiss 1,000 franc ($939) note are the most valued, the Bank of Italy said. The $100 bill is the U.S.'s highest denomination.

Italy has one of the largest underground economies in Europe, worth as much as 19 percent of gross domestic product in 2008, or almost 300 billion euros, Rome-based research institute Censis says. The Italian mafias, the country's biggest money launderers, prefer the large bills because they can transport higher amounts of cash in less space, said Maurizio De Lucia, a mob prosecutor who participated in the hunt and capture of Bernardo Provenzano, the boss of the Sicilian Mafia, in 2006.

The country's main mafia groups boosted their profit by 12 percent to more than 78 billion euros last year, the anti- racketeering group SOS Impresa said in January.

Cash payments, which unlike credit cards or checks are anonymous, are the basis for 91 percent of all transactions in Italy, compared with 59 percent in France and 78 percent in Germany, the Bank of Italy said in the report.

While the 566 million 500-euro notes in circulation outnumber the total population of the euro zone, Italians say they rarely run across them.

“We don't see very many of them,” said Alessandro Migliacci, 28, a barber at the Antica Barbiere Peppino near the Spanish Steps in Rome. “The 20s and the 50s are by far the most common bills.”

Since the introduction of the euro to the public in 2002, the number of 500-euro bills in circulation has grown.

Fifty-euro bills made up almost 34 percent of the total euros in circulation in 2002, compared with 23 percent for the 500-euro note, the Bank of Italy said. In February of this year, the 500-euro note represented 36 percent of the total value of euros outstanding, surpassing the 50-euro note, which made up 31 percent of the total, according to the ECB.

The 500-euro bill's use by money launderers and tax dodgers “is a strong argument for banning or at least reducing the quantity of these banknotes,” said Nicola Borri, a professor of economics at Luiss University in Rome. The big bill “makes it very easy for one person to carry across borders, say between Italy and Switzerland, large quantities of money.”

The Bank of Italy study found that there was a greater concentration of 500-euro bills per capita close to the borders of Switzerland and San Marino, where money-laundering regulations are less stringent. Italians who stashed their savings abroad to avoid taxes declared 95 billion euros last year as part of a tax amnesty passed by parliament, the country's tax-collection agency said on Feb. 20. The amnesty expires at the end of April.

The Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering watchdog based in Paris, recommended discarding large-denomination bills in 2005 to help fight crime and terrorism.

“Countries should give consideration to the elimination of large denomination bank notes,” the FATF said. “These notes can be used by cash smugglers to substantially reduce the physical size of cash shipments being transported across borders and, by doing so, significantly complicate detection exercises.”

While the mafia isn't named in the Bank of Italy report, investigators said the biggest money launderers are organized crime groups. Italy's three main mafias boosted revenue 4 percent to 135 billion euros last year, compared with 83 billion euros in revenue for Eni SpA, the country's biggest company, anti-racketeering group SOS Impresa estimates.

“Large amounts of cash are needed in illegal transactions,” said De Lucia, the mob prosecutor. “Rather than use a suitcase to haul large amounts of 50-euro bills, criminals prefer to carry a wad of 500-euro bills in their pocket.”

Central and South American cocaine traffickers collect the 500-euro notes because they are easier to transport, Russell Benson, the Drug Enforcement Administration's regional director for Europe and Africa said. A million dollars in $100 bills weigh about 22 pounds (10 kilograms), while $1 million in 500- euro bills at the current exchange rate of about $1.38 per euro weighs about 3.5 pounds, Benson said.

European-based Drug Trafficking Organizations possess “hundreds of millions of euros in illicit drug proceeds” which they must smuggle back to areas where the supplies originated, Benson said in an e-mailed comment yesterday.

“The 500 Euro note continues to be exploited by several of these trafficking groups to facilitate their money laundering efforts.”

mightymanx

22nd December 2010, 09:55 AM

It is much easier to track people if they can't use cash Owellian controls get easy if it is all electronic.

"Oh my! That person is using cash they must be doing something illegal. Ill bet they hoard food and own guns as well. I should tell the authorities, at least to get their children taken to a safe place."

All is going according to plan.

palani

22nd December 2010, 02:49 PM

Gee ... you do know you are 40 times more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist? I don't see government acting to prevent lightning strikes.

The U.S. is well started in entering its fourth of bankruptcy (as they go in 70 year cycles). The first period transfered federal debt to the several States. The second period (after a bloody [un]civil war) transferred the debt to the people in those several States. The third period (depression) resulted in removing the backing from fiat money. This cycle they appear to want to remove the fiat money itself without re-instating substance.

I am for issuing a writ of quo warranto to command the sheriff to produce the corpus of anyone who claims to hold a public office. There are no public officials anymore.

Vaughn Pollux

22nd December 2010, 03:05 PM

I like where your head's at.

Libertytree

22nd December 2010, 03:17 PM

Serpo

22nd December 2010, 03:23 PM

Get rid of cash.........this is what wives are for and they do a very good job of it also...... ;D