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On November 8, 2016 in a surprise televised address, Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi announced that, within a deadline of days, all Indian currency notes of 500 and 1,000 Rupees must be put in a bank account and exchanged for smaller denomination notes. At today’s exchange rate 1,000 Rs is roughly equal to $15. This would perhaps be equivalent to the US Treasury outlawing all cash notes larger than a $10 bill.
Overnight, Modi’s government de facto outlawed an estimated 86 percent of all cash in circulation by value. People had 50 days to hand in the notes or they become worthless. Yet the government, despite stating it would issue new, more secure 500Rs and 1000Rs bills, had nowhere near the equivalent value of new notes ready for replacement. They say it may take up to a year to print enough, which means confiscation, de facto. Faked opinion polls with slanted questions done only via smart phone apps of which only 17% of the population has access, claimed that “90% of Indians approve” the demonetization.
Yet it’s far worse. India is an underdeveloped country, the largest in the world in population terms with more than 1.3 billion people. By demanding Indians turn in all 500Rs and 1,000Rs bills to banks, Modi is forcing major change in how Indians control their money in a country high on the corruption scale where few trust government let alone private banks, and prefer to deal strictly in cash or hoard gold for value. Nearly half the population, some 600 million Indians, do not hold a bank account and half of those, some 300 million Indians, lack a government identification, necessary to open an account.
When he presented his shock announcement, Modi pitched it in terms of going after India’s black economy. Soon he shifted gears and was praising the benefits of a “cash-less society” to enable Indians to enter the digital age, appealing to younger Indians, savvy in smart phones and digital networks, to convince the older of the benefits of online banking and consuming. The drastic demonetization declaration was planned by Modi and five other inner-circle ministers in complete secrecy. Not even the banks were told before. The question is what is behind, or rather who is behind this drastic form of monetary shock therapy? journal-neo.org...
However, a most interesting member of the USAID Project Catalyst together with the Indian Ministry of Finance is something called Better Than Cash Alliance. In point of fact the US-government-finance Project Catalyst grew out of a longer cooperation between USAID, the Washington-based Better Than Cash Alliance and the Indian Ministry of Finance. It appers to be the core public driver pushing the agenda of the global “war on cash.” journal-neo.org...
As Norbert Haering notes, “the status of the dollar as the world’s currency of reference and the dominance of US companies in international finance provide the US government with tremendous power over all participants in the formal non-cash financial system. It can make everybody conform to American law rather than to their local or international rules.” He adds, referring to the recent US Government demand that Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank pay an astonishing and unprecedented $14 billion fine, “Every internationally active bank can be blackmailed by the US government into following their orders, since revoking their license to do business in the US or in dollar basically amounts to shutting them down.” journal-neo.org...
World’s Biggest Tax Haven You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, a financial wizard or a Meyer Lansky to see a pattern. Washington forces disclosure of secret bank accounts of its citizens or companies abroad, while at the same time lifting control or disclosure inside the United States of private banking accounts. No surprise that such experienced private bankers as London’s Rothschild & Co. have opened offices in Reno Nevada a stone’s throw from Harrah’s and other casinos, and according to Bloomberg, is doing a booming business moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, or Switzerland which are subject to the new OECD international disclosure requirements, into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt from those disclosure rules.
Rothschild & Co. Director, Andrew Penney noted that as a result, the United States today, “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world.” Today Nevada, Meyer Lansky’s money laundering project of the 1930’s with established legalized gambling, is becoming the “new Switzerland.” Wyoming and South Dakota are close on the heels. One area where America’s institutions are still world class is in devising complex instruments of financial control, asset theft and cyber warfare. The US War on Cash, combined with the US Treasury and IRS war on offshore banking is their latest model. As Washington’s War on Terror had a sinister, hidden agenda, so too does Washington’s War on Cash. It’s something to be avoided at all costs if we human beings are to retain any vestige of sovereignty or autonomy. It will be interesting to see how vigorously Casino mogul Trump moves to close the US tax haven status. What do you bet he doesn’t? journal-neo.org...
Most people are in debt and don't have cash .Its a piece of plastic that gets them from one pay to the next . I have a card but I only use it to take my money (cash) out of the bank . The norm now is instant deposits by a employer into the employees bank account .The automatic transactions from the bank to other services (electric,phone etc.) is par for the course .Swiping the card at the grocery store or liquor store is easier then carrying the cash and risking getting robbed . It has so many +s that many prefer it . India on the other hand with too few banks would probably work as well as Monsanto's seeds .We know how that turned out but for some reason tptb don't care how it effects lives or maybe they do and just needed a test case before rolling it out elsewhere .
Use cash.
www.washingtonpost.com... utm_term=.2648abf67eb9
U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told lawmakers that some financial institutions have become “so large” that it makes it “difficult for us to prosecute them.” Holder’s admission bolsters criticisms that federal prosecutors are deeming some banks “too big to jail,” a charge that lawmakers and consumer advocates have routinely made in the wake of recent bank settlements. Although the government has issued record multimillion-dollar fines in these cases, critics say without criminal charges, the agreements amount to a slap on the wrist.
“Stunning” is how Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) described Holder’s remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “After hearing today’s testimony, big bankers know that if they commit financial crimes, they can expect a passive response from the Justice Department.” Holder’s remarks came during an exchange with Grassley, who questioned why Justice failed to bring criminal charges against HSBC and its employees for allegedly laundering money for Mexican drug cartels. The British bank agreed to pay $1.9 billion in December to settle charges raised in a report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The 340-page report catalogued years of woefully inadequate monitoring practices at HSBC’s affiliate in Mexico, even instances of affiliates circumventing government safeguards meant to block funding for terrorists. The mounting evidence led some lawmakers to assume criminal charges would be filed, but none were. Although Holder declined to comment specifically on the HSBC case, he said the implications of prosecuting megabanks have given Justice pause.
“It does become difficult for us to prosecute when we are hit with indications that if we do . . . bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” he said. “It has an inhibiting influence, impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.” Holder added that the geopolitical implications are a function of the fact that some institutions have become too large. He challenged Congress to do more to address the unwieldy size of financial institutions.
originally posted by: Tardacus
In order to bring the whole world into a cashless society "they" first have to figure out what needs to be done in the less developed countries to successfully get them under the cashless umbrella.
India is an experiment to find out what it will take to upgrade the digital infrastructure needed to get less developed countries onto the digital money train. If they can successfully turn India into a cashless society then they will have a blueprint for how to turn other less developed countries into cashless societies. The more developed countries are already set up for a quick and easy change to cashless societies, all the digital infrastructure, ATM`s card readers at stores etc, is in place.
....the events of November 8 have hurtled India too fast into this vortex of money’s growing intangibility. The controversial move led to an immediate windfall of about 86 per cent of the country’s paper currency, which will take another five to six months to replenish.
In a country where 98 per cent of the transactions occur in cash, such a long waiting period may have crippling consequences for the economy as well as the populace.
Thus, came the Modi government’s move to push for digital transactions and a leap towards building a cashless society. But beyond all the propaganda and politics, no one is looking at the bigger picture.
India’s digital infrastructure is comprehensively inadequate to tackle the growing increase in digital transactions. The average page load time on a mobile connection in India is more than six seconds.
According to the latest Akamai report, India is at the 105th position in the world in average internet speed. This rank is still the lowest in the entire Asia-Pacific region. Mobile connectivity is yet to reach more than 50,000 villages, and fibre networks, which offer broadband connections, have only reached 56,000 of the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats targeted by the IT department.
A direct consequence of the slower than average internet speed is on transaction failure rates. India is home to some of the highest online transaction rate failures and the numbers have only risen ever since the demonetisation drive began.
The increased load on online transactions, chiefly through digital wallets has led to more and more transaction failures.
Paytm, the leading mobile wallet in the country has been facing regular outages and issues wherein people are not able to access their wallet balance or not able to successfully complete transactions. The company has been blaming it on server outages and bank downtimes or other technical issues.
www.dailyo.in...