A long-time correspondent and friend recently asked us this question: Are world leaders pushing digital currency to replace cash in order to deliberately push citizens into buying metals – gold, silver, etc? How does that help the elite become wealthier? What am I missing here?

Good question.

No, I don’t think it has anything to do with driving up the price of precious metals. Inflation and fear do that.

I think it is purely and simply a matter of knowledge and therefore control.

We’ve already gone a long way down the path to giving up financial privacy: it started, really, with paper checks: Even before computers, which made it easier.

But the advent of bank credit cards is what really increased the flow of data, and the governments and corporations – and their wealthy and powerful elite – saw all the advantages of being able to track actual spending and locations of anyone of interest. And gradually, everyone except for the bottom of society (not able to have a checking account or credit card), certain types of criminals, and the paranoid.

At the same time, the value of the data gathered was discovered. Tracking, of course, both of criminals, potential “enemies of the state,” and then virtually everyone. And preventing (or identifying after the fact, like most criminal investigations) fraud and theft. But also, tremendous valuable for marketing: especially allowing the invention of automated targeted advertising.

However, there were still gaps.

Converting food stamps to EBT closed a part of that gap, of course. Another part is possible through frequent buyer/privileged customer cards: anytime you buy at Taco John’s or a supermarket or a convenience store and use your membership card or phone number, the transaction can be tracked. Now it makes sense to them to close it even more – perhaps even eliminate it by ending use of cash and coins.

The intel benefits are directly tied to the control part of it. Already credit card companies (banks) (and I suspect, including those who manage EBT and other forms of welfare payments for government agencies) can prevent transactions they do not like when they are done in odd locations or for unusual purchases or odd amounts or circumstances. This is sold to businesses and individuals as an important tool for preventing fraud and theft. But it also furthers the gathering of intel for the security-surveillance regime. (Which is, frankly, an intimate partnership of government and business – and not just big business, though they benefit the most. There is another technical term for that: fascism.) 

I am sure that has happened to you: the credit card manager (Discover, whatever Visa or MasterCard bank issues your card) will deny a transaction – sometimes with a warning to you by text or phone to give you a chance to authorize it or again submit for their approval.

And the value of such intel and control has already been demonstrated time and time again. The Trudeau regime used it last year against the Canadian truckers who launched their protest/strike and convoy: HM Government ordered the Canadian (and for that matter, Brit and American) banks to lockdown their credit cards AND debit cards. Not just for fuel but for anything – including preauthorized electronic payments and withdrawal of cash at ATMs or banks. And became a punishment for those participating, and even those who supported the truckers by donations. That dampened and I believe negated the impact of the protests. What a tool!

We will definitely see more of this even without central bank digital currency (CBDC) replacing more and more cash. All intel to make control easier. Any increase in prices and the like are just frosting on the cake.

The solution? Clearly crypto currency is seen as part of the answer, which is why there are the battles going on now. Alternative cash – backed by hard assets – is another possibility: goldbacks, perhaps, or something similar. But longterm, the only solution is to break the powers of governments.