News & Analysis
Spain Bans Cash
Spain Bans Cash Transactions Over 2,500 Euros ... Spain has outlawed the use of cash in business transactions in excess 2,500 euros in order to crack down on the black market and tax evaders. The motivations behind the push for digital currencies is exposed as Spain heads down the road of the Greeks in combating their sovereign debt crisis. As the government scrambles for every tax dollar it can get its hands on, even though they already gave every Spaniard $23,000 Euros in debt last year alone (approximately $32,500), they are now banning all large cash business transactions. Why? So they can track the transactions and make sure that people and business are paying taxes. Being able to track the transactions is also aimed to combat the growing black market in Spain. – Alexander Higgins' blog
Dominant Social Theme: This cash has gotta go. It's evil.
Free-Market Analysis: They are not even making a pretense anymore that the West is run via market economies. As we have long predicted, the phony "sovereign debt" crisis in Europe is being used to justify all sorts of authoritarian measures.
It is government pols that gladly borrowed what European banks threw at them. And somehow the upshot earlier this week is that Spanish citizens now lose the right to conduct many transactions in cash.
Spectactularly, the reports such as this one, excerpted above, don't even both to hide the real point. The Spanish government wants to ensure that it can "track transactions and make sure that people and businesses are paying taxes."
Of course, anyone who has visited Spain of late knows that the tax burden in Spain is onerous indeed, and is one reason that the truculent tribes that have co-existed uneasily with Madrid are again beginning to beat the drums of secession.
The taxes that the central government levies on small businesses especially are verging on punitive. But there are no apologies. The official position is one of unflinching demands.
It is surely part of a larger meme having to do with a "cashless" society. Just recently the UK Telegraph asked "Is mobile the way we'll all be paying?" The answer, as can be expected, was a qualified yes, but issued in the predictable upbeat way.
The cashless society has been a much-mooted concept ever since consumer credit cards were widely introduced in the 1950s. Now it seems that “mobile money” is the new gold rush. The term – used to describe the way the mobile phone is used to pay for goods – yields no fewer than 126 million results on a Google search ...
Market research firm Yankee Group believes that global mobile transactions will become a $1trillion market by 2015. While Berg Insight says there will be 894m worldwide users of mobile banking by the same year. Peter Ayliffe, chief executive of Visa Europe, who sits on the Monitise board, believes 50pc of all Visa transactions in Europe will be on a mobile device by 2020.
The top men are beginning to issue their predictions. The march to a cashless society has begun. Perhaps we owe Spain a debt of gratitude for revealing the REAL reason for a cashless society. It makes tax collecting so much easier.
But this is only part of the story. Taxes are certainly to be paid ... but the RESULTS of tax payments and the government expenditures they give rise to are seemingly more questionable every day.
In Spain this is certainly evident. The REAL problem that Spain faces as its depression spirals out of control is the infrastructure that politicos built over the past decade. Every small town has bike paths, outdoor parks and other unnecessary public venues that will soon prove, well ... unsupportable.
Gradually, the infrastructure sinks into disrepair, further exacerbating the loss of what was once gratifying. These expanding open sores in civic centers create additional dissonance. Spain has created public places everywhere with giddy exuberance. Soon it will be a kind of national "tragedy of the commons."
There is not much discussion of this plight, however. Most of the conversation centers around putting young people to work. Up to 50 percent of Spanish youngsters are out of work or can't find jobs and many of the rest live in fear that they will lose their positions.
There is now, in fact, starting to be a Diaspora of young people from Spain. Virtually all of South America speaks Spanish – and many countries are doing rather well. Argentina, especially, is attracting youngsters; Chile, too, presumably.
The cash ban is probably looked on by many in Spain as yet one more petty annoyance but these annoyances are piling up over time. When mixed in with the larger difficulty of the dysfunction of the Spanish economy, such issues can surely create an explosive situation. Here's more from the article:
Those who violate the ban will face fines of 25% of the payment made in cash. The Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has announced on Wednesday that the plan to combat tax evasion on Friday approved the Cabinet prohibit the payment in cash transactions of over 2,500 euros and which at least involved a businessman professional.
During the control session the Government in the House of the Congress of Deputies and in response to a question about the tax amnesty made by the general coordinator of IU, Cayo Lara, the Prime Minister, has revealed that those who violate the ban will face fines of 25% of the payment made in cash.
The Government had already advanced the plan to combat fraud limitations include the use of cash for certain operations, although he had not yet specified which would place the threshold (yes at the time there was talk that it could be 1,000 euros for self-employed).
This measure aims to prevent the use of black money in commercial transactions and, in the case of companies, give them an obstacle to not resort to false invoices. The plan to combat fraud adopted on Friday, the Cabinet intends to raise up to 8.171 million euros in 2012.
We can see clearly the conflation between fraud and bad times. Of course, desperate people will do desperate things – and the "austerity" program that the Spanish government is following will only exacerbate matters.
To their credit, Spanish officials have generated some tax-forgiveness programs of late, but these, too, are proving controversial. Spanish politicos, like their counterparts elsewhere, are inclined to accept Brussels' dictates for "austerity" as the ultimate solution to the current mess.
But is it really so simple? As we have often pointed out, the elites running the Southern PIGS were basically bribed by Brussels money to bring their countries aboard the EU. Now that the EU is collapsing, these individuals are nowhere to be found. The citizens are faced with the bill – and with paying back the banks.
Increasingly, we believe, those trapped in this situation are well aware of their manipulation. What we call the Internet Reformation has made them well aware of their manufactured plight. At some point there will be serious repercussions.
This is what the power elite – a few dynastic families behind the EU and much of the world's globalist mischief – may not have entirely anticipated. We have to think that the EU takedown was created to further the aims of globalism. But those at the top did not take into account the dawning realizations that the Internet was capable of generating.
Now the trap has been sprung. The "sovereign debt crisis" is creating a larger globalist presence, puffing up the IMF and creating further EU integration. This was all part of the plan, no doubt.
The move to get rid of cash is also part of the larger plan, we're sure. The idea is for every transaction to be tracked and controlled. The mass of people is to be further disciplined and herded. Global government is to be the result
Conclusion: The mechanism is increasingly transparent. They hardly bother to hide it anymore. But here is our question: Do they believe that people cannot read ... or think? Do they believe people will hold their aggregate resentment in check forever? There seems to be a kind of baiting going on, and it may not end well.
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Posted by Agent Pete 8 on 04/25/12 07:17 AM
I think that one sailed right over his head, 4irw4y.
Ingo really struggles with the notion that not everyone is fooled all of the time, into believing that it is more efficient to carry on selling a maggoty-as dead horse as transport.
If passengers prefer to ride say, a donkey that stands upright and walks, then I would lend an invisible hand on board.
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Posted by Bischoff on 04/24/12 09:18 PM
Cnacuba... ...
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Posted by 4irw4y on 04/24/12 04:03 PM
Oh, it's OK. Agent Weebley on 04/24/12 07:40 AM explains IT in fewer words than I could.
"Am I missing something... ???" - ... finally caught myself thinking what these questions would matter in Russian. No, that was just me missing to add Yachting to the string (-:
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Posted by 4irw4y on 04/24/12 03:54 PM
?????? ????, amanfromMars.
Evidently, a steganographic morph out.
Russian landlords in the Siver(-; Age of the XIXth Century spoke French. That's what the site' admin still can't forgive. Ok, ok, leavin'...
Some information for the Turing, though.
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Posted by Judy on 04/24/12 12:57 PM
I am sorry, but I don't agree with the bull pucky that President Obama has a fraudulent birth certificate. He was born in Hawaii and it has been proven. I think that he deserves some respect and support from people who are set against him because they are prejudice and because they believe everything they read on the Internet. Also, the Sheriff in Arizona is just one of those "Good Old Boys" who thinks it is ok to bully people. I am from Arizona and a friend of mine just moved out of Ariz, because she didn't like being pulled over by a 'good old boy' cop who wanted to see her papers. She is an American Indian and she felt very insulted by this. Arizona used to be a good state to live in, but I don't think so anymore. Also, I am voting for President Obama to be reelected. He is a compassionate man and cares for the working class.
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Posted by Agent Weebley on 04/24/12 07:40 AM
Hi Ingo,
You're missing links . . . or something like that.
Links are the neural net the people of the world are experiencing now . . . the joining.
And barter is one step back to move 2 steps forward . . . because many have lost the ability to trade without coercion.
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Posted by Agent Pete 8 on 04/24/12 06:37 AM
Hi Abu, need your lawns mown?
I'll just send my Ingo over to tidy those up for you. He will make every blade of grass exactly the same length, or pull it out.
Delegation is an artform?
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 04/24/12 04:43 AM
CAN someone delegate a right he doesn't have? It all boils down to this, really. Everything else is just a smokescreen to justify government (i.e. delegated monopoly violence) one way or another.
You may BELIEVE that all hell will break loose should more and more people decide to leave the superstition of a 'need for a rudiment of government' behind, while I ceased to believe that when I realized that I CANNOT delegate a right I don't have in the first place.
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Posted by amanfromMars on 04/24/12 12:24 AM
Oops.
Now we all know that the DB forum software does not support the cyrillic alphabet ... .. ?????? ???? should have been Good day in Russian.
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Posted by amanfromMars on 04/24/12 12:17 AM
Some might conclude that the hesitation and indecision/requirement for further thought more likely leads to the main thrust of the statement not being wrong and therefore correct?
And one hopes that your hope that SpaceMonkey is wrong is centred on the sentence ... . "The brain has a natural resistance to change." Such hope then allows for a mutually beneficial agreement allowing any more forceful argument/discussion on the matter to squared potentially rather than just merely doubled. Such exponential growth in like minded cooperations/collaborations readily explains why and how a relative few, who can even be quite psychotic and pathological and delusional and pimp themselves as a chosen few, can have such a colossal impact on the many.
?????? ????, 4irw4y,
I wonder what Turing would have thought of these Virtual Machine tests of human intelligence for signs of advanced intelligence capability and facility ... ... .. future utility? Do you imagine he would be somewhat in despair and more than a just a tad disappointed and surprised at what he would have discovered and uncovered?
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Posted by Bischoff on 04/23/12 10:24 PM
Back is right... .barter is certainly not a move forward.
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Posted by Bischoff on 04/23/12 10:22 PM
I am pondering your statement. I am not sure you are right. At least I hope you are wrong, but then... ..you may be.
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Posted by Bischoff on 04/23/12 10:20 PM
"Still you argue with it. Human (-: "
Am I missing something... ???
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Posted by Bischoff on 04/23/12 10:16 PM
AA: "A remarkable statement indeed ... explains a great deal of your basic attitude, in my view."
B: Yeah, how so... ??? You seem to be given to making statements which you never justify.
AA: "Gee, lesson learned, eh? Statists will love your government-is-god/nature-given approach."
B: Where and how did I say government was good... ??? A minimum of government is necessary, I said. Goodness has nothing to do with it. The founding fathers figured that out, but then they are "statist" as well, aren't they... ??? It's the crazy anarcho-capitalism you peddle which is the answer isn't... ???
AA: "Well, I guess we just wait and see what happens when the ponzi finally comes crashing down, right?"
B: Can you ever be responsive to a comment... ??? You are all over the place with your responses.
As to central banking being a Ponzi scheme and having to fall aprt, you have no disagreement from me. However, the worst fallout from such collapse can be prevented, but you seem to have no clue about it.
So you quote some Larken Rose who is as clueless as you, and I am supposed to be impressed... ???
AA: "That's just one example of how what we're taught as basic civics is absurd, insane and horribly dangerous garbage."
B: I haven't been taught anything as basic civics. However, what is insane, is your twisted idea of government. You don't understand human nature, you don't understand natural law, and you certainly don't understand the need for a rudiment of government at the local level.
If your doctrinaire ideas were ever applied in reality, you would not survive for a day, but maybe that should happen. Then we could watch Darwin's "natural selection" theory in action.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 04/23/12 06:11 AM
Bischoff: "Nature did not adapt man with genetic instinct to survive on the ground."
AA: A remarkable statement indeed ... explains a great deal of your basic attitude, in my view.
-----
Bischoff: "He has to create an artifical cocoon to make survival possible. Government is part of that cocoon"
AA: Gee, lesson learned, eh? Statists will love your government-is-god/nature-given approach.
That does not necessarily make it true, though. In fact, I wonder if you found out that funny thing about Santa Claus already.
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Bischoff: "If you were involved in a local government meeting, where government truly matters, or at least should be, you and your slogans would have been laughed out of the meeting. That's how much weight your slogans carry... "
AA: Well, I guess we just wait and see what happens when the ponzi finally comes crashing down, right?
In the meantime, you might want to contemplate the words of Larken Rose - which I wholeheartedly agree with:
"I'm a voluntaryist. I believe that there's no such thing as a legitimate ruling class, even a limited, constitutional one, and that the initiation of violence, even when legal, is bad. That rules out all government. I'm all for cooperation and organization but that's never what government is.
(... )
In short, all belief in authority and government is insane and horribly destructive, the most destructive superstition the world has ever known, in fact. Of course, that's the opposite of what we're all taught.
We're all taught that obedience to authority and obeying the law is what makes civilization possible. We were all told that lie, but it's still a lie. The belief that some people have the right to forcibly dominate others, even in a limited way, is the opposite of being civilized. It's an attempt to legitimize theft, murder and other violent aggression, by way of pseudo-religious political rituals - constitutions, elections, legislation, and so on. In short, the belief in authority has led to more death and destruction than anything else in history
(... )
This may sound odd, but believing in government makes as much sense as believing in Santa Claus, and that is remarkably easy to prove, and my book does, in several different ways. One example is: Can someone delegate a right he doesn't have? No, of course not. If I don't have the right to steal, I can't give someone else the right to steal. It's so elementary it's ridiculous. The problem is that obvious truth completely rules out all government. If normal people don't have the right to tax, and forcibly interfere in the lives of non-violent people, then they can't possibly have given such a right to those in government - not by any election, or constitution, or any other document or ritual - and that means that just about everything that government does is inherently illegitimate.
To call it government implies that it has authority, that it has the right to rule, that it has rights that us mere mortals don't have. Those in power claim they got these super-human rights from us, from the people, despite the fact that we never had such rights to begin with, and still have no such rights and couldn't possibly have given them to anyone else. That's just one example of how what we're taught as basic civics is absurd, insane and horribly dangerous garbage."
Click to view link
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Posted by Agent Pete 8 on 04/23/12 02:50 AM
DB & amfM: Your teachings spread round the globe, of course:
Click to view link
amfM and readers: Sorry, I think I need to reset and soft-upgrade my Ingo 1700 series, he still isn't working properly; uses way too much power to achieve little progress, and seems hard coded to the same tuner frequency in his discombobulator, or they say under the Antarctic shelf, de-scam-babby-lata.
I am not proud of this, but I am still his Owner until he's fully operational.
Can anyone else help us with this epic re-programming task?
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Posted by 4irw4y on 04/22/12 10:52 PM
Dear Ingo,
Imagine amanfromMars as an AI for successful teaching English in Maths, Economics, Astronomy, Googling, whatever. Still you argue with it. Human (-:
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Posted by SpaceMonkey on 04/22/12 09:21 PM
"Do people have to wake up as full fledged "serfs", before they get a clue as to what is happening to them... ???"
Most people... yes. It's human psychology we're up against here. The brain has a natural resistance to change. The current state has to be extremely painful or the desired state extremely pleasureable for change to kick in. In most cases the former is required before people will change as the accoutrements of the technoligical age - smartphones, gaming consoles, nice cars, nice clothes, etc - that are making the current state extremely desireable to stay in. These things will need to be gone for people to wake up out of their technology-induced miasma. It's the "psychology of previous investment".
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Posted by SpaceMonkey on 04/22/12 08:56 PM
Back to barter then...
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