Ceasing Large Denomination Banknotes Is PART of the ‘War on Cash’

Banning Cash

Under cover of its multiplicity of fabricated wars on drugs, terror, tax evasion, and organized crime, the US government has long been waging a hidden war on cash. One symptom of the war is that the largest denomination of US currency is the $100 note, whose ever-eroding purchasing power is far below the purchasing power of the €500 note. US currency used to be issued in denominations running up to $10,000 (including also $500; $1,000; $5,000 notes). There was even a $100,000 note issued for transactions among Federal Reserve banks. The United States stopped printing large denomination notes in 1945 and officially discontinued their issuance in 1969, when the Fed began removing them from circulation. Since then the largest currency note available to the general public has a face value of $100. But since 1969, the inflationary monetary policy of the Fed has caused the US dollar to depreciate by over 80 percent, so that a $100 note in 2010 possessed a purchasing power of only $16.83 in 1969 dollars. That is less purchasing power than a $20 bill in 1969!

Despite this enormous depreciation, the Federal Reserve has steadfastly refused to issue notes of larger denomination. This has made large cash transactions extremely inconvenient and has forced the American public to make much greater use than is optimal of electronic-payment methods. Of course, this is precisely the intent of the US government. The purpose of its ongoing breach of long-established laws regarding financial privacy is to make it easier to monitor the economic affairs and abrogate the financial privacy of its citizens, ostensibly to secure their safety from Colombian drug lords, Al Qaeda operatives, and tax cheats and other nefarious white-collar criminals

Now the war on cash has begun to spread to other countries. As reported a few months ago, Italy lowered the legal maximum on cash transactions from €2,500 to €1,000. The Italian government would have preferred to set a €500 or even €300 maximum limit but reasoned that it should permit Italians time to adjust to the new limit. The rationale for this limit on the size of cash transactions is the fact that the profligate Italian government is trying to reduce its €1.9 trillion debt and views its anticash measures as a means of cracking down on tax evasion, which “costs” the government an estimated €150 billion annually.

The profligacy of the Italian ruling class is in sharp contrast to ordinary Italians who are the least indebted consumers in the eurozone and among its biggest savers. They use their credit cards very infrequently compared to citizens of other eurozone nations. So deeply ingrained is cash in the Italian culture that over 7.5 million Italians do not even have checking accounts. Now most of these “bankless” Italians will be dragooned into the banking system so that the notoriously corrupt Italian government can more easily spy on them and invade their financial privacy. Of course Italian banks, which charge 2 percent on credit-card transactions and assess fees on current accounts, stand to earn an enormous windfall from this law. As controversial former prime minister Berlusconi noted, “There’s a real danger of crossing over into a fiscal police state.” Indeed, one only need look at the United States today to see what lies in store for Italian citizens.

Meanwhile, the war on cash in Sweden is accelerating, although the involvement of the state is less overt. In Swedish cities, cash is no longer acceptable on public buses; tickets must be purchased in advance or via a cell-phone text message. Many small businesses refuse cash, and some bank facilities have completely stopped handling cash. Indeed in some Swedish towns it is no longer possible to use cash in a bank at all. Even churches have begun to facilitate electronic donations from their congregations by installing electronic card readers. Cash transactions represent only 3 percent of the Swedish economy, while they account for 9 percent of the eurozone and 7 percent of the US economies.

A leading proponent of the anticash movement is none other than Bjorn Ulvaeus, former member of the pop group ABBA. The dotty pop star, whose son has been robbed three times, believes that a cashless world means greater security for the public! Others, more perceptive than Ulvaeus, point to another alleged advantage of electronic transactions: they leave a digital trail that can be readily followed by the state. Thus, unlike countries with a strong “cash culture” like Greece and Italy, Sweden has a much lower incidence of graft. As one “expert” on underground economies instructs us, “If people use more cards, they are less involved in shadowy economy activities,” in other words, secreting their hard-earned income in places where it cannot be plundered by the state.

The deputy governor of the Swedish central bank, Lars Nyberg, gloated before his retirement last year that cash will survive “like the crocodile, even though it may be forced to see its habitat gradually cut back.” But not everyone in Sweden is celebrating the dethronement of cash. The chairman of Sweden’s National Pensioners’ Organization argues that elderly people in rural areas either do not have credit or debit cards or do not know how to use them to withdraw cash. Oscar Swartz, the founder of Sweden’s first Internet provider, a supporter of the phasing out of cash, argues that without the adoption of anonymous payment methods, people who send money and make donations to various organizations can be “traced every time.” But, of course, what the artless Mr. Swartz does not see is that this is the whole point of a cashless economy – to make even the most intimate economic affairs of private citizens transparent to the state and its fiscal and monetary apparatchiks, who themselves hate and fear transparency like vampires do sunlight. And then there are the benefits that accrue to the government-privileged banking system from the demise of cash. One Swedish small businessman shrewdly noted the connection. While he gets charged 5 kronor (80¢) for every credit-card transaction, he is prevented by law from passing this on to his customers. In his words, “For them (the banks), this is a very good way to earn a lot of money, that’s what it’s all about. They make huge profits.”

Fortunately, the free market provides the prospect of an escape from the fiscal police state that seeks to stamp out the use of cash through either depreciation of central-bank-issued currency combined with unchanged currency denominations or direct legal limitation on the size of cash transactions. As Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of economics explained over 140 years ago, money emerges not by government decree but through a market process driven by the actions of individuals who are continually seeking a means to accomplish their goals through exchange most efficiently. Every so often history offers up another example that illustrates Menger’s point. The use of sheep, bottled water, and cigarettes as media of exchange in Iraqi rural villages after the US invasion and collapse of the dinar is one recent example. Another example was Argentina after the collapse of the peso, when grain contracts (for wheat, soybeans, corn, and sorghum) priced in dollars were regularly exchanged for big-ticket items like automobiles, trucks, and farm equipment. In fact, Argentine farmers began hoarding grain in silos to substitute for holding cash balances in the form of depreciating pesos.

As has been widely reported recently, an unlikely crime wave has rapidly spread throughout the United States and has taken local law-enforcement officials by surprise. The theft of Tide liquid laundry detergent is pandemic throughout cities in the United States. One individual alone stole $25,000 worth of Tide detergent during a 15-month crime spree, and large retailers are taking special security measures to protect their inventories of Tide. For example, CVS is locking down Tide alongside commonly stolen items like flu medications. Liquid Tide retails for $10–$20 per bottle and sells on the black market for $5–$10. Individual bottles of Tide bear no serial numbers, making them impossible to track. So some enterprising thieves operate as arbitrageurs buying at the black-market price and reselling to the stores, presumably at the wholesale price. Even more puzzling is the fact that no other brand of detergent has been targeted.

What gives here? This is just another confirmation of Menger’s insight that the market responds to the absence of sound money by monetizing highly salable commodities. It is clear that Tide has emerged as a subsidiary local currency for black-market, especially drug, transactions – but for legal transactions in low-income areas as well. Indeed police report that Tide is being exchanged for heroin and methamphetamine and that drug dealers possess inventories of the commodity that they are also willing to sell. But why is laundry detergent being employed as money, and why Tide in particular?

Menger identified the qualities that a commodity must possess in order to evolve into a medium of exchange. Tide possesses most of these qualities in ample measure. For a commodity to emerge as money out of barter, it must be widely used, readily recognizable, and durable. It must also have a relatively high value-to-weight ratio so that it can be easily transported. Tide is the most popular brand of laundry detergent and is widely used by all socioeconomic groups. Tide also is easily recognized because of its Day-Glo orange logo. Laundry detergent can also be stored for long periods without loss of potency or quality. It is true that Tide is somewhat bulky and inconvenient to transport by hand in large quantities. But enough can be carried by hand or shopping cart for smaller transactions while large quantities can easily be transported and transferred using automobiles.

Just like the highly publicized war on drugs that the US government has been waging – and losing – for decades, it is doomed to lose its surreptitious war on cash, because the free market can and will respond to the demand of ordinary citizens for a reliable and convenient money.

From LRC, here.

נחמוני, נחמוני עמי

נחמו עמי – אהרן רזאל – Nachmu Ami – Aaron Razel

Published on Aug 5, 2014

אהרן רזאל מוציא אלבום חדש, ואתם יכולים לקבל אותו ראשונים!
לחצו כאן כדי להשתתף בפרויקט ההדסטארט: http://miro.ravpage.co.il/Razel-1

מילים: ישעיהו, מדרש ילקוט שמעוני איכה
הפקה מוסיקאלית: אבי טל ואהרן רזאל
לחן, פסנתר ושירה: אהרן רזאל
גיטרה: עמית יצחק
צ’לו :יונתן ניב

מאתר יוטיוב, כאן.

Calling All Jews: Even King Herod Had a Mikveh…

King Herod’s Ritual Bath at Machaerus

Ritual purification high above the Dead Sea

machaerus-view

In this old aerial photograph taken from above the Old City of Jerusalem, one can see Jerusalem (including the Dome of the Rock) and its environs, the Dead Sea and the clifftop site of Machaerus (circled) 28 miles away as the crow flies.

Jewish ritual baths—called mikva’ot (singular: mikveh)—are immersion pools used in ritual purification. A large mikveh—the largest thus far uncovered in modern Jordan—was excavated in 2016 at King Herod’s palace at Machaerus on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. This mikveh was used by King Herod and his royal family to purify themselves in accordance with Jewish religious law (halakhah).

King Herod’s personal ritual bath was not the only mikveh at Machaerus, though. In “Machaerus: A Palace-Fortress with Multiple Mikva’ot,” published in the July/August 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Machaerus excavator Győző Vörös presents a brief history of the excavations that uncovered four ancient mikva’ot installed over the span of almost 100 years at Machaerus.

In BAR, Vörös explains the importance of mikva’ot and ritual purification in Judaism:

The Hebrew Bible stipulates that bathing is required after certain events to become ritually pure again. For example, after recovering from leprosy, a person was to bathe (Leviticus 14:8–9). After coming into contact with a grave or with a dead person, it was necessary to bathe (Numbers 19:19). Men were to bathe fully in “living water” after having genital discharges before they are able to present an offering or sacrifice (Leviticus 15:13–15). They were also to bathe after emissions of semen (Leviticus 15:16).


Herod’s desert fortress on the mountaintop of Masada was made famous as the site of the last stand between the besieged Jewish rebels and the relentlessly advancing Romans at the conclusion of the First Jewish Revolt. In the free ebook Masada: The Dead Sea’s Desert Fortress, discover what archaeology reveals about the defenders’ identity, fortifications and arms before their ultimate sacrifice.


machaerus-king-herod-mikveh

In 2016, Machaerus excavators discovered the mikveh King Herod and his family used for ritual purification. Photo: Courtesy of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission to Machaerus.

Machaerus is perhaps best known as the place where Salome danced for her stepfather, Herod Antipas (r. 4 B.C.E.–39 C.E.), and ordered the beheading of John the Baptist. Perched on a clifftop high above the Dead Sea, Machaerus was where King Herod the Great (Herod Antipas’s father and predecessor) built a lavish palace-fortress around 20 B.C.E. The site was occupied by Jewish rebels during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–72 C.E.) and became one of the last strongholds to fall.

The royal mikveh discovered in 2016 had 12 steps (which are still intact) that led down to a depth of 12 feet. A vaulted stone roof once covered the bath, and attached to it was a 20-foot-deep cistern-reservoir that fed in water. The mikveh went out of use in 71 C.E., when Machaerus was destroyed by the Roman army unit known as the Legio X Fretensis (the Tenth Legion of the Sea Straits).

King Herod’s mikveh gives us a glimpse into the activities of the royal family at Machaerus. To learn about the other mikva’ot at Machaerus, including a modest one used by the common people found in the lower city, read the full article “Machaerus: A Palace-Fortress with Multiple Mikva’ot” by Győző Vörös in the July/August 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.


This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in June 2017.

From The Biblical Archeology Society, here.

Va’eschanan: Finding Comfort in LEIBOWITZEAN Judaism

Nachamu – V’Etchanan #BibleInsights

Saturday, July 28, 2018
This weekend I had been planning to edit an article that I’ve written a few weeks back that discusses strong support for the State of Israel from Evangelical Christians based in South Korea. South Korea Shalom Jerusalem  A large part of their inspiration to stand behind the Jewish people is from the verse in the prophets (Isaiah 40:1-2) in which G-d, tells the prophet: “Nachamu,” comfort the Jewish people, for although the exile will be long and difficult, the Temple will one day be rebuilt and the Jews will return home.
A representative from this group shared an interesting interpretation of this verse to mean that G-d was commanding the other nations, go console and care for my people. Help them and heal them from the suffering they have endured.
With this on my mind, it seemed wrong to miss out on the opportunity to hear the Haftarah reading in shul, precisely this prophecy was read in the synagogue this Shabbat. G-d sent me so many signs to remind me of his presence in this choice. First of all, there was a Bar Mitzvah in the shul, so there was extra joy in the service, the candy throwing “Aufruf” ceremony, and the opportunity to wish the birthday boy’s mother “Mazel Tov,” and rejoice in her Simcha. The Torah portion itself was also very inspiring, although not directly related to the Haftarah.

The Pasha (weekly Torah portion) started with Moshe pleading to G-d to allow him to enter the land of Israel. It’s hard to understand the desperation of a man who saw heaven and conversed with angels to enter a land I get to live in every day. I love Israel, but I somehow get the sense there must be so much more to this place that I have not even begun to imagine. Considering all the disagreements about what the State of Israel means politically and religiously, both within and without Judaism, for a moment, all that becomes irrelevant. Even if Israel will suffer a catastrophic attack, or if the Jewish people will again become scattered across the globe; for this moment in time, I live an experience that Moses and many Rabbis in subsequent generations only dreamed and yearned for, and in this moment I thank G-d for the privilege.Another theme I have been thinking of that feels connected here, is the idea of living in this land being a greater experience to Moses than even the experience of being in Heaven with G-d; the latter experience was not enough for him. It would seem that a certain level of spiritual fulfillment and pleasure could only be obtained through the effort and the journey here on Earth.

Some people have a theory that the World to Come is the Ultimate, the ultimate goal and the ultimate location. To reach heaven.

To put it simply, Classic Christian theology teaches that abstinence from physical pleasures of this world will lead to rewards of spiritual pleasure in the world to come. Islamic traditions guide a path to physical pleasure in the world to come. Even Jewish literature is sometimes misinterpreted as the world to come being the highest value. “This world is an entranceway to the world to come, prepare yourself in the lobby so you can enter the main ballroom.”However, heaven is never once explicitly mentioned in the Five Books of Moses, rather, the text focuses on all manner of physical and spiritual behavior and thought here on this earth. In the book” Ethics of Our Fathers” it is said that one moment of repentance and good deeds in this world yields a greater pleasure than the pleasure that could be amassed in all of eternity in the world to come.

Synchronicity can be found between these two dichotomies and understood through several theoretical frameworks and the process of philosophical analysis.

One way to explain is through an analogy. Consider that you are playing a video game. Of course your goal is to reach and conquer the highest level, but while on level three, for example, all your focus and concern is on that level. In that moment, level four is irrelevant. Yet the joy of the game is having a purpose, a path, a destination, and a goal. One serves the other. When we reach the world to come: when we die, as all people one day will, or in the times of Messiah, when we will rise from the dead, in that time, the past years of trials will recede to the background as the enormity of G-d’s love and salvation will overpower everything else. We also have that end time destination as our goal to strive for and to hope for in the hear and now. Yet right now in this moment, this life is not just our focus, it is our ultimate location to be.

I once read a Medrash about Moshiach Ben Yosef, who is believed will come before Moshiach Ben Dovid. He asked G-d for life, not to live in the flesh, as even a tiny insect does, but to live in the heart of each Jew through the exile. He wanted the Jews, and humanity as a whole, to live with hope and joy, in the exile. Hope there will be a redemption, joy in the pursuit of purpose and comfort that in this moment we are exactly where we are supposed to be. Tisha B’av, the time for mourning, is over, and now we can allow ourselves to fully embrace the now, without reservations or hesitations.

Another interesting concept that specifically contrasts with the idea of this world being insignificant in comparison to heaven is the teaching taught to me by Rabbi Eliyahu Ellis that refutes the premises of Christianity and Islam of forfeiting worldly pleasure in the hope of heavenly pleasure in another lifetime:

Judaism is a guide for how to create heaven, here on Earth.

On Erev Shabbat, the first of creation, G-d created a beautiful, yet hidden, light. It is our job here on earth to claw away the darkness so the light can be revealed. Alex Epstein, a philosopher who combats the dogma of global alarmists, advocates for a world view where humans are not a destructive force on the world, rather, to understand that through creativity and ingenuity we invent solutions and advancements that make the world safer, cleaner and better.

Think of all the advancements in medicine; we have total cures today for diseases that once seemed insurmountable such as several cancers, pneumonia, and Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, and we are closer than ever to cures for diseases such as HIV, Alzheimer’s, and Osteogenesis Imperfecta. We have developed the technology to recycle and desalinize water, call internationally for free or pennies, we soar the skies, and some have even traveled to space. With regard to Tikun Olam (the mandate to fix the world, some translate this as “Social Justice”) it is clear that man’s purpose is to develop and fix a broken world and become a part of creation. Moshiach is the promise that when the journey is arduous and the effort seems futile; in the end, the light will conquer darkness and the human spirit will triumph.

There is a story of a Jewish boy in the Ghetto that illustrates this point. Passover Eve, with all his family except him and his dad having perished, he asked his Father, can I ask you a fifth question? (Following the traditional “Four Questions”.)

“Will I survive another year and be here next Passover seder to ask you the Four Questions, and will you be here to answer them?”

The father honestly answered, “I don’t know. But I will promise you this: next Passover, there will be somewhere in the world a Jewish boy who will ask his father the Four Questions, and his father will be there to answer them.”

Dr. Jordan Peterson often says that the joy of meaning is necessary to offset the tragedy that is life. To me, it seems he has it backward. The joy of meaning is found precisely within the tragedy of life. The struggle of each individual and in partnership with the whole of humanity, and the creator of all, is where we find ourselves connecting to a larger and eternal mission. “Tikun Olam, the mandate to fix the world, presumes the world will be broken.”

A few more words on this week’s Parsha:

The Ten Commandments were told again. We stand for this part of the Torah Reading.

In this week’s Parsha we also read the Shema prayer, declaring a belief in one unified incorporeal G-d. In this chapter is the commandment to teach the next generation. When you know you have a legacy and a mission, it becomes vital to pass this on to children and grandchildren who can carry on the legacy and bring the mission to completion. The Torah does not use the verb למד,  rather the root שננ, ושננתם. Teaching should be an active and interactive process, if sharing information, listening to questions and creating a living, breathing back and forth dialogue. During a dispute between sages of the Talmud, one Rabbi stated, “לא בשמים היא.” The Torah is not in heaven. G-d gave us the Torah so that we can live it in our lives and our hearts and teach our children to do the same.

The Thirteen Attributes of G-d are listed and enumerated in this Parsha. Beyond human understanding, G-d is one unified entity that we can experience through various different attributes. This is the Middot Moses was taught to use to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people, yet here, in Moses request, he was told, “Stop praying.” G-d reassured Moses a much greater reward and a greater plan was yet to come.

Every time the Torah is read, when it is returned to the Aron Kodesh, the parishioners declare: “This is the Torah that Moses placed before the children of Israel.”

This verse is found in Parshat V’etchanan: Chapter 4, verse 44.

PostScript:

This article helped me understand the meaning and purpose of my brother’s short and painful life. The story of the four questions in the holocaust especially helped me see the beauty in being a cog in the wheel. Each moment of each person’s life has a greater value for being a part of something bigger than we can even imagine. 

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