A surveillance state spies on more than phone calls

If you’re just becoming disturbed by the National Security Agency listening to your phone calls, you’re in for quite a shock. The gravity of news about the “Security” statists in The Land of the Free keeps getting worse, with reports now saying they can basically read your Gmail emails as you type them.

Across the world, governments are cracking down on everything they can’t control. And that includes cash. That fiat currency that their central banks toy with and cause to lose value for political purposes actually gives the serfs some semblance of power when they can hold it in their hands. For using cash is one way to tell the government you don’t accept their spying on you.

But the state doesn’t want you to hold anything in your hands. Having it gives you power. And power is for them, not you.

In Russia, the government has floated a bill to put the kibosh on cash transactions over roughly $10,000. Why? To increase cash reserves in the banks, of course. State-owned Sberbank, far and away the largest in the land, figures it could benefit from having more rubles on hand.

And they’ll crack down on your freedoms to get whatever they want done.

Of course, tax evasion is another issue for these guys. The so-called “shadow economy” costs them lots of money they could be using to further their own agenda. Perhaps if governments lightened up on regulations, the shadow economy would diminish. Black markets form when governments get in the way. But for now, what’s yours is theirs, and what can’t be claimed as theirs, they’ll control. Capiche?

The veneer of free market economics in the west has all but blown away like a tumbleweed in the desert. As we talk about frequently, governments do a great job of creating problems – in this case, wild spending that ends with a crash – that benefit them, then blaming society and increasing their power even more when their Frankenstein comes back to attack them.

These types of cash bans are cropping up all over the globe. Last year, the Spanish government imposed its own 2,500 euro limit on cash transactions. Italy, which imposed a 5,000 euro limit in 2010, lowered that limit to all of fifty – yes, fifty – euros effective this year. If you’ve been to Europe recently, you know gasoline costs a fortune. Fifty euros will barely get your fuel-efficient Pinto from Florence to the countryside for the weekend. You’ve got to use a credit card.

I’m sure the Italian government just wants to make sure you’re getting all the airline miles you can.

Meanwhile, the British government has stomped out cash payments in industries like scrap metal buying. Business owners are forbidden to deal in cash on the premise that their customers are all a bunch of criminals. As Britain inches closer to totalitarianism, the police state grows ever larger. You are no longer a citizen, but a serf and a suspected criminal. Just by your very existence.

Of course, we couldn’t talk about currency restrictions without mentioning The Land of the Free. This is one instance where Uncle Sam hasn’t cracked down as hard as other unfree states. However, you’re still required to file forms if you dare to deposit more than $10,000 in cash in the bank, or if you’re bold enough to try and leave the country with it. Yeah, it’s legal, but don’t think they won’t rough you up a bit over it.

I actually have a Chinese immigrant friend in Texas whose parents brought her cash as a gift – a common thing for Chinese parents to do. After putting it in the bank, she got a bit of a shakedown from her friendly local FBI.

Good to know that the cops are out interrogating 105-pound engineers and not out looking for all the real criminals they claim are running amok that justify these degrading laws.

Just like the closed-door, top-secret “National Security Agency” wants to know who’s calling you, the government in general wants to know where you’re spending your money. Just how law enforcement uses the constant ruse of terrorism as cover for unlimited domestic surveillance, broke governments use their self-created insolvency as a defense to declare economic martial law.

When they need what you have, all bets are off. Spying on your phone calls and reading your emails apparently isn’t enough for them. They want to track your every transaction. How long do you think it will be before they analyze all that data to deny you more rights? “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith; you’ve purchased too many 59-cent gas station sodas to have Medicare treat your diabetes.”

I put the over under at three months.

Personally, I think the cashless society is a sign of how far we’ve progressed as a society. I pay a tidy sum every year for a Platinum Amex card that spits out great rewards and other benefits, especially for someone who travels as much as I do. But when I’m in the US, I love using cash as a form of protest. To think the government wouldn’t like any more data on me – or anyone else – is dangerous thinking these days.