Conspiracy Fact and Theory

Gun Grabbers Don’t Get It. When The “Economy Falls Apart, Crime Increases.” That’s Why You Need Guns.

March 2, 2016 by contributing author

This article was written by Joshua Krause and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.

Editor’s Comment: The fundamentals of gun control are distorted into sideline debates over statistics compared with other European nations. The fact of the matter is that countries facing an influx of rapes and and an unwanted culture of fear wish they still had their rights to keep and bear.

Here in America, it will very likely be the last line of defense as the infrastructure crumbles and the economy bottoms out. People who lose everything lose control; and while they deserve better opportunities, turning to wanton acts of crime and threatening the life of your family is not acceptable. Only an armed populace can defend itself against a society that has abolished dignity and incited waves of crime in government and institutions, and on the streets. If you want to see gun control in action, just go to inner city Chicago and witness the worst scenes of violence in the entire country.

The Gun Grabbers Just Can’t Let Go of This Ridiculous Argument

by Joshua Krause

You have to give the gun grabbers credit where credit is due. They sure make a pretty compelling argument. Every country in the world that has strict gun ownership laws, also has lower crime rates when compared to countries with loose gun laws. And most importantly, mass killings are just about unheard of and murder rates are far lower in these places.

Oh sorry. I’m afraid I misspoke. These countries rarely have mass shootings and the number of gun crimes is also quite low.

People who support gun control love to make the same lame argument. It’s an argument that defies all logic, and somehow it just won’t die. After every mass shooting, they love to present some statistic that shows mass shootings are rare or nonexistent in countries with strict gun laws, or that gun crimes are also few and far between in those places. These statistics are more often than not, absolutely correct. They’re also completely irrelevant.

Isn’t the overall murder rate far more relevant than the number of murders committed with firearms? Not to the gun grabbers. I can only guess why they won’t let this argument die. Either they have some kind of mental deficiency, or they are willfully ignorant of these statistics, because it would shatter their world view. They simply refuse to see the bigger picture.

The latest iteration of this argument comes from several researchers who sifted through 130 gun control studies from 10 different countries, to see what effect these laws had on the number of gun related crimes. Here’s what they found:

So what do Santaella-Tenorio et al. conclude? First, and most importantly, that gun violence declined after countries pass a raft of gun laws at the same time: “The simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple firearms restrictions is associated with reductions in firearm deaths,” the study finds.

This finding doesn’t highlight one specific law, like an assault weapon ban, in isolation. There were “so many different kinds of laws,” Santaella-Tenorio explains, that it was hard to make good international comparisons on every specific kind of gun restriction.

Rather, countries passed big packages of gun laws, which overhauled the nation’s firearm code fairly broadly, which all tended to share similar features. According to Santaella-Tenorio, they generally included:

Banning “weapons that are actually very powerful,” like automatic weapons.

“They all implemented background checks.”

“They all required permits and licenses for purchasing guns.”

South Africa’s comprehensive Firearm Control Act, passed in 2000, contained all these measures. One study found that firearm homicides in five major South African cities decreased by 13.6 percent per year for the next five years. “Reductions in nonfirearm homicides were also observed,” Santaella-Tenorio et al. note, “although not as pronounced as the ones observed for firearm homicides.”

Austria’s 1997 firearm law, similarly, required background checks, limited access to powerful firearms, and imposed rules about how gun owners had to store their guns. Santaella-Tenorio reviewed two studies on Austria’s 1997 law, both of which found evidence that the law had reduced deaths. According to one of them, firearm homicides went down by 4.8 percent, while suicides went down by 9.9 percent.

Australia and South Africa seem to be their best examples. The funny thing about those countries, is that while the research shows that gun deaths did indeed decline, the overall murder rate also declined. This fact comes with a few caveats however.

Take a look at the historical murder rates for both of those countries. In South Africa for instance, the murder rate really did decline after they instituted strict gun control laws. However, the murder rate was already falling for at least 5 years before the year 2000 (that’s as far back as that data goes) and it continues to decline to this very day despite no new legislation. And in Australia, the overall murder rate has also declined, but not until 8 years had passed since they started rounding up all the guns.

In other words, there is a strong correlation between gun laws and gun deaths, but almost no correlation between gun laws and the overall murder rate. Admittedly, it’s also a fact that many pro-gun advocates would also prefer to ignore.

What nobody wants to admit, is that we don’t really know what drives crime rates. In the US for instance, the national crime rate has been falling consistently for more than two decades, and nobody can figure out why. I’ve heard all kinds of theories to explain this, including higher incarceration rates, lower lead levels in the water, increased police presence, an aging population, roe vs wade, and even the proliferation of the internet and video games. None of them have been able to hold up to scrutiny, and it seems that the number of guns on our streets isn’t a factor either.

The truth is, the real drivers of crime are incredibly murky. The only thing we know for sure is that when the economy falls apart, crime often increases, but only most of the time. Crime rates continued to decrease in the US even during the Great Recession.

And perhaps that is why this argument that the gun grabbers are always trying to make, is so stupid. Like everyone else, they desperately want to find a single simplistic cause for all the murders that happen; a cause that fits their world view. But in the real world there isn’t just one reason, and if there were, it certainly wouldn’t be guns since there isn’t any convincing data.

Remember that the next time the gun grabbers go on about “decreasing gun murder rates.” What they’re really saying is, “give up your rights, even though it won’t benefit you or your community in any way.”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

The “Dead List”: Who The Secret Government Plans to Target Next

March 1, 2016 by mac slavo

Justice Scalia is just the latest of targeted and politically motivated deaths that have taken place during the Obama Administration, and virtually everyone is raising questions about the suspicious details surrounding his death, including the lack of autopsy or official investigation into the possible causes of death.

The motive is simple: subversion of the laws and rights of this country. Obama is likely enough to get a third Supreme Court appointment, in spite of the opposition. If he doesn’t, Hillary might.

Regardless, an effort that has already been well underway is coming to a head. And there is no reasonable doubt that a larger-than-Nixon enemies list exists, and is being executed.

The United States has been taken over – and the last vestiges of freedom are being destroyed and undone. If they succeed, future generations won’t even remember this time, or the liberties and recognized rights that were once enjoyed, and fought for in blood.

With Antonin Scalia fresh in everyone’s mind and still a topic of controversy, Lisa Haven discusses the list of other such suspicious deaths during recent years – including journalists like Andrew Breitbart and Michael Hastings
– as well is who is next.

The “Dead List” Who’s On It and Who They Plan On Targeting Next

There is every reason to think that the death of LaVoy Finicum and the standoff in Oregon with the feds could be used to spark further revolt and would could become a very bloody “patriot civil war” against the system – and they may be targeting, arresting and purging fellow patriots and activists on trumped up charges in order to take out those they most concerned about.

Brandon Smith warns that such a false and provocated effort to suppress the liberty movement and target uproarious individuals may really be underway:

In my recent article “Liberty Activists And ISIS Will Soon Be Treated As Identical Threats,” I examined statements made by the Justice Department’s chief of national security, John Carlin, in an article published by Reuters. Carlin and the Justice Department have made it clear that they intend to apply rules of prosecution used for foreign terrorist organizations to “domestic extremists.” The Oregon standoff was specifically mentioned as an example of such extremism.

Meaning, Carlin is testing the waters of material support laws and such tests may target liberty movement speakers and journalists along with anyone involved in physical opposition.

[…]

Cliven Bundy was arrested after arriving by plane in Portland, Oregon, not on any charges relating to the refuge and his son Ammon, but on charges stemming from the Bundy Ranch standoff of 2014.

[…]

It has come to my attention from personal sources that there may be a lot of truth to the rumors of pending or retroactive indictments, and that the FBI in particular may be biding its time and waiting to bring charges when particular people are at their most vulnerable and when the movement is less likely to react.

Such a round-up also serves a critical dual purpose of chilling free speech and creating fear of arrest the larger population. As dissent becomes criminalized – against all the protections intended in the Bill of Rights and Constitution – many others will lose their rights or face incarceration over issues related to mental health, outstanding warrants, terrorism/extremism watch lists, and refusal to vaccinate their children.

The pages of history are filled with such phases of genocide and tyranny, and unfortunately, there are many reasons to think that America is on the path to hell via government overreach. As Brandon Smith noted:

At the very onset of what would become the Soviet Empire, Vladimir Lenin decreed the creation of a national internal army called the “Cheka.” The Cheka were handed very broad police powers and tasked with the disruption and elimination of any form of dissent within the communist system. Lenin launched what would later be known as the “Red Terror”, in which nearly every Russian population center had an established Cheka office of operations using surveillance, infiltration, nighttime raids, imprisonment, torture and execution to silence opposition to the authority of the state.

Some of these people were active rebels, some were outspoken political opponents and journalists, others were merely average citizens wrongly accused by neighbors or personal enemies. The Cheka created a society of fear and suspicion in which no one could be trusted and little criticism was spoken above a whisper anywhere, even in one’s own home.

It is important to note, however, that the dominance of the Cheka was established incrementally, not all at once.

History repeats, and we are again at the precipice.

After all, the government is well aware that many millions of Americans aren’t going to go willingly into the FEMA camps. They intend to take out key individuals well in advance, in hopes of quelling dissent and encouraging compliance.

This is a very dark time. Free speech is under threat, and the prospect of a Hillary presidency means even greater abuses may be coming.

Stay vigilant, because our lives depend upon it.

Red, Blue, Black List: How They Will Handle “People They Deem To Be Dissidents”

Obama’s No-Fly, No-Buy Violates 2nd AND 5th Amendments: List Uses “Secret Criteria” To Bar Guns

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

In Collapsing Venezuela, “Paramilitaries Roaming Neighborhoods, Shooting” At Dissenters

February 26, 2016 by mac slavo

Venezuela is in complete chaos as a result of their economic collapse.

And as a result, state-rationed food and groceries have run out, prices are hyper-inflated and millions of people are waiting in huge lines for any goods that are available. Black markets have gone boom, with neighbors making necessities available to other neighbors, but they must avoid crackdown from a jealous State that is desperate to hang onto power.

The free-fall of oil prices on the global stage has snapped the South American socialist nation into sudden and harsh disaster. Venezuela has slightly more oil than Saudi Arabia, and trades the second largest volume, after OPEC, and was even more vulnerable than Russia to the economic warfare that has taken place in the last few years.

Things are very bad now, and they were already falling apart. Nicolas Maduro took over after Hugo Chavez’ death in 2013, but without the force of Chavez’ cult of personality, he has been unable to hold an already unrealistic economy together any longer – and the people are on the verge of complete revolt.

A politically weak Maduro has apparently now taken to using an iron-fist, with reports and video claim that Maduro has been backing paramilitary death squads to take out dissenters, and these execution gangs have been more or less randomly mowing down anyone they think might be sympathetic to anti-Maduro protests. This was true in the Chavez days, but this form of repression is now much more naked.

With state control of the media in Venezuela, and an unwillingness to report on the part of the international press, it is difficult to know all the facts. Indeed these developments have gone virtually unreported, but some of it has surfaced on YouTube.

The Caracas Chronicles is one of the rare sources to report what is really happening:

What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.

[…]

Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.

People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street.

And that’s just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.

The crack down on the population of Venezuela is truly massive and very chaotic, as much of the footage shows. Indeed, a coup against Maduro may be underway, but he is not going down without a despicable attack on the people who oppose him.

Raw footage on YouTube (warning: some footage is graphic):

This video purportedly shows pro-Maduro, pro-government militia squads firing tear gas into residential apartment buildings:

Is this how things will go down in the United States in the aftermath of the planned collapse of the economy and the destruction of the American standards of living?

Though Venezuela seems world’s apart from the events in the United States, this same level of unrest can grow quickly along the lines of division that have been sharpening under President Obama’s two terms and the false “recovery” imposed by bankers intent on bringing everyone to their knees.

For now, the biggest difference is that Americans still have their guns, and the militia are still of, by and for the people.

Stay prepared, and stay vigilant!

—

Follow more of this story at The Caracas Chronicles.

Falling Oil Prices Could Cripple ‘Vulnerable’ Russia, Trigger World War III

Venezuela Enforces Fingerprint Registry to Buy Groceries: What to Do Before Rationing Starts in America

Total System Collapse In Real Time: “Due to the Shortage of Food… the Desperation Is Enormous”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

How This Man Converted “Underground Shelter Using a 20 Ft. Shipping Container”

February 24, 2016 by mac slavo

In a SHTF event, underground is exactly where many people plan to go to ride out the storm of whatever has descended upon society.

With brewing unrest and economic collapse, the elite have poured millions of dollars into luxury underground communities – many fitted to be more like five-star hotels than emergency bunkers. Even the Davos elite have expressed worry. Those with the means to do so hope to use private planes and helicopters to escape and hideaway. Continuity of Government (COG) operations have a parallel government structure in place buried in fortified mountains redoubts that can withstand all contingencies.

[Read more…]

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Sheriff Blocks Feds From Harassing Raw Milk Farmer: “Stem the Tide of Federal Overreach”

February 19, 2016 by mac slavo

While many are still reeling from the outrageous shooting of LaVoy Finicum, and the aftermath of the Oregon standoff and arrest of patriots linked to it, there are other battles against the feds taking place across the country.

Much less attention was paid to Sheriff Brad Rogers, of Elkhart County in Indiana, who just successfully concluded his own showdown with federal officials from the FDA. The scenario was quite different, but the principals involved strike a similar chord – burdensome overreach and tyranny on the part of the federal government and its swarm of agents.

As activists have seen in many other cases, the FDA has gone after raw milk farmers and raw food proponents with frightening force – carrying out SWAT raids, trumped up arrests and destruction of food – all with no valid reason, and plenty of appearance of outright harassment.

Sheriff Rogers investigated a complaint from a constituent farmer and found that he sided with his case – there was no justified cause for invasive inspections happening repeatedly since 2011 every couple of weeks.

Basically, they were just looking for a reason to shut the farmer down, and Rogers put a stop to it.

Off The Grid News reports on this inspiring development, and its implications for a winning strategy against what is going on in this country:

Federal agents subjected a farmer to harassment and warrantless searches simply for producing raw milk, but a county sheriff took the farmer’s side and blocked federal agents from the property – and the sheriff is now speaking out.

The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) took the actions four years ago simply because the farmer was providing raw milk to an organic food co-op. The story is receiving renewed coverage because the Indiana sheriff, Elkhart County’s Brad Rogers, wrote a 600-word explanation for a local newspaper as part of his “Ask The Sheriff” series. Off The Grid News previously reported on the dispute.

[…]

“Specifically, the FDA was inspecting his farm without a warrant as much as every two weeks,” Rogers wrote. “Typical inspections occur annually. The Department of Justice (DOJ) had subpoenaed him for a grand jury in Michigan in which he was to bring his production documents. The Feds wanted to make this farmer an example.

“My research,” Rogers added, “concluded that no one was getting sick from this distribution of this raw milk. It appeared to be harassment by the FDA and the DOJ, and making unconstitutional searches, in my opinion. The farmer told me that he no longer wished to cooperate with the inspections of his property.”

Reportedly, Sheriff Rogers than wrote to the Department of Justice and informed them of the actions he would take if federal inspectors did not have a signed warrant based upon probable cause over which to conduct their searches:

“I understand that you have made recent requests to (the farmer) for documents and to appear before a grand jury, and he has had a number of inspections and attempted inspections on his farm within Elkhart County. This is notice that any further attempts to inspect this farm without a warrant signed by a judge, based on probable cause, will result in federal inspectors’ removal or arrest for trespassing by my officers or I. In addition, if any further action is taken by the federal government on (the farmer), while he is in Elkhart County, I will expect that you or federal authorities contact my office prior to such action. I will expect you to forward this information to your federal associates, including the FDA.”

Shortly after the email was sent, the farmer received a certified letter from the DOJ that said his grand jury subpoena had been cancelled. No federal inspectors have visited the farm since 2011.

[…]

“Your local elected officials … can stem the tide of federal overreach if they apply just a little backbone in supporting and defending the Constitution. Expect it! Demand it!,” Rogers wrote. “Some bloggers and natural food writers have hailed me as a hero. I’m no hero. I’m just doing my job.

The public is waking up to the tyranny of countless federal agencies with little or no transparency and enough red tape to take over everything. Many law enforcement officials are waking up, too, and there are many great examples of them standing up for the Constitution and the rights of the people.

The actions taken by Sheriff Rogers are not only legal and right, but they are what the people should expect from their local (and especially elected) officials.

This same sheriff made news a few months ago when he vowed that he would ignore any gun control executive order:

Sheriffs just happen to be the most powerful and independent locally elected official, and can be a bulwark for resistance to federal encroachment.

If they can be stopped here, they can be stopped elsewhere, too, and freedom can return to the lives of Americans.

The feds cannot take over if the people educate themselves and stand up – peacefully, but with a firm defensive posture – and take no guff from a bully.

New Legislation Targets FDA Raids: “We Have Too Many Armed Federal Agencies and We Need to Put an End to This”

Outrage: Government Forces Private Citizens to Pour Bleach on Home-Grown Organic Food *Video*

Feds Preparing “Multi-Agency” Action In Oregon As Patriot Militia Says They Are “Willing To Kill And Be Killed”

Gov SWAT Teams Target “Rugged Individuals” Who Grow Their Own Food, Produce Their Own Electricity

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

This Is The Collapse: Discount Grocery Store Serving Poor Cleaned Out: “Bargain-Hungry Shoppers Emptied the Shelves”

February 19, 2016 by contributing author

This article was written by Michaela Whitton and originally published at The Anti-Media.org.

Editor’s Comment: This story isn’t quite what you might think at first if you just scanned over it, but it still demonstrates an alarming trend: namely, just how desperate so many have become.

Basically, it amounts to riot-prone and often struggling people fighting over bargain-basement junk food after it was put on sale. But what does this level of reaction say about society and the level of economic crisis the world has reached? Basically, that almost anything can make things come unhinged.

If people are reacting this strongly over undercutting food prices, it suggests how much food insecurity exists, and how difficult it has become for most to pay the bills. Food banks have been overwhelmed nearly everywhere. In fact, this grocery chain found the problem to be big enough to create this cheap food marketing niche – which will now need to rethink its business strategy. What happens when the food isn’t just cheap, but unavailable? Multiplied against the whole environment of economic stress, there is every reason to think things are practically just falling apart.

Grocery Store Forced to Review Trading Rules After Shelves Go Empty

by Michaela Whitton

London’s new EasyFoodstore has been forced to review its trading rules after it had to close temporarily when bargain-hungry shoppers emptied the shelves. The mega-discount food store is the latest venture of EasyJet entrepreneur, Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

The millionaire businessman was inspired by the idea after seeing the widespread use of food banks in Britain. “This is another way the Easy brand can serve the less well-off,” the budget airline owner said.

Easy on the wallet

With a weekly shop for a family of four costing just £15.75, it’s no surprise the store rapidly became a victim of its own success. After a promotional offer charging just 25p for everyday food items generated so much publicity, hundreds of bargain-hunters cleared the shelves and the store had no choice but to close until it was able to re-stock.

The recently opened food shop in Park Royal, north-west London, carries a basic range of 76 cheap and cheerful items including pizza, tea, coffee and tinned goods. It has been quickly forced to bring in a 10 item purchasing limit to deter its competition from stockpiling products.

In her brilliant opinion piece for the Guardian, Joanna Blythman says the EasyFoodstore is in a different league from the “no frills” food shopping that she claims is now such a familiar feature of the British retail scene. She adds that poverty is a money problem, not a food problem, and won’t be cured by artificially “cheap,” nutritionally impoverished, lowest-common-denominator food.

“Surely no society on earth can ultimately afford food this cheap? If we factor in the hidden costs to society, from grave public health issues to climate change, it most certainly doesn’t constitute a bargain,” she said.

The predictions are that EasyFoodstore products are to rise from 25p to 50p after February. However, with Foodbank use in austerity Britain at record levels, is it any wonder that rationing is required?

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Rich Tech Guy Wants ‘Riff Raff’ Off the Streets: “I Shouldn’t Have to See Despair of Homeless”

February 19, 2016 by mac slavo

It has long been a debate as to whether social reformers should fight to end poverty, or simply rid the world of poor people.

Many elitists have dreamed of depopulating the hopeless and destitute, or found realistic ways of sending them to forgotten places. But most of these kinds of people stopped publicly saying such things many decades ago.

But with an ever-widening wealth gap, and many failed policies, the homeless and the poor are growing in size and represent the tip of the iceberg for tens of millions of people who are beyond struggling in this country.

Now, a software entrepreneur in San Francisco has made waves across the Internet after writing an open letter calling on the mayor and police chief to effectively sweep the homeless populations and “riff raff” off the streets. As CBS San Francisco:

A San Francisco tech entrepreneur’s lament over homeless and drug-addicted “riff raff” plaguing his adopted city has earned him some international notoriety as a tone-deaf tech bro.

Justin Keller, described on his LinkedIn profile as the founder of server software firm Command.io, published what he called an open letter to Mayor Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr. In it, Keller described how encounters with homeless people ruined his recent get-togethers with his parents and girlfriend.

[Keller wrote]

The city needs to tackle this problem head on, it can no longer ignore it and let people do whatever they want in the city. I don’t have a magic solution… It is a very difficult and complex situation, but somehow during Super Bowl, almost all of the homeless and riff raff seem to up and vanish. I’m willing to bet that was not a coincidence. Money and political pressure can make change. So it is time to start making progress, or we as citizens will make a change in leadership and elect new officials who can.

I know people are frustrated about gentrification happening in the city, but the reality is, we live in a free market society. The wealthy working people have earned their right to live in the city. They went out, got an education, work hard, and earned it. I shouldn’t have to worry about being accosted. I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.

San Francisco’s burgeoning tech industry has been blamed for skyrocketing rents and exacerbating an already intractable homeless problem.

Indeed, it is this Bay Area tech bubble that has increased home and rental prices so much, that some have gone so far as to rent out a tent on AirBNB for an outrageous $1,000/month in a guy’s backyard that offers bathroom access and a good commute route to work.

Tech entrepreneur Justin Keller became the latest social media target for blowback, after expressing the sensitivity of the “Affluenza” teen – a rich kids whose lawyers used his disaffected feelings for the struggles of ordinary people as a defense in the drunk driving killing of four, for which he showed no remorse.

.@johnny5sf “The wealthy working people have earned their right to live in the city.” And poorer people haven’t?

— Larry-bob (@larrybobsf) February 17, 2016

@johnny5sf what are you doing to help end SF’s homelessness “problem” then? Are you donating/volunteering? Ever heard of @DISHinSF? — Noel Duarte (@NoelDuarte19) February 19, 2016

@johnny5sf hey how about you volunteer in a homeless shelter instead of whining on the internet. #SanFrancisco #douchebag

— noakez (@noakez) February 19, 2016

Moreover, Keller has become another sign of the times – of the great divide that is splitting America economically down the middle, and casting aside the have-nots systematically, and without regard.

As his letter mentioned, this is exactly what happened in the area during Super Bowl 50, which had game day on February 7. The Guardian reports:

“They chase us out like cattle,” the 62-year-old Stagg said, as his hangouts disappeared under metal bandstands and banners heralding Super Bowl 50. “We’re not allowed to be here when the rich people come around? I don’t believe in that.”

Angering Stagg were comments made last summer by San Francisco’s mayor, Ed Lee, when asked what he planned to do about the highly visible homeless problem come the Super Bowl.

“They are going to have to leave,” Lee said of those sleeping along the city’s Embarcadero. […] “It’s just a further example of the inequity in the city,” said supervisor Jane Kim.

It is hardly a problem of just San Francisco, or the West Coast. Gov. Andrew Cuomo came under fire in New York for ordering the homeless to be forced into shelters and picked up off the streets during freezing weather.

One gets the sense that this is just the beginning. The strong arm tactics being used to remove homeless people from the streets to clear out the blight are just the visible part of a subtle movement to “deal with” less fortunate people… mostly getting them out of the way, out of sight, and minimizing the presence of their struggle.

The rich are not only concentrating their wealth, but the rest of the country is getting shafted in the process, as a predatory brand of finance destroys opportunity, ships jobs offshore and uses currency as a weapon to undermine the many. Will the media take up their struggle, or will they do what they always have done – and read the teleprompter script as the focus shifts to other distractions, and great stagnation and malaise takes over the land.

Nowhere to Go: 85% of College Graduates Will Return Home Jobless

“Affluenza” Teen — Who Got Away After Killing 4 with the “Rich, Spoiled Brat Defense” — Dodges Probation

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

As Banks Seek Monopoly Over Economy, “Cash Is Being Gradually Taken Away”

February 18, 2016 by mac slavo

There is a war on for the extermination of cash.

It is the ultimate monopoly game, but there are those who are willing to put up a fight to keep cash in the game.

The powers that be on Wall Street and in the central banks are aiming to eliminate paper money in large part to continue “sustaining and even intensifying the central banks’ nightmarish experiment with negative interest rates” – a doubly dangerous effort for economic

And banks stand to have all the control as digital transactions flow through their institutions, closely monitored and accumulating fees, penalties and charges that enrich the banks and hold customers hostage.

As Europe moves to take the 500 Euro note out of circulation, former Treasury Secretary and enabler of past crises, has called for an end to the Benjamins – the celebrated $100 note of outlaws, gangsters and all those who would oppose the new world economic order.

As Wolf Street notes:

Those motives include sustaining and even intensifying the central banks’ nightmarish experiment with negative interest rates, increasing public dependence on big banks, destroying the last vestiges of personal financial freedom and anonymity, expanding government surveillance of and control over the economy, and in the case of credit card companies and fintech firms, doing away with their biggest competitor, physical currency.

The powers that want to kill off cash already have vital technological and generational trends firmly on their side, as a result of which cash’s days as a commonly used payment method may well be numbered anyway. They also have the added bonus of widespread public ignorance, apathy, and disinterest.

[…]

“It would be fatal if citizens got the impression that cash is gradually taken away from them”: Bundesbank President Weidman.

As Don Quijones argues – the countries that have been quickest to adopt cashless societies in Scandanavia tend to be very well adjusted and relatively trusting of their governments.

By contrast, Americans, developing countries, and even Germany and Japan have less trust in their government, and will likely put up a fight against attempt to disarm cash:

All too often we hear about the countries in Europe and elsewhere that are furthest along the path toward a completely cashless existence — countries with high levels of public trust in public institutions such as Denmark, Sweden, Australia and Singapore. By contrast, we hardly ever hear about countries where public trust is low in government and financial institutions and physical cash is still revered. They include many of the nations of the Global South as well as two of the world’s biggest, most advanced economies, Germany and Japan.

[…]

“Cash allows us to remain anonymous during day-to-day transactions. In a constitutional democracy, that is a freedom that has to be defended,” tweeted the Green MP Konstantin von Notz. Even the head of the Bunderbank, Jens Weidmann, criticized the government’s proposals, telling Bild (emphasis added): “It would be fatal if citizens got the impression that cash is being gradually taken away from them.”

The right to a free exchange medium has been understated in Constitutional debates, as well as outlook to the global future, though gold and silver is mentioned in Article I Section 10.

But the going rate towards the use of credit/debit, phone apps and other digital payments strips away the fundamental free exchange of currency that historically come with physical currency.

Instead, it grants something pretty close to a monopoly for the handful of banks and online entities like PayPal who will operate the systems, decide the fees and surcharges, and freeze accounts for behaviors that could include things like trying to sell a firearm on a platform that has a policy against it.

Cash transactions (as well as those made with gold and silver or historically utilized mediums) are practically anonymous, rather than scrutinized and available as evidence to creditors, competitors, prosecutors or those with an agenda.

It will also make it harder for small businesses, who stand to be forced out of cash-only operations and onto the reservation of digital payments, where they will have to comply and qualify for status.

If cash dies, they will control authorization, they will hold nearly all the power.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

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