Oz war on cash begins

It amazes me how many billions of dollars seem to get spent on nothing. And yet if they were put to use "Actual" use, we could be living in a utopia. With state of the art hospitals, roads, water, electricity, housing, everything really.
 
The willrocks post #10 articles link http://www.afr.com/news/politics/tax-on-bank-deposits-in-federal-budget-20150328-1m98oi says this:
"The money would be put in a Financial Stability Fund and be used to protect depositors against the highly unlikely event of a bank collapse."

Notice the difference of this with that so-called 'infinite printing', 'quantitative easing'?
If central bank would just create money as needed, then why would they need saving peoples bank deposit - money?
It just illustrates (and again) that the prime goal of the central planning is to replace existing, rather than add new money. For the obvious reason: inflation (general price risings) control.

The question now is: will they really raise a tax on savings (not the interest rate based so-called 'profit' but the actual savings themselves)?
Usually, such measures serve as a motivation for savers to withdraw their money (as cash), the very same reason why central planning is very reluctant to push intrest rate below zero.
So, I highly doubt that this tax would come into effect.
I rather see this as a (yet another) scare mongering to make those savers waste their purchasing power along temporary driven up prices of alternate storages of value.
Because that suits the situation today: record high stock market and other quotes.
If I had been a central planning parasite, that's what I would do, and considering all the lessons they got teached in history (remember their 197x response to speculation and the double digit inflation consequence as a hard nut to crack). The modern banking system / planning is much smarter than then. Forget about relentless money printing. All they did so far is setting up a fake version of what they did in the past, as to trigger wrong speculative decisions. I often see central banks and their "bosses" referred to along a dozen synonims for dumb, but just look at all the data they gather on a daily basis, and all their techniques to measure and react. They aren't what they are called. Far from. They do not like cash, fact, but not at a cost of inflation control (and currency undermining, which would really be a threat to their system based on the currency). It's not a war on cash, it's a war on speculation, and it begun not today, but when they started to exist.
 
Pirocco said:
The willrocks post #10 articles link http://www.afr.com/news/politics/tax-on-bank-deposits-in-federal-budget-20150328-1m98oi says this:
"The money would be put in a Financial Stability Fund and be used to protect depositors against the highly unlikely event of a bank collapse."

Notice the difference of this with that so-called 'infinite printing', 'quantitative easing'?
If central bank would just create money as needed, then why would they need saving peoples bank deposit - money?
It just illustrates (and again) that the prime goal of the central planning is to replace existing, rather than add new money. For the obvious reason: inflation (general price risings) control.
Click to expand...
Notice that the article also states that "In the meantime, the fund would also be used to offset gross debt."

There's some serious bullshittery going on with this tax.

Ultimately it is about making cash more expensive and less desirable, and encouraging consumers to spend rather than save, or to "invest" in risky alternatives.
 
Strong fiscal policy means trying to lure new suckers into the ponzi, or to get people to piss away their savings on useless trinkets.

If you don't think this is going to effect you, just think how much cash is sitting in the balance sheet of superfunds that MUST maintain this allocation.
 
Hockey could introduce banking sector reform. But that would address underlying issues. It's easier to tax savers.
 
Note that the risk is with the potential for loans to go bad. So any levy should be added to loans.

You can see where this is headed: reward risk, encourage speculation, punish prudence.
 
It seems the financial sector, in particular the banks have forgotten the underlying sound money principals that built up there businesses.
They are turning in on their customers (like taking the last dip of the barrel).

Should the loans go bad, the govt. guarantee really means print to maintain the numerical value of the accounts up to the guarantee amount.

It is not the money that should be guaranteed but the capital value.
 
^^^
+1
The deposit guarantee is just a holographic safety net. They can never achieve their stated objective... there's just not enough cash there to back up all the banks going to pot at once.
 
Yes - fractional reserve banking relies on the shell game illusion that your money is actually there. Confidence is absolutely vital for the game to continue as it has now for a number of generations till one day .......
 
World wide propaganda and fear being used. This is definitely a plan.

How to end boom and bust: make cash illegal
Comment: Forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank would give the authorities far better tools to deal with recessions and economic booms, writes Jim Leaviss

A proposed new law in Denmark could be the first step towards an economic revolution that sees physical currencies and normal bank accounts abolished and gives governments futuristic new tools to fight the cycle of "boom and bust".

The Danish proposal sounds innocuous enough on the surface it would simply allow shops to refuse payments in cash and insist that customers use contactless debit cards or some other means of electronic payment.

Officially, the aim is to ease "administrative and financial burdens", such as the cost of hiring a security service to send cash to the bank, and is part of a programme of reforms aimed at boosting growth there is evidence that high cash usage in an economy acts as a drag.
But the move could be a key moment in the advent of "cashless societies". And once all money exists only in bank accounts monitored, or even directly controlled by the government the authorities will be able to encourage us to spend more when the economy slows, or spend less when it is overheating.
This may all sound far-fetched, but the idea has been developed in some detail by a Norwegian academic, Trond Andresen*.
In this futuristic world, all payments are made by contactless card, mobile phone apps or other electronic means, while notes and coins are abolished. Your current account will no longer be held with a bank, but with the government or the central bank. Banks still exist, and still lend money, but they get their funds from the central bank, not from depositors.

Having everyone's account at a single, central institution allows the authorities to either encourage or discourage people to spend. To boost spending, the bank imposes a negative interest rate on the money in everyone's account in effect, a tax on saving.
Faced with seeing their money slowly confiscated, people are more likely to spend it on goods and services. When this change in behaviour takes place across the country, the economy gets a significant fillip.

The recipient of cash responds in the same way, and also spends. Money circulates more quickly or, as economists say, the "velocity of money" increases.
What about the opposite situation when the economy is overheating? The central bank or government will certainly drop any negative interest on credit balances, but it could go further and impose a tax on transactions.

So whenever you use the money in your account to buy something, you pay a small penalty. That makes people less inclined to spend and more inclined to save, so reducing economic activity.

Such an approach would be a far more effective way to damp an overheated economy than today's blunt tool of a rise in the central bank's official interest rate.
If this sounds rather fanciful, negative interest rates already exist in Denmark, where the central bank charges depositors 0.75pc a year, and in Switzerland.
At the moment it's easy for individuals to avoid seeing their money eroded this way they can simply hold banknotes, stored either in a safe or under the proverbial mattress.

But if notes and coins were abolished and the only way to hold money was through a government-controlled bank, there would be no escape.

Apart from the control over the economy, there would be many other advantages of a cashless society. Such a system is much cheaper to run than one based on banknotes and coins. Forgery is impossible, as are robberies.

Electronic money is an inclusive and convenient system, giving poor and rural sectors of an economy where cash machines and bank branches may be few and far between and not all people have accounts a tool for easy participation in the economy.

Finally, the "black economy" will be hugely diminished, and tax evasion made all but impossible.

Jim Leaviss is head of retail fixed interest at M&G Investments.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/comment/11602399/Ban-cash-end-boom-and-bust.html
Click to expand...

I remember seeing a few years ago in the UK, the tax office saying that all payroll should go through them, that they would then remove the appropriate amount of tax and place the balance in your account.

It's a plan.
 
Thanks for the post Julie, but...

Would the escape plan be barter? We could use genuine purchases to build up a non money asset base. Say bullion, if not confiscated, bottles of Johny Walker, Norman Lindsay etchings, numismatics, sexual favours, it would become an alternative cashless society.
 
If that happened Julie, it would make some nations very wealthy. There'll always be a half dozen countries that refuse to comply - if they can avoid war they'll see untold riches upon their shores.
 
Does this mean they will pay me money for any debt such as a home loan. I expect that if I go into enough debt I would have enough to live on.
 
This tax will buy 3 f-35's a year (maybe)...or a most of, but not all of a collins replacement submarine. Not saying we shouldn't have these things but I think spending on that level should be the subject of more public debate given how much is being spent and how much consternation the taxes required to fund them are causing.

I would have much preferred a 1-2.5% increase in GST to this. Consumption is about as fair a measure for ability to pay tax as anything as long as it doesn't include certain necessities (certainly gst on some items now that should be exempt).
 
Was at the Reject Shop this morning getting some crap for $2 and the person in front of me couldn't buy a couple of things because the register didn't have change for $20. WTF. When it came to my turn, fortunately I had a $2 coin.
 
Looks like a cashless society is the key.
exchange bullion for goods and services. Maybe s/s needs to enlarge the goods for barter thread no need for fiat then
 
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