• 805 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 805 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 807 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 1,207 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 1,212 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 1,214 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 1,217 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 1,217 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 1,218 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 1,220 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 1,220 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 1,224 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 1,224 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 1,225 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 1,227 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 1,228 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 1,231 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 1,232 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 1,232 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 1,234 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

More freeports open around the…

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

An economic slowdown in many…

Is The Bull Market On Its Last Legs?

Is The Bull Market On Its Last Legs?

This aging bull market may…

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Europe Eyes Sweeping Cash Ban: Are Gold & Silver Next?

The global war on cash continues. The cabal of bankers seeking more transaction fees, busybody political leaders, and central bankers who want to experiment with negative interest rates recently threw India into turmoil by eliminating the two largest denomination bank notes.

Now they are preparing a similar assault on Europeans’ ability to transact privately and without giving bankers a cut. European Union officials just published a "Proposal for an EU Initiative on Restriction on Payments in Cash."

Predictably, the restrictions are being sold to citizens as a means of fighting terrorism - much like a host of other privacy and liberty-destroying power grabs in recent decades. This despite a telling admission contained in the proposal: "There remains the lack of readily available and solid evidence on legitimate versus illegitimate cash transactions." Ban the use of cash first, ask questions later.

Officials may, however, come to regret the timing of their proposal. Many European citizens will have trouble reconciling why leaders are willing to clamp down severely on cash, but not on the flood of refugees pouring in from the Middle East. Can they really be serious about terrorism?

Anti-EU movements are surging across the continent, with important elections coming this year in both France and Germany. Anger and frustration is already threatening to tear the EU apart. Now EU officials are floating another measure that promises to be controversial.

In Germany, 79% of transactions are done in cash. Many there aren’t going to take restrictions lying down. Some see the war on cash for what it is - bureaucrats using the lever of fear to once again ratchet up controls and restrict privacy.

The EU bureaucrats may just see the day when citizens stop using paper euros to make payments, but not because of the restrictions they hope to impose. It could instead be the result of the EU and its common currency being dumped.

A European setback for the bankers and politicians behind the move to de-monetize cash would be good news for bullion investors everywhere, including the U.S. Attempts to regulate the trade of physical gold and silver will not be far behind any restrictions on cash. Precious metals are an obvious target because they are a premier form of private, off-the-grid, and portable wealth.

With these draconian proposals gaining momentum across the globe, you can bet we will continue to follow the war on cash carefully.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment