Tens of thousands protest against India cash ban

“India is still reeling from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shock decision nearly three weeks ago to pull 86 percent of the currency from circulation overnight, triggering a chronic shortage of cash.  Many have been left without enough cash to buy food or daily essentials, while farmers have been unable to buy seeds and small traders say business has fallen off a cliff.  Nonetheless Modi has repeatedly defended the scheme, accusing its detractors of being tax evaders and urging all Indians to switch to non-cash payment methods.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/tens-thousands-protest-india-cash-ban-161128140259051.html

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India Bank Adviser Proposes Regular, ‘Surprise’ Cash Bans

To combat Indian savers’ attachment to cash and distrust of banks, Soumya Kanti Ghosh, the group chief economic adviser of the State Bank of India (SBI), the largest bank in the country, proposed that the government should ‘surprise’ Indians with cash bans on an ongoing basis, so as to discourage people from holding cash.

The effect of the present Indian demonetization effort has been chaos, with at least 47 Indians reported dead in the aftermath due to queueing at banks and other factors.

Earlier this year, Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff had demanded a ban on US $20 and higher denomination bills, while insider Larry Summers had recommended banning the $100 bill.

If these academics have their way, government-backed paper money will further approach its intrinsic value – zero.  They hope that this will drive cash-based savings into bank deposits, which generate fee revenue and a source of leverage for the banks while at the same time supplying governments with taxes and police oversight of citizens’ financial lives.  However, governments attempting to eliminate cash usage risk destroying trust in the ‘coin of the realm’, leading to cash-based savings being moved into assets such as real estate, precious metals, and cryptocurrencies instead of bank deposits.

But the ubiquity of cash clearly persists, even in the US:

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India’s Cash Ban Leaves At Least 47 Dead, So Far

“Eight days into demonetisation, the death toll has reached 47. These are confirmed deaths reported in the national media. The number of unreported deaths may be higher. While most deaths are of the elderly waiting in long bank queues, there are quite a few suicides, especially of housewives.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/11/16/day-8-demonetisation-death-toll-rises-to-47/

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DEA regularly mines Americans’ travel records to seize millions in cash

“DEA agents have profiled passengers on Amtrak trains and nearly every major U.S. airline, drawing on reports from a network of travel-industry informants that extends from ticket counters to back offices, a USA TODAY investigation has found. Agents assigned to airports and train stations singled out passengers for questioning or searches for reasons as seemingly benign as traveling one-way to California or having paid for a ticket in cash.  It is a lucrative endeavor, and one that remains largely unknown outside the drug agency. DEA units assigned to patrol 15 of the nation’s busiest airports seized more than $209 million in cash from at least 5,200 people over the past decade.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/08/10/dea-travel-record-airport-seizures/88474282/

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After Three Years, IRS Returns $68,000 Seized From Family Bakery

“The family’s nightmare started in May 2013, when eight armed IRS agents descended on the bakery and began asking questions about a series of under-$10,000 cash deposits (the bakery was a cash-only business). The agents informed the Vocaturas they had seized the bakery’s entire bank account.  When IJ met the Vocaturas, they had almost given up hope. Federal prosecutors and the IRS had been hounding the family for years, first seizing over $68,000 and then threatening the Vocaturas with additional forfeitures and time in prison—all because of how they deposited money in the bank.”

http://ij.org/ll/august-2016-volume-25-issue-4/ij-bakes-fresh-forfeiture-victory-connecticut/

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Ban $100 bills to tackle crime: Ex-bank chief

“He argued that high-denomination notes in high-value currencies were little used other than for crime, with people in most parts of the world favoring cash for small payments and electronic alternatives like credit cards or Paypal for bigger ones. As such, Sands called for the elimination of the 500 euro note, £50 bill and 1,000 Swiss franc bill and the $100 note.  Depending on the country, tax evasion robs the public sector of anywhere between 6 percent and 70 percent of what authorities reckon they should collect, Sands added. He said that global financial crime flows amounted to $2 trillion per year, with corruption accounting for another $1 trillion.”

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/08/ban-100-bills-to-tackle-crime-ex-bank-chief.html

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No Negative Rates Without Banning Cash, Says Former Fed Official

“I think it’s going to be hard to push the Fed Funds rate below negative 1. That’s going to be difficult. People can basically take out cash and put it in a vault and they get a zero return on it.  This is supporting the ban on cash rhetoric. This is a huge social debate that we should start having. One way of doing it is to ban cash. Banning cash is a social and political debate, which is going to happen increasingly. As long as we have cash, we can’t have rates of much below negative 1 percent.”

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1974891-cash-ban-would-boost-effect-of-negative-rates/

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Don’t become a casualty of the War on Cash

“The 21st century has seen the emergence of a war unlike any other. On one side of the battlefield are governments, banks, credit card companies, central banks and other financial institutions. On the other side . . . cash and anybody who uses it.  While proponents of a cashless society would have you believe that terrorists, drug lords and criminals are the only people who would ever use cash, there are more people than you would imagine on what seems to be the losing side of the war.”

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2016/04/27/the-war-on-cash/

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France Doubles Down On Cash Ban: No Transactions Over 1,000 Euros

On September 1st France announced new regulations that ban cash transactions of  1,000 euros. This comes as a surprise since France originally set the threshold at 3,000 euros.  A second measure, which comes into force on 1 st  January 2016 For individuals who perform foreign exchange transactions of their currency against euros. From next year, they will have to provide an ID from 1000 euros. Also as part of the fight against money laundering, banking institutions will, as from 1 st  January 2016, report to Tracfin anyone carrying deposits or withdrawals of cash superiors to 10 000 per month.”

http://thomasdishaw.com/france-doubles-down-on-cash-ban-no-transactions-over-1000-euros/

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Norway’s Biggest Bank Demands Cash Ban

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“Norway – suffering from its own economic collapse as oil revenues crash – has joined its Scandi peers Denmark and Sweden in a call to ‘ban cash.’  Privacy advocates in Norway have expressed worries for years that, without cash, there would be no way for an individual to purchase something without being tracked. In 2014, Finans Norge, a financial industry organization in Norway, said the country was on pace to be a cashless society by 2020, Ice News reported. While DNB said its proposal will take time to complete, executives suggested the country start phasing out cash by discontinuing the 1,000 kroner note so it could focus on updating its banking system.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-23/norways-biggest-bank-demands-cash-ban

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