The writing for this has been on the wall for a while, but as is typical they set the rules for use against 'bad' people.......then predictably expanded the definition of bad.
I wrote this last March and it keeps being true :(
Think back over the last, say, 20 years. Did you protest against the Iraq war? How about protesting at Occupy Wall Street? Were you a member of the Tea Party? A member of #TheResistance? Did you disagree with the government’s covid response? It’s nearly certain that everybody with a political pulse has crossed the government at one time or another. How comfortable are you with the idea that the person you’re protesting against can shut off your bank account?
Because now, it seems, those perfectly legal actions at least have the potential to come with harsh monetary consequences, as well as the ensuing chaos caused by financial ruin. And this is happening all without a single shred of oversight or due process. It’s just some asshole in an expensive suit giving a list of ‘subversives’ to another asshole in an expensive suit. The no-fly list but with the very real potential to ruin your life.
AI using lists of proscribed terms, probably. After all, they are already being used for that by journalists compiling hit-lists of GBAs for people publicly opposing The Narrative.
I've been joking with my friends for decades that the interference we sometimes hear on the phone (landline phones though these days mine's a faux one) is them guys listening. We always tell 'em they ain't gonna get nothing juicy but if they want to waste their time...
Raheem Kassam who publishes The National Pulse used to work with Farage. I 1st heard of him on Steve Bannon's Warroom when Kassam was a co-host. Farage was a frequent guest.
Debanking seems to be something expected to be done to many who speak contrary to the official narratives. As a push back alternative economies need to be built.
Bitcoin? How does that help with my customers paying me? Or paying the mortgage? Not only that but bitcoin is a gamble. I can't afford to gamble with essentials at risk... and how about supermarket deliveries? I haven't noticed them giving bitcoin as an option either. Okay, so I pay with a credit card but then can't pay that... that's about as useful a suggestion as a box of cowrie shells!
Try paying in Tesco with gold. You’ll find cash is a better option.
Maybe for people with large savings that don’t need to be liquid then gold could be an option, but that’s not going to apply to the vast majority of people.
My grandparents went through the worst inflation in history of mankind. Believe me when cash is worthless everyone will start to accept gold immediately. (also sugar, flour, medicine, art were suddenly very easily tradeable)
Hmm, we don’t live in your grandparents’ time though. My grandfathers fought in WW1, my father in WW2. Just because they didn’t mean that I had to or my children will.
There are some people out there doing everything in bitcoin now. Just while you were posting this yesterday, a bitcoiner in Canada had a livestream where he went through the steps he would take if he didn't have access to a bank account - how he would pay his mortgage, etc. It's interesting.
I don't know how that would work once there is the seemingly inevitable move to ID for internet access, but the bitcoin developers are motivated and creative. We'll see.
I think if us commoners use silver & gold as a base for a barter system, it would require no internet connection which could be taken from you (ergo no access to bitcoin.) The creativity of that primitive banking system would blossom by necessity. We could show the 1%ers how it’s done.
I've been thinking about the need for an alternative system and recently saw a video that looked like it had been recorded in the 90s... I don't think I can share it so he goes.
He said to set up a community trust structure and appoint everyone as a managing director of a trust. You set up a trust account for everyone, you pool your money and buy gold and silver with it, invest it and pay dividends back to everyone in the trust community. You create your own economic system. You can do it with your neighbors, your family, your church. I don't know if it would work, but it might be worth a try. Anything is better than just sitting back, waiting for the ax to fall.
Condominium Corporations are similar. All members of the community pay a monthly fee and elect a Board of Directors. The Board employs a management firm to audit financial statements and send out letters on their behalf. Each member owns their home but common elements are co-owned. This concept could be expanded to include investments. The problem is keeping the Board honest. Corruption can set in if they are co-hoots with the management firm or do not have one. But the concept is quite common now. Financial statements are sent out on a quarterly basis.
I think part of what the original video hoped to avoid was the corruption; I was under the impression that's why you make all members a managing director. But then I worried, how do you get anything done if everyone is a member? Wouldn't you need a certain percentage of people present in person or by proxy for every meeting in order for business to take place?
I was involved in an effort to take down an HOA so I know how easy it is for corruption to begin and how nearly impossible it is to irradicate it.
more and more folks are using bitcoin, and my guess is that the more the major institutions of the state tighten their control, the more people will turn to bitcoin, which improves its network effect. Definitely way more useful than cowrie shells :)
Bitcoin only works with others who use it. As long as the value fluctuates the way that it does then it's only going to be used by people with spare money to do business with others who are in the same situation. There isn't a hope in hell that it will become ubiquitous.
There is more interest in Bitcoin than ever before. Same for gold and precious metals. Saifedean Ammous is here interviewed and he has a website. I do not know how good he is on this stuff but here are the relevant sites -
We'll see. 10 years ago there wasn't a hope in hell that it would survive, and 14 years ago there wasn't a hope in hell that it would ever trade for over $1 US.
One of its main use cases is for folks who don't have access to bank accounts in the global south, so it's definitely circulating among ppl without much spare money.
As for value fluctuating: it's decentralized. How would you go about fixing the price of a free-market commodity?
"As for value fluctuating: it's decentralized. How would you go about fixing the price of a free-market commodity?"
You can't and that's the whole point. Bitcoin isn't reliable enough to be used widely. If you're on limited income and at the beginning of the month you can just scrape by but by the end of it your "money" is worth 10% less... then what?
Yes, you're right about not being able to fix the price.
Over the longer term, bitcoin is very likely to continue being volatile in the upward direction, but in the short term it fluctuates. That doesn't make it unreliable (it's probably one of the most reliable assets out there) but you have to take the volatility into account for short-term use.
Unfortunately short-term loss is happening with pounds and dollars as well - it's virtually guaranteed - so you're looking at almost certain loss of purchasing power anyway.
Barter is tangible. Bitcoin is little pieces of data, that float in and out of hardware like snow😜
The best kind of barter- practical skills.
Want to exist completely free in the coming new world, get some skills or be critical to your local community functioning. Or have access to practical industries. Grow food, or work on a farm, or set up a food waste enterprise.
Likewise with other needs.
Mortgages, well its a long way until they can declare cash non tender (they know they have a fight, and they dont want the rest to wake up, hence the stealthy, sneaky actions of innocuous letters), so get the cash and mail it to your branch manager directly. Have a ledger, keep track of how many payments. Laws currently support that if you have kept faith (payments) then they can't prove default mortgage.
Most importantly, invest in your community. The locals you see everyday, will be the people that come to you for help/barter and who you go to. So smile, get to know them, care now. BTJAMO.😉😊
Lesseee... combining BitCoin and barter. Taking the first-and-last syllables gives us "Bit-ter", nice enough doon the pub, but maybe not a selling name.
Okay, let's take last-and-first then? Cointer. Sounds like a rat-hunting dog of many fathers.
Hm, tricky this. Barterbit sounds like Bartleby, which might fit. BarterCoin maybe?
Yeah, might work. Coin leads the thought to real money and barter emphasises that it is on the individual level where real economy is made.
Bitcoin is no defense. When cyberCOVID closed the internet and you need your vaccine ID to log back on. Gold and silver is the only safe alternative. Sell and buy land before they come for your gold. (Around $10000/oz)
Land can be confiscated because there is a deed which goes with it. It is like a bank account - it can be take away in the case of outliers. Jews were not allowed to own land in Western countries for centuries. That is why they were forced into money lending - hence the Dickensian Fagin in "Oliver Twist". Ickey Soloman is said to have been the real Fagin on which the character is based - https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/banking-and-finance-laws-and-regulations/canada
I agree they may come for the land but it will buy you time. They will come for the Gold first. Buying land or forest will give you time to plan your next move. Emigrate or fortify!
Short term loss only in terms of inflation given that 99% of people have no risk on international exchange rates, but inflation will also apply to bitcoin. The real problem is that it's still a gamble and not one that most people will be prepared to take. It's years away from being anything like mainstream.
A friend of mine has made an absolute fortune out of it. He tried to convince me to go with him to a meeting about 5 years ago... but he was already pretty wealthy, but I'm not. There's a very simple rule in life: never gamble with money that you can't afford to lose.
I don't wish that I'd gone along with him and shared in his huge success because I didn't have a penny that I could play with. He put about £50,000 into it and has a Bentley convertible, big Tesla and a Ferrari out of it.
Money went to money, it's the way it's been since it was invented.
I don't disagree about risking money that you need for living, but inflation is unique to fiat currency. It's crippling to folks of modest means and I doubt we've seen the end of it.
No inflation in bitcoin. It's also possible to buy very small amounts at a time just FYI.
I don't have much $ to play with, and I don't think of bitcoin as a financial investment, more as a vote for the future I want to see. So much of the mess of our world is due to a very small group of people having control over our money supply and distribution. There's not an area of govt policy not touched by the disaster that is fiat currency.
Yes, who pays the piper dictates his tune. Much of the fiasco is that some of this "money printing" is probably being done without Parliamentary / Congressional consent. The Bank of Canada is owned by the Canadian Govt. but the American Federal Reserve was privatized in 1913 during Christmas Break when few were in the House. There are supposedly strict Regulations regarding banks in Canada, but I do not know if the same can be said elsewhere - https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/banking-and-finance-laws-and-regulations/canada
Our Victorian grandmothers were correct - store the gold and family jewels in the underground cellar !
I may be overly optimistic, but I think this is a blessing in disguise. Just when CBDC is being touted as "convenient" along comes a few blackouts and lots of talk of "freezing out" outliers. There are alternatives to bank transactions.
There is some irony here: Farage was a good boy in 2021 and enthusiastically endorsed Blair's call for vaxx passports and a two-tier Britain - 'two kinds of people' in Blair's words.
'Someone you don't like can still have a good idea', said Farage. I recall my jaw dropping as I watched. Could this be Farage, champion of Britishness?
After push-back from supporters, he made a second video supporting Blair's wonderful idea.
This man can't suffer enough - he would himself have supported cancelling the basic rights of the un-vaxxed.
You are not alone: I've been amazed how it sank into a memory-hole.
I was watching Farage's videos on YT at the time, the ones when he was visiting various places affected by the boat people.
Then he made the two bizarre pro-vaxx videos, and I thought: 'He's been instructed to say this, this is the Establishment pulling together. Farage backing Blair! Twice!'
Clearly it was thought they he could help bring in hundreds of thousands of hold-outs for vaxxing, trusting in good old Nigel to be an honest broker.
Maybe they will still be up on YT? Many commenters said they would be unsubscribing and that their eyes had been opened.
The important point is that Blair was openly advocating not just the vaxxes, but a two-tier society with discrimination and penalties.
Farage has been notoriously in favour of the vaccines and has been guilty of virtue signalling on many occasions.
I watched him "interviewing" David Davis, talking about how clever they were to be vaccinated and how great Britain was to be ahead of the EU... that was the point of it really, two Eurosceptics chatting away while totally talking out of their backsides.
I wrote to Davis on several occasions, giving him a lot of info that he was clearly oblivious to... not that I got a reply. Same with my own useless MP.
I'm not a fan of Farage on many things, as he gives an impression of being anti-establishment but there are many occasions when I think that he's pretty much a fifth columnist, although in this instance he's not undermining the government, he's supporting it against the public. Perfect cover.
Farage is not as smart as I thought he was. He is not as principled either. The surest way to destroy your credibility is to vilify a straw man / scapegoat with a false argument. Healthy people do not spread disease. The Jews of the 1930's in Germany were accused of spreading disease. We know what happened after that.
When asked for his secret to a successful political career as Premier of Alberta, the late Ralph Klein was fond of saying, “find out which way the parade is headed and get in front of it.” - Could also work if you are looking to sway that segment of the pop. who are hard-nosed critical thinkers, as they tend to be Brexiteers and unlikely to take the vaxx.
Public service announcement: if you are interested in bitcoin, it's a wonderful and exciting rabbit hole. BUT if you buy any, make sure to keep it yourself, ideally in cold storage (in a device that don't connect to the internet). If you're keeping your bitcoin on an exchange, it's not really your bitcoin; it's just a promise of bitcoin. Then you're at the mercy of the exchange just like you're at the mercy of a bank.
Surely one can open an account in a foreign bank and use credit cards in UK? I don’t trust Bitcoin at present... I liken it to a Ponzi scheme... when it’s new and popular everyone rushes in and the value skyrockets. But when investors start to realise that there is relatively few ways to spend it, then they cash out along with the guys who have made a good return, causing volatility that makes it a risk. When merchants like supermarkets start to accept Bitcoin things might be different....
Right now it's one of the only (two) hard currencies out there - gold and bitcoin - and it has already survived a lot of challenges. The mistrust is understandable but it's worth looking into.
You can form whatever you like and, if you're lucky, in 10 years time you might actually have enough participants to be able use it for subsistence living!
Hmm, didn't think so. Local or community cryptos still need a secure repository or system, the idea being that it keeps money within the community but they're useless outside of that community.
However, for the first step, I would advise holding it yourself (not on an exchange) in cold storage. Basically that way you're your own bank.
To your general points - there's a lot you can use bitcoin for now and the use cases are growing, but some areas are going to be tricky (petrol, for instance).
I'd like to know the banking group in question because if it's Citibank then in fact they are closing all UK accounts for private customers (me included, my account is being closed in August!), to concentrate (in their words) on more "weathly clients" ... perhaps Nigel has been unwittingly caught up in the net rather than it being something more sinister? Or perhaps we are seeing the start of a subtle shift in banking as we used to know it
There is a deliberate "shift" going on. They are testing the reaction. When this happened in Canada, there was a massive run to take out cash all over the country. Then the Emergencies Act was suddenly "suspended". Why ?????? There isn't enough cash to cover all accounts should we all decide to cash out at the same time (or for even a fraction of us either). - which puts the credibility of the system on display. I suspect the same thing will happen in the UK if this is a "naughty boy" incident. The solution is alternatives.
Wow. A late, very dear friend of mine, an antiques dealer, once sold a significant trinket to Charles, now King of England. Charles paid with a cheque drawn on Coutts, which my friend promptly deposited in his own Coutts account. Me, I'd have framed it!
A friend of mine received a letter today from her bank ( Marcus) which if you believe social credits are coming could be read as very sinister and a precursor for such.
The writing for this has been on the wall for a while, but as is typical they set the rules for use against 'bad' people.......then predictably expanded the definition of bad.
I wrote this last March and it keeps being true :(
Think back over the last, say, 20 years. Did you protest against the Iraq war? How about protesting at Occupy Wall Street? Were you a member of the Tea Party? A member of #TheResistance? Did you disagree with the government’s covid response? It’s nearly certain that everybody with a political pulse has crossed the government at one time or another. How comfortable are you with the idea that the person you’re protesting against can shut off your bank account?
Because now, it seems, those perfectly legal actions at least have the potential to come with harsh monetary consequences, as well as the ensuing chaos caused by financial ruin. And this is happening all without a single shred of oversight or due process. It’s just some asshole in an expensive suit giving a list of ‘subversives’ to another asshole in an expensive suit. The no-fly list but with the very real potential to ruin your life.
Every time I leave a Note on Substack I wonder who's watching.
I'm of course such a small potato, am retired, have no business to be concerned about, but I sure do wonder about how big the ears out there are.
I have come to believe that every paying subscriber to one or any of the brilliant substacks will eventually be targeted.
Come and get me.
All the people with subscriptions may well be taken out in one sweep.
On the other hand, Substack is useful for monitoring purposes and may be tolerated as such.
AI using lists of proscribed terms, probably. After all, they are already being used for that by journalists compiling hit-lists of GBAs for people publicly opposing The Narrative.
I've been joking with my friends for decades that the interference we sometimes hear on the phone (landline phones though these days mine's a faux one) is them guys listening. We always tell 'em they ain't gonna get nothing juicy but if they want to waste their time...
Raheem Kassam who publishes The National Pulse used to work with Farage. I 1st heard of him on Steve Bannon's Warroom when Kassam was a co-host. Farage was a frequent guest.
Debanking seems to be something expected to be done to many who speak contrary to the official narratives. As a push back alternative economies need to be built.
"...without a bank account your are unable to function in a modern society."
Remember when we voted on that?
Me neither.
spelling mistake corrected!
"You are", obviously.
Then again, I've got a laundry-list of excuses for spelling errors. 😇
Definitely shut down accounts for guys like this so that there’s room to do banking with upstanding citizens like Jeffrey Epstein.
Bitcoin? How does that help with my customers paying me? Or paying the mortgage? Not only that but bitcoin is a gamble. I can't afford to gamble with essentials at risk... and how about supermarket deliveries? I haven't noticed them giving bitcoin as an option either. Okay, so I pay with a credit card but then can't pay that... that's about as useful a suggestion as a box of cowrie shells!
I have the same problems with Bitcoin but ultimately a decentralised storage of wealth is preferred to CBDCs which can control your every movement.
I agree but I find that cash goes the same job without anyone having control over it but me… actually, that’s not quite true… I’m married!
Cash is useless unfortunately. If you want to hold to something physical then start to buy up gold.
Try paying in Tesco with gold. You’ll find cash is a better option.
Maybe for people with large savings that don’t need to be liquid then gold could be an option, but that’s not going to apply to the vast majority of people.
My grandparents went through the worst inflation in history of mankind. Believe me when cash is worthless everyone will start to accept gold immediately. (also sugar, flour, medicine, art were suddenly very easily tradeable)
Hmm, we don’t live in your grandparents’ time though. My grandfathers fought in WW1, my father in WW2. Just because they didn’t mean that I had to or my children will.
There are some people out there doing everything in bitcoin now. Just while you were posting this yesterday, a bitcoiner in Canada had a livestream where he went through the steps he would take if he didn't have access to a bank account - how he would pay his mortgage, etc. It's interesting.
I don't know how that would work once there is the seemingly inevitable move to ID for internet access, but the bitcoin developers are motivated and creative. We'll see.
I think if us commoners use silver & gold as a base for a barter system, it would require no internet connection which could be taken from you (ergo no access to bitcoin.) The creativity of that primitive banking system would blossom by necessity. We could show the 1%ers how it’s done.
I've been thinking about the need for an alternative system and recently saw a video that looked like it had been recorded in the 90s... I don't think I can share it so he goes.
He said to set up a community trust structure and appoint everyone as a managing director of a trust. You set up a trust account for everyone, you pool your money and buy gold and silver with it, invest it and pay dividends back to everyone in the trust community. You create your own economic system. You can do it with your neighbors, your family, your church. I don't know if it would work, but it might be worth a try. Anything is better than just sitting back, waiting for the ax to fall.
Condominium Corporations are similar. All members of the community pay a monthly fee and elect a Board of Directors. The Board employs a management firm to audit financial statements and send out letters on their behalf. Each member owns their home but common elements are co-owned. This concept could be expanded to include investments. The problem is keeping the Board honest. Corruption can set in if they are co-hoots with the management firm or do not have one. But the concept is quite common now. Financial statements are sent out on a quarterly basis.
I think part of what the original video hoped to avoid was the corruption; I was under the impression that's why you make all members a managing director. But then I worried, how do you get anything done if everyone is a member? Wouldn't you need a certain percentage of people present in person or by proxy for every meeting in order for business to take place?
I was involved in an effort to take down an HOA so I know how easy it is for corruption to begin and how nearly impossible it is to irradicate it.
I have direct experience with the condo. set up. Members elect Board Reps and you need a quorum for a vote.
Hi GG- I like the proactive stance instead of waiting for these psychopathic narcissists to make decisions for the world. We can overwhelm them.
Me, too. I know hard times are coming. I'm not afraid of that. But I am afraid of being unprepared.
more and more folks are using bitcoin, and my guess is that the more the major institutions of the state tighten their control, the more people will turn to bitcoin, which improves its network effect. Definitely way more useful than cowrie shells :)
They KNOW bitcoin is gonna be a problem for their control..that is WHY BLACKROCK is ESTABLISHING A BITCOIN FUND AND WILL PROBABLY BUY COINBASE, etC...
Bitcoin only works with others who use it. As long as the value fluctuates the way that it does then it's only going to be used by people with spare money to do business with others who are in the same situation. There isn't a hope in hell that it will become ubiquitous.
There is more interest in Bitcoin than ever before. Same for gold and precious metals. Saifedean Ammous is here interviewed and he has a website. I do not know how good he is on this stuff but here are the relevant sites -
https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/shows/good-morning-chd/bitcoin--the-fiat-cartel/
https://saifedean.com/
We'll see. 10 years ago there wasn't a hope in hell that it would survive, and 14 years ago there wasn't a hope in hell that it would ever trade for over $1 US.
One of its main use cases is for folks who don't have access to bank accounts in the global south, so it's definitely circulating among ppl without much spare money.
As for value fluctuating: it's decentralized. How would you go about fixing the price of a free-market commodity?
"As for value fluctuating: it's decentralized. How would you go about fixing the price of a free-market commodity?"
You can't and that's the whole point. Bitcoin isn't reliable enough to be used widely. If you're on limited income and at the beginning of the month you can just scrape by but by the end of it your "money" is worth 10% less... then what?
Yes, you're right about not being able to fix the price.
Over the longer term, bitcoin is very likely to continue being volatile in the upward direction, but in the short term it fluctuates. That doesn't make it unreliable (it's probably one of the most reliable assets out there) but you have to take the volatility into account for short-term use.
Unfortunately short-term loss is happening with pounds and dollars as well - it's virtually guaranteed - so you're looking at almost certain loss of purchasing power anyway.
Ohhhhhhhh, you said B word, and I said Barter😉
Barter is tangible. Bitcoin is little pieces of data, that float in and out of hardware like snow😜
The best kind of barter- practical skills.
Want to exist completely free in the coming new world, get some skills or be critical to your local community functioning. Or have access to practical industries. Grow food, or work on a farm, or set up a food waste enterprise.
Likewise with other needs.
Mortgages, well its a long way until they can declare cash non tender (they know they have a fight, and they dont want the rest to wake up, hence the stealthy, sneaky actions of innocuous letters), so get the cash and mail it to your branch manager directly. Have a ledger, keep track of how many payments. Laws currently support that if you have kept faith (payments) then they can't prove default mortgage.
Most importantly, invest in your community. The locals you see everyday, will be the people that come to you for help/barter and who you go to. So smile, get to know them, care now. BTJAMO.😉😊
Lesseee... combining BitCoin and barter. Taking the first-and-last syllables gives us "Bit-ter", nice enough doon the pub, but maybe not a selling name.
Okay, let's take last-and-first then? Cointer. Sounds like a rat-hunting dog of many fathers.
Hm, tricky this. Barterbit sounds like Bartleby, which might fit. BarterCoin maybe?
Yeah, might work. Coin leads the thought to real money and barter emphasises that it is on the individual level where real economy is made.
Also, it fits the chant:
"Who runs BarterCoin?"
Yes!! personally I'm interested in both bitcoin and barter, but all of your points here are excellent.
Now that may work to some extent in a rural village, within limitations, but try that in Brixton or Erdington... or any other city for that matter.
Bitcoin is no defense. When cyberCOVID closed the internet and you need your vaccine ID to log back on. Gold and silver is the only safe alternative. Sell and buy land before they come for your gold. (Around $10000/oz)
Land can be confiscated because there is a deed which goes with it. It is like a bank account - it can be take away in the case of outliers. Jews were not allowed to own land in Western countries for centuries. That is why they were forced into money lending - hence the Dickensian Fagin in "Oliver Twist". Ickey Soloman is said to have been the real Fagin on which the character is based - https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/banking-and-finance-laws-and-regulations/canada
I agree they may come for the land but it will buy you time. They will come for the Gold first. Buying land or forest will give you time to plan your next move. Emigrate or fortify!
You can hide gold.
Ickey Soloman - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikey_Solomon
it's not one or the other. Gold/silver AND bitcoin.
This looks like the modern day equivalent of the naughty boys being caned in public to bring all the rest into line.
Short term loss only in terms of inflation given that 99% of people have no risk on international exchange rates, but inflation will also apply to bitcoin. The real problem is that it's still a gamble and not one that most people will be prepared to take. It's years away from being anything like mainstream.
A friend of mine has made an absolute fortune out of it. He tried to convince me to go with him to a meeting about 5 years ago... but he was already pretty wealthy, but I'm not. There's a very simple rule in life: never gamble with money that you can't afford to lose.
I don't wish that I'd gone along with him and shared in his huge success because I didn't have a penny that I could play with. He put about £50,000 into it and has a Bentley convertible, big Tesla and a Ferrari out of it.
Money went to money, it's the way it's been since it was invented.
I don't disagree about risking money that you need for living, but inflation is unique to fiat currency. It's crippling to folks of modest means and I doubt we've seen the end of it.
No inflation in bitcoin. It's also possible to buy very small amounts at a time just FYI.
I don't have much $ to play with, and I don't think of bitcoin as a financial investment, more as a vote for the future I want to see. So much of the mess of our world is due to a very small group of people having control over our money supply and distribution. There's not an area of govt policy not touched by the disaster that is fiat currency.
Yes, who pays the piper dictates his tune. Much of the fiasco is that some of this "money printing" is probably being done without Parliamentary / Congressional consent. The Bank of Canada is owned by the Canadian Govt. but the American Federal Reserve was privatized in 1913 during Christmas Break when few were in the House. There are supposedly strict Regulations regarding banks in Canada, but I do not know if the same can be said elsewhere - https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/banking-and-finance-laws-and-regulations/canada
Our Victorian grandmothers were correct - store the gold and family jewels in the underground cellar !
I may be overly optimistic, but I think this is a blessing in disguise. Just when CBDC is being touted as "convenient" along comes a few blackouts and lots of talk of "freezing out" outliers. There are alternatives to bank transactions.
An ominous development, BUT.....
There is some irony here: Farage was a good boy in 2021 and enthusiastically endorsed Blair's call for vaxx passports and a two-tier Britain - 'two kinds of people' in Blair's words.
'Someone you don't like can still have a good idea', said Farage. I recall my jaw dropping as I watched. Could this be Farage, champion of Britishness?
After push-back from supporters, he made a second video supporting Blair's wonderful idea.
This man can't suffer enough - he would himself have supported cancelling the basic rights of the un-vaxxed.
Didn't know he made those comments
You are not alone: I've been amazed how it sank into a memory-hole.
I was watching Farage's videos on YT at the time, the ones when he was visiting various places affected by the boat people.
Then he made the two bizarre pro-vaxx videos, and I thought: 'He's been instructed to say this, this is the Establishment pulling together. Farage backing Blair! Twice!'
Clearly it was thought they he could help bring in hundreds of thousands of hold-outs for vaxxing, trusting in good old Nigel to be an honest broker.
Maybe they will still be up on YT? Many commenters said they would be unsubscribing and that their eyes had been opened.
The important point is that Blair was openly advocating not just the vaxxes, but a two-tier society with discrimination and penalties.
Farage has been notoriously in favour of the vaccines and has been guilty of virtue signalling on many occasions.
I watched him "interviewing" David Davis, talking about how clever they were to be vaccinated and how great Britain was to be ahead of the EU... that was the point of it really, two Eurosceptics chatting away while totally talking out of their backsides.
I wrote to Davis on several occasions, giving him a lot of info that he was clearly oblivious to... not that I got a reply. Same with my own useless MP.
I'm not a fan of Farage on many things, as he gives an impression of being anti-establishment but there are many occasions when I think that he's pretty much a fifth columnist, although in this instance he's not undermining the government, he's supporting it against the public. Perfect cover.
Farage is not as smart as I thought he was. He is not as principled either. The surest way to destroy your credibility is to vilify a straw man / scapegoat with a false argument. Healthy people do not spread disease. The Jews of the 1930's in Germany were accused of spreading disease. We know what happened after that.
So, one wonders if Farage is once again merely playing an assigned role?
1/ It enhances his credit as anti-Establishment.
2/ Sends a warning and serves to demoralise.
When asked for his secret to a successful political career as Premier of Alberta, the late Ralph Klein was fond of saying, “find out which way the parade is headed and get in front of it.” - Could also work if you are looking to sway that segment of the pop. who are hard-nosed critical thinkers, as they tend to be Brexiteers and unlikely to take the vaxx.
I did not know he made those comments either. This absolutely does raise questions about him cherry picking Constitutional Rights.
Bitcoin, yes. One of the rays of hope out there.
Public service announcement: if you are interested in bitcoin, it's a wonderful and exciting rabbit hole. BUT if you buy any, make sure to keep it yourself, ideally in cold storage (in a device that don't connect to the internet). If you're keeping your bitcoin on an exchange, it's not really your bitcoin; it's just a promise of bitcoin. Then you're at the mercy of the exchange just like you're at the mercy of a bank.
Not your keys, not your coins.
Surely one can open an account in a foreign bank and use credit cards in UK? I don’t trust Bitcoin at present... I liken it to a Ponzi scheme... when it’s new and popular everyone rushes in and the value skyrockets. But when investors start to realise that there is relatively few ways to spend it, then they cash out along with the guys who have made a good return, causing volatility that makes it a risk. When merchants like supermarkets start to accept Bitcoin things might be different....
Right now it's one of the only (two) hard currencies out there - gold and bitcoin - and it has already survived a lot of challenges. The mistrust is understandable but it's worth looking into.
BTC. Exactly.
Or form local, municipal cryptocurrencies. Modern day scrip.
You can form whatever you like and, if you're lucky, in 10 years time you might actually have enough participants to be able use it for subsistence living!
Thanks, we’re already starting it here locally. You take care now.
And how does that work paying your mortgage, energy bills, food etc etc?
I like when people answer their own questions before I can reply.
Starting at the local merchant level.
Once it’s launched, we’ll buy a very local bank.
You can guess the rest.
Once it's launched... good luck. You didn't answer the questions though did you, not sure having glib answers is going to be your greatest USP.
😁
Hmm, didn't think so. Local or community cryptos still need a secure repository or system, the idea being that it keeps money within the community but they're useless outside of that community.
You might need to take a lot of care with it.
You can use bitcoin within communities. Lots of exciting work happening on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgUCGALs5y4
However, for the first step, I would advise holding it yourself (not on an exchange) in cold storage. Basically that way you're your own bank.
To your general points - there's a lot you can use bitcoin for now and the use cases are growing, but some areas are going to be tricky (petrol, for instance).
I'd like to know the banking group in question because if it's Citibank then in fact they are closing all UK accounts for private customers (me included, my account is being closed in August!), to concentrate (in their words) on more "weathly clients" ... perhaps Nigel has been unwittingly caught up in the net rather than it being something more sinister? Or perhaps we are seeing the start of a subtle shift in banking as we used to know it
It's likely to be Coutts, as he's previously said that's who he banks with.
There is a deliberate "shift" going on. They are testing the reaction. When this happened in Canada, there was a massive run to take out cash all over the country. Then the Emergencies Act was suddenly "suspended". Why ?????? There isn't enough cash to cover all accounts should we all decide to cash out at the same time (or for even a fraction of us either). - which puts the credibility of the system on display. I suspect the same thing will happen in the UK if this is a "naughty boy" incident. The solution is alternatives.
I believe it’s Coutts
Wow. A late, very dear friend of mine, an antiques dealer, once sold a significant trinket to Charles, now King of England. Charles paid with a cheque drawn on Coutts, which my friend promptly deposited in his own Coutts account. Me, I'd have framed it!
Does Charles still bank at Coutts?
Does The King of England even bank?
A friend of mine received a letter today from her bank ( Marcus) which if you believe social credits are coming could be read as very sinister and a precursor for such.
Coincidence it’s appeared today?
I doubt it….
Is she a domestic terrorist, too?
OMG! You said "she", you don't deserve a bank account now.
LOL well said.
Well I do wonder about the members of her Welsh class….
The unintelligible language employed could I suppose be a secret code….