Do you see connections everywhere you look? Are you wondering about the great awakening and how it will affect you? Thanks for joining me, Anne Corbin and my guests. As we offer you different perspectives and analyses of current issues, together with advice on health, wealth, and relationships, as we navigate those storms together, not forgetting the systems available to us from metaphysics Anne our own higher selves.
Regular listeners will know that one of my campaigns has been Anne still is to keep cash alive. By whatever means possible. And to this end, some months ago, I signed a petition Anne I hope that many of you will have signed it as well because I I posted a link. And on that front, I have some good news to report. It was debated in the UK Parliament on 20th March. So I'm anticipating a written response to the petition via email in due course.
I don't know how long that will take, but for these things, to be produced, I suppose, they have to be approved and re approved. But rather than wait indefinitely, I'm so pleased to say that there are already some quite promising results available resulting from a survey that was circulated by the government in advance of the debate.
The survey received only just short of 19,000 responses Anne If it's the one I recall completing, I'm surprised it got that many because the questions were lengthy, badly worded, and designed to trip people up. But 18,691 made their feelings known I really wish more had done so. But the vast majority, 95% said they preferred to use cash. Rather than any other form of payment.
98% agreed with a suggestion that shops and businesses should be required to take cash along with other alternatives surprisingly, 52% of the respondents were less than sixteen years old. Now I'm the first to agree that it's frequently slower and less convenient to use cash, but Whether or not you use it, it should be your choice. For years, we have been led down the path of convenience.
But path could more accurately be called a funnel or a precipice or a blind alley even, where do these pathways lead Anne what do they have in common? Well, one thing is the momentum of volume or mass where it's pretty hard to travel back in the other direction against the flow if you should change your mind and the rest of people heading in your direction, don't. First, you go along with a plan willingly Anne then you have second thoughts. Can you now travel back against the flow of traffic?
Have you ever tried to turn around and go back to your seat when everyone is exiting from an aircraft, it can just not be done or with very great difficulty. So can we go back to the way things used to be? Unfortunately, very rarely. Anne this convenience thing is a tool, a lever to train compliance. Choices there, but only at the start. You only recognize that the choice has been removed when you have a change of heart and try to go back.
Critical thinkers tend to be pro choice and anti compliance. And if you're one of them, Don't you just hate being told what to do? Told to conform. Told to tow the Anne. And even worse, told that it's for your own good when you know perfectly well that it isn't or worse still that it's for the greater good says who? The World Economic Forum? The WHO?
It's a very regrettable sign of the times that there's an increasing number of people sleeping rough Begging on the streets of our towns and cities desperate for coins or maybe even folding money from passersby. Imagine a time when they had to take electronic payments using some sort of device How absurd is that?
It's almost as absurd as expecting every person to have and operate a bank account, even a toddler, how difficult will it be to teach kids the value of money when they don't know what it is, when they can't touch it, feel it, and play with it. Not that playing with money is a good idea, but you get what I'm talking about. In pubs and restaurants, tipping used to be the order of the day for good service. It used to work both ways. As an incentive for staff to give great service.
And for the customer, a means of showing appreciation Anne even giving pleasure. Anne now tips, as they used to be, hardly happen because when you make electronic payments, the option to leave a tip which used to be there now generally isn't So businesses now tend towards the automatic service charge are payable at your discretion But challenge it if you dare, choice is being taken out of your hands. You know why governments don't like cash payments? They are harder to control.
The so called black economy exists outside of the stealth tax system. Payments that don't go through the books are liable to VAT. Sales tax or whatever it is where you live. Payroll taxes, pay as you earn or payee employee tax, is what makes it more expensive to pay staff. So services performed by employees are charged out naturally that higher rates. Tax is not an interesting topic for a podcast, but I was an accountant, so I find it interesting.
But my standpoint is that if tax was fair and transparent, then people would not go to such great lengths to avoid paying it. Please note, tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is not legal. The very rich can pay very skilled and expensive accountants who get them off the hook legally. Anne if they're really mega rich, then they operate through offshore businesses or so called non profits that don't pay tax.
As with money laundering, the little people like Mary Smith who wants to buy a house say, have to perform backward somersaults just to engage with a solicitor and pay to be confirmed as a non money launderer.
Whilst the real laundering is done by the drug cartels, the oligarchs, the mega corporations the nonprofits, the hedge funds, and similar outfits who are so big that no one is able to make them comply with the ridiculous rules and red tape that wastes the time and the money of us ordinary citizens. Whilst it might seem that I'm straying from the subject of cash, I'm not. All these things are connected.
Cash, choice, control, tax, poverty, compliance, red tape, constraints on business, Anne one more thing that's huge and connected with all of this is privacy. Or privacy if you're American. I think it was the first podcast I produced on the Keep Cash campaign that I titled is cash past its sell by date? And now I'm asking if the same is true of privacy.
Is it really That old fashioned, not to want all your private information to be available to any Tom Dick or Harriet in the name of gender equality. Anyone who wants to access it For many years now, if you want a doctor's appointment, you'll be asked by the receptionist why you want to see the doctor. That's assuming, of course, that you have such a service available. Surgeries are closing at an alarming rate.
Like post offices and pubs in recent years, we have fewer doctors and massively more people, but that's a different rant. Back to privacy, young people don't seem to have the same reticence that we older folk have. When I was employed, Anne this was in the UK, it was a sackable offense to discuss your salary your peers. Not that most of us wanted to do that anyway. It was considered personal and private. Most of my peers don't like discussing age or house prices and so on.
But I'm reminded of the time when I lived in Hong Kong briefly where they were very money minded. And if you showed up in a new outfit, you would be asked, or how much did you pay for that? Similarly with jewelry, Corbin you moved apartment, oh, what's the rent costing you? Or if you were offered a new job, it was the next natural question. How much are they paying you? This was very strange to my expat way of thinking. And to be honest, I never got used to it.
So having given privacy, privacy, a good deal of updated reflection, I still believe there are matters that many of us would prefer to keep to ourselves. Say you contracted a social disease, or you were dishonorably discharged from the Corbin, or and this is a big Anne. Say you've been diagnosed with a mental health problem. This still carries a big stigma. It's not fair, but it does. And there are medical conditions, that might prevent you being eligible for certain insurances, for example.
This was once the case with AIDS and HIV, and it might still be. There's something now called VA IDS, which is vaccine acquired artificial immunity deficiency syndrome. Yes, indeed. Are you happy to declare your vaxxed or un vaxxed status? How will this change as time goes on? And now back to money and financial privacy, Are you happy for your bank to know exactly how you spend your money? Every last pound or dollar?
I get annoyed with my bank when it challenges my credit card or debit card spending. They say they're protecting me from fraud, but some banks will not let me pay my money on 2 crypto platforms. Why not? My money, my choice, or so it should be. Now if central bank digital currency, or CBC, for short, comes into force, and I'm afraid that right now, It looks like when rather than if, but we can live in hope, all choice will be removed.
You might think we're already in a digital currency situation with our tappable plastic and online banking and so on. But it will be massively more far reaching than using a credit card tied to Anne central bank like the Bank of England. AI, artificial intelligence will be in charge.
Big brother will dictate where you spend, whether you can spend, and when you can spend, If big brother finds you guilty of some transgression, you will be fined, and the money will be sucked out of your account without even your having a chance to say, yay or nay. CBDCs are more like tokens or vouchers. Than money because they will not be universally acceptable. They will be programmable.
If the law says you may only travel 15 to 20 miles from where you live, you'll not be able to pay for anything outside of that radius. They might be linked to your carbon footprint. So this will impact whether you can fly, for example, or you might have purchased too much meat this month, so your payment at the point of sale will be rejected. How's that for inconvenience and embarrassment? People's cards being rejected right left Anne center imagine the queues at the supermarket.
Finally, like vouchers, CBDCs will have expiry dates. So there will be little or no saving, assuming you have any funds left at the end of the month or quarter or whenever, In other words, you spend the money or you lose it, infuriating or what. And to close this argument for keeping cash alive. I want to read this story that I came across on social media, and to set the scene, we're in a Walmart hypermarket somewhere in the USA.
When the local Walmart attempted the cashless thing, A 114 of us went shopping. We then caused a traffic jam at the checkouts due to the no cash thing. Every manager of every department came to try and help us, therefore, further slowing their day to a halt. No matter what solution they came up with, Anne my favorite, the writer said, was to go purchase Go cards, they're clearly an American thing, at the local seven Eleven store, and then return to pay for our goods.
We simply and very slowly held to a cash only payment. Our combined purchases amounted to over $14,000. And as we had reached a complete standstill and the clock folks were oh, it's American. The clerk folks were gathering our items to restock. Several of our younger activists declared repeatedly and loudly. Target accepts cash. Let's go there. So we all left our would be purchases and marched out the door.
Then we got online with Walmart corporate Anne in a nutshell, Walmart now accepts cash again, and they've posted signage on their stores that reads, cash accepted here. This is revolution bitches, the writer finishes. So friends If you enjoyed this content and would rather not wait until next week for more of the same, you are warmly invited program. It's called Awaken Dot Plus, and the Enquirer level is open now. If you join as a founder member, the price for you will never rise.
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