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by Simon Black: Brainwashing
Starts With This Two-Letter Word
There are consequences
to being flat broke.
There are consequences
to investing any level of confidence in a financial system underpinned
by debt and the creation of paper currency.
There are consequences
for ignoring reality and pretending that everything is normal.
This is one
of them: European officials yesterday flat out admitted that they
were discussing rolling out a series of harsh capital controls across
the continent, including bank withdrawal limits and closing down
Europe’s borderless Schengen area.
Some of these
measures have already been implemented sporadically; customers of
Italian bank BNI, for example, were all frozen out of their accounts
starting May 31st upon the recommendation and approval of Italy’s
bank regulator. No ATM withdrawls, no bill payments, nothing. Just
locked out overnight.
In Greece,
the government has taken to simply pulling funds directly out of
its citizens’ bank accounts; anyone suspected of being a tax
cheat (with a very loose interpretation in the sole discretion of
the government) is being releived of their funds without so much
as administrative notification.
It’s no
wonder why, according to the Greek daily paper Kathimerini,
over $125 million per day is fleeing the Greek banking system.
European political
leaders aim to put a tourniquet on this wound in the worst possible
way.
So what are
capital controls?
Simply, capital
controls are policies which restrict the free flow of capital into,
out of, through, and within a nation’s borders. They can take
a variety of forms, including:
- Setting
a fixed amount for bank withdrawals, or suspending them altogether - Forcing
citizens or banks to hold government debt - Curtailing
or suspending international bank transfers - Curtailing
or suspending foreign exchange transactions - Criminalizing
the purchase and ownership of precious metals - Fixing an
official exchange rate and criminalizing market-based transactions
Establishing
capital controls is one of the worst forms of theft that a government
can impose. It traps people’s hard earned savings and their
future income within a nation’s borders.
June
14, 2012
