Economics

The battle against cash goes on

People spend the night in front of ATMs with the hope that money will be brought there and they will finally be able to withdraw it after standing in line for many hours. Sometimes the fights break out, even among those waiting in front of the banks. Tensions reach their peak. Branches are set on fire and people all over the country take to the streets….

Scenes from Cyprus 2013? No. Nigeria, Laos, April this year. Old banknotes were invalidated in February and since then no new ones have been printed, only the old ones collected from the market by the central bank and destroyed. At the same time, they introduced central bank digital currency (CBDC), which was not accepted by the people at all. Over 200 million people were deprived of their money overnight. Almost no one wanted to pay or transact with the new e-currency (called eNaira). Thousands of businesses went bankrupt in a short period of time. A paradoxical situation arose in which gasoline could no longer be bought at gas stations in the country, which is one of the largest oil producers in the world.

Nigeria, with its 22o million people, has long since overtaken South Africa and is the largest economy on the Dark Continent. It is a country with huge raw material resources and a development potential that African mentality and corruption, which is present everywhere, wreck. It can be said that it is a rich country of poor people because almost all the capital is in the hands of politicians. One of them, the head of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefile, said in Davos that his country would soon be cashless and – lo and behold – that might end with blood in the streets. It is hard to believe that in a country where 32% of the people are illiterate, where most people do not have access to electricity, the idea of digital currency comes from below; that the shamans had whispered it in the ears of ordinary people. No, it comes from above and from outside. Third World countries have always been a training ground for Western elites, the grassroots movement of the new authoritarian world without cash. This time they are testing how far and how fast they are able to implement their ideas.

Finally, it should be remembered that the complete transition to cash, would make citizens transparent. Central banks could regulate digital money, depending on how they would like a citizen. It could also be that the validity of the money would be limited in time and could only be spent for certain purposes. Electronically, that’s easy to organize. How embarrassing that would be for the Germans, 58% of whom pay in cash! Nigeria has also been called the “cash king” in Africa.

The virtual world threatens the physical world. More on this in Gefira 73.

The energy crisis is planned and desired Electricity prices skyrocket, but that’s our new better world after all

The Emissions Trading Systems (ETS) were introduced with the Kyoto Protocol and imposed on the EU and other countries by the infamous Al Gore. His idea that whoever produces more CO2 has to pay for it was seemingly clear at the beginning and many immediately embraced it, but the ETS quickly became financial instruments in the hands of large investors and thus began to serve as such for speculation. ETS became a commodity on the stock exchange, traded just like bitcoin or CFDs (Contract for Differences). The fact that in the end it is the end consumer who suffers is of no interest to high finance, the EU and US elites. Take Elon Musk, for example. Do you think he earns his money by selling electric cars? Not by any means. By 2021, he won’t have made a single cent of profit from car production. Until last year, his company made its best profits from trading CO2 certificates. In the last three years it was $3.3 billion. Another of Musk’s gold mines is trading in Bitcoin. As reported by Tagesschau at one time, Tesla had acquired Bitcoins for $1.5 billion from January to March 2021 and then resold them for the profit of $300 million. Everyone knows that Bitcoin production and transaction means enormous energy consumption. Never mind, the main thing is that it is a modern currency. Wow! Are electric cars not environmentally friendly at all because exorbitant amounts of precious and industrial metals are needed in their production? No problem. The main thing is to scrap old cars and buy new “emission-free” ones, according to the Green narrative. You have a Tesla? Wow! The ruble is rolling, one would like to say, although the ruble is just rolling towards China, as Russia has multiplied its exports to the Middle Kingdom since the sanctions were introduced, making nonsense of the West’s sanctions. Driving old diesel is yuck, but taking a tour into space with Spacex is mega cool. Isn’t that right, Greta? You’ve already circled the globe with the most environmentally unfriendly means of transport. The time is coming for the moon. Putin’s action against Ukraine is simply a good reason to speed up the green revolution in the West.  Continue reading →