EU says it might block people from getting their own money from banks

By David McElroy · June 13, 2012

So you think the money you have in the bank belongs to you, huh? Does it really? The Europeans who have money deposited in their banks thought the same thing. Now that the continent is a financial basket case and the joint currency is on the verge of falling apart, Europeans are learning who controls their money. Will Americans be far behind in learning the same thing?

As it starts to seem likely to Greece will pull out of the eurozone and go back to its own currency, EU officials are trying to figure out what to do. One of the possibilities that they’re considering is limiting the amount of money that people are allowed to withdraw from banks. Another is instituting border checks and “capital controls.” (That’s a polite way of saying that people can’t move their money out of the country.)

If someone can tell you that you can’t have access to your money, is it really yours? If someone can tell you that you can’t spend your money out of the country — or send it to a bank account somewhere else — is it really your money?

So whose money is it? There’s a story in several of the New Testament Gospels in which Jesus addressed this question. It’s been used by many people to say that Jesus told people to pay taxes, but let’s look at what it actually says. This account is from Mark 12:13-17:

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

Look at whatever money you have, whether it’s U.S. currency or cash from any other country. Whose pictures and words are all over it? It belongs to the people who designed it, printed it and control it — whatever government or bank that the government designated to control it.

Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when He said to give to Caesar the things that belong to him. The coins that the people were using came from Caesar, not from the people themselves. In the same way, the dollars or euros or yen that we believe are ours belong to governments. They manipulate their currency and they create more of it out of thin air. I don’t see anything in Jesus’ words to indicate that He was instructing His followers to give some arbitrary portion of whatever they produced to Rome. (I don’t have time to go into more about Jesus’ words here, but if you’re interested, here’s an article with some interesting thoughts about it.)

We frequently hear about the separation of church and state. I’ve talked before about the need for a separation of marriage and state. It’s time for us to consider, though, the separation of money and state.

Why do we need governments to create money? The truth is that we don’t. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be left up to the market. If some of us want to use gold and silver as a medium of exchange, why not let us? If others want to accept money created by some bank they trust, why not let them? Why not let the market figure out which medium of exchange works best — without any government interference or control?

As long as the coercive state has anything to say about it, this won’t be allowed, of course. Because money is their ultimate way of controlling us.

In the meantime, just start thinking about why you need pieces of paper or coins issued by a government to represent value that you have earned. Think about why you shouldn’t just trade with others without governments and government-controlled banks having the power to manipulate the money.

One day, the time will come when government-backed money will go away. Something has to take its place. Whether it’s gold and silver or bitcoins or some other form of digital currency, it needs to happen without politicians and bankers controlling it. The money we carry with us should be ours, not theirs.

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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

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