Major financial institutions such as Visa and Mastercard along with the International Monetary Fund, billionaire Bill Gates and the US Treasury, have been lobbying for cash to be abolished worldwide and replaced with digital only currencies.
Norbert Häring holds a PhD in economics and is co-founder and co-director of the World Economics Association, the second largest association of economists worldwide. Dr Häring is a financial journalist and author of popular books on economics. He also maintains a blog discussing economic and financial matters called "Money and more".
Häring's two most recent books cover the campaign to abolish cash. The latest "Schönes neues Geld" (Brave new money) was published in German in 2018 and recently translated into Chinese.
In 2015, Häring initiated a lawsuit within the German court system for the right to pay his fees to public broadcasters in cash. Certain legal aspects of the case made their way to the European Court of Justice (CJEU). On 26 January 2021, the Grand Chamber of the CJEU made its ruling and Häring spoke with Sputnik to discuss its implications.
Sputnik: What exactly did the European Court of Justice decide in its recent ruling regarding the ability of public authorities to curtail the use of cash?
Dr Norbert Häring: I had sued a public broadcaster for their refusal to let me pay the obligatory fee with the legal tender euro banknotes and coins. The highest German administrative court had asked the CJEU to clarify if national rules regulating the meaning of legal tender are still valid and - if not - what European law would say on the issue at hand.
Sputnik: How does this decision impact the "War on Cash" being pushed by the likes of Bill Gates, the IMF and various credit and banking institutions?
Dr Norbert Häring: On the supranational, European level the ruling has opened the gates for more restrictions. The EU Commission has reacted quickly and announced that they intend to push for a uniform upper limit for cash payments in the EU.
Sputnik: Would you consider this decision a victory for those who oppose the push towards a cashless society?
Dr Norbert Häring: Hardly. At best, if the Bundesverwaltungsgericht issues a cash-friendly ruling, the push to abolish cash is held up a bit in Germany. However, the good thing is that, this court case has contributed to bringing the war on cash into the open. In the longer term cash cannot be preserved if there is no public awareness of the issue and no public resistance.
Bill Gates and His 'War Against Cash' Are a Threat to Our Liberty, Economist Warns
No comments:
Post a Comment