The NY Fed moving some operations to Chicago, NORAD going back into a mountain, Homeland Security buying 62,000,000 bullets, and strange military exercises all over American soil. Maybe important, maybe not.
This morning I noticed this about a CITI economist advocating the abolishment of cash:
I've wondered how the beast in Rev. 13 will make a buy or sell law, as cash will always be accepted somewhere by someone. The only way I can see for that to be fulfilled is if cash is abolished. I've considered how it might be abolished, and the best thing I've come up with to date is that abolishing cash would stop a lot of the small drug trade, and also bring a lot more money into the tax coffers. But now I see another way it might come about - because interest rates basically cannot be cut below zero, as cash holds the floor. So, to preserve the current financial system, cash may need to be abolished to allow negative interest rates - interesting. In fact, cash may not be abolished, but just naturally disappear if the second option below is instituted.
Buiter's note suggests three ways to address this problem:
Abolish currency.
Tax currency.
Remove the fixed exchange rate between currency and central bank reserves/deposits.
