Cash Limits Are All About Control Over You, But You Can Take Back the Power

JP Morgan Chase Bank just fired another salvo in the “war on cash.”

The bank recently capped ATM withdrawals for non-Chase customers at $1,000 per day. The move came after the bank began installing new ATMs that dispense $100 bills. Some people were reportedly pulling tens of thousands of dollars out at one time, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. A spokeswoman said the bank “felt it was prudent to set withdrawal limits on all of our ATMs.”

Chase claimed the move was primarily to fight fraud. This is always the justification used when banks and government agencies slap limits on access to cash. But according to the WSJ report, there haven’t been signs of criminal activity in the recent big-dollar cash withdrawals from Chase ATMs:

The bank said there doesn’t appear to be fraud involved. But partly due to heightened regulatory scrutiny, banks are paying more attention to large cash transfers that could be a sign of money laundering or other types of shady activity. Typically, the card-issuing bank sets withdrawal limits, not the bank owning the ATM.”

So, there isn’t any evidence of fraud, but we have to fight the fraud. It doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Here’s the real reason financial institutions and government officials want to limit cash – control.

By controlling your access to your own money, banks and governments increase their control over you.

Think about it – what happened during the Greek financial crisis? Officials implemented “capital controls,” including a 60-euro-per-day ATM withdrawal limit. It was a move clearly designed to protect the banks and the government at the expense of everyday Greeks.

Interestingly, according to the WSJ, some of the biggest recent withdrawals from Chase ATMs were overseas:

JP Morgan found some customers of banks in countries such as Russia and Ukraine had used Chase ATMs to withdraw $20,000 in one transaction, people familiar with the situation said. Chase said those instances weren’t widespread.

This is purely speculation, but you have to wonder if there was any coordination between the bank and government officials in those countries.

Chase’s move to cap ATM withdrawals came just a couple of months after a former Obama economic adviser/ex-Treasury secretary floated the idea of eliminating the $100 bill. Lawrence Summers touted a paper by Harvard’s Mossavar Rahmani Center for Business and Government senior Fellow Peter Sands arguing that governments should stop issuing high-denomination currency such as 500 euro notes and $100 bills. The paper even proposed withdrawing such currency from circulation.

Again, the excuse was, “we have to fight criminals.” But as we pointed out at the time, there are clearly other reasons. After all, as Zero Hedge pointed out, there is plenty of “crime” going on within the world banking system itself as revealed by the so-called “Panama Papers.”

So, there is more than the total US GDP being laundered in offshore tax havens, but yes, let’s eliminate the $100 bill to cut down on corruption and money laundering. Of course, we are sure this is just another ‘storm in a teacup’ as why should anyone question a fine upstanding and trustworthy bank withholding people’s money when they are assuredly tax evaders, terrorists, drug dealers and human traffickers.”

Again, it comes down to control. Central bank negative interest rate policy will become increasingly ineffective if people can just pull their money out of banks and hide it under the mattress, or in personal safes as seems to the be the trend in Japan. The central planners want you to spend your money – not save it. So, they have to limit access to cash. That way they can charge you for keeping your wealth in the bank and incentivize you to spend, spend, spend.

As Jim Rickards said in his recent interview with Albert K Lu, control over money is power:

Whoever controls money controls the world. You control wealth, you control politics; you control who wins and who loses. It’s a very powerful thing to control.”

The good news is you don’t have to play the game their way. You don’t have to become a casualty in the war on cash. You can take back some of that power. As SchiffGold precious metal specialist Joel Bauman said in a recent article, just buy gold and silver:

The good news is unlike paper Federal Reserve notes, the intrinsic value of precious metals can never truly be condemned by any government. Gold’s value and its use as money was determined by the free market, not the government. In fact, the market has selected gold and silver as money for thousands of years.”

You can even avoid IRS reporting requirements if you understand the rules. Don’t let the system control you. Be proactive and win in the war on cash.

Get Peter Schiff’s most important Gold headlines once per week – click here – for a free subscription to his exclusive weekly email updates.
Interested in learning more about physical gold and silver?
Call 1-888-GOLD-160 and speak with a Precious Metals Specialist today!