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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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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