In 1985 the historian James Burke presented a magnificent television series produced for the BBC titled "The Day the Universe Changed". The central idea of the series was the notion that most scientific and technological advances are random and as such they depend of randomness and serendipity. Such advances are the culmination of highly improbable chains of events which cannot be directed. The series ended with a terrifying observation: as human beings struggle to measure things, they ended up measuring the earth and themselves. As a consequence of this fact, there are no more uncharted places on earth; there is nowhere left where you can hide.
A similar effect is being observed with information. Larger and larger banks of data are being assembled and utilized with complete impunity and totally overtly against you… and everybody else on this earth.
We are on our way to a point where all our information will be measured (charted) and we will no longer have the ability to hide anything. At all.
Both processes seem similar albeit they are not.
The first one was created by the advancement of science and technology. This is the same science and technology that increases our standards of living. We can't have one without the other.
The second one was created by governments with a much more sinister goal in mind. The ultimate goal is ultimate control. Of course, you can't see this goal right now because it is hidden among the noise however, rest assured, is there.
July 21, 2014 is a day that will live in infamy. The great step that we warned about in our article G20 To The World has come to pass. The OECD has released a document titled "Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters" and more than 60 countries have already signed on it.
To fully understand the degree of rape that humanity has suffered with this blow, we need to explain its significance.
Until now banking secrecy was the only thing that protected the assets of people from the insatiable and destructive greed of politicians. Many people simply hid money and assets in off-shore accounts to protect them from theft (i.e. taxation). This is no longer the case. From about 2017 most banks in most countries will compile critical information about their customers and their accounts and pass them automatically to their countries' tax organizations. These organizations will then automatically pass this information to the tax authorities of other countries through bilateral agreements.
In practice this means that in the beginning, all people with tax accounts in any former tax-heavens will be automatically, formally and terminally exposed to the ravages of tax organizations in their own countries. Eventually (through bilateral agreements) this information will trickle down to all countries.
Every single country will end up with the name, account information, amounts, transactions, etc of any citizen anywhere in the world. Automatically.
Every single government will know who you are, how much money you have and exactly what you are doing with it.
You can no longer run, you can't hide and now you don't even have the means to keep your own property from organized thieves called politicians.
This truly is the end. Game over. Check mate.
Politicians have taken away our only way to defend ourselves from them, this is, to keep what is ours.
Of course, most people have no clue about this and the few ones that do will idiotically applaud and cheer this initiative. For all those idiots, we will make two forecasts:
- Once this is all done and all the money was taxed stolen from all these accounts, nothing will change. The "people" in whose name this is being done will see no benefit at all. Not a dime.
- Once this is all done, politicians will continue unabated in their spending spree supported by more taxing/borrowing/printing.
Let's say this again: once all this is done nothing will change.
Well… actually one thing. All that money that was invested (productively) through off-shore accounts will now be spent un-productively by politicians. This will have a negative impact in the global economy, but who cares? Right? The global economy is already a basket case and a disaster.
Again, who benefits? Politicians.
Who will suffer the consequences? The theft victims.
How do we know this?
All you have to do is to look at the success claims of tax amnesty programs of different tax enforcement agencies throughout the world. The thieves are exhilarated because business is booming. More and more people are forced to step forward and pay back taxes under the threat of prison. But this is not news. What is news is that all this gigantic effort, all this theft is producing exactly ZERO improvements in the lives of the citizens of those countries. All that gigantic amount of money, all these billions (according to these very same tax organizations) are simply vanishing in thin air… as it could not be otherwise.
Taxation is theft, plain and simple as we explained in our lesson Taxes And Myths. In our article Piketty Fences we have explained (with pictures) what happens when taxation increases and why this is so unbelievably bad for you. But in ultimate analysis, we explained why none of these socialistic economic policies work (see Austrian Economics In Pictures and Corollary Austrian Economics ). We don't need a crystal ball to see that all the debacles therein forecasted are about to pass, all we need to do is to head to our Special Projects section and review any debt or socialistic index which make very plain the reality that the worst is still to come.
This is indeed the end. The last bastion of freedom (bank secrecy) has fallen.
Remember this day when your children ask: Dad, Mom, what were you doing when this happened?
What will you answer?
You have a choice to make.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
