Charles Hugh Smith – A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the rise of non-state, non-central-bank-issued crypto-currencies.

We all know money is created and distributed by governments and central banks. The reason is simple: control the money and you control everything.

The invention of the blockchain and crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin have opened the door to non-state, non-central-bank currencies–money that is global and independent of any state or central bank, or indeed, any bank, as crypto-currencies are structurally peer-to-peer, meaning they don’t require a bank to function: people can exchange crypto-currencies to pay for goods and services without a bank acting as a clearinghouse for all these transactions.

This doesn’t just open the possibility of escaping the debt-serfdom of central and private banks–it opens the door to an entire global economy that’s free of the inequality and concentration of wealth and power that is the only possible output of central bank created and distributed money.

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert and I discuss these possibilities in The Keiser Report: Radically Beneficial World (25:43).

Recall that central bank money is borrowed into existence, which means interest must be paid until the money is extinguished by the payment of debt.

In effect, today’s wars, bread and circuses, etc. will be paid for in perpetuity by our kids, grandkids and their kids. This is debt-serfdom. The only possible output of borrowing money into existence is debt-serfdom.

Debt jubilees, no matter how well-intended, simply maintain the system of bank-issued money and debt-serfdom: dialing back the debt load from impossible to bearable does nothing but continue financial feudalism. Continue reading →