The issue with CBDCs (which of course is COMPLETELY ignored by the WEF's top-of-Google article about how wonderful they will be) is that in combination with advanced surveillance of where everyone is, what they buy, and (most scarily of all) what they SAY, online or anywhere else, CBCCs would make it splendidly easy for governments to exert complete control over their populace. All they would need to do is hook up the advanced surveillance system up to a personal social credit score as is already done in China. Then each (WEF controlled) national government could manipulate every individual person's ability to purchase... well, ANYTHING. Driven yr car too far this month? Your CBDC suddenly doesn't work at the gas station. Bought too much chocolate lately? The supermarket suddenly won't accept your CBDC for chocolate -- only for HEALTHY food like broccoli contaminated with glyphosate, or beer and wine (alcohol being thought by The Comptrollers to be good, (even though there's fairly good science saying it promotes cancer) because they reckon it keeps the plebs ever-so-slightly intoxicated and therefore less likely to complain -- note that liquor deliveries and grocery deliveries were never down during covid). OR, on a slightly larger scale, want to buy a new WASHING MACHINE? Sorry love, washing machines are off. Everybody rents household appliances now.
And golly gosh, suddenly national currencies disappear too, because the Comptrollers of the Currency for the entire world are now based in Switzerland. No problem with exchange rates now. We have a World Government now -- everyone is a citizen of the world.
Lots of assurances, but how long will they last? And what a surprise, it's happening all over the world, at the same time. Ask Google about "Global push for CBDCs" ....
Sorry, this is a better one https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/politics/suspend-land-use-curbs-says-groundswell/ Gotta start somewhere. 15 minute cities where you can't travel more than a short distance? CBDCs, which can be turned off whenever the govt wants you to stop buying things they don't want you to buy (the NZ Reserve Bank is seeking comment on this right now, with a questionaire that asks VERY loaded questions -- and this is apparently happening at the same time in over a hundred nations). There are already shared vehicles on Waiheke. No, I find it entirely plausible that "you will own nothing" could eventually become a real thing. The goal is that everything will be rented. I already know people who don't own a lawnmower, just rent one occasionally.
PS: Speaking of Kissinger, I think it was in this video that Tucker Carlson outs the destruction of Nixon by Deep Throat and the WaPo and as done almost exclusively by the CIA .... https://youtu.be/DfTU5LA_kw8
So much of what we think we know turns out 30 or 40 years later to be simply not true !
Eh?? What is "the redistribution effect" you say I describe? I have no idea what you mean by that. Burning straw men again, Dave? Tsk tsk ! Yes, I strongly suspect Kissinger chose Schwab exactly because the Bond villain thing tickled his (K's) German sense of humour. (Apparently Schwab didn't initially get in to the course @ Harvard, but K changed his mind). K's own books are interesting too -- particularly about his trips to China with Nixon. But do have a read of the Schwab book that I cite if you get a chance. I predict its chapter 10 will cause either great amusement or stifled rage ;-)
David (since you call me Susan, I'll call you David)
Where to start? Well, I hate to start with the phrase "with the greatest of respect" (because my impression is that most people who say that mean exactly the opposite). But in this case, I really do mean it. With the greatest of respect, Dr Harvey, I think you need to learn a bit more about both the United Nations and the institution called THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (WEF) a.k.a.THE DAVOS GROUP a.k.a. The International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
Basically, this latter organization was started in 1971 as the European arm of the CFR (US Council on Foreign Relations). In 1967, Klaus Schwab, then a 29 year old German citizen (already holder of an unlikely number of Swiss doctorates in both engineering and economics and some important-sounding job titles like Assistant to the Director-General of the German Machine-building Association, Frankfurt) signed up for a Masters degree in Public Administration at the John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. There he fell under the influence of ex-US Secretary of State and CFR insider Henry Kissinger. Four years later, Schwab had acquired the financial and (more importantly) the social capital necessary to start an organization first called the European Management Forum, which changed its name in 1987 (coincidentally the year the NZ Labour govt started really pounding Rogernomics) to the World Economic Forum, a.k.a. the International Organization for Public Private Cooperation. So what does this WEF want? They used to have 8 predictions for what the world would be like in 2030 (but for some reason they kept scrubbing these from both the internet and the Wayback Machine). The first prediction was "You will own nothing and you will be happy". See https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/8-predictions-for-the-world-in-2030/10153920524981479/ And why is that interesting? It's interesting because Karl Marx and Frederick Engels' "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (published by Lawrence and Wishart London 1983 -- Text that of the English edition 1885 checked with the German editions of 1848, 1872 and 1890) says on pages 39 and 40 "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property". Hmm. "Abolition of private property". "You will own nothing". Should we conclude that the WEF wants a global communist state?? Apparently so. But no -- should we take this idea seriously?? Well, perhaps it would be foolish not to take it seriously, given that the registered Davos "partners" include virtually all the heavy hitters of global capitalism. The Davos crew includes :
• most of the international banking system,
• Big Wireless,
• Big Tech,
• Big Pharma,
• Big Food,
• Big Retail,
• Big Transport,
• much of what's left of the scientific research community (ie those funded by Big Everything),
• at least one investment corporation with fingers in every pie in the world (Black Rock)
• and even the number one football club in England.
Well this is very confusing. Do all these capitalist mavens really want a global communist state??
Perhaps the seeming contradiction will be explained by Schwab's latest (at the time when I wrote this) book, ghost written by journalist Peter Varnham and titled "Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet" (Wiley 2021). This book paints a fine picture of four key "stakeholders" collaborating to "optimize the well-being of people and the planet". The four stakeholders are described as:
1. Governments
2. Civil Society
3. Companies
4. The International Community (the UN, WTO, OECD, ASEAN – and, presumably, the WEF).
But the reality playing out right now is more like the outright takeover of local "stakeholders" 1 and 2 by global "stakeholders" 3 and 4. Certainly the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" described on Schwab's pp.142 et seq is controlled almost entirely by stakeholder 3 – gigantic multi-national corporations – with national governments completely cut out of the picture by various "free-trade agreements" and Civil Society not featuring at all. On p.193 the "Checks and Balances, and Robust Institutions" mentioned are again described in startlingly Marxist terms (text in caps):
" In principle, EACH STAKEHOLDER CONTRIBUTES WHAT IT CAN in stakeholder capitalism AND RECEIVES WHAT IT NEEDS to achieve the most successful societal outcomes. But given the natural tendency of the existing capitalist models to favor the interests of large companies and wealthy individuals (shareholder capitalism) and political insiders (state capitalism) it is of the utmost importance that governments and companies – the two stakeholders with most power and influence in the current economic system – agree to be held accountable by each other and other stakeholders. This is where the role of democratic accountability, division of power and the role of international organizations come into play. They are the checks and balances our system needs."
End quote. Crikey. Perhaps the word "accountability" needs to be defined. Where does democracy come into the picture, if governments are ACCOUNTABLE TO multinational corporations and international organizations? It seems to be tacitly assumed that only international entities can – or will – rule the world properly.
But will they, indeed? Chapter 10 of Schwab's aforementioned book is a panegyric to Jacinda Ardern, perhaps the most well known of the Davos 'Young Global Leaders' graduates (class of 2014). Chapter 10 describes in glowing terms how New Zealand fared during the first couple of years of the "COVID-19 Crisis". I don't have the space to go into it here, but having lived through that period, I can say with some assurance that every word of this pretty story is a PR/ad-agency generated tissue of lies. The resignation and running away of JA and the resounding rejection of the remnants of her government last October would suggest that the majority of Kiwis agree.
The point in the present context is that Big Pharma (Pfizer) undeniably controlled the NZ government throughout this period -- and apparently still does. Well, so much for THAT public-private partnership.
As for the United Nations, https://www.weforum.org/press/2019/06/world-economic-forum-and-un-sign-strategic-partnership-framework/ says that "on 13 June 2019, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations signed a Strategic Partnership Framework outlining areas of cooperation to deepen institutional engagement and jointly accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The framework was drafted based on a mapping of existing collaboration between the two institutions and will enable a more strategic and coordinated approach towards delivering impact."
There is of course a huge amount more to be said on the topic of globalisation. But this box is ALMOST GONE and if you're not at least starting to get the picture about the globalist agenda by now, I'm not sure there's anything I can say that WOULD convince you anyway :-)
Thanks for the comment. I am aware of Schwab (who looks like a Bond villain) and the WEF. I have had concerns about Davos as well as some of the outputs from G7 ever since Arab Spring and Sarkozy’s moves to regulate the Internet.
I am afraid I can’t go along with everything that you suggest. I find it doubtful that the redistribution effect you describe will gain any traction among most thinking people. Theory is one thing. Making it happen is entirely another.
This post perfectly illustrates the fact that globalisation is ... to put it mildly, a two-edged sword and to put it less approvingly, a pain in [whatever part of your anatomy habitually hurts]. Globalisation, of BOTH THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE (which as Marshall McLuhan pointed out are essentially the same thing) -- enables transnational corporations to pillage and use to their advantage locally produced journalism, without paying EITHER the individual journalists who produce the news stories OR the government whose citizens' data and clicks the transnational snaffles without paying any form of national tax. So in this arena at least, globalisation ONLY serves the interests of transnational corporations. These multinationals then assume global control of national governments, through the sort of "public-private partnerships" that are openly promoted as desiderata by both the United Nations and the WEF. But as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it: "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power".
The point I was trying to make was that the message is less important than the medium in developing a business model for information sharing. One must understand the fundamental qualities of the medium. The message is secondary.
In referring to the "pillage" of local journalistic content I guess you support the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.
The reality is that we are in the middle of a new information paradigm and thus disruptive change will take place as the old ways give way to the new, driven by new digital and information technologies. I don't share your misgivings about the transnationals although I prefer a democratic participatory model of government. By the same token I don't see AI as resulting in the Skynet model suggested by the excellent Terminator movies.
The issue with CBDCs (which of course is COMPLETELY ignored by the WEF's top-of-Google article about how wonderful they will be) is that in combination with advanced surveillance of where everyone is, what they buy, and (most scarily of all) what they SAY, online or anywhere else, CBCCs would make it splendidly easy for governments to exert complete control over their populace. All they would need to do is hook up the advanced surveillance system up to a personal social credit score as is already done in China. Then each (WEF controlled) national government could manipulate every individual person's ability to purchase... well, ANYTHING. Driven yr car too far this month? Your CBDC suddenly doesn't work at the gas station. Bought too much chocolate lately? The supermarket suddenly won't accept your CBDC for chocolate -- only for HEALTHY food like broccoli contaminated with glyphosate, or beer and wine (alcohol being thought by The Comptrollers to be good, (even though there's fairly good science saying it promotes cancer) because they reckon it keeps the plebs ever-so-slightly intoxicated and therefore less likely to complain -- note that liquor deliveries and grocery deliveries were never down during covid). OR, on a slightly larger scale, want to buy a new WASHING MACHINE? Sorry love, washing machines are off. Everybody rents household appliances now.
And golly gosh, suddenly national currencies disappear too, because the Comptrollers of the Currency for the entire world are now based in Switzerland. No problem with exchange rates now. We have a World Government now -- everyone is a citizen of the world.
Oh Brave New World, that has such money in it.
https://consultations.rbnz.govt.nz/money-and-cash/digital-cash-in-new-zealand/
Lots of assurances, but how long will they last? And what a surprise, it's happening all over the world, at the same time. Ask Google about "Global push for CBDCs" ....
Sorry, this is a better one https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/politics/suspend-land-use-curbs-says-groundswell/ Gotta start somewhere. 15 minute cities where you can't travel more than a short distance? CBDCs, which can be turned off whenever the govt wants you to stop buying things they don't want you to buy (the NZ Reserve Bank is seeking comment on this right now, with a questionaire that asks VERY loaded questions -- and this is apparently happening at the same time in over a hundred nations). There are already shared vehicles on Waiheke. No, I find it entirely plausible that "you will own nothing" could eventually become a real thing. The goal is that everything will be rented. I already know people who don't own a lawnmower, just rent one occasionally.
So we shouldn't believe this? https://www.doc.govt.nz/about-us/our-role/managing-conservation/stewardship-land/stewardship-land-reclassification-process/
Yep 2 hour 42 et seq in that Carlson Rogan video ....
PS: Speaking of Kissinger, I think it was in this video that Tucker Carlson outs the destruction of Nixon by Deep Throat and the WaPo and as done almost exclusively by the CIA .... https://youtu.be/DfTU5LA_kw8
So much of what we think we know turns out 30 or 40 years later to be simply not true !
Eh?? What is "the redistribution effect" you say I describe? I have no idea what you mean by that. Burning straw men again, Dave? Tsk tsk ! Yes, I strongly suspect Kissinger chose Schwab exactly because the Bond villain thing tickled his (K's) German sense of humour. (Apparently Schwab didn't initially get in to the course @ Harvard, but K changed his mind). K's own books are interesting too -- particularly about his trips to China with Nixon. But do have a read of the Schwab book that I cite if you get a chance. I predict its chapter 10 will cause either great amusement or stifled rage ;-)
Abolition of private property - owning nothing. That is what I was referring to - not a straw man.
David (since you call me Susan, I'll call you David)
Where to start? Well, I hate to start with the phrase "with the greatest of respect" (because my impression is that most people who say that mean exactly the opposite). But in this case, I really do mean it. With the greatest of respect, Dr Harvey, I think you need to learn a bit more about both the United Nations and the institution called THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (WEF) a.k.a.THE DAVOS GROUP a.k.a. The International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
Basically, this latter organization was started in 1971 as the European arm of the CFR (US Council on Foreign Relations). In 1967, Klaus Schwab, then a 29 year old German citizen (already holder of an unlikely number of Swiss doctorates in both engineering and economics and some important-sounding job titles like Assistant to the Director-General of the German Machine-building Association, Frankfurt) signed up for a Masters degree in Public Administration at the John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. There he fell under the influence of ex-US Secretary of State and CFR insider Henry Kissinger. Four years later, Schwab had acquired the financial and (more importantly) the social capital necessary to start an organization first called the European Management Forum, which changed its name in 1987 (coincidentally the year the NZ Labour govt started really pounding Rogernomics) to the World Economic Forum, a.k.a. the International Organization for Public Private Cooperation. So what does this WEF want? They used to have 8 predictions for what the world would be like in 2030 (but for some reason they kept scrubbing these from both the internet and the Wayback Machine). The first prediction was "You will own nothing and you will be happy". See https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/8-predictions-for-the-world-in-2030/10153920524981479/ And why is that interesting? It's interesting because Karl Marx and Frederick Engels' "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (published by Lawrence and Wishart London 1983 -- Text that of the English edition 1885 checked with the German editions of 1848, 1872 and 1890) says on pages 39 and 40 "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property". Hmm. "Abolition of private property". "You will own nothing". Should we conclude that the WEF wants a global communist state?? Apparently so. But no -- should we take this idea seriously?? Well, perhaps it would be foolish not to take it seriously, given that the registered Davos "partners" include virtually all the heavy hitters of global capitalism. The Davos crew includes :
• most of the international banking system,
• Big Wireless,
• Big Tech,
• Big Pharma,
• Big Food,
• Big Retail,
• Big Transport,
• much of what's left of the scientific research community (ie those funded by Big Everything),
• at least one investment corporation with fingers in every pie in the world (Black Rock)
• and even the number one football club in England.
Well this is very confusing. Do all these capitalist mavens really want a global communist state??
Perhaps the seeming contradiction will be explained by Schwab's latest (at the time when I wrote this) book, ghost written by journalist Peter Varnham and titled "Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet" (Wiley 2021). This book paints a fine picture of four key "stakeholders" collaborating to "optimize the well-being of people and the planet". The four stakeholders are described as:
1. Governments
2. Civil Society
3. Companies
4. The International Community (the UN, WTO, OECD, ASEAN – and, presumably, the WEF).
But the reality playing out right now is more like the outright takeover of local "stakeholders" 1 and 2 by global "stakeholders" 3 and 4. Certainly the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" described on Schwab's pp.142 et seq is controlled almost entirely by stakeholder 3 – gigantic multi-national corporations – with national governments completely cut out of the picture by various "free-trade agreements" and Civil Society not featuring at all. On p.193 the "Checks and Balances, and Robust Institutions" mentioned are again described in startlingly Marxist terms (text in caps):
" In principle, EACH STAKEHOLDER CONTRIBUTES WHAT IT CAN in stakeholder capitalism AND RECEIVES WHAT IT NEEDS to achieve the most successful societal outcomes. But given the natural tendency of the existing capitalist models to favor the interests of large companies and wealthy individuals (shareholder capitalism) and political insiders (state capitalism) it is of the utmost importance that governments and companies – the two stakeholders with most power and influence in the current economic system – agree to be held accountable by each other and other stakeholders. This is where the role of democratic accountability, division of power and the role of international organizations come into play. They are the checks and balances our system needs."
End quote. Crikey. Perhaps the word "accountability" needs to be defined. Where does democracy come into the picture, if governments are ACCOUNTABLE TO multinational corporations and international organizations? It seems to be tacitly assumed that only international entities can – or will – rule the world properly.
But will they, indeed? Chapter 10 of Schwab's aforementioned book is a panegyric to Jacinda Ardern, perhaps the most well known of the Davos 'Young Global Leaders' graduates (class of 2014). Chapter 10 describes in glowing terms how New Zealand fared during the first couple of years of the "COVID-19 Crisis". I don't have the space to go into it here, but having lived through that period, I can say with some assurance that every word of this pretty story is a PR/ad-agency generated tissue of lies. The resignation and running away of JA and the resounding rejection of the remnants of her government last October would suggest that the majority of Kiwis agree.
The point in the present context is that Big Pharma (Pfizer) undeniably controlled the NZ government throughout this period -- and apparently still does. Well, so much for THAT public-private partnership.
As for the United Nations, https://www.weforum.org/press/2019/06/world-economic-forum-and-un-sign-strategic-partnership-framework/ says that "on 13 June 2019, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations signed a Strategic Partnership Framework outlining areas of cooperation to deepen institutional engagement and jointly accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The framework was drafted based on a mapping of existing collaboration between the two institutions and will enable a more strategic and coordinated approach towards delivering impact."
There is of course a huge amount more to be said on the topic of globalisation. But this box is ALMOST GONE and if you're not at least starting to get the picture about the globalist agenda by now, I'm not sure there's anything I can say that WOULD convince you anyway :-)
Susan
Thanks for the comment. I am aware of Schwab (who looks like a Bond villain) and the WEF. I have had concerns about Davos as well as some of the outputs from G7 ever since Arab Spring and Sarkozy’s moves to regulate the Internet.
I am afraid I can’t go along with everything that you suggest. I find it doubtful that the redistribution effect you describe will gain any traction among most thinking people. Theory is one thing. Making it happen is entirely another.
This post perfectly illustrates the fact that globalisation is ... to put it mildly, a two-edged sword and to put it less approvingly, a pain in [whatever part of your anatomy habitually hurts]. Globalisation, of BOTH THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE (which as Marshall McLuhan pointed out are essentially the same thing) -- enables transnational corporations to pillage and use to their advantage locally produced journalism, without paying EITHER the individual journalists who produce the news stories OR the government whose citizens' data and clicks the transnational snaffles without paying any form of national tax. So in this arena at least, globalisation ONLY serves the interests of transnational corporations. These multinationals then assume global control of national governments, through the sort of "public-private partnerships" that are openly promoted as desiderata by both the United Nations and the WEF. But as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it: "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power".
Susan
The point I was trying to make was that the message is less important than the medium in developing a business model for information sharing. One must understand the fundamental qualities of the medium. The message is secondary.
In referring to the "pillage" of local journalistic content I guess you support the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.
The reality is that we are in the middle of a new information paradigm and thus disruptive change will take place as the old ways give way to the new, driven by new digital and information technologies. I don't share your misgivings about the transnationals although I prefer a democratic participatory model of government. By the same token I don't see AI as resulting in the Skynet model suggested by the excellent Terminator movies.