How to Break Up with the Financial System

By DAISY LUTHER | ORGANIC PREPPER | MARCH 26, 2013

Breaking up is hard to do, especially when it is with a tracking service like a financial institution.

Sometimes you can make a clean break and other times you have to remain “just friends”.

The US government actually has a name for people who have no bank accounts – they call these folks “the unbanked”.  The FDIC defines the unbanked as “those without an account at a bank or other financial institution and are considered to be outside the mainstream for one reason or another.”  Another term is “the underbanked” – “people or businesses that have poor access to mainstream financial services normally offered by retail banks. The underbanked can be characterized by a strong reliance on non-traditional forms of finance and micro-finance often associated with disadvantaged and the poor, such as check cashers, loan sharks and pawnbrokers.”

According to the government, the above scenarios are crisis situations which must be rectified for “your own good”.  There is legislation on the table in many states to set up banking facilities for the unbanked and underbanked.  The assumption is that most folks who do not deal with a bank are too poor to do so.  This could be true in many cases: high minimum balances, bad credit history, NSFs, and account fees can all preclude having a bank account for those in difficult financial straits.

However, the government has a couple more reasons to insist that everyone should have a bank account:

1.)   Ease of confiscation

We need only to look at the horrible situation in Cyprus to see how bank accounts are like all-you-can-steal-buffets for the powers that be.  A suggested theft TAX of up to 20% of the money in Cypriot bank accounts may be levied in order for the country to meet it’s staggering debts in the terms of the proposed EU bailout.  The banks of Cyprus are loaded with the money of residents and businesses of other countries that have used them as a tax haven.  The banks have been closed for several days and frantic customers are left to withdraw the maximum daily balances from ATM machines in an attempt to salvage what they can.  Many people fear the banks will never reopen their doors.

Think it can’t happen here?  I wonder if the people of Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Hungary, Argentina, Spain, and Portugal thought that too.

2.)  Surveillance

The second reason that “everyone should have access to banking services” is the digital trail that it leaves.  Every dime you receive and spend out of these accounts is part of an intricate system of surveillance.  When your money goes into a bank – any bank – Big Brother knows about it.  It’s a simple matter of compiling information via your social security number (or other federally- assigned number) to find out how much you make, how much you have, and where it comes from.  This can be used to prosecute you for tax purposes, to locate you through where your pay comes from, and to follow your personal money trail for a variety of different reasons.

It can also be used to track your spending – Big Brother can find out that you spent $2000 at a gun store, that you purchased online from a prepper supply website or that you bought some books with “questionable” content in order to paint you as a threat.

Unbanking

So, in this day and age, is it possible to get by completely without a bank account?

It’s tough.  Most work places prefer to pay through direct deposit.  Many landlords, mortgage companies and finance companies do business through direct debit.  You’re going to pay some steep fees if this is the route that you choose to go.  For some, it might be worth it, particularly if you only have a few transactions in a month.

Here are some places you can cash checks for a fee:

• Check cashing depots
• Some retailers like Walmart, 7-11, and some grocery stores (the number of these is dropping rapidly)
• Pawn shops
• The issuing bank will sometimes cash a check drawn from one of their accounts for a non-account holder
• Some prepaid credit card accounts will accept a direct deposit (in my opinion, this is nearly as unsafe as having your money in a bank account)
• Through a friend or family member’s account (also risky – for both you and the account holder)

Here are some ways you can pay bills without a bank account:

• In person, with cash, cashier’s checks, or money orders
• Through the mail, with cashier’s checks or money orders
• Online, with prepaid credit cards
• Through a kiosk using a prepaid credit card
• At a check-cashing depot or retailer

Underbanking

Your next option is underbanking.  For some people this may be the most realistic way to break up with their bank – it’s the “just friends” version.  If you have a lot of transactions that go through your account every month, it isn’t necessarily practical to get rid of your account.  Keep in mind that all of the above methods of unbanking still have a component of financial tracking.  The checks and bills still have your personal information tied to them in most cases.

When you underbank, you still have an account.  Set this up with the lowest possible fee and the lowest possible required balance.  Shop around to find the best deal.  Consider a credit union or community bank instead of one of the big mega-banks.  They are slightly safer, emphasis on slightly.

Your paychecks from work can be directly deposited, which will make your employer happy.  Employers rarely want to do something outside the norm, and if everyone else gets their pay directly deposited, writing a check for you will make you stand out – the opposite of what you want to do.  As well, any other checks you receive, like refunds, tax returns, etc., can be processed through this account.

The goal here is to keep as little money as possible in this account.  Banks are no longer the safest place to keep your money, and the .00001% of interest you will accrue is just not worthwhile.

Immediately upon payday:

• Pay all your bills online or through a kiosk out of this account – rent, utilities, credit card payments (hopefully you don’t have those)
• Buy necessities like groceries if you need to reduce the amount in the account for withdrawal purposes
• Calculate the amount of payments that will be coming out of your account between now and your next pay (rent/mortgage, car payment, insurance)
• Remove all money except that required for impending debits and your minimum balance.  Get it in cash.

Avoid Financial Surveillance

The government wants everyone to have a bank account for another reason besides quick accessibility for the purpose of thievery.  Big Brother wants to know what you earn, what you spend, and where you spend it.  Every penny you spend could one day be used against you, as more and more things become illegal in the police state that is taking over the western world.

Use your bank account as little as possible if you’ve chosen to underbank:

• Buy stuff with cash
• Skip registering your belongings by serial number for warranty purposes
• For heaven’s sakes, don’t get one of those “customer loyalty” cards that track every purchase you make and provide you with “rewards” or “points”
• Buy from places that don’t track you, like yard sales, Craigslist, farmer’s markets, roadside stands, your brother’s friend’s sister’s boyfriend
• Work for cash: this is another suggestion that won’t work for everybody, but if you can do some odd jobs for cash, even if you make slightly less money doing so, this is money that can’t be tracked.

Think about how your purchases tell a story about you that you might rather keep to yourself.  Are you buying lots of farm equipment, soil amendments and seeds?  Are you buying ammo every week?  Are you stocking away large quantities of food or medical supplies?  Have you recently purchased 2,347 books on different guerrilla warfare tactics?  OPSEC is more than just keeping your mouth shut about your prepperly ways.

Ditch the Dollar

Although you require some fiat currency to function in today’s society, as well as some in an emergency fund,  consider using other forms of currency whenever possible.  The following suggestions won’t work for everyone, but some folks may be able to ditch the dollar in the following ways:

• Engage in the barter system: trade goods and services with like-minded people.
• Keep precious metals like gold and silver in a fireproof safe for your “savings account”
• Immediately convert  fiat currency into tangible goods: food, ammo, home defense items, tools, etc.
• Work towards self-sufficiency – if you buy less, you can earn less: grow your food, repair your own home or vehicle, do things manually instead of using expensive equipment, lessen your dependency on the grid
• Simplify – this goes hand in hand with self sufficiency: find your entertainment from library books and online resources, skip eating out, take a walk instead of joining a gym – the less you feel you need, the less money you will have to earn.

The decision to unbank or underbank is unique to every individual.  The further away you can get from “the system” the more privacy and security you will have.  The suggestions above are not meant to be comprehensive – they’re meant to get you thinking about how you can disengage.  As always, your suggestions in the comments can greatly benefit others!

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American taxpayers officially screwed under ‘fiscal cliff’ deal

Those earning $30,000 will pay more taxes than others earning $100,000 – $500,000

By HAYLEY PETERSON | MAIL ONLINE | JANUARY 4, 2012

Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more – or an additional $2,711 – in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784 – the D.C.-based think tank reported.

Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.

‘The economy needs a stimulus, but under the agreement, taxes will go up in 2013 relative to 2012 – not only on high-income households, as widely discussed, but also on every working man and woman in the country, via the end of the payroll tax cut,’ said William G. Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.

‘For most households, the payroll tax takes a far bigger bite than the income tax does, and the payroll tax cut therefore – as [the Congressional Budget Office] and others have shown – was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were, because the payroll tax cuts hit lower in the income distribution and hence were more likely to be spent,’ he added.

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America’s 99 percent to be hit with 50% increase in taxes

By KEITH FITZ-GERALD | ETF | DECEMBER 11, 2012

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think there’s a small but growing group of people in Washington who think it would actually be good if we temporarily went over the fiscal cliff.

I say that because I am seeing a smattering of articles recently suggesting that somehow going over the cliff “won’t be all that bad” or that we’re “really just talking about cuts that need to happen in the first place.”

President Obama seems to think the same way judging by the fact that he’s dug in his heels, telling the GOP there will be no fiscal cliff bargain that doesn’t include tax hikes.

Now noted budget hawk Republican Senator Tom Coburn has broken ranks, noting that he’d rather see rates rise because that “will give us a greater chance to reform the tax code and broaden the base in the future.”

I find that to be an absolutely appalling argument given how much further the president’s proposals will squeeze the middle class.

As Fox Business Network’s Gerri Willis, an expert on consumer and personal finance issues, recently pointed out to me, the average middle class tax rate is already 43.12%, according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation.

Beyond that, Willis says if we do go over the cliff, the average middle class tax burden jumps to nearly 50%.

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Costa Rican Shill Heading UN Climate Fraud Negotiations

By Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
August 9, 2010

Cristiana Figueres, a descendant of a Costa Rican elite family is the top United Nations climate official in charge of conducting negotiations to impose a worldwide tax on humanity for the purpose of funding the World Climate Fund, a United Nations organ that would rule over every single country on environmental policy. Figueres is the daughter of former Costa Rican president Jose Figueres Ferrer and sister of also former Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres Olsen. Figueres got the position only after her predecessor Yvo de Boer walked away from the chairmanship after the fiasco in Copenhagen, Denmark. She was proposed as a replacement by a group of insular nations who opposed the arrival of a representative from the BSAIC, a group of countries formed by Brazil, South Africa, India and China. This group was the only bloc opposed to the insane policies the United Nations wanted to approve at the Copenhagen meeting. After the failure to reach a consensus, the United Nations is back bolder than ever and with a new face. It wants to mandate that countries finance and support the World Climate Fund which will undoubtedly be managed by the controllers that founded and direct the UN today.

Cristiana Figueres, Head of the UN Convention on Climate Change.

The United Nations wants to make sure once countries meet back to discuss the creation of the World Climate Fund, most nations will be on board with the climate tax scam that this organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have requested as their only solution to face an inexistent global warming emergency. Developing countries withdrew their support in Copenhagen after a document was released establishing the real intentions the United Nations and the industrialized countries had with the adoption of the Copenhagen Treaty. In it, the UN intended to impose a mandatory tax on all nations which would have started with the establishment of national emission reduction targets and contributions to the Fund.

What tipped the developing countries against the Treaty was the fact the document clearly stated that third world countries would not receive the funding promised by the UN on the conditions stated in a previous draft of the Treaty, and that such subsidies for cutting down emissions would have strings attached. “It’s a little bit like a broken record,” said European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger. “It’s like a flashback,” agreed Raman Mehta, of the Action Aid environment group. “The discourse is the same level” as before Copenhagen.

Organizations like the UN as well as many bought and paid-for scientists justify the imposition of a world tax on industrialization due to the false unproven and debunked assertion that carbon dioxide, a gas emitted from most industrial activity, is responsible for the runaway warming of the planet. It is false, because the planet has actually cooled off in the last 10 to 12 years. Their assertion is unproven, because in spite of the thousands of white papers and studies scientists and universities cite as infallible proof CO2 causes the warming, the truth is, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 4-6 percent of the total amount of gases present. From those 4-6 percent, human activity is only responsible for about half. But even if human activity was responsible for such warming, how would a world tax on emissions help slow atmospheric pollution? It does not. The funds raised from adopting any kind of protocol or treaty, would only help finance the creation of a global centralized entity, that not only the United Nations but also the World Bank and the IMF have uncontrollably called for.

According to the Associated Press, global climate talks slipped backward after five days of negotiations in Bonn, Germany. There, poor countries faced-off with rich nations on the very same topic that sank the Copenhagen negotiations: The details on what countries in the third world would receive and under what conditions as well as agreements they made last year.  “Delegates complained that reversals in the talks put negotiations back by a year, even before minimal gains were scored at the Copenhagen summit last December,” reports the AP.

Christiana Figueres, said the Bonn talks was the last chance for nations to agree on a set of maximum national demands, and insisted countries had to “radically narrow down their choices”. One more round of talks is scheduled for October in China. The results of the November meeting in Cancun, Mexico have already been downplayed by organizers in order to avoid the grand fiasco experienced in Denmark. But Figueres’ statement makes it clear developing countries will have to abide by the rules the globalists at the head of the UN want to impose; or else. It seems the UN wants every country to approve their package of “concessions” and take it home where it can be passed as the law of the land. This way, the agreement will be binding. Another fact that made poor countries get up from the table in Copenhagen, was the statement countries who signed the Treaty could not withdraw from it later. Not even Barack Hussein Obama, fresh from a highly overrated election, was able to inspire confidence in the 120 representatives who walked away from the conference. The failure Copenhagen came to be known for, ended with an empty statement pledging to downgrade industrialization to levels only seen in the middle ages and to reduce emissions to amounts only realistic in the planet Earth of the 1700’s. Not even the explicit and corrupt intention to buy countries off was enough to reach a binding agreement.

Although treaties have always promised to provide aid to developing nations in order to reduce carbon emissions, their representatives did not bite the bait, as rich nations would not do the same. It is through schemes like Cap&Trade, that industrialized nations would encourage and indeed pimp the very own emissions plan to large corporations -owned by globalists- so they do not have to reduce their emissions neither in developed countries nor in Asia, Africa or Latin America. According to the Cap&Trade text, anyone with deep pockets (corporations funded by banks) could purchase carbon credits from other companies or from the Chicago Credit Exchange to continue polluting. Where would the emissions reduction come from then? From the no development of poor nations. The Cap&Trade scam would not only further break down all current industry in developed countries, but also stop any hint of development in third world nations.

“At this point, I am very concerned,” said chief U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing. “Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from progress made in Copenhagen, and what was agreed there.” On the other hand, British economist Nicholas Stern said that government regulation and public money would also be needed to create incentives for private investment in industries that emit fewer greenhouse gases. In other words, tax payer money would bailout large corporations (owned by banks) in order for them to get rich as they themselves manage the carbon credit scam. For this purpose, the United Nations brought in an unknown face (Cristiana Figueres) in order to gain some confidence back from disenchanted representatives. The new head of the Convention on Climate Change is seen as an expert due to her experience as president of several working groups, (the compartmentalized type) that meet behind closed doors to secretly decide on the destinies of millions of people. She is recognized for having a deep understanding of how the inside circles are managed in negotiations such as the climate tax and the creation of unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic bodies.

With the most recent face change, the United Nations wants to achieve the same effect the globalists looked for in the United States with Barack Obama. Once the people learn of the scam they run, a new puppet must come to be the front man, (in this case, the front woman) so they can enforce their eugenicist scientific technocracy. But as everyone has seen with Obama, you can only fool some people for some time, but you cannot fool all people all the time. Now we see the light.*

*Bob Marley

U.S Government secretely passed gold coin tax

Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion Transactions 

ABC

 Those already outraged by the president’s health care legislation now have a new bone of contention — a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.

 The issue is rising to the fore just as gold coin dealers are attracting attention over sales tactics.

 Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals.

 Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year. Precious metals such as coins and bullion fall into this category and coin dealers have been among those most rankled by the change.

 This provision, intended to mine what the IRS deems a vast reservoir of uncollected income tax, was included in the health care legislation ostensibly as a way to pay for it. The tax code tweak is expected to raise $17 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

 Taking an early and vociferous role in opposing the measure is the precious metal and coin industry, according to Diane Piret, industry affairs director for the Industry Council for Tangible Assets. The ICTA, based in Severna Park, Md., is a trade association representing an estimated 5,000 coin and bullion dealers in the United States.

 “Coin dealers not only buy for their inventory from other dealers, but also with great frequency from the public,” Piret said. “Most other types of businesses will have a limited number of suppliers from which they buy their goods and products for resale.”

 So every time a member of the public sells more than $600 worth of gold to a dealer, Piret said, the transaction will have to be reported to the government by the buyer.

 Pat Heller, who owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Mich., deals with around 1,000 customers every week. Many are individuals looking to protect wealth in an uncertain economy, he said, while others are dealers like him.

 With spot market prices for gold at nearly $1,200 an ounce, Heller estimates that he’ll be filling out between 10,000 and 20,000 tax forms per year after the new law takes effect.

 “I’ll have to hire two full-time people just to track all this stuff, which cuts into my profitability,” he said.

 An issue that combines gold coins, the Obama health care law and the IRS is bound to stir passions. Indeed, trading in gold coins and bars has surged since the financial crisis unfolded and Obama took office, metal dealers said.

 The buying of actual gold, as opposed to futures or options tied to the price of gold, has been a particularly popular trend among Tea Party supporters and others who are fearful of Obama’s economic policies, gold industry members such as Heller and Piret said.  

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