In this, the latest in an occasional series about the ethereal ‘They’ behind the Brave New World Order, The Slog examines the ultra-slim rationale behind fat-headed proposals from the BIS for “reform” of the paper-and-coin physical cash system. The Conclusion reached is that the plans are high in systemicness, and low in realityness.

Apologies for the late arrival of this post. It would’ve gone out at 9.15 am, but an interface with French bureaucracy that should’ve taken ten minutes took over two hours

The somewhat bulky gentleman to your left is the boss of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Agustín Guillermo Carstens Carstens. Clearly, one Carstens wasn’t enough for him…judging by his build, in fact, one of anything is never quite enough for Agustín. It’s the sort of build that could be Built Back Better…unless the aim is to Build Better Billy Bunter Backs & Bottoms. In 2018, he was demanding more BIS control over Central Banks, whom he accused of ‘piggy-backing’…I suppose if you have a piggy back yourself, that’s something about which you’re entitled to opinionate. In the last two days, he’s been pushing hard for complete digital control over all money. Many suggest that in calling for this, Aggy is punching above his weight; but if the bloke was any heavier, in the absence of 180 centimetre arms he’d be punching himself.

Carstens Carstens has been a regular feature of Davos meetings since 2010. Let’s face it, as a physical feature, il gran Mexicano is a topological man mountain worthy of his own personal contour lines: he’s a hard guy to miss, and impossible to mark absent.

As a result of climbing his own mountain, he has become the 4th richest politician in Mexican history, with a personal wealth estimated at $27 million. If and when Agustín finally achieves his goal of “resetting” who gets what in the Brave New Normal, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that his sharing methodology might be “83 for me, 1 for you” and so forth. Take in this second shot of Senor Carstens: I met Robert Maxwell several times, and trust me – the bouncing Czech was borderline anorexic compared to this guy.

When not busy having doors widened in advance of his meetings outside the BIS, he’s a big wheel in The Innovation BIS 2025 project – a scheme that would be dear to the hearts of the Davos élite if they had such organs factory-fitted. By 2025, the BIS hopes to complete the digitalisation of all payment systems in the UK, the U.S, the EU and every nation State in their orbit. Note the use of the pronoun ‘by’ there, and work backwards: the aim is to abolish physical cash within 27 months of right now.

In every context (especially those of France, Italy and Greece) that timetable is about as practical as the idea of picking a locked toilet door with a blade of grass when stricken with diarrhoea.

The BIS refers to electronic cash as central bank digital currency (CBDC), but even this is immensely misleading: the organisation’s project is nothing less than the establishment of a New World Order-valued virtual coinage without reference to any criteria beyond, um, well, er…what the Bank for International Settlements says it is – the clue’s in the name, and all that.

But there’s a more than slightly concerning two-tier nature to CBDC. Carstens-Carstens “explains” as follows:

“Like cash, a CBDC could and would be available 24/7, 365 days a year. At first glance, not much changes for someone, say, stopping off at the supermarket on the way home from work. He or she would no longer have the option of paying cash. All purchases would be electronic.”

But there’s an element to it that is a very big change indeed: as financial commentator Stephen Guinness points out, ‘there are two variants of CBDC that are regularly discussed by central bank officials. The first is a wholesale CBDC, which would be used to facilitate payments exclusively between financial sector firms. The second option, a retail CBDC, would be for use by the general public.’

Ah…right. One valuation for the gigarich, and another for the rest of us. The bankers want a built-in margin giving their version of the CBDC far greater purchasing power.

Breathtaking, isn’t it? And of course, I don’t have to tell you that all the other elements within the depraved Reset alliance – the Greens, the leftist bureaucrats, the Surveillance State and the mainstream media – would be the only other folks allowed into the Gum ‘wholesale’ dealership.

Now of course, every time he gets winched into a specially reconfigured aeroplane to make a speech somewhere, Zapata Lardarse makes no bones about his belief that there is a special place in Hell for anyone wishing to pursue PDC (personal destiny control) via the development of Bitcoin and so forth. In January this year, he told an audience at the Hoover Institute:

“Investors must be cognisant that bitcoin will break down altogether. Scarcity and cryptography alone do not suffice to guarantee exchange…..clearly, if digital money is to exist, the central bank must play a pivotal role, guaranteeing the stability of value, ensuring the elasticity of the aggregate supply of such money, and overseeing the overall security of the system….bitcoin fails as a currency, a medium of exchange and a value storage mechanism, working only as a speculative asset and seldom as money”.

In the speech, the world’s widest* man made three completely empty points: ‘bitcoin will break down altogether’ (he’s determined to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy); ‘the central bank must play a pivotal role’ (and gosh, since Nixon didn’t that work out really well); and ‘working only as a speculative asset and seldom as money’ (guess whose machinations want to make that inevitable).

He is a product of a mad world that created floating currencies rigged to disguise Sovereign failure…but now he wants to preach the equally insane idea of unchanging valuation. The guy is a fully signed-up NWO beach ball, a waddling example of The Slog’s long held maxim: ‘those with double standards always want double helpings’.

*In British English, a wide-boy is the quintessential Elmer Gantry – a salesman peddling London bridges and eternal Life to the desperately naive.

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