They’re Bringing Back Feudalism… And Nobody Seems To Notice
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,
You’ve likely heard that unknown hackers recently attacked Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama that helps people set up offshore companies and bank accounts. They later leaked 11.5 million documents.
Almost immediately, central economic planners at the G20 and OECD—international organizations of the world’s largest economies—took advantage of the “Panama Papers” incident to shove GATCA down the world’s throat.
GATCA is a new “global standard” for the automatic exchange of financial information between governments. It’s modeled on an overreaching U.S. law, FATCA, which forces every financial institution on earth to give the IRS information.
Think of GATCA as FATCA on steroids. If countries widely adopt it, GATCA will deliver the final deathblow to financial privacy.
The G20 and OECD are even threatening to blacklist and sanction countries that don’t sign up for their privacy-killing scheme. Most have already caved. Notable holdouts include Panama, Lebanon and Bahrain.
Ramon Fonseca, a founder of the hacked Panama law firm, has said, “We believe there’s an international campaign against privacy. Privacy is a sacred human right (but) there are people in the world who do not understand that.”
I think Fonseca is absolutely correct.
When Privacy Dies
George Orwell once wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Not exactly a cheery thought, I know. But this dark future is, unfortunately, where we may be headed…and soon.
It’s a world where privacy is dead, where the government knows everything about you.
And we’re already almost there.
Today, the government knows what you watch on TV, what you read on the Internet, whom you call, and everything you do on your smart phone and computer. It has a record of every penny you’ve ever earned, saved, borrowed or spent. It knows where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going.
All this government tracking is possible thanks to the mountain of laws and regulations that sprouted from the war on (some) drugs, the war on terror and so forth. Over the years, these schemes have incrementally destroyed privacy. Now, they’re going in for the kill.
There’s not much about your life the government doesn’t know already. The last vestiges of privacy may vanish very soon. Once that happens, governments will have almost unbreakable control over the individual.
This is exactly the opposite of how a free society works.
This meddling is not about protecting you from drug dealers or terrorists, it’s about the government seizing more power. This is why proponents of big government invariably support measures that kill privacy.
There’s also a psychological aspect to this relentless anti-privacy campaign. The government and its media allies have convinced the average person that “privacy” is a dirty word.
They’ve duped people into believing that only criminals and wrongdoers want privacy. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about,” as the popular, but wrongheaded, adage goes.
Many have forgotten that privacy is fundamental to preserving human dignity and protecting individuals from government overreach.
Financial Privacy and the New Feudalism
Financial privacy is by far the most demonized …read more
Source: They’re Bringing Back Feudalism… And Nobody Seems To Notice
