THE CHOICE

At the outset of the game, it should be made quite clear to the individual players that they have a choice, which will later on determine whether they will keep their freedom or becoming digitonians. Data bases are mushrooming, but most have no provision, what so ever, for the protection of privacy, whereas privacy should be protected and can be protected simply through the application of digital keys and encryption. It is quite possible to make financial transactions without anybody able to trace the originator. It is quite possible to enter medical records into a general databank without revealing the person's identity. It is possible to apply for a job by entering only the specific details, withholding one's name and only leaving a contact address. Only once the company computer will have selected the best candidate on merit of input, will the winner be notified. The personal data in the meantime remain anonymous. When using a gate pass there too is a choice between a gate pass which registers one's identity and time of passage or a gate pass which lets any anonymous bearer through with the correct encoding on his smartcard. And why is this not being done? Because most people have no idea there is a choice or do not care much anyhow at the moment of what might happen later on to their confidential input. They will regret only when it will be too late! Understandably it is not in the interest of the government or the data banks to inform them. Before rapid technical developments will make policy and software changes near impossible, urgent action should be taken to conserve our future freedom by striving for:

-THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE INCORPORATION OF GUARANTEES FOR PERSONAL PRIVACY INTO DATA BANKS AND ON THE INTERNET AND BY CREATING LAWS WHICH WILL MAKE TRADING IN PERSONAL DATA A CRIME.

THE COMPU-STATE, AN ORWELIAN SCENARIO

National currencies will become regulated and controlled after the panic. For the time being all free foreign exchange will be suspended. Desperately trying to hang on to power and to get income out of taxation from whatever source, the government, with the assistance of the banks, could force all business into using a "national financial intra-net", State controlled, where all transactions would legally have to be executed, registered and audited in a prescribed way. All traffic on the Internet could be obliged to carry a digital stamp of government censorship, which would show up each time a byte would pass through a switch. The carrying of government issued smart cards, containing all personal, medical, financial, social or professional data, would be made obligatory. All payments and receipts would have to be executed with the card and all old currency in espèce would be taken out of circulation. The government would reserve the right to have insight in all affairs. Heavy fines and prison sentences would be levied for non-compliance. The public is not likely to offer any objections to the new measures as long as they feel protected and are assured of their social benefits, their football leagues, TV soap operas, horror films and public porn. There is nothing more to add here except that future Freedom Hackers armed with the latest virus bombs might make life for the Compu State very difficult.

THE FINAL HOUR OF THE DEBAUCHERY

The governments are indulging in paper-wealth creation and are enjoying it. Money supply is soaring, credit expansion ballooning and still no inflation insight. The financial world is running in a seemingly orderly manner, and the economies are absorbing all the new monies and credits in a balanced way. Mr Greenspan is being praised in the newspapers as the perfect juggler.

Financial experts are daily combing the horizon for any sign of inflation! But how would it be if the experts looked up instead and discovered the bulging credit thunderclouds right overhead? Is it just pedantic shortsightedness of how inflation should be defined? Or are the darkening credit clouds conveniently being left out of the picture? Credit inflation has not yet come down to earth but it is ready to burst and flood the world, hitting hard and unexpectedly. The huge credit pyramid built up by the banking system is like a volcano spewing out hot liquidity in ever greater volume: pouring it out via the funds into the stock markets, bond markets, third world loans, junk and rollover loans, derivatives, undeserved commissions and salaries. Pouring it offshore: billions are leaving the high-tax countries never to return to their home economies, finding their way via the tax haven banks and offshore investment funds returning again into the same stock and bond markets and monetary assets. Offshores are unpredictable, vicious and volatile. The chances for more fine tuning and a soft landing have long since gone. Alan in Wonderland is running behind the events and will soon even lose his psychological power to influence the markets. The State's money fountains are keeping on flowing. Global credit creation seems to be out of control and is beating the first six days of creation in Genesis. The stock markets have taken the bite between their teeth.

When "ppfffffttttt-day" comes, everybody will cry "cash!!" the same moment. The governments and the banks will then have to resort to "hyper credit" creation to forestall economic collapse and social unrest, both which will follow anyhow! Then hyper credit will unavoidably collapse too and end in a deluge of roaring monetary inflation at the lower CPI level. The politicians cannot let their voters starve!

And a deluge works very simple, it will wash all the excesses of the preceding decades plus its perpetrators clean into the gutter. So THE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS COMING IS TO DEFINE FIRST ALL THE EXCESSES AND ABNORMALITIES OF TODAY AND THEN BRING THEM BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

The Dollar will return where it came from. Foreign held Dollars and Dollar denominated financial papers, which are all direct claims on the US, will instantaneously be presented for reimbursement. The value of the Dollar could shrivel overnight and the US government would have to resort to closing the foreign exchange window for an indefinite time. Dollar holders outside the US are going to lose their shirt and US citizens stand a good chance to see all their accounts blocked. Splitting the Dollar into an external and internal Dollar could be a step the US government might consider. With the demise of the Dollar world trade and finance, robbed a common denominator will become severely handicapped. The Dollar denominated reserves of many countries will fall back to near zero. Countries which neglected their internal economies and relied heavily on export commodities will get into deep trouble. The ensuing Dollar and fiat money collapse will be a blessing in disguise for all debtors, with the State up front. Debtor countries and consumers will see their debts wiped out overnight. The Banks will see their balance sheets wiped out! There will be a panicky flight into real assets. Only the people who invested directly in non-luxury, basic enterprise and not via any fund, will stand a fair chance to save part of their holdings. The governments which have been living far above their means will shrink back to minus 10% of GNP from their present world average of 45% when tax collection will shrivel. And the power of bankers and financiers will quickly fall back to its former 5% of GNP.

The present international monetary system made up out of a multitude of fluctuating, manipulated national fiat currencies will prove totally inadequate for the requirements of a future global World Wide Web interconnected Humapan. The State, the banks, investment funds and the financial institutions will not run the money business any longer in a Humapan. Money is going to run itself automatically like a hormone. Impossible ? Just wait and see what upheaval the coming collapse will bring about!

It will be nothing like former collapses and corrections. This time the restructuring will go the Internet way and not the way politicians might think they might resurrect the economy, the currency and finance. THE INTERNET IS GOING TO RUN US, not the other way round.

THE INTERNET IS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON AND IS INHERENTLY IRRECONCILABLE WITH ALL WHAT IS NATIONAL.

We are entering interesting times.

CYBER TIMES

The Internet will not stay restricted for long to serve only as the world's most sophisticated means of communication. The Internet through the World Wide Web is going to become a global platform for "people" discussion forums. Which in turn are going to converge into virtual global alliances under one umbrella. And far from being only virtual they are destined to obtain great power.

• The Internet has given the world a hitherto unknown web structure on which totally new organizations will grow.
  
  
• The Internet is bringing an openness not seen ever before to the affairs of man which will cut right through to the top.
  
  
• The Internet is offering the world a new efficiency, which will slash through all obsolete boundaries.
  
  
• The Internet and the computer have given the power back to the individual. It is up to him to use it.
  
  
• The Internet is speeding up the world's sequence of events.
  
  
• And within the coming years forum members will not only be able to insert written text but they will become able to make life presentations of their opinions on screen.
  
  
• Adding to this the new TV capability to bring the Internet directly on the TV screen.
  
  

THE POWER OF THE DISCUSSION FORUMS WILL BE EXPANDED A THOUSANDFOLD and all what in future will be discussed on the Web is going to influence the affairs of man greatly.

• The Internet has given the world a hitherto unknown web structure on which totally new organizations will grow.
  
  
• The Internet is bringing an openness not seen ever before to the affairs of man which will cut right through to the top.
  
  
• The Internet is offering the world with a new efficiency, which will slash through all obsolete boundaries.
  
  
• The Internet and the computer have given the power back to the individual. It is up to him to use it.
  
  
• The Internet is speeding up the world's sequence of events.
  
  

Who will still look in future at the orchestrated shows of Larry King or Abby Cohen? What is going to be left of the Media and the Power of the Grandees? Well managed forums will be many times more informative, constructive, more honest.

Look at Gold-Eagle! In the time span of only two years time, what has not been achieved by ordinary people working together on a discussion platform! The whole truth and nothing but the truth about the financial structures of the West, its intrigues and powers behind the scene are becoming public knowledge. Never would such have been possible by relying on the controlled Media. And one of the most promising features of Gold-Eagle and several other discussion forums is, that the discussions are held in a free global, borderless atmosphere. Look at what GATA has achieved in one year only. And what the anti WTO World Trade Organization groups through combining their actions on the World Wide Web made of the so widely propagated Seattle meeting. A slab in the face of Clinton and the financial establishment. Small is strong again. Just give me a laptop and a web-page!

Within the last thirty years the "SPIRIT OF SILICON VALLEY" has turned the whole world upside down. People power is back. The Mighty Micro has given the individual and small business the same secure and instant information and communication power as big government and the Grandees. And the World Wide Web has given the ordinary citizen a political bastion, a global transparent platform for collective knowledge. And knowledge is power.

The future of politics, currencies and finance is going to be decided on the Web and not by the politicians any longer. Governments can print notes but cannot decree what money is, and definitely not after what will happen in the coming financial onslaught, when the mess they made out of finance will burst out into the open. Correctly will the old politicians and financial cronies be blamed for the disaster and consequently be wiped off the map. If a change in political leadership is going to make a difference, I doubt it. Leadership is far to find today and the present stoogees are rather mediocre dwarfs, TV-clowns, sex maniacs, alcoholics, arrogant fools and non-people.

I see young far sighted intellectuals making their entry on the open Web, discussing the future of politics, money and currency. A new generation of young entrepreneurial Internet techno-bankers, free from the old encumbrances, will make global finance a highly technical exercise: simple, automatic, transparent, instant and cheap, replacing the old parasitic banking practices of managing and fooling around with somebody else's money!

THE BASIC PILLARS OF WESTERN FINANCE WILL BE CALLED INTO QUESTION: FIAT MONEY, INTEREST RATES, THE CONTROL OF THE CURRENCY AND THE BANKING CHARTER.

Part 1

Part 2

Final Part

Hans Schicht
Lake Chapala, Mexico
10 January 2000