by Claudio Grass, Claudio Grass:
For the longest time, according to conventional and widely embraced wisdom, all responsible and prudent members of society had to have a savings account. All those hardworking taxpayers and all those forward-thinking and sensible individuals that understand the importance of planning ahead, of being prepared for whatever the future holds and of securing a better life for their children, have traditionally been expected to put whatever they could afford aside from their paycheck every month, and to deposit it in that “untouchable” account. It was strictly meant to be used after retirement, or for their kids’ college tuition, or in case of a devastating illness or other catastrophic emergency.
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Bit by bit, deposit by deposit, that amount was supposed to accrue interest, to grow and to eventually reward the patience, the diligence and the sacrifices of those who so tirelessly and consistently contributed to it. That is the way things are supposed to work, after all. Those who forgo instant gratification in favor of future stability, those who toil today to rest tomorrow and those who value the needs of their children more than their own, are supposed to be rewarded and to prevail over the reckless, the irresponsible, the gamblers and the opportunists.
However, over the last decades it has become increasingly clear that the tables have well and truly turned. Patient and diligent savers have to sit back and watch their hard earned cash lose value by the day, earning interest that doesn’t even come close to matching their inflation losses. In fact, they’re lucky to earn any interest at all on their savings – after all, 0% or close to it was the norm for years, while some even suffered negative rates under the NIRP and ZIRP policies of the past years.
All the while, those responsible savers also had to watch opportunists and gamblers rake in surreal profits trading worthless stocks and cashing in on market bubbles. Of course, it’s all thanks to the State and the extreme measures it will adopt and enforce in order to protect its own interests, to solidify its own power and control.
Even beyond the financial losses associated with savings accounts, there are other, much more pernicious, risks that bank customers face. Chief among them is the threat to privacy and financial sovereignty. The degree of free reign and unobstructed access any state authority can have to an individual’s personal bank accounts, without a warrant, without any suspicion of wrongdoing, and even without ever notifying them, is shocking. What’s even more shocking, is how this power can be abused and wielded as a tyrannical weapon to force compliance and silence any opposition.
If any citizen oversteps their clearly delineated rights and freedoms, for example by voicing a dissenting opinion that challenges any mainstream narrative, or much more pertinently, if they dare to defy (or even question) the supremacy and authority of the State, they are sure to face severe punishment. It’s part and parcel of the oft-cited and widely revered “social contract”, which basically boils down to the promise of compliance, obedience and submission to a higher authority in exchange for security, order, protection and stability. Bank accounts are merely the latest tool in the vast arsenal of the State that is used to protect and perpetuate this status quo.
As we saw during the Covid protests, during the Ukraine war and during most recent crises, bank accounts can be used as leverage against political enemies of the State. From the targeted investigations by tax authorities and the account freezes of the trucker protestors in Canada, to the asset seizures of private Russian citizens and the “debanking” of politicians like Nigel Farage (but also countless other, much less prominent, bank customers) in the UK based solely on their political views, it is clear that one should be naive enough to believe that their bank has their best interests at heart. In fact the individual is not even the customer of the bank, they are the product that the bank has to offer to their real customer, the State.
