Who Owns Your Checking Account?

Who owns the money in your checking account? If you think "I own the money in my checking account!", you're delusional.

If the IRS determines that you owe them money, they can steal from your checking account without warning you first. Sometimes, a debt collector can steal money from your checking account without warning you first. If you're the victim of identity theft, you may not find out until the creditor steals money from your bank account. You bank works for the State first, and you second.

Also, the bank is required to report "suspicious transactions" to State enforcers. If you withdraw or deposit a lot of cash, bank management is required to fill out a "Suspicious Activity Report". They are legally barred from notifying the customer that they filed such a report.

Via inflation, the value of your checking account is stolen. If there is 2% monthly inflation, it's like the police demand 2% of your savings every month. The police don't need to go door-to-door to collect this tax. It occurs via inflation.

Suppose I perform work and deposit $1000 in my checking account. Are there any tangible goods backing my deposit? No, there aren't. The rest of society (the parasite class) gets an extra $1000 of wealth because I worked in exchange for a piece of paper. When I withdraw that money and spend it, then the rest of society experiences inflation.

With fiat money, "savings" merely represent wealth that the parasite class may steal. If I save fiat money, effectively I worked for free.

My checking account balance is a bookkeeping entry. If everyone went to their checking account, withdrew all their money and spent it, then there would be rapid inflation. The scam requires the confidence of the victims in order to continue.

That's why "consumer confidence" is important. For a wealth-based economy, confidence is irrelevant. For a scam-based economy, confidence is supremely important.

It doesn't matter if you go around saying "FSK's blog sucks!" As long as I have enough readers to earn advertising revenue, it doesn't matter if everyone else hates my blog. Right now, I'm doing this as a hobby and not as a job.

If you go around saying "Federal Reserve Notes are worthless!", and people start believing you, then the parasites have a problem. "Consumer confidence matters!" is a symptom of "It's all one big scam!" A con artist needs the confidence of his victims.

Suppose I work for an ounce of gold, and keep it in a warehouse receipt bank. In that case, if the bank is honest, then there are tangible goods backing my deposit. Gold has actual physical value. Gold does an excellent job of preserving its purchasing power over time. A State paper investment will eventually lose all its value due to inflation, while physical gold is safe from theft via inflation. Many corporations have gone bankrupt, and others have severely underperformed true inflation. Gold preserves its value over time.

With a gold standard and fractional reserve banking, your deposit is only partially backed. If all depositors simultaneously withdraw their gold, there is insufficient metal to pay everyone. With fractional reserve banking, the banksters are fraudulently expanding the money supply.

In a time-deposit bank, depositors have time deposits and not demand deposits. This isn't fraudulent like fractional reserve banking, which artificially increases the supply of demand money.

The only honest forms of banking are a warehouse receipt bank, a time-deposit bank, or by holding physical gold/silver in your possession. In the present, silver/gold warehouse receipt banking and silver/gold time-deposit banking are forbidden by State enforcers. The best option to protect your savings is to buy physical gold/silver and take delivery.

"Start an agorist banking system!" seems like a high priority. If you keep all your gold in one place, you're at risk from theft via State enforcers. Gold and silver protect your savings from theft via inflation. A distributed and decentralized banking system protects people's savings from theft via a State raid.