The challenge is to create an environment where customers must either spend their savings or pay their bank interest to hold deposits. To succeed, the government must corral citizens into purely electronic money. Otherwise many will simply withdraw cash and hide it under a mattress. When you have to pay a bank to borrow your money, holding physical cash gives you a higher yield, i.e. 0% interest is a higher yield than negative 1%!
Bank executives are licking their chops at the potential for all transactions to be done electronically. They stand to rake in processing fees every time you use your card or cell phone to make purchases rather than using cash. Plus they will gather a larger deposit base as customers no longer have the option of holding paper money outside the banking system.
Negative rates should drive significant demand for gold and silver. NIRP is a testament to the fact that central bankers will try literally anything to produce inflation. Such an extraordinary policy should set off alarm bells for anyone who isn't concerned about inflation, or is betting on deflation. If central bankers want inflation, they have the power to create it. As always, inflation fears will drive demand for physical bullion.
The good news is that while bureaucrats can theoretically win the War on Cash because they have complete control over the issuance of paper money, they cannot win a war on bullion. Metals don't roll off a printing press that can simply be switched off. Physical bullion is private and off-the-grid – a nightmare for regulators.
If they attempt taxes and regulation, they will fall victim to the law of unintended consequences. But that may not stop them from trying. It's happened before – most recently in India. Indian officials dramatically hiked the tariff on imported gold in 2013 They accomplished little more than angering a gold-loving population and driving an eight-fold increase in gold smuggling.
Politicians and their friends in banking aren't going to stamp out peoples' desire, or their ability, to transact privately using barter instruments such as gold and silver coins. And they aren't going to force unwilling people to stand idly by as they take shears to savers; bank accounts. The push to eliminate cash will inevitably push people into cash alternatives including physical precious metals.
I cannot overstate the significance of today’s New York Times editorial board endorsement of the elitist scheme to ban large denomination cash from public circulation. This is the latest example of the editorial board putting the interests of the establishment ahead of the citizenry, while at the same time employing a nonsensical argument to support its position which channels emotion rather than logic.
DYI
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