In The Last American Vagabond video above, you can watch Agustín Carstens, general manager for the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), spell out exactly why globalists are promoting central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, so heavily.

“[With] cash we don’t know, for example, who’s using a $100 bill today,” he says. “We don’t know who is using a 1,000-peso bill today. A key difference with the CBDC is that Central Bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of Central Bank liability and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”¹

The video features an interview with finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts — publisher of The Solari Report² — who has warned that CBDCs are part of a plan to end all currencies. If that happens, a slavery system, steeped in the ideologies of transhumanism and technocracy, will be ushered in.

“We’re watching events that are within a framework, which is very engineered and planned,” Fitts says. “At the root of what’s going on today is there is a group of people who are trying to totally centralize control of all financial transactions on the planet — 100% — using digital technology.”³

Taxation Without Representation

“It’s a very rare moment when a central bank is telling you the truth,” Fitts notes, but Carstens’ statements did just that, detailing how central banks can enforce rules centrally “because it’s no longer your money, it’s our money — and we can set the rules on how you can use ‘our’ money,” she says.⁴

CBDCs will rapidly usher in an era of taxation without representation, leading to the end of liberty. By granting complete control of individuals’ financial transactions to central bankers, CBDCs allow the government to maintain complete control.

Without financial transaction freedom — the ability to transact with whoever you want, for any purpose — there will be no freedom, Fitts says. This is a key reason why we need to preserve cash. Right now, there’s a war going on between decentralizers, who are trying to preserve financial transaction freedom, and centralizers, who are fighting among themselves over who will be in control of the system.

“And, of course, every effort is being made by the corporate media to turn the rest of us who are trying to fight for transaction freedom to divide and conquer. And so it can be very confusing to watch this if you don’t see the gist of the main game,” Fitts explains.⁵

Central Bankers Hiding Behind Health Infrastructure

Part of what’s going on behind the scenes is what Fitts refers to as the Going Direct Reset — the “wholesale plan”⁶ of The Great Reset, which has been packaged for “retail” sale to the masses. The Going Direct Reset is detailed by John Titus on the Solari Report,⁷ but it involves the massive amounts of money — $3.5 trillion over a few weeks — injected into the economy in 2020.

That money was largely used in a way to build out only certain sectors — like space, the smart grid and health infrastructure — while starving others. This is another facet of gaining control and also involves the rollout of digital passports under the guide of keeping the population healthy and safe. Fitts explains:⁸

“Essentially, build out the infrastructure of control. Get everybody on an electrical grid … and we see this dance between finance and health care. If the central bankers had to do all the centralizing control with money they would end up with everybody coming at them with pitchforks, and so they hide behind health.

We see this use of the health infrastructure basically to build the train tracks of control. So, for the central banks, for example, to do CBDC they need a digital ID. Well, you get that because you’re trying to make everybody safe, right? … So we’ve had this dance during the Going Direct Reset of using health to justify more central control.”

Was the SVB Banking Collapse Deliberate?

During the pandemic, you had the Fed pumping a massive amount of money into the economy, while one-third to half of U.S. small businesses were shut down in the name of public health.⁹ This wreaked havoc with people’s loan portfolios, but what caused Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th largest in the U.S.,¹⁰ to collapse?

“At Silicon Valley Bank (SVB),” Fitts says, “you have the biotech and life sciences and the tech IPO pipeline that literally sort of explodes in the bubble, and then when the bubble’s over it kind of shuts down.”

That was one aspect. Meanwhile, Fitts says, 49% of the small businesses in San Francisco shut down, “so if you’re SVB loaning to just small businesses in the Silicon Valley area … that could be as much as half your loan portfolio.”¹¹ However, ultimately Fitts believes the collapse was a deliberate takedown — not the result of a traditional bank run:¹²

“We had a takedown at SVB. There’s a game going on and … what it turned into was an effort by a variety of players to panic everyone into believing … that this was going to turn into a wider contagion run.

Now if you do look at the numbers on the banking system, if interest rates continue to stay high for a long period of time and a lot of banks have to run a negative arbitrage, that’s a problem … so you’re going to have banks that get into trouble and end up going out of business in that situation … but it’s not necessarily true that interest rates are going to stay up … we don’t know.”

Creating Financial Panic Drives Business to the Criminals

The panic created over instability in the banking system may also be part of the plan. By creating a banking run, many will take their money out of small banks and put it with the central banks that are at the root of the problem:¹³

“To get complete control, you’ve got to kill the small guys. You’ve got to kill the small farms. You’ve got to kill the small businesses and you’ve got to kill the small banks.

So, we use the health care game to shut down the small businesses and the farms — not because they’re less productive but because the guys running the game could pick up huge market share and make a fortune stealing their businesses and picking up their asses cheap …

You pump money into your pals and then you shut down your enemies, and then your pals can go pick your enemies up for cheap … so we shut down the small farms and small business … and now we’re ready to shut down the small banks.

Now, if you’re the top guys and you want to play this game, who better to shut down the small banks than panic on all the small bank depositors and scaring them and getting them to walk their deposits across the street to the criminals? … What they’re trying to do is get all their neighbors’ cattle to stampede into their corral.”

If the globalists take over, which is all but guaranteed if they control the financial system with CBDCs, they can institute worldwide slavery. But unlike in the past, technology now exists to keep track of people’s every move and control their ability to live in the modern world if they don’t obey. Fitts says:¹⁴

“The greatest most profitable business in the history of the world is slavery, more than mining, more than anything else. Slavery. That’s what this is about. Digital technology solves all the bad problems they had with slavery the last time. All those problems you can now solve with digital technology.

You can perfect your collateral — if I can implant a chip in you … then I can collateralize you. I can perfect my collateral as a banker and now we’re off to the races. I can build a slavery system and with robotics, AI and automation, I can manage it.”

How to Find a Good Local Bank

Fitts stresses that leaving the banking system isn’t the answer — finding a good local bank, and stashing your cash in a variety of places, is. While you’re there, let bankers know about the dangers of CBDCs. The Solari Report even has a template letter¹⁵ you can use to inform your bankers about the downsides of CBDCs. It reads, in part:

“It strikes me that creating a different, yet centrally controlled fiat currency that can be created from thin air and manipulated by unelected central bankers does not promote U.S. financial stability or provide citizens with consumer and investor protections — except in the sense that totalitarian governments can be financially stable through the power of taxation without representation and the ability to micromanage and regulate the spending of families and small enterprise.”

The bank or credit union you choose should not have a record of criminal behavior. Next, just as it’s a good idea to get to know the small farmers growing your food, it’s a good idea to get to know the people running your local bank.

The “No. 1 criteria is are they well managed? Are they well governed? Who owns, who manages, who’s on the board?” Fitts says. “What is the quality of the people and their experience and expertise?”¹⁶ The second criteria to look for is a steady deposit base.

“You want to look at the deposit base, you want to look at the loan base, you want to look at the investment portfolio,” according to Fitts. “And then you want to make sure that in the investment portfolio, or in their accounts, they have enough short-term investments and cash … it’s like a train. People get on and off, and you want them to have enough liquidity so they can handle the ups and downs.”

Fitts encourages everyone to get to know their community bankers and credit union executives. “If you’re concerned about your bank, go talk to your bank. If they’re doing a good job, they will answer your questions with confidence.”

How to Stop CBDCs

One of the top ways to stop CBDCs, in addition to ditching large, multinational banks in favor of trustworthy local banks or credit unions, is to use cash as much as possible, and not frequent shops that don’t accept it.¹⁷

You want to have your cash spread out, starting with keeping cash on hand in your home, ideally in a fireproof safe. Then you can expand to a safe deposit box at a bank, a small, local bank or investing in silver and gold coins. Meanwhile, talk to the people in your local community about why you’re using cash.

“Start using cash, and as you use cash talk to the small businesses that you frequent — small restaurants, small farms — and talk to them about how we can work together as customer and business to improve our endurance and resiliency and well-being,” Fitts says.¹⁸

Helping to build out your local food sources is also part of the solution, since having access to healthy food is critical to maintaining health and autonomy. “Anything you can do to build out the local food markets so that we can’t get cornered and be dependent on our enemy for food, it’s going to make a big difference to freedom,” she explains.¹⁹

There’s still time to defeat the globalists and maintain life as we know it. So, rather than feeling defeated, recognize that the opportunity exists to win this battle, one action and one individual at a time:²⁰

“Understanding this can be completely overwhelming and depressing, but the thing I want to encourage everybody to understand is facing it … is the doorway that you walk through. And the grief you experience to get to the other side and realize there are real solutions. Because in the official narrative there are no real solutions, but if you face reality, there are real solutions.”

• ¹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 0:53
• ² The Solari Report
• ³ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 3:46
• ⁴ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 4:24
• ⁵ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 6:06
• ⁶ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 9:42
• ⁷ Solari Report, Summary — Going Direct Reset
• ⁸ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 7:50
• ⁹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 11:59
• ¹⁰ Yahoo Finance March 10, 2023
• ¹¹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 12:18
• ¹² Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 43:22
• ¹³ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 45:08
• ¹⁴ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 32:10
• ¹⁵ The Solari Report, Template Letter to Bank December 14, 2022
• ¹⁶ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 35:34
• ¹⁷ The Solari Report Jauary 15, 2023
• ¹⁸ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 1:01
• ¹⁹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 1:02
• ²⁰ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 55:59

On the heels of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse earlier this month, 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their depositors decide to withdraw their funds, a new study has found.

That is because the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tamp down inflation have eroded the value of bank assets such as government bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

“The recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the U.S. banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” economists wrote in a recent paper published on the Social Science Research Network.

Needless to say, these banks realize that they are in jeopardy, and a coalition of mid-size banks is literally begging federal regulators to cover all uninsured deposits for at least the next two years…

A coalition of midsize US banks asked federal regulators to extend FDIC insurance to all deposits for the next two years, arguing the guarantee is needed to avoid a wider run on the banks.

“Doing so will immediately halt the exodus of deposits from smaller banks, stabilize the banking sector and greatly reduce chances of more bank failures,” the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America said in a letter to regulators seen by Bloomberg News.

If federal regulators don’t do this, vast amounts of money will continue to be transferred from small and mid-size banks to the “too big to fail” banks.

But I’ll tell you why such a move is not likely to happen right now.

If every bank account in America is suddenly fully guaranteed by the federal government, there will be a giant sucking sound as wealthy individuals pull their money out of European banks where large balances are not fully insured.

The European banking system is already teetering on the brink of collapse.  In fact, we just learned that UBS has just agreed to an emergency purchase of Credit Suisse…

Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has agreed to buy its ailing rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal aimed at stemming financial market panic unleashed by the failure of two American banks earlier this month.

“UBS today announced the takeover of Credit Suisse,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement. It said the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy.”

UBS is paying 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion) for Credit Suisse, about 60% less than the bank was worth when markets closed on Friday. Credit Suisse shareholders will be largely wiped out, receiving the equivalent of just 0.76 Swiss francs in UBS shares for stock that was worth 1.86 Swiss francs on Friday.

So to protect foreign banks, small and mid-size banks in the U.S. will be allowed to fail.

But if large numbers of small and mid-size banks start failing, this country will rapidly plunge into an economic nightmare.

On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted one of the greatest tweets that I have seen in a long time…

If the Fed does not contain the regional bank collapse, there will be another great depression.

Small/medium banks account for 50% of US commercial and industrial lending, 60% of residential real estate lending, 80% of commercial real estate lending, and 45% of consumer lending pic.twitter.com/wzTMHxSnXI

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 18, 2023

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Our economy runs on mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and debit cards.

If a bank gets into trouble, the flow of credit from that bank is restricted.

And if a bank fails, the flow of credit from that bank completely stops.

If lots of banks start going under in this country, economic activity will shrink substantially and we really will be facing “another great depression”.

At this point, conditions are so dire that Warren Buffett is getting personally involved…

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett has been in touch with senior officials in President Joe Biden’s administration in recent days as the regional banking crisis unfolds.

There have been multiple conversations between Biden’s team and Buffett in the past week, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The calls have centered around Buffett possibly investing in the US regional banking sector in some way, but the billionaire has also given advice and guidance more broadly about the current turmoil.

It appears that far more is going on behind the scenes than we are being told.

Interestingly, lots of private jets were flying in and out of Omaha on Friday…

The Private Jets arrived in Omaha in multiple groups. Sometimes landing at almost the same exact time.

Did Buffett schedule some meetings with different groups of CEOs every hour?

Number of Jets arriving:
5 ~10am (est)
3 ~2pm
5 ~3:30pm
5 ~5pm
6 ~6:15pm
3 ~7:30pm pic.twitter.com/68Ok6zl8cA

— FuzzyPanda (@FuzzyPandaShort) March 17, 2023

Hopefully a way can be found to stabilize the banking system, because economic conditions are certainly bad enough already.

Earlier today, I was surprised to learn that Disney is getting ready to conduct a second round of layoffs…

After announcing a plan to slash nearly 7,000 jobs, Disney is reportedly instructing managers to propose budget cuts and put together lists of employees to be laid off in the coming weeks.

It is unclear whether Disney will begin layoffs in small waves or cut thousands of employees all at once, but the company will announce at least 4,000 current employees will be out of work sometime in April, according to Business Insider.

All over America, large companies are letting workers go.

But even though a significant economic downturn has already obviously begun, we are being told that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates yet again this week…

The Federal Reserve will kick off its meeting with trading expected to be light heading into a decision on interest rates Wednesday.

Despite the market tumult, 62% of investors expect the policymakers to continue hiking rates, which would mark the ninth straight increase. Thirty-eight percent expect no change, according to CME’s FedWatch.

After everything that has transpired over the past couple of weeks, it would literally be suicidal to raise rates again.

But they just might do it anyway.

So many of the things that I have been relentlessly warning about are now starting to transpire right in front of our eyes.

A great financial meltdown has begun, and our leaders seem very unsure about how to handle it.

Unfortunately for them, what we have gone through so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.