Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 17, 2013

While admitting that it is imposing limits on cash transactions and banning international wire transfers for business customers, Chase Bank claims the measures do not represent “capital controls” and instead are merely about “streamlining” and “derisking,” labeling concern about the new measures an “overreaction.”

Image: JP Morgan Chase Tower in Houston.

The claim is in response to an Infowars story which went viral after appearing on the Drudge Report, which revealed that business owners were receiving letters from Chase informing them that cash activity on their accounts would be limited to $50,000 dollars a month and that international, and in some cases domestic, wire transfers were being withdrawn.

“JPMorgan Chase (JPM) says news reports circulating on the Internet that the bank is exerting new capital controls on certain bank accounts are an overreaction to a “streamlining” and “derisking” process Chase says has been underway for several months,” reports Fox News.

The bank also says that it is removing the ability of business customers to send international wires because there is no oversight in the form of a “bank representative managing them,” another indication that the outfit has little respect for financial privacy.

Note that Chase isn’t concerned about the risk of international wire transfers being sent from abroad, their concern only applies when the money is leaving Chase customers’ accounts.

The $50,000 cash activity limit (both withdrawals and deposits) is also part of the wider war on cash, and is likely to cause huge headaches for cash-heavy businesses like restaurants and grocery stores.

Chase also fails to mention in its response that the accounts business customers are being forced to open if they want such restrictions removed require far larger amounts of money to be deposited and also force customers to pay fees for wire services, fueling concerns that the move is about strangling small businesses.

Let us not forget that while Chase and other banks are implementing these draconian measures that only punish small businesses who engage in smaller transactions in the name of reducing risk (presumably to stop money laundering), major banks like HSBC have themselves been embroiled in drug money laundering scandals involving “obviously suspicious” large transactions.

While it was obvious that Chase would seek to play down concerns, these restrictive new measures that make it much harder for money to leave accounts in the United States are part of a broader move towards more stringent capital controls based around three primary objectives.

1) Capital controls to prevent money leaving the country as the US dollar continues to devalue. Note that Chase will allow international wire transfers coming in, but not going out of the accounts. Note that they are only concerned about “risks” when the money is being moved out of the account.

2) Forcing small businesses to abandon cash and switching everything over to digital currency that can be more easily tracked, traced and controlled.

3) Part of the preparatory phase for Cyprus-style bail-ins where the government announces a new “tax” to gouge out a percentage of people’s savings.

Financial experts like Gerald Celente agree that Chase’s new measures, which are being mimicked by other banks, are centered around preparations for a “bank holiday.” Celente called the new restrictions “unprecedented.”

“JPMorgan/Chase’s new capital controls & ATM limits are another example of deflationary forces trumping sharp rise in oil and food prices,” said broadcaster Max Keiser.

“What we’re witnessing, however, is increasingly open system of systemic financial discrimination against all but the oligarchs and monopolists. And, finally, the whole Western world is being Cyprus’d, first slowly and then it will be as suddenly as in Cyprus,” added Keiser’s RT co-host Stacy Herbert.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.