Le quantitative easing
[Dave Birch] In John Cooley’s book Currency Wars, he says at one point that there is a grey area actual counterfeiting and the deliberate over-issue of fiat currency. The quantitative easing policy of the British government is likely to be reduce (by inflation) the value of the pound Sterling far more effectively than Hitler’s plans to bring Britain to its knee through counterfeiting in the Second World War:
Operation Bernhard was the name of a secret German plan devised during the Second World War to destabilise the British economy by flooding the country with forged Bank of England £5, £10, £20, and £50 notes. It is the largest counterfeiting operation in history.
[From Operation Bernhard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
As an aside, one of my sons went on a school trip to Germany earlier in the year and actually visiting the scene of this attempt to sabotage Sterling, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. If you are at all interested in this story, there’s an excellent film about it, The Counterfeiters.
Now, think what the electronic version of Operation Bernhard might look like in the future. Not creating counterfeits, but creating clones. While it’s fashionable to talk about cyberwar, surely the most effective way to destroy a 21st century society is to destroy its money.
