The Amazon Endgame: A Cashless Society

Yesterday’s announcement of Amazon’s intent to acquire Whole Foods has a far greater significance than the mere conquest of supermarket retail.

On Thursday, Squawker broke a story about Amazon’s most recently granted patent which seeks to ‘control’ consumers. The purpose of this invention is to monitor, track and even manipulate what happens to customers while they’re browsing the web inside a retail store. The subject struck a chord with the mainstream media, as it was later reported by PC Mag, The Verge and even The Washington Post.

Apropos, on Friday it was announced that the $460 billion retail behemoth has agreed to acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The implications are so chilling that even the news of such an acquisition promptly vanquished $40 billion of market valuation from 20 collective grocers, including Kroger, Costco and Target. If the markets agree that this is disturbing news, then perhaps so should we.

Conspiracy theorists have long held that the government was planning to one day implant humans with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchips. Some even believed this could happen as early as 2017. While these devices would obviously suit the agenda of a total surveillance state, what is even more profound is their financial application. One implanted serial number later and the magnetic bar code of your credit and debit cards would be forever on your person. Cash becomes an ancient relic of the past, as does an era without total control.

But this is just conspiracy theory nonsense, right?

Most people are unaware that the quest for a cashless society has long been a priority of the elite. In 2013, Larry Summers gave a speech at an IMF research conference that advocated making all money electronic. This conveniently prevents anyone from stashing money outside the central banks, which would come in quite handy should the Fed ever require a “bail in.”  Even Tim Cook recently predicted that the next generation of children ‘will not know what money is.’

So what does all this have to do with Amazon acquiring a major supermarket retailer? We’re getting there.

Amazon’s initial retail experiment was a small chain of physical book stores called AmazonBooks. There are only 7 locations today, but if you think you can pay for anything with cash, think again.

All items must be purchased solely through the nifty Amazon app.

In looking further ahead, Amazon Go appears to be the quintessential model of shopping in the future. Essentially the idea is to scan your phone upon walking into a store, and by employing certain RFID technologies, one can simply “just walk out” with items and their Amazon account will automatically be charged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrmMk1Myrxc

Just recently in Q1 of Amazon’s 2017 financial results, management also noted a curious new feature: “Amazon.com introduced Amazon Cash, a new service that lets customers add cash to their Amazon Balance at thousands of locations around the country.”

So what is Amazon Cash?

Some research shows that with a unique mobile barcode, your Amazon account can be identified at 11 different retailers so that cash can be added instantly without a fee. However, while this new feature creates a way to seamlessly deposit cash, it certainly does not provide one to do the reverse. Aside from purchasing a gift card, the only way to get your money out is – you guessed it – to spend it at Amazon. The list of current participants includes CVS and Speedway, but optimistically notes that there are “more retailers coming soon.” We’re quite sure that there are.

Barcodes, RFID technology and no cash. Who needs a microchip?

One thing that must be understood about Amazon is that as a global organization, they are masterful chess players. The company boasts internal think tanks that are granted access to a virtually unlimited balance sheet and compensated handsomely to plot strategy decades in advance. After all, you don’t become a contender for the world’s first trillion dollar enterprise without substantial resources and a formidable endgame.

But Amazon also has another decided edge on its competitors, one that is far more subtle. As such, this opaque advantage is rather easy to overlook, but one that cannot be understated: its ties to the Deep State.

In 2013, Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post for $250 million. Shortly thereafter, Amazon Web Services landed a $600 million contract with the CIA. This cozy relationship, which now services all 17 agencies within America’s intelligence community, has certainly come in handy when pushing an elite agenda. With the Whole Foods acquisition, Amazon will have immediate access to nearly 500 distribution nodes to employ this cashless retail model in 2017 alone. By 2021, it is predicted that Amazon will be the third largest grocer, behind Wal-Mart and Kroger. 

In just a few short years, the ubiquitous juggernaut with dubious ties to both the mainstream media and the U.S. intelligence community may control every facet of our everyday shopping, including the cashless currency in which we electronically pay for it.

Source: https://squawker.org/technology/amazon-endgame-cashless-society/