Just Because the Social Media Giants Are Blocking Infowars, Etc., Doesn't Mean the Elitists Aren't Visiting Infowars Etc.

By Robert Wenzel

As I reported at EPJ on Friday, I attended the by invitation only "Strategies For Monetary Policy: A Policy Conference"  held at the Hoover Institution on the campus of Stanford University.

This annual conference is fast becoming a more important conference for those concerned about the U.S. economy and monetary policy than the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Everyone was there:

* Richard Clarida, Vice Chair, Federal Reserve Board
* John Williams, President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
* Michelle Bowman, Governor, Federal Reserve Board
* James Bullard, President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
* Mary Daly, President, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
* Robert Kaplan, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
* Loretta Mester, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
* Former Treasury Secretary George Shultz (98), Hoover Institution
*  Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University
*  John Taylor (of the Taylor Rule)

I want to turn the spotlight here on Ken Rogoff.

Ken Rogoff

Rogoff is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. From 2001-2003, Rogoff served as Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund.

He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Group of Thirty. 

In other words, he is a major insider, elitist, establishment operative. His focus is cash. He wants to eliminate it.  

He has written a book, The Curse of Cash. At the time it was published, I wrote:

Rogoff's new book,  The Curse of Cash, is much more than a lunatic advocacy of a theoretical banning of cash. 

He is in the trenches trying to get it done in the near future and his information in the book on stop gap measures on how the government will soon be able to track all currency is also alarming.

At the Hoover conference, he told participants that he expects to see the first cashless country in five years.

What else did Rogoff discuss at this elitist conference? The Alex Jones web site, Prison Planet.

He is really focused on the idea that it will be difficult to track small amounts of cash.

So while social media is blocking access to Alex Jones posts, a top elitist is going over to see what Alex is posting.

Rogoff told the insider audience while discussing the tracking of individuals: 

"I actually found a video on Prison Planet," he said, "recommending that you put your hundred-dollar bills in a microwave before you walk around."

He seemed to use this as an example of why it would be difficult to track small amounts of currency. "It's not practical...if I'm not having the information on the magnetic strip I don't know what the bills were doing."

It seems he thinks the ability to track or eliminate currency in small transactions will be difficult but it is very instructive that he is going over to an Alex Jones website to learn what Jones is saying to counter his tracking and going cashless plans at the same time the social giants are banning Alex Jones.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and most recently Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. More about Wenzel here.