THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

with him, perhaps because this was also his last one. 'This isn't my
problem any mom,' was his opening remark. He had signed the final
papers earlier in the day. At midnight, Secuncor was to take over the
police franchise for the United Kingdom.
This was the final piece of the puzzle. Executive Solutions had
already won the armed forces contract, in return for control of
Cornwall's offshore oil fields. Social Services is run by Sonysoft, since
Sony took over the Microsoft empire after Bill Gates's tragic death.
Consolidated Banks was in charge of the economy. NewsCorp had
the Education Department franchise. Even the Houses of Parliament,
no longer needed now those elected representatives had ceased to
have meaningful functions, belonged to Virgin. Tomorrow the estate
agents were coming to look at Number 10 Downing St, and he would
slip into retirement as easily as power had slipped into the hands of
corporations.
He showed me a book of old press cuttings. The first was a report
of his maiden speech in the Commons in 1992. He was attacking the
loss of British sovereignty to the European Union. He smiled at his
own naivet6.'1 had talked about immigration, demanding greater
controls. Talk about barking up the wrong tree. Getting into the
country, any country, is easy now - just buy an airline ticket. But
entering a corporate enclave, like Islington, Belgravia or Lower
Manhattan, requires an electronic appointment and "positive
identification".
His face turned grim. 'Really efficient, this "positive ID technology,
As with most important things in history, its general acceptance was
a convergence between conscious choice, accident, and necessity. The
conscious choice was the initial justification to test smart cards for
administrative masons - they would include name, Social Security
number, driving licence, and emergency insurance and medical
information. The accident was the 'credit card blitz", when a group of