Are You Kidding Me?

Actually it's not at all surprising (plus a video about cute lil' kids learning)

Coming Soon: Google Wallet for Kids

I just received an email, and no doubt, if you have a gmail account, you got the same one too with the subject header as above. It reads:

Hi [Google Username],

We’re excited to announce that Google Wallet will be available for use by kids on their device so that they can securely tap to pay in stores, and keep supported passes like event tickets, library cards, and gift cards in one convenient place.

Safety and security are core to the Google Wallet experience and this update also gives parents tools to help manage the Wallet experience for their children using Family Link. This means that children can now access the Google Wallet app on supported Android devices, and parents can restrict or enable Wallet features via Family Link.

Tap to pay with Payment Cards

Your child can tap to pay in store when you add a payment card to their Wallet app. Once added, you can also easily track recent purchases, remove payment cards, and turn off access to passes right in the Google Family Linkapp. You’ll also receive an email notifying you each time your child makes a transaction.

Digital Passes

Your child can add, use and remove supported passes, like loyalty and gift cards, boarding passes, and event tickets, to the Wallet app on their supported Android devices. If you want to stop your child from using passes on Wallet, you can block their access to the Wallet passes feature at any time. This will remove existing passes that they’ve already added to Wallet, and stop them from adding any new ones.

How you can control your child’s use of Google Wallet

1. Adding and removing payment cards
   Children can’t add payment cards to their Google Wallet app without your authorization. Authorization needs to be given for each payment card added. If you do approve a payment card, then you can also remotely remove it from your child’s device via the Family link app. Learn more about how you can remove a payment card once it’s added.

2. Managing passes
   To stop your child from being able to add passes to their Wallet app, open Family Link app, go to “Controls”, select “Wallet”, and toggle on “Block all passes”. When this is toggled on, your child won’t be able to add or access passes from the Google Wallet app or from Android settings. You can unblock passes at any time by turning off the toggle.

What parents can & can’t do

• Only you and other family managers can manage these settings

• You can block or unblock passes at any time

• Spending controls are not available via Family Link, rather through the cards issuer

You can manage these and other important settings for your child’s Google Account from the Google Family Link app, or by visiting families.google.com. To find out more about Wallet for Kids, please visit related help center articles.

Ugh, I’m not at all excited. As always, encroachment is disguised as convenience. And no doubt Wallet for Kids will appeal to parents who would like more control (just like the government wants more control over its underlings) over their children’s spending and, of course, their safety.

But those that have been keenly observing the direction of where this is all heading — the desire to make every transaction digital, knowable and ultimately programmable — the secondary and mostly invisible effect of Wallet for Kids is to get the next generation used to using a device instead of cash.

Get 'em while they’re young, innit.

Dr Mike Yeadon writes in a note:

I ask you to join me in the following thought experiment.

Imagine cash is no longer readily available and/or is no longer legal tender in most (or all) settings. You can only receive payments & make expenditures using money purely in a digital form. It doesn’t matter if it’s a card, an app or a bank transfer.

Imagine further that the currency involved is no longer USD, GBP, EUR etc, but is eUSD, eGBP or eEUR, because the sovereign currencies went through a little difficulty, due to unpayable levels of debt that came to a head & resulted in systemic failures of all banks. During the “rescue” by the central banks of the world, your savings, deposits, investments, pension rights etc were legally seized by the senior creditors of those banks, because that which you thought was your property had previously been used as collateral by those failed institutions in securing loans. See David Rogers Webb’s free pdf book, “The Great Taking”. Private property laws have been changed in EVERY country in the world, so that you’re not the owner of any of “your” assets, merely the “beneficial owner”. The only time the distinction matters is under the circumstances I’ve described.

I think the central banks & the leading countries are engaged right now in setting up the conditions where that circumstance occurs. It’s being planned and actively flown with this end as the objective.

If there’s no cash & only CBDCs, and you’re required to present your digital ID before any transaction, you’ve disappeared & been replaced by a QR code.

The matrix knows who you are, where you are, what you’re intending to buy, what else you’ve bought recently and what kind of citizen you’ve been.

And as

Margaret Anna Alice

also urges us in this piece she sent out today, “Just Say NO”:

Afterthoughts: The Politics of Disobedience: Just Say NO to REAL ID

Me, I keep coming back to this card I repurposed. It was reframing the text of this card — the original card said “cash is for amateurs” — that sparked my desire to change a set of propaganda paradigms I would have previously (BC¹) found appealing.

Use it or lose it!

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Speaking of children and money, but on a much more uplifting note, I’m sharing here a fundraising video I recently made for a home-schooling pod in San Mateo, CA. The founder of the school is a Saner, as is one of the teachers. I spent a whole day at the school, which was cleverly disguised as a cute suburban house, filming the kiddiwinks and can personally attest that they are doing a brilliant job. Clearly, such a beautiful philosophy leads to very happy and well-rounded sane children. I hope you feel compelled to support their fundraiser even if it’s only a small amount, as such goodness can only radiate outwards and into the future.

1. Before Covid