Marc Andreessen is not as well known now as he was at the dawn of the Interwbbby age when he developed the world’s first widely used web browser that had a graphic interface, Mosaic, which was rapidly copied by everybody else. From that success he leveraged it into co-founding Netscape, whose software engineers contributed important Web tools used to this day. Netscape got bought out and Mosaic steadily lost ground to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, but it all made Andreesen a billionaire and he’s gone on to found or back a lot of Silicon Valley startups.

As such the following nine minute portion of an interview he did with Joe Rogan is a must-see if you’re concerned about how the US State – primarily the Administrative State, in conjunction with the Professional Management Class in both the private and public sectors – seeks to control people.

What he’s talking about here is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren some years ago and implemented by the Frank-Dodds Act in the wake of the 2008 GFC. It sounds like a good concept doesn’t it? Protecting little consumers from being ripped off by banks – and to limit political and lobbyist interference it is deliberately designed to run free of Congress and even the President (a SCOTUS case a few years ago did establish that the President can at least fire the agency Director).

But as Andreesen explains, it has turned into an exercise in raw government power, which I’ll summarise below the video.

Key points:

  • Businesses and individuals are being “de-banked”, which destroys their business, and in the case of individuals their livelihoods.
  • It can be done via a Wells Notice, which doesn’t charge you with a crime but merely notifies you that you’re being investigated by the SEC (Security Exchange Commission, which your bank is also made aware of, hence the de-banking.
  • There is nobody to appeal to aside from talking to the SEC, which doesn’t help when you’ve been de-banked overnight:
    • No due process.
    • No rules written down
    • No court.
    • No decision process.
    • No appeal (“who do you appeal to to get your bank account back?”).
  • While the US Constitution prevents restrictions on free speech, those restrictions can effectively be imposed via private sector businesses like banks.
  • Started with legal marijuana suppliers and gun shops and manufacturers – Operation Choke Point, which Andreesen calls version 1.0, with 2.0 steadily extended to:
    • Tech founders (30 have been de-banked)
    • Cryptocurrency entrepreneurs.
    • Financial Tech entrepreneurs.
    • Political opponents via “PEP”.
  • PEP means “Politically Exposed Person”, and being placed in this category means that financial institutions will de-bank you (so forget credit cards as well).

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See Also:
Farage’s DOS