#NNPA BlackPress

The Cashless Conspiracy: How Trump’s Economy and Musk’s Data Grab Threaten Freedom

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The Trump administration’s economic experiment, rooted in chaos, crony capitalism, and unchecked digital surveillance, is pushing America toward a dangerous new frontier.

Published

9 months ago

October 20, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

The Trump administration’s economic experiment, rooted in chaos, crony capitalism, and unchecked digital surveillance, is pushing America toward a dangerous new frontier. It is a crypto-driven, cashless society that threatens to erase financial freedom for millions, particularly Black Americans and the working poor.

As the economy contracts and inflation rises, President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff regime has already sent shockwaves through every sector. According to Fortune, Trump’s reckless tariff decisions have wiped nearly seven trillion dollars in market value, decimated small business confidence, and driven consumer prices to levels not seen in decades. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii warned that Trump is ruining the economy on purpose, pointing to middle-class families now paying an average of five thousand dollars more each year for basic goods such as cars, homes, groceries, and clothing. While Americans struggle with higher prices and shrinking savings, the Trump White House has quietly advanced a sweeping new financial system that merges state power, private crypto interests, and invasive data collection. In early 2025, Trump authorized a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, incorporating the volatile cryptocurrency into official United States financial infrastructure. The Conversation reported that this hybrid model privatizes the issuance of money while keeping control of reserves under the executive branch. It undermines the Federal Reserve’s independence and centralizes power in the Oval Office. Trump described bitcoin as freedom money, but in practice, it represents state-aligned crypto dominance and an economy where wealth and access depend on government loyalty.

Behind the scenes, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, once run by Elon Musk, came under scrutiny for uploading massive federal databases containing the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans, including Social Security data, to unsecured cloud servers. A whistleblower revealed that the team requested its activities not be logged and even deleted records of access, behavior that cybersecurity experts compared to criminal hacking operations. Sensitive information tied to union members, workers’ rights cases, and corporate secrets may have been exposed, with traces of suspicious activity linking back to Russian IP addresses. By the spring of 2025, Musk left DOGE and the government under a cloud of suspicion after a public spat with Trump. He has gone mostly silent since his departure, but multiple people believe he took large volumes of data with him. The full extent of what was removed or copied remains unclear, leaving major concerns about the safety of sensitive personal and governmental information.

At the same time, Trump’s allies have opened new financial avenues for the wealthy through Erebor Bank, a cryptocurrency-focused institution backed by conservative megadonors and approved with unusual speed by Trump’s Treasury Department. Its mission is to serve ultra-high-net-worth individuals and tech firms, signaling a parallel financial system that privileges the rich while ordinary citizens are pushed into algorithmic surveillance economies. These developments align with global moves toward digital ID systems such as the United Kingdom’s One Login and digital wallets, which The Telegraph described as a real nightmare that centralizes personal data and is riddled with security flaws. In the United States, REAL ID enforcement now allows the federal government to link biometric data to digital identification across states. Officials claim it enhances security, yet many Black Americans have long viewed REAL ID with suspicion. Without it, citizens cannot board domestic flights, enter federal buildings, or access certain public facilities. Critics warn that REAL ID creates another layer of exclusion and control, particularly for those who already face bureaucratic and systemic barriers.

An expanded picture of what is happening around the world makes this moment appear even more calculated than coincidental. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s digital ID program has been exposed as a security disaster that relied on unsecured workstations in foreign countries, leaving millions of British citizens vulnerable to data theft and foreign manipulation. In the United States, whistleblower Charles Borges revealed that the DOGE team copied and uploaded the Social Security Administration’s database containing hundreds of millions of Americans’ personal records to unmonitored cloud servers. He resigned after filing complaints, claiming he was harassed and isolated by the administration. Meanwhile, cybersecurity analysts detected data activity linked to Russia at the same time DOGE engineers were transferring files. When taken together, these events suggest a global pattern of governments and private actors concentrating power by controlling not only digital money but also personal identity and access to daily life. Globally, other nations have already begun shifting toward cashless societies. Sweden and Norway have reduced physical currency use to historic lows, and while the move is framed as progress, even their governments are now warning about the vulnerability of fully digital economies to war, cyberattacks, and authoritarian abuse. The convergence of Trump’s crypto policies, REAL ID enforcement, the global cashless push, and Musk’s suspected data exfiltration raises the specter of a coordinated effort to centralize control over citizens’ finances and personal freedoms. It suggests that the line between economic policy, surveillance, and political domination is disappearing.

As the physical dollar fades, major institutions warn of who will be left behind. Brookings predicted years ago that cash will soon be obsolete, with digital currencies becoming the new norm. While central banks promote benefits like efficiency and transparency, they also introduce total traceability, enabling governments or corporations to freeze, restrict, or program how citizens spend money. J.P. Morgan and Loughborough University both note that a cashless system risks excluding the poor, the elderly, and the unbanked, groups disproportionately represented by Black and minority Americans. Digital payments must be designed with inclusion and convenience at their core, said Loughborough economist Markos Zachariadis, warning that without oversight, we risk leaving vulnerable groups excluded. In the United States, those same groups are already being priced out of basic participation in the economy as Trump’s tariffs, inflation, and anti-worker policies strip away safety nets like Medicaid and food assistance.

For Black America, the stakes are especially high. The march toward a cashless economy threatens to replicate the structural inequalities of the old banking system under the guise of innovation. Access to digital money will depend on data verification, credit history, and digital ID compliance, areas where Black Americans have historically faced discrimination and surveillance. With tech billionaires like Musk controlling the digital rails, privacy and autonomy may soon become luxuries reserved for the elite. As Global Finance observed, nations like Sweden are reassessing their nearly cashless economies after realizing that wars, natural disasters, and crises reveal vulnerabilities in fully digital systems. In America, those vulnerabilities may soon look like total control, where the same administration that tanked the economy gains the power to decide how and where citizens can spend what little they have left. In the end, Trump’s version of economic freedom is not about liberty. It is about ownership of currency, of data, and of people. If this cashless, crypto-fueled dystopia becomes reality, Black America and the poor will once again be first in line to pay the price.

Stacy M. Brown

Posts by Stacy M. Brown

Up Next

Trump’s Pardon Game: Diddy’s Fate and the Return of Political Forgiveness for Sale

Don't Miss

Oakland Post: Week of October 15 – 21, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

Click to comment

#NNPA BlackPress

Jovita Moore Mural Still Has Not Been Repainted in Grant Park

ATLANTA VOICE — A mural depicting late journalist Jovita Moore, painted on the exterior wall of a building now occupied by Bellwood Coffee in Grant Park, was painted over in April. Moore passed away in 2021 after decades of working in Atlanta television news. Bellwood Coffee owners stated in May they were unaware of Moore’s identity or significance to the community before painting over the mural.
The post Jovita Moore Mural Still Has Not Been Repainted in Grant Park appeared first on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 8, 2026

Oakland Post

At the corner of Boulevard, SE. and Rosalia St., SE., directly across the street from an abandoned home and a Methodist Church, is Bellwood Coffee. One of hundreds of coffee shops in Atlanta, this place of business would not be worth a solitary discussion if not for the way its exterior walls are currently painted. There was once a mural depicting the late Jovita Moore, a beloved journalist who worked in Atlanta for decades. Moore, who passed away in 2021, mentored many of the people you see on television newscasts today. Though her legacy will never be forgotten, it was the mural of her image that was erased.

In April, members of the Grant Park community voiced their disgust at the mural, which graced a side wall of the building now occupied by Bellwood Coffee’s Grant Park location, before it was painted over. In its place are the words “Bellwood Coffee; Cocktails, Biscuits, Dry Goods, Air Conditioning. *Heat Too”. In May, the business owners responded to the community pushback on social media by acknowledging they did not know who Moore was before painting over her image. And later admitted that they did not attempt to find out what she meant to the community.

On May 21, the Bellwood Coffee Instagram account had a post about being “in close contact with Jovita’s family and are actively working on next steps in this process.” Two months later, the mural has not been replaced, repainted, or repositioned on the property. Nothing has been done. Black history is often erased, most recently by the current Presidential administration, but oftentimes on a smaller, quieter scale. The mural was originally painted by muralist Tommy Bronx, who had been in contact with the business owners about repainting it. As of July 6, Tommy Bronx had responded to a direct message via his Instagram account from The Atlanta Voice about any updates on his plans to repaint the mural.

“We’re currently working on it. You should see some movement in the weeks to come,” he wrote in a response.

On Monday, July 6, the business had several patrons inside and was running smoothly with three employees manning the counter. The Atlanta Voice dropped by Bellwood Coffee to get a look at the exterior wall where the mural once stood as a memorial to a journalist and mother who lost her life to brain cancer at the young age of 54. Moore’s image added some color to the block. The grey wall in its place does not.

A direct message was sent to the Bellwood Coffee Instagram account, and there hasn’t been a response as of 7 p.m. on Monday.

The post Jovita Moore Mural Still Has Not Been Repainted in Grant Park appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

Based on reporting by Atlanta Voice.

The post Jovita Moore Mural Still Has Not Been Repainted in Grant Park appeared first on BlackPressUSA.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

‘Proud to Hang Her from a Tree’: Man Arrested for Threatening Black Senator

ATLANTA DAILY WORLD — A New York man faces felony hate crime charges for allegedly posting a threat against New York State Senator Lea Webb. James A. Crosby, 49, of Binghamton, was arrested by New York State Police after investigators determined he posted a threatening comment on a social media news post about a Juneteenth celebration.
The post ‘Proud to Hang Her from a Tree’: Man Arrested for Threatening Black Senator appeared first on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 8, 2026

Oakland Post

A New York man is facing felony hate crime charges after allegedly posting that he’d be “proud to hang” New York State Senator Lea Webb from a tree in response to a news story about a Juneteenth celebration.

James A. Crosby, 49, of Binghamton, was arrested June 23 by New York State Police after investigators determined he posted a threatening comment on a WBNG 12 News Facebook post. “I’d be proud to hang her from a tree,” Crosby wrote, according to WBNG.

Crosby was charged with making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, a class C felony, per the New York State Police. He is currently being held at Broome County Jail.

During the subsequent investigation, state police found Crosby was in illegal possession of firearms despite being prohibited from owning them due to a prior felony conviction. Investigators recovered a rifle, a large-capacity ammunition feeding device, and a firearm suppressor — all prohibited under New York state law, per the NYSP.

Crosby was charged with four additional counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, all class D felonies.

Webb, who represents New York’s 52nd Senate District, had been a featured speaker at a Juneteenth flag-raising ceremony at Binghamton City Hall, where the celebration included prayers and the singing of the Black national anthem.

Police said Crosby’s comment was posted in response to a WBNG news story covering the event.

The day before his arrest, Crosby posted a Facebook apology claiming the comment “was not intended to be racial in any way” and was made in reference to what he described as a “criminal,” citing criticism of Webb over her use of nonprofit legal aid in a foreclosure case — a matter state watchdogs said created an appearance of a conflict of interest, per the Ithaca Voice. He was arrested the following day.

Webb issued a public statement June 25 condemning the threat.

“It was extremely disappointing and hurtful to see the now-deleted threat and attacks on my life in response to a story about Juneteenth, a national holiday that recognizes the ending of slavery in America,” she said. “Feedback and thoughts on policy are one thing, but to make a public call for lethal violence is absolutely unacceptable and dangerous. We must recognize our shared humanity and reject violence in all forms.”

She thanked Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and law enforcement for their “swift response.”

Following Crosby’s comments, social media users called for a boycott of his contracting business, Crosby Home Improvements.

The Binghamton City Democratic Committee also called for an investigation into the incident before his arrest.

The Black Information Network is your source for Black News! Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HEREto tune in live.

The post ‘Proud to hang her from a tree’: Man arrested for threatening Black Senator appeared first on Atlanta Daily World.

Based on reporting by Atlanta Daily World.

The post ‘Proud to Hang Her from a Tree’: Man Arrested for Threatening Black Senator appeared first on BlackPressUSA.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

CARICOM: Strengthen Integration for Future Generations

NEW YORK CARIB NEWS — Outgoing CARICOM Chairman Terrance Drew called on regional leaders to build a stronger and more effective Caribbean Community that benefits future generations. Speaking at the 51st Regular Meeting, Drew urged modernization of governance structures and improved implementation of Community decisions to make CARICOM safer and more prosperous.
The post CARICOM: Strengthen Integration for Future Generations appeared first on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 8, 2026

Oakland Post

Speaking Sunday at the opening of the 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Saint Lucia, Dr. Terrance Drew said the region must modernize its governance structures, improve the implementation of Community decisions, and ensure CARICOM becomes safer, more prosperous, and more relevant to the lives of its citizens.

The meeting, being held under the theme “CARICOM: From Resilience to Renewal in a Changing World,” coincides with the Community’s 53rd anniversary. During the ceremony, Dr. Drew formally handed over the rotating CARICOM chairmanship to Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre.

Reflecting on his six-month tenure as chairman, Drew praised fellow regional leaders for maintaining their commitment to democracy, good governance, unity, and the rule of law despite mounting global economic and geopolitical challenges.

“Throughout these challenges, CARICOM chose engagement over isolation. Together, we reaffirmed our commitment to a fair and rules-based international trading system and ensured that the interests of small developing states continued to be heard.”
Trending
2021 Mercedes Benz AMG GT Roadster/Convertible and POV Test Drive

He highlighted progress made in strengthening the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, including deeper trade cooperation, expanded labour mobility, and efforts to lay the foundation for long-term economic growth. Drew also noted the Community’s growing partnerships beyond the Caribbean, particularly with the African Union, while stressing that every international partnership should advance the interests of all parties involved.

The outgoing chairman also expressed appreciation to Dr. Carla Barnett and the CARICOM Secretariat for their professionalism and unwavering support during his tenure.

“Whenever I called, you answered. Whenever support was required, you and your team responded with diligence, competence, and excellence.”

Dr. Drew urged the Secretariat to continue preserving its impartiality while faithfully implementing decisions made by Heads of Government, saying that balance has helped strengthen the regional integration movement.

The conference continues in Saint Lucia with regional leaders expected to deliberate on key issues including regional security, climate resilience, trade, economic integration, food security, Haiti, reparations, and strengthening the CSME.

Based on reporting by New York Carib News.

The post CARICOM: Strengthen Integration for Future Generations appeared first on BlackPressUSA.