Here Comes Central Bank Digital Currencies

Chinatopix via AP

What is the most effective way to implement a full-blown social credit system?

Get rid of cash and make all currency digital (and programmable). This method easily trumps the effectiveness of any other, which requires a lot more management. 

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A digital currency allows the government to have you by the financial throat. Unless you decide to live like the Unabomber--or perhaps even less tied to society--your ability to live is completely under the control of the government. Where you go, what you purchase, who you associate with--everything--is subject to government approval. If the people in charge of your money decide they don't like something, they can simply cut off your funds, or limit what you can purchase. 

We have been given a lot of hints that this is coming, and now the European Central Bank is starting to advertise that it is almost here. 

The pitch is that this will make things more efficient, but that is pure bunk. For the financial system, everything is basically digital anyway, so this is about taking over the "last mile"--getting rid of cash, and hence anonymity. Among themselves central bankers admit this, and portray it as the great benefit of a CBDC. 

Cash is uncontrollable--and hence YOU are less controllable. With a CDBC your ability to interact in society is completely under the control of the government. Don't want that vax? Fine, grow your own food and don't even think about buying anything. No gas for your car, no groceries (or only what they decide you can buy), no freedom at all. 

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Western leaders have been drooling as they watch China develop its still-infancy social credit system. They have watched as the freedom of Chinese--never great--has contracted ever more quickly. 

I want me some of that power! Imagine what you can do!

The sad fact is that much of the populace will support it, as they did the mandates of the pandemic era. As they have with "gender-affirming care," and the host of bureaucratic schemes being foisted upon us. Where is the general outcry over "hate speech" restrictions?

Not that people will have many choices, should cash begin to disappear. Every purchase will be monitored, and in a while, the people who object will be weeded out. Because they can do that with a CDBC. Shut up, or else. 

Don't like 15-minute cities? Try buying gas to escape them! Want to buy a gun or ammunition? Good luck with that if your CDBC is programmed to restrict your purchase. 

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No doubt there will be legal restrictions on abusing the power put into the hands of the government, and no doubt those restrictions will erode, quietly, and with good explanations for why it is necessary. Stop terrorism! Stop crime! Prevent harm! No travel during pandemics! 

The excuses will sound plausible, and your freedoms will erode one day at a time, with your neighbors looking at you like a nutjob for objecting. 

How many people do you know who still believe the powers that be had good intentions when restricting freedoms during the pandemic years? How many were petty tyrants themselves? 

The camel's nose is under the tent, and the rest of him will follow soon enough. 


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John Sexton 3:20 PM | December 23, 2024
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