Good post, I agree that the introduction of CBDCs will result in the greatest loss of individual freedom in human history. Not only is every transaction ledgerized for the government to track everything you do, but the currency is programmable so they can choose how and when you spend it, and they can cut you out from it entirely with the push of a button. This is why they want it so badly...
It's even worse than that on some levels. The global payment system is actually pretty robust to outages. If Visa has an outage, you can still use Mastercard. If we centralize the payment rails to one entity, an outage could become global. Imagine global credit card processing having a multi-hour global outage. The chaos would be extreme.
I share your concern and certainly won't make light of the risks.
We can resist the implementation. We can keep electing scoundrels from those big parties and ask these scoundrels to please think about our privacy and not implement this trackable money. That might work.
Better still we can embrace and co-opt the scheme. Start by electing decent people to implement the scheme. Make all transactions public. This will put a powerful crimp on the elite. It would make bribery more difficult, or at least more obvious.
Elite politicians have always tried to hide the source of donations. Where I live only large amounts must be reported, and they are made public months after the donation. These CBDC's could give us donation tracking in real time! ZERO slip-ups in reporting.
Take it further. Whenever a company spends any digital money require the ID of the person making the transaction to be logged and made public. That could make it difficult for criminals who use company transactions to hide their crimes.
Worried about your money being made to expire before you can spend it? That could be a problem for my $1000 wage if I can't get to the supermarket this week. But I think it would be more of a problem for the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gates of the world. They might have a bit more to lose than you and I.
Good post, I agree that the introduction of CBDCs will result in the greatest loss of individual freedom in human history. Not only is every transaction ledgerized for the government to track everything you do, but the currency is programmable so they can choose how and when you spend it, and they can cut you out from it entirely with the push of a button. This is why they want it so badly...
It's even worse than that on some levels. The global payment system is actually pretty robust to outages. If Visa has an outage, you can still use Mastercard. If we centralize the payment rails to one entity, an outage could become global. Imagine global credit card processing having a multi-hour global outage. The chaos would be extreme.
I share your concern and certainly won't make light of the risks.
We can resist the implementation. We can keep electing scoundrels from those big parties and ask these scoundrels to please think about our privacy and not implement this trackable money. That might work.
Better still we can embrace and co-opt the scheme. Start by electing decent people to implement the scheme. Make all transactions public. This will put a powerful crimp on the elite. It would make bribery more difficult, or at least more obvious.
Elite politicians have always tried to hide the source of donations. Where I live only large amounts must be reported, and they are made public months after the donation. These CBDC's could give us donation tracking in real time! ZERO slip-ups in reporting.
Take it further. Whenever a company spends any digital money require the ID of the person making the transaction to be logged and made public. That could make it difficult for criminals who use company transactions to hide their crimes.
Worried about your money being made to expire before you can spend it? That could be a problem for my $1000 wage if I can't get to the supermarket this week. But I think it would be more of a problem for the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gates of the world. They might have a bit more to lose than you and I.
Couldn't we create this level of transparency with reporting rules? Would it require a full fledged CBDC?