“I always love how Chris grabs us by the brains and says, stop panicking. They can try, but people will build around them, as they always have before.“
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Posts Tagged ‘CBDC’
The “War on Cash” And CBDC’s Are Doomed Before They Even Begin
Posted by M. C. on June 27, 2024
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, War on Cash | Leave a Comment »
The Globalists Want CBDCs in 2024… What Really Comes Next Will Surprise Them
Posted by M. C. on January 30, 2024
CBDCs will allow central banks to impose deeply negative interest rates, which are just a euphemism for a tax on saving money.
Suppose governments impose lockdowns again for flu season, so-called “climate change,” or whatever pretext they find convenient. CBDCs could be programmed to work only in a geographic area, and the government could deny your payments if you travel more than a mile from your home during a lockdown.
It’s important to remember the wise words of Ron Paul:
“What none of them (politicians) will admit is that the market is more powerful than the central banks and all the economic planners put together. Although it may take time, the market always wins.”
There’s an excellent chance governments worldwide will soon force their citizens to use central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
CBDCs enable all sorts of horrible, totalitarian things.
They allow governments to track and control every penny you earn, save, and spend. They are a powerful tool for politicians to confiscate and redistribute wealth as they see fit.
CBDCs will allow central banks to impose deeply negative interest rates, which are just a euphemism for a tax on saving money.
Governments could program CBDCs to have an expiration date—like some airline frequent flyer miles—forcing people to spend them, for example, before the end of the month when they’d become worthless.
CBDCs will enable devious social engineering by allowing governments to punish and reward people in ways they previously couldn’t.
Suppose governments impose lockdowns again for flu season, so-called “climate change,” or whatever pretext they find convenient. CBDCs could be programmed to work only in a geographic area, and the government could deny your payments if you travel more than a mile from your home during a lockdown.
Suppose the people in charge want to encourage people to take a pharmaceutical product or some other poison. With CBDCs, they could deposit money into the accounts of those who complied and deduct it from those who didn’t.
Governments and large corporations will undoubtedly pair CBDCs with a social credit system.
Did you commit a thought crime on social media? Or perhaps you read too many politically incorrect articles online? Did you exceed your monthly meat consumption allowance? Then, expect some financial punishment thanks to the CBDCs.
CBDCs are, without a doubt, an instrument of enslavement. They represent a quantum leap backward in human freedom.
Unfortunately, they’re coming soon.
Governments will probably mandate CBDCs as the “solution” when the next real or contrived crisis hits—which is likely not far off.
That’s the bad news.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, Climate Change, Globalists, lockdowns, totalitarian | Leave a Comment »
Doug Casey on How Data Is the New Oil… Implications for Privacy and Profits
Posted by M. C. on October 9, 2023
“However, corporations are hand in glove with the State and enforce its laws and regulations in increasingly direct ways, not to mention the fact that most corporate bigwigs, like almost all high government officials, tend to be sociopaths.
“CBDCs. You won’t be able to buy, sell, own, or transfer anything without going through the central bank’s computer. They have the prospect of reducing us to veritable serfs. Serfs with currently a high standard of living, but serfs nonetheless.
“Boobus americanus will welcome it, however. It will seem so convenient…
by Doug Casey
International Man: Before people understood what oil was, they considered it waste. Later, once people understood the economic potential of oil, it was transformed from unwanted waste into a lucrative commodity.
Similarly, British mathematician and entrepreneur Clive Humby said, “Data is the new oil.” What he means is that data people used to perceive as worthless could become extremely valuable when refined and analyzed.
What’s your take on all this?
Doug Casey: Data banks know practically everything about everybody. Trillions of microchips are increasingly interconnected. The Internet of Things lives in The Cloud. They’re controlled by algorithms and increasingly by artificial intelligence. They’re so complex that I wonder if they won’t take on a life of their own. If SkyNet exists, it’s bound to be growing larger and more powerful every day.
“They” know everything about us, both as individuals and as groups. It’s very much like what Larry Ellison said 30 years ago, to the effect of “Forget privacy, it doesn’t exist.” And that was decades ago. It’s orders of magnitude more true today.
Most of where we go, who we see, how we feel, what we do and have, say and write, believe and think, might seem trivial and of no value to others. But when thousands or millions of bits of these things are aggregated and analyzed, they form a pattern which “they” can use. And use it they do. Mostly in a subtle more-or-less benign way right now. But conditions can change.
International Man: Cellphones, computers, smart TVs, cars, Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and countless other devices and platforms collect enormous data about our interactions, preferences, and actions.
All of this information is stored and can be refined and analyzed.
What are the commercial implications of monetizing this data?
Doug Casey: I try not to worry about the commercial implications of this data being monetized, per se. Partly because you can’t really avoid it, and most commercial applications probably won’t hurt you.
However, corporations are hand in glove with the State and enforce its laws and regulations in increasingly direct ways, not to mention the fact that most corporate bigwigs, like almost all high government officials, tend to be sociopaths.
Today, everybody is attached to their cell phone. The thing is fun, convenient, and almost necessary. But you should, to the greatest degree possible, stay away from the thing, not just for privacy, but for sanity and mental health. Many people appear umbilically attached to their device, unaware that it’s constantly feeding you propaganda while uploading tons of data to likely adversaries. Every minute, you’re on it. I hate my cell phone and avoid using it. The same goes for electronic vehicles (EVs).
All cars have thousands of computer chips today. The worst offenders, though, are EVs, which are constantly reporting, sending, and receiving everything that happens. Your rate of speed, where you are, and perhaps even what you say in the car, whether you know it, or like it, or not, becomes part of a permanent semi-public record.
I’m a fan of electronic vehicle technology in some ways. They can make sense in cities where they don’t drive long distances and can be charged easily overnight. And in temperate areas so as to avoid depleting the battery. However, the State’s mandates for universal use by 2030 are simply insane, for many reasons that aren’t germane to this conversation.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, data, Privacy, Profits | Leave a Comment »
Governments Start Calling For Price Controls – Rationing And CBDCs Come Next
Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2023
What Trudeau is doing is pretending to be stupid while engaging in a very clever strategy of scapegoating. It’s the government and the central bankers that are the foundational cause of inflation, but by blaming individual business sectors he sets the stage for government enforced price controls. When these fail and create a crisis in supply he will then introduce rationing, and once the government has conditioned the public to accept rationing the elites then control the entire population’s access to food and necessities.
Price controls results will result in nothing but disaster.
By Brandon Smith
Last month in the middle of the surreal “Bidenomics” hype I published an article titled ‘Nothing Is Over: Inflation Is About To Come Back With A Vengeance.’ I outlined the misconceptions surrounding CPI and how it is not an accurate model for the effects of inflation. I also noted that the index had been manipulated downwards by Joe Biden as he flooded the market with oil from the strategic reserves. Because so many elements of the CPI are connected to energy, Biden had created an artificial drop in CPI using this strategy.
I argued that as the strategic reserves ran out and Biden lost his leverage, CPI would rise again and prices on a number of necessities would climb. This is happening now, with the biggest jump in CPI in 14 months and gas prices clawing back towards all-time highs.
Inflation is not going away anytime soon, but the bigger issue at hand is who benefits most from inflation and rising prices? The answer might be obvious to some but many people are oblivious to the root cause of inflationary dysfunction and often see it as a consequence of random economic chaos rather than a product of clever engineering. The truth is, banking oligarchs and political authorities revel in the inflationary tidal wave because it is a perfect opportunity to institute far reaching socialist controls over resources.
In most cases central bankers are the primary culprits behind the creation of an inflationary event, and the word “creation” best applies because it is nearly impossible for overt inflation to occur without them. While money supply is not the only factor when dealing with inflation (sorry purists, but there are indeed other causes), it is the most important. More money chasing less resources triggers supply-side instability and prices go up. Central banks have a number of excuses as to why they “need” to conjure up more dollars or pesos or pounds or marks, but there is no doubt that they know what the ultimate end result will be.
It’s happened too many times for them not to know…
These inflation events trigger a predictable set of dominoes in society as well as in economy and finance. Price spikes, diminished savings, rising poverty, rising crime, and rising interest rates – This is then followed in most cases by failed rate hikes, more inflation, then more hikes, diminishing foreign investment in debt, foreign currency dumps (causing more inflation), plunging consumer spending and job losses.
This same pattern has been witnessed from 1920s Weimar Germany to 1970s America to 1990s Yugoslavia to 2000s Argentina and Venezuela and beyond. But what happens next? In each case the trend leads first to price controls on producers and distributors, which ultimately fail. Then comes government rationing and the complete takeover of necessities including the food supply.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Bidenomics, CBDC, CPI, price controls, Rationing | Leave a Comment »
CBDCs: The Ultimate Tool of Financial Intrusion | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on August 10, 2023
Consider how the IRS recently pried open PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts with transactions over $600. Consider also that the Supreme Court just ruled that the IRS can investigate your bank accounts without notification in some circumstances, including if you are a friend, family member, or associate of someone who owes the IRS.
https://mises.org/wire/cbdcs-ultimate-tool-financial-intrusion
“Experts” at the Federal Reserve and other central banks proudly broadcast the potential “financial inclusion” that could be achieved with a central bank digital currency (CBDC). In the Fed’s main CBDC paper, “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation,” they make it clear: “Promoting financial inclusion—particularly for economically vulnerable households and communities—is a high priority for the Federal Reserve . . . a CBDC could reduce common barriers to financial inclusion.”
The term has a ring to it that signals support for progressive goals. “Inclusion” is part of the Orwellian trio of terms “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” which, as Dr. Michael Rectenwald writes, means “surveillance, punishment of the ‘privileged,’ sacrifice of national citizens to global interests, and the labeling as ‘dangerous’ and marking for (virtual) elimination those supposed members or leaders of ‘hate groups’ who oppose such measures.” The central banks’ use of “financial inclusion” involves the same reversal of meanings.
Financial Inclusion and Unbanked Households
Consider that a retail CBDC would be like having a bank account with the Federal Reserve, even if it is intermediated by another bank. There is a lot of guesswork about how a CBDC will be implemented, but some say that it will not just be like having a bank account with the Fed, but that it could be exactly that.
Either way, if a CBDC were genuinely aimed at financial inclusion, it would offer something to those who have chosen to forgo a bank account entirely. This “unbanked” population constitutes about 5.4 percent of US households according to a 2021 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) survey. The survey asked each household why they do not have a bank account, and the responses indicate that minimum balance requirements, privacy, trust, and fees are the most significant factors.
Figure 1: Unbanked households’ reasons for not having a bank account, 2021 (percent)
Source: FDIC, 2021 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (FDIC, 2022), fig. ES.3.
The critical question, then, is this: what does a CBDC offer these households that physical cash and other nonbank financial services (e.g., check cashing, money orders, prepaid cards) do not?
Privacy (or Lack Thereof)
A CBDC undermines privacy. Whatever a central bank might say about privacy protection with a CBDC can be safely dismissed. The Fed paper, for example, says, “Protecting consumer privacy is critical. Any CBDC would need to strike an appropriate balance, however, between safeguarding the privacy rights of consumers and affording the transparency necessary to deter criminal activity.” We should not conflate the characteristics of a CBDC with those of cryptocurrencies in general, which offer anonymity and pseudonymity to their users.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, Federal Reserve, Financial Intrusion, IRS, Privacy, Unbanked | Leave a Comment »
Like, Totally Orwellian: Nearly A Third Of GenZ Favors ‘Government Surveillance Cameras In Every Household’
Posted by M. C. on June 8, 2023
From Ivy League campuses to the publishing industry and the digital domains of Facebook, there is an Orwellian sense of perpetual emergency, an irrational fear that misinformation and hate speech will overwhelm society unless every utterance is subject to a censor’s scrutiny.
What’s interesting about that is that 53% of Americans who support a CBDC also support in-home surveillance cameras.
BY TYLER DURDEN
Nearly one-third of Generation Z says they’d be just fine with government-installed surveillance cameras in every household under the guise of reducing domestic violence and other illegal activity.
“Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity?” asks a new survey from the Cato Institute. Of the responses, 29% of those aged 18-29 said yes.
As the NY Post notes;
In 1791, the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed building a “panopticon” in which people’s behavior could be monitored at all times.
But Bentham’s panopticon was meant to be a prison. A sizable segment of Generation Z would like to call it home.
When it comes to other age brackets, 20% of millennials (between the ages of 30 and 44) also want everyone watched.
Then, wisdom appears to kick in – as just 6% of Americans aged 45 and older were OK with government surveillance in every home.
Broken down by politics, 19% of liberals and 18% of centrists agreed that our daily lives should be monitored by the government for our own safety, while 9 – 11% of those who identify as conservative, very conservative, or very liberal agreed in what appears to be a “horseshoe” issue that unites both ends of the political spectrum.
It’s the middle that has the ethic of old East German secret police — or the KGB.
Maybe that’s not surprising considering the way respectable liberal institutions now run themselves.
From Ivy League campuses to the publishing industry and the digital domains of Facebook, there is an Orwellian sense of perpetual emergency, an irrational fear that misinformation and hate speech will overwhelm society unless every utterance is subject to a censor’s scrutiny.
Even Orwell didn’t imagine Newspeak would require new pronouns. -NY Post
Broken down by race, 33% of black Americans said they’re fine with government in-home surveillance, as did 25% of hispanics, 11% of whites, and 9% of asians respectively.
The question was asked as part of the Cato Institute’s survey on American attitudes on the prospect of a ‘central bank digital currency.’ What’s interesting about that is that 53% of Americans who support a CBDC also support in-home surveillance cameras.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, GenZ, Panopticon, surveillance cameras | Leave a Comment »
Lawmakers Clash Over Regulation Of Stablecoins
Posted by M. C. on May 22, 2023
“Uncle Sam is going to use a central bank digital currency to surveil where they’re spending their money and how much, and ultimately block them from using the banking and payments system,” Hill said.
Recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that bans any U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDCs) from being considered legal tender in the state,
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/lawmakers-clash-over-regulation-stablecoins
BY TYLER DURDEN
Authored by Liam Cosgrove via The Epoch Times,
House lawmakers took part in a contentious debate over how stablecoins should be regulated at a hearing held by the Financial Services Committee’s digital assets panel – where there were also some hopeful signs from both sides.
At the heart of the debate on May 16 was the level of involvement of state regulators and the Federal Reserve.
Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, supports legislation that gives more power to state regulators, while Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the overall committee, advocates for a leading role for the Federal Reserve in the Democratic proposal.
Hill challenged a previous notion put forth by Waters that yielding oversight to the states would be a step backwards in establishing a clear legal framework.
“We’re not starting from scratch,” Hill said.
“The similarities between the two proposals are strong, and that’s why we’re not that far apart.”
Still, Waters argued that “several critical positions” are missing from the Republican proposal, leading to a further divide between the parties.
Amid the volatile cryptocurrency markets, stablecoins are meant to be a safe haven. They also hold bipartisan appeal as an accessible and less expensive way to conduct monetary transactions outside of the traditional financial system and internationally.
Tether – the largest U.S. stablecoin – and Circle, are digital assets tied to the value of the U.S. dollar and play a significant role in the cryptocurrency market. Both Republicans and Democrats share common goals of protecting consumers and preserving the global role of the U.S. dollar. Regulating dollar-denominated stablecoins within the United States could contribute to achieving these objectives.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, Central Bank Digital Currency, Stablecoins | Leave a Comment »
Americans face a rapidly encroaching ’emergency’ CBDC power grab
Posted by M. C. on March 30, 2023
The ruling class may pursue a Hail Mary pass to restore their control over the system.
Now, for the people in charge, a Chinese Communist Party-like CBDC is becoming the “emergency” solution to restore their positions in the societal and monetary hierarchy.So it appears we are entering a consensus period that involves moving full steam ahead with the CBDC project. The “emergency” CBDC will inevitably becoming their “solution” to the crisis that our idiocracy fomented with their destructive monetary Ponzi scheme.
Mar 22
The American financial system is threatening to come apart at the seams, and for the people who control the levers of power, the only way to patch things up may involve the installation of a monetary Social Credit Score system. In recent years, America’s fiat fractional reserve system has transformed into a faith-based credit system, and the people who use the dollar are losing confidence in a system that relies entirely upon their complete and total trust. Should our collective faith in the system continue to decline, the American ruling class will decide that their path forward involves regrasping full control of their confidence scheme through the implementation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
A U.S. CBDC would do much more than simply implement a fully digital version of the U.S. dollar. This system could provide authorities with an almost unlimited digital toolkit to both surveil and censor citizens. A CBDC is advertised as making the system more “efficient” and helping to deliver monetary power to the unbanked. However, it would also give shadowy bureaucrats the power to swipe a “criminal’s” life savings, instantly distribute funds to allies of the system, among an almost infinite series of additional authoritarian instruments.
Over previous decades, when the United States stood tall as the world’s lone financial hegemon, there was never much of a reason to implement a dollar-based CBDC. After all, our political and financial elites had no reason to do so. There were no competing peers and zero superior monetary systems in sight (prior to the discovery of Bitcoin). These forces had full control over a system that empowered them with incredible prestige and power, and there was no reason to antagonize the billions of people who were somewhat contently operating within the confines of the system.
Watch the launch trailer for “FedNow” (US Federal Reserve’s official CBDC) 🤮👇
This is why I respectfully disagree with a lot of conservative and libertarian pundits, who have advanced the idea that the systemic issues in the financial system were the result of a purposeful, controlled demolition.
Why risk it when they already had the biscuit?
Additionally, top officials from current and previous administrations, along with Federal Reserve Board members, had previously described a CBDC as a largely unnecessary project.
For the forces that control our money, a CBDC had once been understood as too risky an endeavor, as it could act as too much of a stick and not enough of a carrot.
After all, the system was working as intended, as a means to reward the individuals and organizations closest to the money making machine and protect their immense, growing financial privilege.
In the past, when the going got tough, the people in charge could always create more money and use it bolster their control and devalue the power of everyone else. Unlike the more ambitious CBDC projects in continental Europe and Asia, the American power brokers never seemed to be super enthusiastic about the idea of the government (and government-sanctioned oligarch partners) having such a strong grip over the Dollar on/off switch.
In recent weeks, however, times have changed. Wall St and Washington is backed into a corner, America is now faced with the prospect of a burgeoning financial contagion, and financial markets are showcasing global ramifications.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CBDC, Central Bank Digital Currency | Leave a Comment »
Doug Casey’s Top 4 Predictions for 2023 – International Man
Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2022
It’s a border war between two shithole countries in a region where wars like this have been going on for a thousand years. Russia actually has a very good historical case for reacquiring the Donbas and Crimea, and that’s all they wanted to start with. But the situation has gotten out of control—courtesy of the US Deep State.
https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-caseys-top-4-predictions-for-2023/
by Doug Casey
International Man: What important trends do you see unfolding in 2023?
Doug Casey: Perhaps the biggest turning point in recent modern history will turn out to be 2020. Governments and their minions found novel ways to gain huge amounts of control. These things were well underway before 2020, but since Covid, they’ve all gone hyperbolic. That trend will accelerate this year—albeit with some much-delayed pushback.
Four areas stand out.
First, a relatively inconsequential flu, followed by a vaccine hysteria, got far more voluntary compliance to all manner of extreme measures than most anyone could have imagined. The powers that be found that the public is vastly more likely to do as they’re told if the rationale is health rather than politics, ideology, economics, or the like. So we can count on many replays of this tune, including mandatory vaccine passports and lockdowns.
Second, the drumbeat against the newly-minted enemy element, carbon, has reached manic levels. A substantial part of the population, and a large majority of youth, have been convinced that Global Warming will destroy the planet unless we go Green, stop using fossil fuels, and attempt to run an industrial civilization on windmills and sunshine. It stands a chance of destroying civilization.
Third, central banks are racing to impose CBDCs, while governments run multi-trillion dollar deficits and bailouts, doubling and tripling debt levels with little discussion. This is unprecedented.
Fourth, the widespread acceptance of Wokism, racial quotas, aggressive LBGT++ promotion, ESG, and DIE. There are serious discussions of race reparation payments and a Guaranteed Annual Income. It’s part of an accelerated general collapse of traditional moral values.
What’s happening will, I think, be seen as a turning point greater than either WW1 or WW2. And there’s an excellent chance we’re looking at something akin to WW3 in the bargain. I don’t doubt that the era before 2020 will soon be referred to as the “Before Times,” a phrase that’s been used in dystopian science fiction. And the future could resemble dystopian sci-fi.
The future is what this discussion is about. But I’m not a fortuneteller and don’t have a crystal ball. All I can do is look at the facts. Ideally, facts that not everybody is paying attention to—interpreted through a lens that not everybody else is using.
Let’s briefly run down trends in the major markets.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: carbon, CBDC, DIE, ESG, LBGT++, racial quotas, vaccine hysteria, wokism | Leave a Comment »
Beware “Biden Bucks”
Posted by M. C. on September 30, 2022
This is an ad for a wealth preservation plan. I cannot comment on the veracity of the plan as I couldn’t make it that far through the ad. That said I believe the description of the horror that is Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is likely accurate.
You need only listen until the repetition starts.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Biden Bucks, CBDC, Central Bank Digital Currency | Leave a Comment »
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