The world of money has gone wild in recent years. The Loop planned a sequence of articles on the subject, starting with the basics – what is money? How is it created? However, we’ve decided to jump forward to a discussion of a new, particularly dangerous proposal that would impact how we keep and spend money.
How does money work now, and what do they want to change?
Cash as you know it now is decentralized. You can meet up with somebody and do an exchange of money for a thing or service, without either of you ever being identified. This could be something truly illicit in the alley behind a bar. It could just as well be somebody mowing your lawn, or the purchase of a cannabis product.
Another aspect of our current money system is debt – which bankers love! The United States has landed in a lot of debt, with our national “bar tab” somewhere around 32 trillion dollars. Divvied across every man, woman, and child within our borders, that’s about $100,000 per person – but add to that your car loan, student loan debt, mortgage, and credit card balance.
This might be too much debt, even for a banker. The US spends more on its military than the next nine nations combined, but as interest rates have recently climbed, our payment on the national debt is on track to surpass US military spending by 2030.
On the one hand, you have a hard-to-control thing called “cash,” which lets money flow hither and yon. On the other hand, you have so much debt that the system is becoming unstable. The debt by itself is a bad situation, possibly even an emergency. The current idea is to rein in the freedom of cash under the claim that it’s the only way to address the debt emergency.
Central Bank Digital Currency
Technology – networking, computing, databases – has reached a point where we can get rid of that decentralized cash thing. Instead, each person gets an account on a new centralized service, where all your money lives. No more coins or dollar bills – it’s all just a digital balance in the one central service. In general, it’s talked about as “Central Bank Digital Currency” or CBDC. In the US, the name of our CBDC is “FedNow.”
If you want to purchase something, you identify yourself to FedNow, then the seller identifies themselves, along with what they’re selling at what price. The system decides whether you have the money, whether you’re allowed to buy the item, whether the seller can sell it, and then it records the transaction. If FedNow rejects the transaction, the authorities may be notified as well.
Welcome to pervasive surveillance and control. Not a penny moves until you’ve asked FedNow and it has given permission. We are all supplicants; consider the power of the people controlling FedNow. Do they want to enforce a 15-minute city? Easy! Just reject transactions more than 5 miles from your home address. Are you a federal agent and tired of that pesky Washington marijuana thing? Shut off the dispensaries.
You might think you’ll trick the system by mislabeling what you’re selling. You know, the dispensary might say it’s selling “shrubs.” The problem is that pretty much everybody has already handed ALL of their data to big tech – purchases, rentals, searches, email, texts, cameras, and the rest. Big tech and big government already work together extensively. You’re not going to fool them.
When they detect your lies, what might they do? Take your money? Take you to court? What do you do if they won’t let you pay a lawyer?
At the moment, FedNow is being sold gently, as a new kind of convenience. The problem is it’s actually an unprecedented concentration of power, which all of human history assures us will attract those who love control and domination. The corrupt will join in, of course. And then they’ll also be joined by the same kind of criminals who broke into the Federal Witness Protection Program, the Department of Commerce, Equifax, and the Internal Revenue Service.
It’s all the eggs in the single biggest basket in human history. As a nation, we find ourselves with serious money problems. Please ask many, many questions before accepting that CBDC’s are the obvious path to safety and prosperity. Here at The Loop, we’ll do our best to address the propaganda that will soon be pushed on the subject, and keep you informed.
