Biden Admin Takes Steps Toward A Digital Dollar

[Kamaji]

Biden Admin Takes Steps Toward A Digital Dollar

Critics call the prospect a frightening “means of control.”

MAY 24, 2022
KEVIN STOCKLIN

“Give me control of a nation’s money,” an 18th-century banking oligarch once said, “and I care not who makes its laws.” That may have sounded like hubris at the time, but digital technology could soon make it an understatement.

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), currently in various stages of development around the world, are being created as a new form of money that, depending on how they are structured, could give government bureaucrats more control over citizens than any law ever could. In contrast to what most Americans today understand as money, commercial bank deposits denominated as dollars, a U.S. CBDC could be issued directly by our central bank to individuals in the form of a “digital wallet.” A digital dollar could also be programmable with controlling features.

On March 9, President Biden took a first step toward creating a U.S. CBDC, directing his administration to report to him by this fall on whether and how to implement a federal digital dollar. And in February, the Boston Fed completed the first phase of Project Hamilton, a CBDC simulation it has been developing together with MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative.

“My Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC,” Biden’s order stated. Among the goals he cited for a U.S. CBDC were faster and cheaper payments, financial stability, fighting financial crime, maintaining the preeminence and security of America’s currency, and “financial inclusion and equity.” Biden also ordered a report on “the potential for these technologies to impede or advance efforts to tackle climate change.”

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China has taken the lead on implementation among the world’s major economies, issuing its e-CNY, or digital yuan, in 2020. By the end of 2021, the digital yuan had 261 million users, representing about one-fifth of China’s population, according to the People’s Bank of China.

China issues the e-CNY directly from its central bank to consumers, who set up a digital-wallet app that allows them to buy from vendors by scanning their phone at the point of sale, thereby transferring digital yuan directly from the buyer’s government account to the vendor’s without transaction fees. For those who don’t have a smartphone, a British company called Walletmor now offers microchips that are implanted into a person’s palm. The buyer makes payments by placing his hand over a vendor’s card reader.

China touts the privacy of these transactions; users can set the app so that purchases are anonymous between buyer and seller, just as with cash. Unlike cash, however, the Chinese government can observe and track every transaction.

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Source:  https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/biden-admin-takes-steps-toward-a-digital-dollar/

[rustynail]

In a country that may not be able to keep the lights on.

[DefiantMassRINO]

A logical move for a political party that doesn't believe in personal property, personal wealth, and capitalism ... except for its own leaders.  Some are more equal than others.

China touts the privacy of these transactions; users can set the app so that purchases are anonymous between buyer and seller, just as with cash. Unlike cash, however, the Chinese government can observe and track every transaction.

[Smokin Joe]

In a country that may not be able to keep the lights on.

Just establish an arbitrary limit to the energy people can purchase. Then, as people die of heatstroke in the south and freeze to death in the north, find someone else to blame. TO control climate change...of course.

NOTE: there isn't even any argument over whether humans and their activities have ANY effect on climate any more. It is treated as a given. A half century's "science" will be a laughingstock in the future.

[Kamaji]

A logical move for a political party that doesn't believe in personal property, personal wealth, and capitalism ... except for its own leaders.  Some are more equal than others.

China touts the privacy of these transactions; users can set the app so that purchases are anonymous between buyer and seller, just as with cash. Unlike cash, however, the Chinese government can observe and track every transaction.

Exactly.

[Kamaji]

Just think:  all your exchangeable wealth tucked into a government-provided crypto wallet.  Post the wrong things online and - PRESTO! - no more wealth.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Remember what the Canadian Government did to the protesting truckers - the truckers and their families were frozen out of their own bank accounts without due process and without civil or criminal conviction.