Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) will enable governments to regulate how citizens spend their money

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

Have you ever sat and wondered what CBDC means? Well, wonder no more. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are what the banks have been trying to impose on the populations of the earth for a while now. Digital money will be embraced by some and rejected by others. Let us look at the pros and cons of this issue.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) could enable governments to regulate how citizens spend their hard-earned money.

Think about this statement for a second; if you purchased something with cash it is almost untraceable, but if you are in the business of tracking and tracing all human transactions, then digital currency could be one of your biggest tools.

According to Deputy Managing Director Bo Li, a CBDC may enhance “Financial inclusion through programmability,” he said, on October 15^th, 2022, at the IMF-World Bank annual meeting.

Li went on to explain how, “A CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players: to program, to create smart contracts, to allow targeted policy functions,” Li explained. “For example, welfare payments, consumption coupons and food stamps.” 

“Targeted policy functions” are three key words in the above quote that could mean who is allowed to spend, where they can spend, how much they can spend, and finally what they can spend on.

“By programming CBDC, that money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own [CBDC] and what kind of people can use this money, for example for food,” Li said.

If anyone is still wondering where all this talk of financial control is coming from, it is important to note that according to the IMF’s official website, Li spent a significant amount of time working for the People’s Bank of China before joining the organization.

Opposition to these sales pitches finally came from someone with a working mind. Nick Anthony, a policy analyst at the Centre for Monetary and Financial Alternatives of the Cato Institute, questioned the motives behind the digital currency.

As a crucial example, Anthony cited Trudeau’s nefarious technique of freezing the bank accounts of the pandemic mandate protesters earlier this year as evidence that governments cannot be trusted with such tools at their disposal.

Those were some of the cons, now for a look at a few pros, but first of all, for this kind of system to be considered as having pros there must be consent and free will every step of the way, and no one should be black balled for not wanting to participate.

For example, if I do not want my money in CBDC I should be free to spend cash anywhere I go with no issues, nor mandates to conform to. Anything short of this is a financial dictatorship.

With nearly 90% of national central banks intending to provide their own CBDCs to the general public, folks should be deciding now which side of the fence they are going to stand.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said, “A CBDC would not be anonymous and would require identity verification, implying that information about its activities would be made public.” Let that sink in folks.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank (ECB) repeated Powell’s comments, saying: “There would not be complete anonymity as there is with bank notes.”

In closing here are the so-called elites (aka digital plantation owners) who recently met to plan your financial future: Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, who’s also the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development; Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF; Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director, and Cecilia Skingsley the BIS Innovation Hub Director.