Tag: digital currency

Michigan Bill Would Take First Steps Against A CBDC

A bill filed in the Michigan House would take the first steps toward limiting the impact of any potential future central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the state.

House Bill 6147 (HB6147) would prohibit a state governmental agency or any political subdivision from accepting a payment using central bank digital currency. It would also bar the same from advocating for or supporting any test of a central bank digital currency.

HB6147 is similar to a law passed in Alabama in 2023 and in Indiana, South Dakota, North Carolina and Georgia in 2024.

IN PRACTICE

In the spirit of James Madison’s blueprint in Federalist #46, the enactment of HB6147 would create “impediments” to the implementation of a CBDC in Michigan. Madison said “a refusal to cooperate with officers of the union” along with “the embarrassments created by legislative devices,” would “oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised.”

Other states have also taken steps to block the use of CBDCs. Indiana, Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah have enacted laws that ban the use of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as money in the state.

How such legislation will play out in practice against a CBDC, should the federal government attempt to implement one, is unknown.

Opponents of the legislation generally take the position that states can’t do anything to stop a CBDC, since – according to their view – under the supremacy clause “any federal law on this point will automatically override state law.”

We’ve heard this song and dance on other issues before.

In the ramp-up to the 1996 vote on Proposition 215 in California, voters were repeatedly told that legalization of marijuana, even for limited medical purposes, was a fruitless effort, since, under the supremacy clause, any such state law would be automatically overridden by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA). At best, opponents told Californians, the state would end up in a costly, and losing court effort.

But despite those warnings, Californians voted yes, setting in motion the massive state-level movement we see today, where a growing majority of states have legalized what the federal government prohibits. Ultimately, the federal government will likely have to back down, even if just to save face, because it has become impossible to fully enforce its federal prohibition over this massive state and individual resistance.

A similar scenario played out in response to the REAL ID Act of 2005. The national ID system still isn’t fully up and running more than 17 years after the “final deadline” for full implementation.

Why not?

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Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Projects Are Foundering in Five-Eye Nations. What Gives?

Canada and Australia shelve plans for retail CBDCs while the US could soon become the first country to explicitly ban the central bank from issuing a CBDC.   

As we warned in May 2022, a financial revolution is quietly sweeping the world (or at least trying to) that has the potential to reconfigure the very nature of money, making it programmable, far more surveillable and centrally controlled. To quote Washington DC-based blogger and analyst NS Lyons, “if not deliberately and carefully constrained in advance by law,… CBDCs have the potential to become even more than a technocratic central planner’s dream. They could represent the single greatest expansion of totalitarian power in history.”

At the time of writing that post, around 90 countries and currency unions were in the process of exploring a CBDC, according to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker. Today, just two and a half years later, that number has increased to 134, representing 98% of global GDP. Around 66 of those countries are in the advanced stage of exploration—development, pilot, or launch.

But they do not include the United States. In fact, the US is not just trailing most countries on CBDC development; it could soon become the first country to explicitly ban the central bank from issuing a CBDC, to the undisguised horror of certain think tanks.

“CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.”

In May, the US House of Representatives passed HR 5403, also known as the “CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.” The bill, first introduced in September 2023 and sponsored by US Senator Ted Cruz, proposes amendments to the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the US Federal Reserve from issuing CBDCs. It also seeks to protect the right to financial privacy and prevent the U.S. government from “weaponizing their financial system against their own citizens.”

If passed, HR 5403 will prevent the Fed from:

  1. Offering products or services directly to individuals.
  2. Maintaining accounts on behalf of individuals.
  3. Issuing a central bank digital currency or any digital asset that is substantially similar under any other name or label directly to an individual.

To become law, the bill still needs to clear the Senate, which is by not means guaranteed. But it is likely to receive added impetus from a new Trump administration, assuming Trump wins the election and isn’t assassinated before taking office or thwarted by a colour revolution, as Lambert posited yesterday. In January, Trump announced, to thunderous applause, at a New Hampshire that as president, he would “never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency.” Such a currency, he said, “would give a federal government, our federal government, absolute control over your money.”

Even a Kamala Harris administration is unlikely to fast-track a digital dollar, with progress set to continue to lag other jurisdictions, according to an article in The Banker. US voters — particularly Republican ones — are increasingly aware — and wary — of the threat posed by CBDCs, as demonstrated by the crowd’s reaction to Trump’s announcement. This, if nothing else, stands as testament to the power of social and independent media, and goes a long way to explaining why governments across the West are trying desperately to muzzle them.

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Hidden Agendas: Beware of the Government’s Push for a Digital Currency

The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it.

The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer.

Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.

This is what comes of those $1.2 trillion spending bills: someone’s got to foot the bill.

Because the government’s voracious appetite for money, power and control has grown out of control, its agents have devised other means of funding its excesses and adding to its largesse through taxes disguised as fines, taxes disguised as fees, and taxes disguised as tolls, tickets and penalties.

No matter how much money the government pulls in, it’s never enough (case in point: the endless stopgap funding deals and constant ratcheting up of the debt ceiling), so the government has to keep introducing new plans to empower its agents to seize Americans’ bank accounts.

Make way for the digital dollar.

Whether it’s the central bank digital currency favored by President Biden, or the cryptocurrency being hawked by former President Trump, the end result will still be a form of digital money that makes it easier to track, control and punish the citizenry.

For instance, weeks before the Biden Administration made headlines with its support for a government-issued digital currency, the FBI and the Justice Department quietly moved ahead with plans for a cryptocurrency enforcement team (translation: digital money cops), a virtual asset exploitation unit tasked with investigating crypto crimes and seizing virtual assets, and a crypto czar to oversee it all.

No surprises here, of course.

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CBDCs Will Allow Police To Collect, Store Personal Data For Surveillance State, IMF Paper Reveals

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report recently that warns about the very serious privacy risks associated with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

According to the paper, entitled “Central Bank Digital Currency Data Use and Privacy Protection,” any central bank can use its CBDC system to collect all sorts of private information about users. It could then turn that private information over to the authorities for mass surveillance and possibly persecution reasons.

“CBDC data allows for commercial exploitation while also raising the possibility of state surveillance,” the IMF warns.

The way CBDCs work is that every time a transaction is made, all sorts of private information is transferred and uploaded into the blockchain as proof. That information is then open game for government authorities and anyone else to exploit it for ulterior purposes.

“Central bank digital currency (CBDC), as a digital form of central bank money, may allow for a ‘digital trail’ – data – to be collected and stored,” the paper explains.

“In contrast to cash, CBDC could be designed to potentially include a wealth of personal data, encapsulating transaction histories, user demographics, and behavioral patterns. Personal data could establish a link between counterparty identities and transactions.”

The paper goes on to explain that there is economic value in CBDCs due to the data trail it creates. Data is considered an “infrastructural resource that can be used by an unlimited number of users and for an unlimited number of purposes as an input to produce goods and services.”

“CBDC data could potentially be harvested by financial institutions that, in turn, could help develop data-driven businesses,” the paper continues.

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The Regime’s War on Cash Could Destroy the Economy

According to some “experts,” there is an urgent need to remove cash from the economy. It is held that cash provides support to the “shadow economy” and permits tax evasion. Another justification for its removal is that, in times of economic shocks, which push the economy into a recession, the run for cash exacerbates the downturn—it becomes a factor contributing to economic instability. Moreover, it is argued that, in the modern world, most transactions can be settled by means of electronic funds transfer. Money in the modern world is allegedly an abstraction.

The emergence of money

Money emerged because barter could not support the market economy. A butcher, who wanted to exchange his meat for fruit, might not be able to find a fruit farmer who wanted his meat, while the fruit farmer who wanted to exchange his fruit for shoes might not be able to find a shoemaker who wanted his fruit. The distinguishing characteristic of money is that it is the general medium of exchange. It has evolved as the most marketable commodity. On this process, Mises wrote,

“…there would be an inevitable tendency for the less marketable of the series of goods used as media of exchange to be one by one rejected until at last only a single commodity remained, which was universally employed as a medium of exchange; in a word, money.”

Similarly, Rothbard held that,

Just as in nature there is a great variety of skills and resources, so there is a variety in the marketability of goods. Some goods are more widely demanded than others, some are more divisible into smaller units without loss of value, some more durable over long periods of time, some more transportable over large distances. All of these advantages make for greater marketability. It is clear that in every society, the most marketable goods will be gradually selected as the media for exchange. As they are more and more selected as media, the demand for them increases because of this use, and so they become even more marketable. The result is a reinforcing spiral: more marketability causes wider use as a medium which causes more marketability, etc. Eventually, one or two commodities are used as general media—in almost all exchanges—and these are called money.

Since the general medium of exchange emerged from a wide range of commodities, money is a commodity. Again, according to Rothbard,

Money is not an abstract unit of account, divorceable from a concrete good; it is not a useless token only good for exchanging; it is not a ‘claim on society’; it is not a guarantee of a fixed price level. It is simply a commodity.

Moreover, in the words of Mises, “…an object cannot be used as money unless, at the moment when its use as money begins, it already possesses an objective exchange value based on some other use.” Why must this be the case? Rothbard explains further,

In contrast to directly-used consumers’ or producers’ goods, money must have pre-existing prices on which to ground a demand. But the only way this can happen is by beginning with a useful commodity under barter, and then adding demand for a medium to the previous demand for direct use (e.g., for ornaments, in the case of gold).

Hence, money is that for which all other goods and services are traded. Through an ongoing selection process over thousands of years, people settled on gold as money. In today’s monetary system, the money supply is no longer gold, but coins and notes issued by the government and the central bank. This fiat-money still has exchange-value because of its prior connection with true money and the inertia caused by the fact that it is already accepted as a general medium of exchange. Consequently, coins and notes still constitute money, known as cash, which are employed in transactions. Goods and services are exchanged for cash.

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Fifty Shades of Central Bank Tyranny

The United States has had a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) since the late 1990s—or possibly even as far back as the 1970s, depending on how you define it. Definitions matter. Just as the bestselling novel 50 Shades of Gray explores the complex dynamics of control and submission in a relationship, our financial system has evolved into what could be called “50 Shades of Central Bank Tyranny.”  

Each layer of our digital currency system peels back the seductive mask of freedom, revealing progressively darker shades of control. As we delve deeper, what seems like autonomy at first glance is only an illusion where more intricate and pervasive forms of dominance lay hidden, its grip tightening with every layer.

Our politicians work their sleight of hand by manipulating language itself to give a false impression, masking either a different intent or simply trying to gain the appearance of a victory with little or no actual underlying achievement. After all, the Patriot Act was anything but “patriotic.” The CARES Act, while sounding warmly empathetic, cared more about large multinational corporations than small businesses, about Big Pharma over American health, and above all, about the expansion of the surveillance state and protection of the censorship industrial complex over the liberty and free speech of the American people.

Just as 50 Shades of Gray reveals the intricate power plays in a seemingly consensual relationship, so too does our current financial system reveal its true nature as a digital dominatrix—one that has been steadily adding links to the chain of financial enslavement, tightening its grip on our autonomy for decades.

In this article, I will define what a Central Bank Digital Currency is by exploring its major categories. I’ll demonstrate that the US already operates with a form of CBDC, albeit without the flashy labels. I will also show that the Federal Reserve (the Fed) can introduce more dystopian elements into this system—such as programming restrictions on when, how, and where you can spend your money without requiring Congressional approval.

However, the fear of central bank control over your transactions is, in fact, a red herring. The real threat lies with our government, which has already perfected the art of surveillance. Adding programmability is just the next logical step. Ultimately, both Republicans and Democrats are steering us toward the same destination: total digital control. They may use different words and different propaganda, but their goals converge. While we can’t simply vote out of this predicament, we can opt out entirely.

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You Might Own Nothing Sooner Than You Think

Imagine a world where ownership is a distant memory, replaced by an eerie semblance of joy in dispossession. In 2016, Klaus Schwab, the enigmatic architect of the World Economic Forum, foretold a future whereby, in 2024, humanity would be stripped of its possessions, shackled in digital chains, yet deceived into a state of contentment. Initially dismissed as lunacy, we stand on the precipice of this harrowing reality; Schwab’s vision looms ominously over us, more prophetic than we dared to believe.

For decades, a clandestine cabal of technocrats has meticulously orchestrated our descent into digital serfdom. We sleepwalked into their trap and surrendered our rights and possessions to those who wield the power of the keystroke. In this brave new world, ownership is an illusion, and with a mere digital command, everything we hold dear can be seized.

This article unveils the sinister agenda behind the facade of progress. It explores the erosion of ownership through clickwrap agreements, the dematerialization of our assets into databases over the past few decades, the rise of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which threatens our control over money, and The Great Taking, which threatens our control over the rest of our non-monetary assets.

All is not lost, although, in a separate article, I will address that our salvation comes not at the ballot box but through our radical non-compliance. Technology can either be used to promote freedom or tyranny. I will discuss how we can adopt technologies to counter the digital slave system actively being developed by technocrats, thus guaranteeing our privacy, ability to engage in voluntary trade, and retention of our free will.

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‘Digital Euro’ To Be “Most Private Electronic Payment Option”; ECB Claims

The digital euro will be one of the most private forms of electronic payment, according do a data protection official from the European Union. 

On Oct. 2, 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) released a report laying the groundwork for its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital euro.

The digital euro has been in its investigation phase since October 2021, during which ECB officials and bankers hypothesized about its possible design and purpose.

As of November 2023, the digital euro has entered the preparation phase, with possible legislative adoption expected by the last financial quarter of 2024.

If the ECB can stick to its roadmap, digital euro use cases could roll out by November 2025.

Despite still being in development, the digital euro is already facing resistance over privacy concerns.

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Digital Dystopia: Lessons from the Global IT Outage on the Perils of Cashless Living

As a global IT outage wreaks havoc on digital payment systems, mainstream media finally sounds the alarm on cashless society risks – but for truth-tellers like Sayer Ji, the warning comes too late.

The Growing Threat of a Cashless Society: Lessons from the Global IT Outage

In a startling shift, major British newspapers have begun highlighting the dangers of a fully cashless society following a widespread IT outage that crippled digital payment systems across the globe. This event has brought to light the inherent fragility of our increasingly digitized financial infrastructure and serves as a stark reminder of the vital role cash still plays in our economy.

The Chaos of Digital Dependency

On July 19, 2024, a content update by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike caused millions of Microsoft systems worldwide to crash. As reported by Nick Corbishley for Naked Capitalism, this outage had far-reaching consequences:

“When a content update by the cyber-security giant CrowdStrike caused millions of Microsoft systems around the world to crash on Friday morning, bringing the operating systems of banks, payment card firms, airlines, hospitals, NHS clinics, retailers and hospitality businesses to a standstill, businesses were faced with a stark choice: go cash-only, or close until the systems came back online.”

This incident laid bare the vulnerability of our tightly coupled IT-based societies, particularly in the realm of banking and payments. The fallout was especially severe in countries like Australia, where cashless transactions have been actively encouraged by the government.

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Is this the end of 1p and 2p coins? Treasury orders NO new coins to be minted for first time amid decline in cash payments as officials consider scrapping coppers altogether

The Treasury has made no orders to the Royal Mint for new coins to be minted for the first time amid a decline in cash payments, with officials considering scrapping coppers altogether. 

No new 1p and 2p coins are expected to be ordered in the coming years with proposals being worked on to be put to ministers over the future of the coinage, reported the Evening Standard. 

If the coppers are scrapped it would be the first time a coin was taken out of circulation in 40 years when the half-penny ceased in 1984. 

The 1p and 2p coins’ future has been in a precarious state in recent years with Bank of England governor Mark Carney previously hinting they could be ditched as Britons increasingly move towards a cashless society. 

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