For some time now, people like former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Catherine Austin Fitts and many others - including yours truly - have been warning about the dangers of crypto-currencies, and more especially, of Central Bank Digital Currencies or CBDCs. Our warnings have consistently centered around three basic dangers they carry with them: (1) they are not energy efficient, and as electronically based systems can be subject to outages such as electro-magnetic pulse and so on, and additionally as cyber-systems, suffer from the lack of integrity in such systems. Indeed, when I first heard about them, one of my own personal warnings was that in spite of claims to the contrary, they could be hacked. Stories have finally appeared to this effect. (2) Contrary to claims of privacy and to the early claims that crypto-currencies spelled the end of central bank private money monopolies, such technologies in the hands of central banks, with the power to mandate their use and to outlaw others, would spell the end of privacy. Finally and most importantly (3) such currencies in the hands of central banks, coupled with social credit scoring systems, would effectively not be a currency at all, but more like corporate coupons whose value (or lack thereof) could be adjusted on a case-to-case basis, depending on your behaviour and your thinking.
These may seem like outlandish ideas, but the following article shared by V.T. provides confirmation of these basic theses:
Let us be clear about the developments outlined in this article: while these "currencies" may be new, they are not normal nor are they currencies. Note the following statements:
For those who have never heard of them, “Central Bank Digital Currencies” (CBDCs) are exactly what they sound like, digitized versions of the pound/dollar/euro etc. issued by central banks.
Like bitcoin (and other crypto), the CBDC would be entirely digital, thus furthering the ongoing war on cash. However, unlike crypto, it would not have any encryption preserving anonymity. In fact, it would be totally the reverse, potentially ending the very idea of financial privacy.
Now, you may not have heard much about the CBDC plans, lost as they are in the tangle of the ongoing “pandemic”, but the campaign is there, chugging along on the back pages for months now. There are stories about it from both Reuters and the Financial Times just today. It’s a long, slow con, but a con nonetheless.
The countries where the idea progressed the furthest are China and the UK. The Chinese Digital Yuan has been in development since 2014, and is subject to ongoing and widespread testing. The UK is nowhere near that stage yet, but Chancellor Rishi Sunak is keenly pushing forward a digital pound that the press are calling “Britcoin”.
Other countries, including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Malaysia, are not far behind.
The US is also researching the idea, with Jerome Powell, head of Federal Reserve, announcing the release of a detailed report on the “digital dollar” in the near future.
And here's the rub, and it directly confirms the warnings of Catherine Fitts and others regarding the true nature of CBDC's: they are not money nor currency in any sense:
The proposals for how these CBDCs might work should be enough to raise red flags in even the most trusting of minds.
Most people wouldn’t like the idea of the government monitoring “all spending in real-time”, but that’s not the worst it.
By far the most dangerous idea is that any future digital currency should be “programmable”. Meaning the people issuing the money would have the power to control how it is spent.
The article then links a video of Agustin Carstens, head of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), and in case one missed it, actually cites him a little later in the article:
Here’s that quote again, with some emphasis added:
The key difference [with a CBDC] is that the central bank would have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and the have the technology to enforce that.”
…which tells you not only that they want and are seeking this power, but how they justify it to themselves. They transform other people’s money into an “expression of their liability”, and so consider it’s only right that they control it.
An article in the Telegraph, back in June, was just as candid [our emphasis]:
Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible
The article goes on to quote Tom Mutton, a director at the BoE:
You could introduce programmability […] There could be some socially beneficial outcomes from that, preventing activity which is seen to be socially harmful in some way.
It does not take a particle physicist to understand that if central banks can program their digital "currency" on a case-by-case individual basis to be spent only on certain things, the same capability also gives them the ability to determine the value of that "currency" on a case-by-case individual basis. In short, the same technology enables both the end of financial privacy and makes the "currency" into a corporate coupon. This is a one way mirror behind which the banksters can operate with impunity, and is tailor-made for even more financial fraud.
Q.E.D.
So how does one combat this? There are two simple solutions: do not bank with the big banks, use cash as much as possible in transactions, and start building networks with the realization that sooner or later, those networks might have to create currencies of their own.
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