G7 finance officials endorse principles for central bank digital currencies
reuters.com
reuters.com
Crypto people assure me that old style banks would gladly facilitate handing over complete control of all the keys to users but I'm entirely unconvinced.
Due to this lack of control, I believe this is the intended endgame: https://blogs.imf.org/2019/02/05/cashing-in-how-to-make-nega...
The concept of a CBDC is simply a digital currency where normal people hold digital accounts with the central bank instead of using a retail bank. That's it. No prescription for the storage mechanism. It could be a relational database, a block chain or memory on J Powell's old graphing calculator from highschool. A CBDC is digital in the same way that your credit card is digital. It's just that a computer tracks the Fed liability not a little green piece of paper.
Here's a piece of legislation proposing a US CBDC . https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/357...
Go look for the words cryptocurrency or blockchain in it. They aren't there. It's simply a mechanism for retail banks to hold "pass through" accounts for consumer accounts at the fed.
I doubt that you really think central banks, retail banks and the imf have no intention to abolish physical cash. Abolishing it is all upside for them.
For retailers (companies that accept payments) it's easier, faster, cheaper and safer ( zero risk of theft by staff or robbery). For regular people that pay it's easier, faster, more linear ( if you have to spend X now, you don't have to have withdrawn it from an ATM or bank before).
The only downsides are underbanked people and companies, which is an issue in itself and needs to be fixed regardless of cash availability (I'm talking in general, but even more so for developing countries and the US(wasn't it in the news recently that the US Postal Service is going to be cashing checks at some ridiculously expensive rate? Way to get in to the 19th century!)), and of course privacy, for which regulation is needed ( who has access to your payment/transaction data and in what cases) and it's solved for 90% of cases.
(larger than now, how big a negative interest rate are you in favour of? Nevermind: I see from your other comment, 5%, immediate bank run territory.)
You realise lower financing costs do the opposite of encouraging long term thinking. The inflation cost is merely moved to deflation cost of cash.
What do you mean by a post capitalism system?
You realise that hyperinflation contributed to WW2, and that in the event of negative rates the rich move out of cash into another asset(like housing). See Roosevelt and the gold standard. I honestly doubt that negative rates would have avoided the Great Depression.
Wealth taxes also reduce inequality and can be more progressive than negative interest rates which hit middle income earners the hardest, who try to save for retirement.
A debit card costs .10c and no %. A well implemented cryptocurrency would be even less.
Look at the BIS's annual economic report for this year [0]. They are absolutely talking about retail tokens based on a distributed ledger as one of two retail options, the other being as you describe.
Interbank and internation transactions are already digital. The Fed already has wholesale digital liabilities
CBDC advocates are contemplating laws that will affect data (the most valuable asset and not well understood) while focusing most legislative attention on money. Instead, we could start by restoring legal data ownership to individuals. Then banks and fintech and bigtech can compete against each other to gain the consent of individuals for data access, in exchange for services and/or payment, with meaningful access and usage controls. In other words, enforce algorithmic micro-policy on corporate use of individual data, not on individual behavior.
> Stablecoins are a type of digital coin pegged to traditional currencies.
And that's issue, with "stablecoins", exchanges become cartels operating fractional reserves, no different from the traditional banking system... the crypto world was really quick at just re-inventing the same old banking model, but with their own made up monopoly bills...
I highly recommend Brett Scott's writing on this subject: https://twitter.com/suitpossum?lang=en
We’re in a weird space, where statements from these authorities are only targeting government-based digital ledgers while private companies are already operating these stablecoins (celo, usdc, tether, dai)
I think these plans are aimed at projects that are backed by real money instead of fictional money and/or criminal Ponzi schemes.
> Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency ... what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]? ... Sir Jon Cunliffe, a deputy Governor at the Bank, said digital currencies could be programmed for commercial or social purposes ... “You could think of giving your children pocket money, but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets. There is a whole range of things that money could do, programmable money, which we cannot do with the current technology.”
At an IMF meeting in Oct 2020, Swiss BIS director Carstens commented on CBDCs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVmKN4DSu3g&t=1451s
> With cash, we don't know who is using the 100 dollar bill today ... a key difference with CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that determine the expression of that central bank liability .. also we will have the technology to enforce that ... if an advanced economy issues a CBDC, and someone in a 3rd country wants to use it, it will require the consent of the central bank of the residence of that person, therefore the degree of control will be far bigger.
Well-intentioned initiatives like Linux Foundation's global vaccine passport (https://www.goodhealthpass.org/), EU digital health certificate and Apple+Android digital driver's license can all be drafted into the service of CBDC initiatives which require digital identity for digital currency wallets, unifying online and offline policy for programmable "permissions" like carbon/food quotas or other social credits. If western citizens acclimate to "showing papers" for routine daily movement, then real-time currency policy can be applied for admission and activity control. This could replace fungible currency with "colored credits", with policy attached to both the origin of money and a whitelist of possible destinations, goods or services. As a current example, PayPal has amended their ToS to include merchant content regulation as a condition of payment processing.
That's just scratching the surface. Some proposals would eliminate the ability of retail banks to issue loans/money, restricting this function to central banks. Retail banks could then be repurposed as fintech data custodians and risk management, similar to Chinese social credit. Some of these ideas are discussed in the "FedAccounts" paper and related testimony to Congress, https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a....
> Congress should authorize the FederalReserve to give everyone-individuals, businesses, and institutions-the option to maintain accounts at the central bank. We call these accounts FedAccounts. Unlike the CBDC approaches currently under discussion, which would use complicated and inefficient distributed ledger technology and be walled off from the existing system of money and payments, FedAccounts would be seamlessly interoperable with the mainstream payment system, relying on technologies that the Federal Reserve has used for decades.
What are the options for those who prefer physical currency? In the US, pre-1965 ("junk") silver coins can be used to conduct local commerce based on the value of silver content, rather than face value. In theory, regional digital currencies could be created that are backed by precious metals or other physical, non-fiat assets. Texas has a state-administered bullion depository. CBDCs will require enabling legislation in each country, so there will be political debate in the next year or two, including the fates of decentralized cryptocurrencies and corporate digital currencies (e.g. Facebook, Amazon).
For historical background on central bank policy, see the 2014 documentary "Princes of the Yen", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY & https://moviesteve.com/review-princes-of-the-yen-2014/ or the upcoming 2021 documentary "The Trust Game", https://vimeo.com/ondemand/trustgame/626995630?autoplay=1
Overtly dystopian plans are an initial shock, but they enable early response. One reason for public pronouncements is the need for enabling legislation, i.e. consent of the governed and taxed. There are a few ways to say no, individually and collectively, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28861636
I’m far from anti-government libertarian but I like nothing about this. It doesn’t solve any user issues over what’s in place now but adds a massive privacy concern.
Central Bank Digital Cash puts it on a central server, time stamped and with access logs.
Yeah, this is a fascist's wet dream.
If you conduct business with an unvaccinated person you receive $5k fines in Australia. $1k to the individual.
This has been escalating, one thing I suggest to people — pull out your vaccination card. How many slots are on the card? They could have made the card fit into your wallet, if it’s was smaller and didn’t have 4 slots for those 2 shots. Oh darn, now you have to use the app.
This isn’t going to stop.
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world” — Henry Kissinger
In some countries, it will, of course, stop. The goal in most countries is not to live with a vaccination passport forever, the goal is to curb and end the global pandemic. Once this goal has been achieved, vaccinatoin checks will go away.
For example: Seattle is about to ban in-person dining w/o a vaccine card. An easy way to enforce that? Have the credit card processors reject payment at a dining establishment from anyone who hasn't proven vaccination status w/ Visa and MasterCard.
When there's a central gov agency with control over financial transactions I 100% guarantee every crusade of the moment is going to try to use it as leverage.
Citation needed. Europe has been rolling out proof of vaccination at high speed and with low costs associated.
Oh and yes, most business do bother and check thoroughly (scan of QR code which is proof of vaccination/recovered/negatively tested status, check ID matches name on certificate).
Control through financial instituations is not even possible, how so?
Or get a good lawyer, pool with other restaurants and challenge the fines. Some states have lost in court against challenges to 2020 restrictions, fines were voided and the state had to cover legal costs for the lawsuit which challenged the state.
Once they are fully implemented and a network effect has taken hold, we will truly own nothing.
Under your assumed perspective, all forms of taxation are "sanctions" or "theft", regardless of how useful taxes are to improving the lives of everyone. Fine, believe that if you want, but good luck building this extreme society; I want no part of it.
It's quite a ridiculous notion to believe that CBDCs will lead to no one owning anything. Have banks in general led to people owning less? I think it's just the opposite; the banking system has created enormous amounts of wealth for everyone. Sure, there are inefficiencies, especially in housing, but there are many, many reasons for that (supply of homes and building regulations/codes, for examples).
Ownership has zero meaning at all outside of a government system which enforces property rights with the power of force. Good luck keeping that government system functional without taxation. Even the US tried to do that a few centuries ago and failed miserably.
I really have a hard time taking your comment seriously by the way you framed it, but regardless, I have tried to keep this in good faith by assuming a few of your (unstated but implied) positions. Let me know if you think I assumed incorrectly
The are two first principles that few fully understand: The first is that we are creatures of commerce - that is how we sustain ourselves. The economy is the total FLOW of all concurrent commercial transactions, and this is conducted via cash & money. For an artistic, but accurate image of the world we live in see this scene from Network (1976): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs&t=89s.
The second first principle is that you are a sovereign spirit in this universe, and so is everybody else. There are no behavioral rules in the natural reality, only in the social reality. The rules, symbols, ideologies, religions, and institutions exist to manipulate other people's behavior and concentrate cash flows in the great system that is the economy. But in the pure state of nature, it really is only you.
The cash flows concentrate as the more capital you start with the more you can acquire. The precious few people who reach the "Center of Cash Flows" ultimately do so with force; they kill people over money, embezzle public funds, and so on because they are sovereign in their selfish minds. They are not "above the law," the law is simply for other people, not them. That is and has always been the true nature of "government."
But we have governments now that are sophisticated enough that we don't even know their true nature. It's like a laundromat owned by the Triads. You don't ever see the Triads, you don't know who owns the place, you simply go in and put your quarters into the machines.
The logical outcome of our combined individual sovereign states is that there is and has always been a human or some humans who are truly sovereign, who can break and make the rules and are not subject to the rules themselves because there is no higher power above them. They are the power and they derive that power from their control of the cash flows.
Unfortunately, if we are to form a peaceful society, only they can be sovereign; if everyone behaved in sovereign fashion we'd all be killing and stealing from each other all the time and that's not good for anyone. The sovereign sets the rules of the game that everyone underneath plays.[1]
The problem, as we know from history, is that the sovereigns themselves are a point of failure and we occasionally get a Stalin or Pol Pot there who have no vestigial empathy, and we have a "monopoly government" of total extortion, subjugation, and death.
The own nothing was only a joking reference to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBxWtKKQiA which has become a bit of meme.
So can you now see how this proposed "database money" is some unknown sovereign person(s) wanting to take all your money?
[1] Maybe centuries from now can reach a state where everyone understands their sovereign states but chooses cooperation. We could solve the prisoner's dilemma with transparency, as cooperation would win out and we'd all have better outcomes.
Or you can introduce -5% negative interest on cash today and end this debate without having to wait centuries.
Although my post was more about cleaning up corruption via transparent and verifiable government bookeeping, etc.
Try some of these phrases instead:
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Internet improves transparency.
Local trade builds trust.
Citizens can audit tax expenditures.
Finance is built on contract law and consent.So cash to the rescue?
Circulate precious metals locally, which have some intrinsic value above fiat currency.
- Retain the full ability to print as much funny money as necessary, same as now
- Track every user and every transaction
- Tax the shit out of everyone, fix the "cash problem"
- Cancel wallets of "terrorists" such as people who had Covid-19 and don't want to get vaccinated
Only way to do that which I am aware of is a type of cryptocurrency.
> Only way to do that which I am aware of is a type of cryptocurrency.
Is there a cryptocurrency you associate with rule of law and sound economic governance?