Let's start with my opinion and that is Central Bank Digital Currencies should be shunned, avoided, and lobbied against at a grassroots level. So why?
All of your transactions will be tracked. So if you want to buy a new BDSM harness, butt plug, THC infused gummy candy, or how about that flat black 36 inch barrel .50 caliber rifle, well the central bank will know you bought it. So in a sense they create something that to my knowledge is illegal and that is a gun registry. It also allows them to track down people who buy too much food or emergency supplies and lets them know where to find it for reallocation in a crisis. All because they can and will track everything you do with that Digital Currency (DC).
Gone will be paying Mrs. Smith the retired lady down the street with an un-permitted daycare center to watch your child as how can you pay her if not in cash? You won't be able to pay Fred the neighborhood mechanic, or Jenny who everyone knows can fix any computer printer in two hours. None of them will be able to accept DC because they are all in the Grey Market Economy (GME).
I know, "Maura what the Hell is a GME?!" GME is anything that is or could be legal but is done in cash. Most people know that when they pay for labor in cash that the laborer is probably not going to report all or possibly not any of that cash to the government as income. Nothing is done at the level of Black Market as all of it as I said could be legal. By shifting everything to a DC though and everything being tracked Mrs. Smith won't be able to take payment lest she have to pay for expensive permits, a property that is zoned for commercial use, and if she offers to feed your kids a totally commercial kitchen--and you wonder why daycare is SO expensive? Fred might be partially disabled but needs that little extra he makes on oil changes and brake pad swaps to be able to afford maybe food, prescriptions, or even clothes. Without Jenny how many more printers get dumped in the landfill?
Now for those of you with very short memories a sheriff in Cook County Illinois a few years back caused a heck of a ruckus when he sent letters to credit card companies telling them to cease allowing payments for ads in Backpage. He used his standing to leverage (read bully) the companies into doing exactly that and instantly a section of what in most areas is kind of in the Black Market Economy was cut off from advertising...one person managed this and it effected the entire nation and beyond. Now if one sheriff in one county could cause this, imagine someone getting a central banker's ear and suddenly you can't buy ammo for a 30-06 or a 12 ga. What if a central banker was a vegan and decided you couldn't buy meat because meat is murder and meat is a greenhouse gas emitter? Oh, you want a part for your mint condition Austin-Healey? Sorry, someone decided that car parts cannot be paid for if the car is over fifteen years old. Or maybe you are suddenly only allowed to buy $20 a week in fossil fuel. The list of eminent abuses is as lengthy as you can imagine because if you can imagine it then so can someone in power.
Essentially that DC will track everything you buy, every-time you swipe it they will know where and when you were somewhere. They will know who has what and when they bought it. They will know who is naughty or nice, who has extra rice, and who has a penchant for deviance. It would not take long for a moral crusader to stop payments to everything they deem immoral, disgusting, or to just ration things for the Hell of it.
The two ways out of the system at that point will be barter or mostly violent protests, but then again what will you protest with if you can't buy protest tools? Also if you barter out of say the food chain, they will know because you won't be buying enough food with your DC and if you think they can't monitor everything remember the Unidentified Flying Objects conspiracy theorists motto: that what we know the government has aircraft, spacecraft, and weapons wise, is not what they really have as the stuff that is classified won't be known for 20 more years when it is almost obsolete. Artificial Intelligence could be way ahead of what we know and it would take something close to it to run DC on a national or planetary scale--which ultimately is the goal of the UN as they have floated that idea in the past.
Maura out
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