Source: The Strident Conservative

by David Leach 

The Federal Reserve just announced plans to launch a program in July known as “FedNow” and once fully implemented, it will put the wheels in motion for creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) capable of giving government and big banks everything they need to control every penny earned and spent by every American.

According to the folks at the Federal Reserve, FedNow has nothing to do with digital currency; it’s only being created to allow bill payments, money transfers such as paychecks and disbursements from the government along with a host of other consumer activities move more rapidly and at lower cost.

Sounds pretty good, until you hear the words of executive sponsor Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin, who explained that FedNow will help create “a leading-edge payments system that is resilient, adaptive, and accessible.” (Emphasis mine)

What does “adaptive” mean? It means, it the words of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that FedNow lays the groundwork for a Central Bank Digital Currency (via International Business Times):

“The Fed will initially limit its CBDC to interbank transactions, but we should not be blind to the obvious danger that this is the first step in banning and seizing bitcoin as the Treasury did with gold 90 years ago today in 1933. Watch as governments, which never let a good crisis go to waste, use Covid-19 and the banking crisis to usher in a new wave of CBDCs as a safe haven from germ-laden paper currencies or as protection against bank runs.”

The Fed just announced it will introduce its “FedNow” Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in July. CBDCs grease the slippery slope to financial slavery and political tyranny.

While cash transactions are anonymous, a #CBDC will allow the government to surveil all our private…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 5, 2023

In the tweet above, Kennedy also mentions the Central Bank Digital Currency will be connected to social credit scores, thus making it possible for government “to freeze your assets or limit your spending to approved vendors if you fail to comply with arbitrary diktats, i.e., vaccine mandates.”

I wrote last month about how CBDCs, ESG (environmental, social, governance) policies, and social credit scores like those used in Communist China would provide the trifecta of information needed by government to completely control our economic lives.

Big government and big banks can use CBDCs to routinely and covertly control how people spend their money because digital dollars are traceable and programmable. Once fully implemented, digital dollars can be “printed” at any time with rules and restrictions built into their design, literally putting every single cent of our money under government control to be spent (or not spent) as Big Brother sees fit.

A Central Bank Digital Currency will result in the complete loss of privacy and liberty, a fact confirmed by the heads of the United States Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB) in a November 2022 meeting (via ReclaimTheNet.org):

During an appearance at a Banque de France (Bank of France) event, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said if the US were to pursue a central bank digital currency (CBDC), it would be “identity verified” and “not anonymous.”

“We would be looking to balance privacy protection with identity verification, which…has to be done, of course, in today’s traditional banking system as well,” Powell added.

The President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, acknowledged that privacy was one of the main concerns Europeans had about the European Union’s (EU’s) proposed CBDC, the digital euro. Despite these concerns, she confirmed that “there would not be complete anonymity as there is with…bank notes” when using the digital euro. (Emphasis mine)

Unfortunately, big banks are already on board with the Federal Reserve’s CBDC plans as evidenced with the 2023 launch of “digital wallets.” (via ReclaimTheNet.org):

Big Banks in the US, including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America are planning to launch a digital wallet to compete with PayPal and Apple Pay. The move, planned for the second half of this year, appears to be yet another push for a cashless society.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new digital wallet will be managed by bank-owned Early Warning Services LLC (EWS), the company behind money transfer platform Zelle.

Contactless payments have been gradually becoming popular with the pandemic accelerating their adoption. However, governments and financial institutions have been pushing for contactless payments in recent years with the launch of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). (Emphasis mine)

Of course, big government and big bank talking heads claim a digital currency is necessary to “liberate” people from the constraints of greedy bankers and governments, and they further preach how it will ensure the unfettered access of people to their own money.

What they don’t tell you, however, is how the state can centrally harness your economic power and regulate it in ways that would mark the rise or strengthening of authoritarianism (via Exposing Their Lies):

In part at least, this is a way to regulate the otherwise elusive truly decentralized version of cryptocurrencies. Because of the nature of cryptocurrencies that are based on blockchain as a ledger that records every transaction, governments would have unrestricted and easy access, and “command and control” over when, how, and what people do with their money.

Beyond simply keeping an ever-watchful eye over what citizens are up to, governments would also be able to decide on more radical and in immediate terms much more damaging moves, such as cutting people off from their money.

But imagine if that form of currency were the only one available? The unprecedented level of financial mass surveillance itself would be almost insignificant compared to the potential damage done by replacing all other forms of currency, including fiat money, and cash as one of its manifestations, say critics. (Emphasis mine)

The creation of a digital currency has been a top priority of the Joe Biden administration. Last year, he issued an executive order requiring the federal government and the Federal Reserve to lay the groundwork for a digital dollar, and with the July launch of FedNow, it looks like things are right on schedule.

Every individual and business will lose their social and economic freedoms because digital dollars will be traceable and programmable. Digital dollars can be created whenever the Federal Reserve chooses with rules and restrictions built into their design, literally putting every single cent of our money under government control to be spent (or not spent) as Big Brother sees fit.

What might this look like in the real world? A digital dollar could, for example, be crafted to restrict fossil-fuel use; it could also be used to enact de facto price controls by preventing users from spending more than government thinks they should on particular products.

Using Biden’s own words, there are plenty of reasons to believe that a Central Bank Digital Currency will be used to create a surveillance state capable of giving big banks, the Federal Reserve, and big government unlimited control over you and your money.

David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.

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