CBDC's & Their Impact On Freedom

Central Bank Digital Currencies are already here, and they present the biggest threat to freedom. Let's look closely to understand how this works.

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During the Freedom Convoy, Justin Trudeau’s government decided they were going to freeze the bank accounts of peaceful protestors as a means to deter and stop protests that, quite frankly, were making the Canadian government look bad in the eyes of many.

As many as 280 bank accounts were frozen during that time. Those tax paying citizens who disapproved of government policies and wanted to peacefully say something about it lost access to their funds in a matter of hours.

The truth is, this type of action by government could become much more common in the near future, and they could do it much more quickly.

In fact, with what’s coming, governments could have the power to stop you from buying anything without their permission. They could even monitor and track everything you buy, including who you buy it from. This would all be done through Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

In this piece I’ll break down what CBDCs are, ways in which they can be used nefariously, and how we can stop them.

A Quick Overview of CBDCs

A Central Bank Digital Currency, also known as a CBDC, is a new form of digital money similar to a cryptocurrency. But unlike cryptocurrencies which are decentralized and private, CBDCs are not at all. They are instead the total opposite of cryptocurrency.

CBDCs are completely owned and controlled by governments. Meaning governments would hold your wallet, your money, and have access to all of your banking information. This would include information on every transaction in your daily life. It’s ultimate centralization.

With cryptocurrencies, governments can’t track how much you have, where you spend your money, or who you give it to. Plus they are decentralized, effectively pulling power away from central banks who have been using debt to control and enslave entire populations for decades.

With upcoming CBDCs, governments would enjoy more secrecy, and be able to control their population more than they currently do. CBDCs would also be easier to tax, since hiding any money from the government would be impossible.

Remember, central banks ARE the problem, and have been for decades. Crypto was created to stop this problem, yet they have gotten a bad rep because they don’t serve the interests of powerful people.

Here is what NSA surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden had to say about CBDCs:

"A CBDC is something closer to being a perversion of cryptocurrency, or at least of the founding principles and protocols of cryptocurrency—a cryptofascist currency, an evil twin entered into the ledgers on Opposite Day, expressly designed to deny its users the basic ownership of their money and to install the State at the mediating center of every transaction.”

In short CBDCs could represent the largest shift in the way money operates in human history, and it won’t benefit the common person.

Already Being Deployed

CBDCs are already being deployed in several countries around the world. During November of 2022 in the US, the Federal Reserve held a 12-week trial of its own CBDC. It was supported by major financial institutions including MasterCard, Citibank, HSBC, and Wells Fargo.

According to the Atlantic Council tracker, CBDCs have been launched in 11 countries around the world already, and 114 countries are at some stage of deploying them.

Some of these countries include China, Australia, India, Canada, and Brazil. Nations that account for more than 95% of the world's total GDP.

Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker.

One could imagine that the messaging to ease people into accepting such levels of government oversight begin with the discussion of ‘safety,’ including stopping ‘money laundering.’ A classic form of rhetoric used to employ greater surveillance for decades.

On Oct 26^th 2022, Netherlands Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag, who serves as the co-chair of the Global Action Group at the World Economic Forum (WEF), submitted a new set of laws to Dutch parliament that would force banks to monitor all transactions over €100. Currently, only transactions over €10,000 are flagged.

This new bill would give the Dutch government access to an incredible amount of personal data on citizens that it would be able access at anytime without any kind of warrant.

The claim is monitoring these transaction will help curb money laundering and terrorist financing. But at what cost to citizen privacy is this being done? Or is there another agenda all together?

Similar new laws are being debated in the US as well. The Biden administration proposed a bill that would monitor US citizens transactions over $600. This has since backed off.

But the administration is still pushing for third party payment providers, like Paypal, to report total transactions over $600 to the IRS. Effectively making these companies private investigators on behalf of the US government.

With these new laws being put in place to monitor the transactions of the average citizen, it could ease messaging into entire infrastructures that can monitor people’s every transaction, and control spending habits ‘for good reasons.’

This is where CBDCs come in.

The Rhetoric: ‘Safety’ and ‘Inclusion’

Before we get to how these could be used nefariously, let’s look at the similar messaging coming from key institutions about CBDCs.

In the USA Federal Reserve says:

“a CBDC would be the safest digital asset available to the general public, with no associated credit or liquidity risk. […] and could improve on an already safe and efficient U.S. domestic payments system.”

The International Monetary Fund also says:

“CBDCs are designed prudently, they can potentially offer more resilience, more safety, greater availability, and lower costs than private forms of digital money. That is clearly the case when compared to unbacked crypto assets that are inherently volatile. And even the better managed and regulated stablecoins may not be quite a match against a stable and well‑designed central bank digital currency.”

The World Economic Forum even wrote a whole piece called ‘4 ways to ensure Central Bank Digital Currencies promote financial inclusion‘

According to those with all the power, CBDCs will provide more safety and inclusion. These are themes that we can all get behind, but as per usual, we should be highly skeptical about governments stating this given their track record.

Recall, anything can be presented as good or bad. But it’s really about how we observe history, patterns, and the direction our society is headed.

Social media was presented as a place to connect with friends. It promised to make the world a ‘small place’ by connecting people all around the world in meaningful ways.

Sure, this happened to some extent, but Big Tech also became a tool for control. A tool to surveil and spread propaganda to the masses. It censored truthful information and led to the dissemination of government misinformation that tore families and communities apart during COVID.

Tools can be useful, but the people behind them, including their thinking and worldview, matters. This is why I believe that in order to truly change our world we must look to the depths of what drives our worldview.

CBDCs Are About Control

The worldview of our leaders seems to be grounded in control and domination, not the thrivability of people.

An article in Forbes summed up many people’s concerns in a single headline stating very simply “Central Bank Digital Currencies are About Control.”

Think about the history of governments for a moment. Reflect on the lies, the deception, and how they hide pertinent information from their populations for the benefit of a few.

Is it a good idea to give even more power to governments? Can we really assume their days of corruption and heavy handed control are over?

Would you allow your government to track almost everything you do, what you buy, when you buy it, and who you buy it from?

As the Forbes article states, CBDCs would give government this level of power. They would have access to all of your spending habits, patterns, and your wallet.

This “wallet” is programmable like any piece of software. Meaning your transactions could be approved or not approved based on a social credit score, all though algorithms.

Your spending ability could be limited based on the carbon footprint of a product you’re buying. If you’ve already reached your carbon limit for the month, maybe you can’t purchase more gas. Or maybe if you do, you’ll be fined. And government wouldn’t have to worry about you paying the fine, they’d just take it out of your wallet as they control it anyway.

Think this is all too far fetched? Really think about it. An entire infrastructure is being built for this level of surveillance and control. Some countries, like China, are already instituting this level of control, and Western countries are not too far behind.

Think of how narrative moves mass acceptance without question. We saw this with terrorism and COVID. Heavy handed and unscientific ideas on the part the of government are justified and upheld by academics, scientists, and citizens because of propaganda around a threat, real or overstated.

Measures are then put in place to deal with that ‘threat’ that are NEVER removed once that threat is gone. This is the pattern of government.

Now let’s think about the narratives around climate change.

We know that today there is a deep obsession with C02. As I have stated in my work for over a decade, this tracking of C02 in relation to climate change is not about making the world a better place or fixing the environment, it’s about developing economies, controlling people, and finding a metric that can be turned into data and graphs and then pinned on citizens.

The climate changes for MANY reasons, primarily through natural cycles. There is no consensus on what’s happening with the climate regardless of how many times it’s said by the mainstream. But by building a narrative around C02, supported by many numbers, graphs, and insights, governments and powerful individuals can find means for control and wealth creation in the name of “fixing the environment.“

Yes, our environment needs help, our work has created awareness around this for 15 years, but do you notice how government is rarely focusing on the best ways to truly help our environment and are instead focused solely on C02 emissions? This is an illusion, and it’s keeping the masses deeply misinformed when it comes to how we should think about our environment woes.

CBDCs & Carbon

As a result of this narrative, very soon most of us will have a carbon tax forced upon us in more aggressive ways.

Let’s go back to the idea that through CBDCs your government would have access to your entire purchase history. They now can measure your exact carbon footprint and turn your spending power on or off based on that data.

Your individual carbon footprint getting too high? Bam, there goes your freedom to spend. And remember, it’s not like C02 is a good metric to base your actual environmental impact on.

The narrative + the infrastructure being built supports the hypothesis that this is the direction things could likely head in. And my hope is people can see that prior government patterns support this reality.

Going Further

Through CBDCs governments could also directly control how much of your money you could spend at any given time.

Let's say your country’s economy is struggling and stagnating, instead of printing money as governments have always done, they could stimulate the economy by forcing citizens to go out and spend their money within a time limit or it expires. They could say, “you need to spend X amount each week or X amount will vanish from your account.”

Since people don’t want to lose money, they would go out and spend it. This would give the government what it wants, an economy that moves, but this is gained by you losing the freedom to choose.

While some could make the argument that money is meant to be spent (and there are arguments for that), we would be forgoing the reality that someone is controlling what you do with your life. And that someone is government.

What can we do about this?

CBDCs are coming to almost everywhere, but there are steps we can take to help stop them.

1. Raising awareness about them now, and having intelligent conversations around where we might be headed is a place to start. Share articles like this with people, and encourage them to reflect on patterns governments have taken in the past. Have they made our world better or worse? How can we know?
   
   Remember, how we talk about these subjects is important. Many people shot themselves in the foot with COVID discussions by focusing on rash, extreme, and unfounded conspiracy around COVID. In the end, it was well rounded discussion, data, and evidence that broke open the COVID narrative.
   
   Stick to whats’s solid and have compassion for people. Seek to connect, not dominate a conversation with “truth.”
   

2. If you notice politicians supporting CBDCs, don’t vote for or support them. While I don’t believe the political arena is a place where change is made, helping to keep these ideas un-supported is important for the body politic in general.

3. If CBDCs are implemented in your country, don’t use them - even if your government is offering you free fries, ice cream or a donut for using them. It’s incredibly reasonable to question whether government is hiding something when they are trying to incentivize in that way. Good ideas rarely need that level of coercion.

Without us, governments have no power. Remember that. But to step out into our own power as beings takes a level of deep grounded-ness within ourselves to maintain resilience as we walk off the beaten path.

I have created two resources to help with this:

→ The 5 Days of YOU Challenge: A free course containing exercises to remain embodied, connected to yourself, and to help regulate your nervous system. Join 180,000+ challenge takers.

→ Overcoming Bias & Improving Critical Thinking: A course that combines coherent embodiment, mastering self awareness, and critical thinking to help you notice bias in seconds, and think more critically in every area of your life. Join 1,050+ students.