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DeSantis doesn’t like the Digital Dollar
His office tweeted this today:
The movement to establish a central bank digital currency is an attempt to surveil & control the finances of Americans. It would violate privacy, limit consumer choice & undermine market competitiveness. CBDC has no place in FL & we are proud to lead the fight against it.
The tweet had this graphic.
So what? some say. It’s all digital now anyways, who pays cash. This is different, and there’s absolutely no way it won’t be misused. You know exactly how it’ll go:
1. “Don’t worry, Cletus, you can still use your wadded-up dollar bills to buy your lottery tickets. If you like your cash, you can keep your cash.”
A few years and 247 WaPo / NYT editorials later:
2. “Actually, cash is bad, because criminals use it. Also, look how much more tax revenue we’d get with an all-digital currency, and that’s money that could be used for infrastructure and solving income inequality. Banks would prefer if you didn’t bother them with cash – it’s expensive, they have to hire tellers, buy machines to count it. So 20th century! So you have five years to trade it all in. P.S. Sorry, same thing with gold.”
Five years on:
3. “Enclosed is your monthly ESG expenditure statement, broken down by the professed identity (PI) of the business owners, compared with the percentages of each group in your city, in accordance with the Professed Identity Transaction Interaction Act of 2034. The information is provided for your own use and will not affect your credit score.”
And so on, and so on.
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Yes well if you can figure out how to download whiskey over the Internet you’ll make a fortune.
Yes! VS also has a sub-label, Fun City Editions that puts out some great but mostly forgotten titles in great editions. Through then I found some gems like Alphabet City, Rancho Deluxe, Cutter’s Way (a lot of early Jeff Bridges here), and the 90’s indie Party Girl.
I’m not generally one who bemoans all things modern, but cinema in the last 5 years has been mostly depressing, with a few bright spots (Babylon). It’s great to be able to find gems from a recent past to fill that void.
You can also check out SuperBit. No special features, just extra high quality movie reproduction. And they do lesser known titles. The first one I think of in my collection is John Carpenter’s Vampires. Not exactly a well known movie.
I learned my lesson.
No dude, that’s five words!
I’ve often wondered about the value of precious metals as a currency. One must have a scale and the chemical processes that are needed to verify the purity of the metal. It just isn’t practical. However, at the end of time, food and water would be true bartering products.
Like digital currency, private messages are not private, either.
They’re private from all except those with the most ability to do you harm.
Yes, there’s that, including total block-out of buying and selling anything. But there’re the privacy and punishment issues as well. Is there anything that you do that you don’t want to be broadly known? I secretly like unguents and scented creams. But I don’t like everyone to know it, so I only write that out here on Ricochet.
I give to my neighbors. Does everything need to be tracked? In Sweden I think it is even giving alms to beggars is done by cell phone. Beggars don’t just need pockets for spare change anymore, they need cellphones with internet access (perhaps even if limited only to 911 calls, banking transactions and geolocation).
And once you’re tied to a cell phone everything can be monitored and weighed. I’ve read of a Chinese woman who could catch a bus from her front door to work every day, but chooses to walk, because physical activity such as walking is mandate and monitored and rewarded or punished.
This isn’t just about ease of electronic payment, it’s about being chained to a cell phone for everything.
I’m Liking your word “mash”. That’s the computer caveman in you, Mark.
I have done several posts here describing aspects of my work career related to bank operations, much of which was devoted to a longterm effort to convert paper transactions to electronics and included my work at Treasury to convert government check payments to electronic direct deposit. Such work was for greater efficiency and cost reductions and not for the government to be able to spy on the people.
We are now beyond actions to improve efficiency and into those with the sole purpose of the government being able to control the people. The government we have now is controlled by what is frequently referred to as the “ruling class”. We have had plenty of discussion here about who that is and what it means. Total control of banking transactions is a big thing on that agenda and should be resisted with as much effort as possible.
Good question. I think a couple places have outlawed yard sales.
Jewelers that deal in buying and selling gold can do that.
But it’s more practical to have coins from a national mint, so the quantity and quality of the metal is known.
They put ridges on the edges for a reason.
What if someone came up with the idea of reliably identifiable circulating coins containing the metal? Each one would have a denomination marked on it, indicating how much metal it contains?
That would work, in theory, given suitable assumptions.
Jewelry is imprinted with a percentage of gold. Even links of a necklace can be known this way if separated in view of the other person. Even the percentage of gold in chips off a gold coin or bar can be known if severed in view of the recipient (though this is would not be known with surety by any secondary owners). And pocket gold balance scales (of varying quality) can be had quite cheaply. When the price of gold is known each marked piece can be valued on the spot. And a torch can be used to remold gold into a solid lump — but these must be reevaluated for gold content.
The real problem in an economy dominated by gold would be the production and access to the supply of food and manufactured goods.
You can buy 1 ounce gold mini-bars. The ones I’ve seen have been imprinted by the gold mining company, so their acceptance is less guaranteed than a recognized government mint 1 ounce coin.
Lots of silver commemorative ‘coins’ or tokens are made by corporations. Since “junk silver” (pre-1965 US mint with no collector value) coins are readily available there isn’t much reason to buy non-mint silver.
Note: the US Mint still does make gold and silver commemorative coins, but their prices often include a premium over melt value.
I should hope so.
Good point!
Readers might assume that by using the term “Private Message” for the eponymous type of Ricochet message, I was suggesting that this type of message is private.
Much better wording would have been:
It is private except to the government watchers. You remember how Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her home. Well, actually, I have to drive a couple of miles before I can see the NSA DataCenter here in Utah.
She did not say that.
That was an SNL sketch
And that was not an important part of my statement.
You may have hit upon a possible solution to the problem of quantifying the gold or silver by tare (weight). All those precise scales, all that waiting in line for the clerk to get the balance on the scale to settle down for EACH customer!
What if the GOVERNMENT were the one to produce reliably identifiable circulating coins containing the metal? They could make it a crime to make fake coins–maybe even a federal crime–and then the fear of getting caught might allow the silver and gold coins to be a commonly accepted medium of exchange!
There could even be a Weights and Measures clause in the Constitution setting up that Government saying that they had the power to establish standard units of weights and measures, including the exclusive right to mint coins and determine the value thereof (the amount of gold or silver)!
It is so crazy it might just work. You could have countries use gold and silver as money, with no need for scales!
[TAGS: Humor]
I believe any Mod can look at anyone’s DMs on R>.
Just rewatched it last year! I know Shout/Scream Factory had a disc (I don’t own it), but I’ll definitely check them out.
It is a repeated sluring mistrust. I pointed that out and nothing else.
You know, I actually thought she said that for a long time, didn’t know it was from and SNL skit. I thought no one can be that stupid, it must be out of context. Turns out my skepticism was right.
Exactly the sort of thing that made me feel it is important to correct.
But it’s important to not let that Tina Fey joke be accepted in the narrative.
Yes. Good. Thanks.