Brandon Coale Notes

This is a transcript from a video on the YouTube channel of Michigan’s Hillsdale College.  Catherine Fitts explains that if the American government ever implements a digital currency replacing cash and checks, it will be a huge loss of freedom for Americans.  I’m again grateful of America’s design where there can be a competition between the states and the federal government, where the states can push back against the federal government. We are very lucky we have that, compared to countries like China where all decisions are made by one government without any regional government competition.

Transcript

CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency.  It is a currency issued directly by the central banks.  It can be done on a wholesale basis, which is to essentially allow the commercial banks to issue it on a retail basis and do the management of it on retail, and then relate back to the central bank which will be a wholesaler.  Or it can be done directly by the central bank doing directly a retail CBDC.  

The challenge with CBDC is it gives the central bankers complete control, and the ability to program your money.  What it does is it gives them the ability to say what you can use your money for, where you can use your money.  It’s called programmable money.  Some people call it smart contracts, I call it very stupid contracts.  But it gives you the ability to issue programmable money and do complete surveillance and control of where and how people use their money.

Now, I say that CBDCs are quite dangerous and they are, however, it’s very important to understand that this kind of complete control comes about not through CBDCs, but having an all digital monetary system.  So what we want to stop is an all digital monetary system because it is possible to do the equivalent of CBDCs on a private basis.  So I can use merchant codes with your bank account and your credit card, I can kick you off your online payment systems if I don’t like what you’re saying on social media.  There are many different ways if we go to an all digital financial system.  We have digitized throughout our economy, so our homes are full of digitized equipment that can be identified and surveilled.  Our cars are more and more electric; they can be stopped remotely.  

The thing to understand is if we go to an all digital transaction system, financial transaction system with a digital ID: so I can tell you’re you and I’m me with great precision, then suddenly all those different digitized items and equipments and systems snap into one complete control grid.  The key to that snapping into the control grid is the digital ID and the all digital monetary system.  Now, let me tell you what that looks like because we don’t have a financial problem, we have a governance problem; if you do it in a system where a secret governance system that is non-transparent and outside of your control, if that gives them the power to basically turn on and shut off your transactions, you know we’re in a coup d’etat world.  

By creating an all digital transaction system with a digitized economy and a digital ID, suddenly the central bankers now control fiscal policy; they can determine where you go, when you go.  So let’s go back to the pandemic; during the pandemic, if the lockdown said you can’t go more than a mile from your home and you can only go that on Tuesday and Thursday.  In an all digitized economy with satellites flying overhead, they can literally track you, and if you don’t do what they say, they can turn off your money.  Now what this means is, you not only have usurping of the people’s representatives, but you have a usurping of the state powers.  So under the constitution, the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states.  But now the central banker is asserting line of fiscal policy, making the rules and enforcing them, essentially can literally control health care or other powers reserved to the states by the ability to literally control your financial transactions.  The way to make that transition is to take total control; you know, “if you don’t eat cricket flour and synthetic meat made in a lab, you know, we’ll turn off your money”. 

Use cash, encourage the local businesses to use cash, encourage your local banks to support cash.  You can always use cash and you can use checks. Keep the cash and check systems going.