The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could potentially allow a government to control what people spend their hard-earned cash on.
Deputy Managing Director Bo Li spoke at the IMF-World Bank annual meeting on Oct. 15 and claimed that CBDC could improve “financial inclusion” through programmability.
A CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program, to create smart contracts, to allow targeted policy functions,” Li explained. “For example, welfare payments, for example, consumption coupons, for example, food stamps.”
“By programming CBDC, that money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own [CBDC] and for what kind of use this money can be utilized, for example for food.”
This is something that I warned about months ago. Almost the entire world is moving rapidly towards a digital currency that is controlled by the government and where the government gets to determine where you spend your money.
If they feel you spend too much on a particular item and there’s a shortage, then the government will be able to step in and control how much of that item you buy. If you are eating too much meat, the government will get to control your meat purchases. If you spend too much on gas each month, the government will be able to step in and limit how much gas you purchase.
Whenever anyone warned that this was the direction that we are headed in it was called a “conspiracy theory”. But now the Deputy Managing Director for the IMF is openly admitting this.
The US government is claiming that they are “reviewing” creating a digital currency but they are way past the reviewing stage. They are rapidly moving to implement this system and it could come as early as 2023.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in September stated that a CBDC would not be anonymous and would be identity-verified, meaning details regarding transactions of a CBDC would be public.
The European Central Bank (ECB) reiterated Powell’s remarks at the same Banque de France event on Sept. 27, with ECB President Christine Lagarde stating: “There would not be complete anonymity as there is with … bank notes.”