Interesting, thanks for sharing. Generally I really like Brownstone's takes on things. They were awesome WRT covid.
Keys to me seem to be: what are the laws/regs around it, are there other available alternatives to keep it from being the only currency, and of course, no implants. Implant means it's not "your card" anymore in the sense of a debit card, but you, physically, who made the purchase.
Otherwise, everything everyone is saying about CBDCs could also be said of their bank accounts. If the gov't wants to track it today, they can. If they want to "program" it, then can (garnishing wages, e.g.). The vast majority of our currency today is already electronic. (I'd also point out the things being said today are the exact same things people said about debit cards when those were rolled out: the end of paper money, no more financial freedom, government going to use it to track purchases and take guns, mark of the beast, etc.)
For fairness of argument, I'd also point out there are lots of valid, good reasons for CBDCs and even to track purchases. Catching drug or human traffickers, for instance. But, also financial/economic ones. Lots of bad as well.
I tend to look at tech as tech. It's a tool. Someone is trying to solve for a real problem (just as currency itself was someone's solution to the problems with bartering); and someone else is going to try to use that solution for harm. Like a hammer, it's what we do with it that matters. It's legal to use a hammer to pound nails and such; it's illegal to use it to pound someone's head.
If it were possible to remove, on the banking side, the human element CBDC's would be more efficient; humans introduce the potential of abuse. As we noted, cash should work with the system but shallow people have a need to try and control others, that's a concern. Cash, or lack there-of, opens that door.
Well, we're all focusing on the retail side, which is a tiny portion of the reason financial institutions want CBDCs. The retail (consumer, aka us) side is an almost insignificant amount of $$$ to be a consideration. Financial institutions want CBDCs b/c of the greater efficiency and how much money that saves them/makes them on large dollar institutional level transactions, international transactions, and so on. That's why I say they are happening and there is good reason for it (in addition to legitimate use in policing gangs, drug/human traffickers, etc.)
But, like I said, the bad actors in gov't, NGOs, "philanthropists," and so on are going to try to take advantage of it and use it for the types of things people are rightly worried about. It would be nice to remove the human element, but probably never going to happen.
Mix AI with everyone using a CBDC for everything and you're one step away from hell on earth, IMO. To avoid that, privacy laws - and maintaining alternative forms of currency - should be the primary concerns.
IMO, our biggest threat is our populace. It concerns me that so many millennial and gen Z folks don't seem to have even a concept of privacy anymore, much less an expectation or a the desire to ensure gov't respects it. So, that would be the main hurdle in ensuring the gov't maintains Constitutional privacy laws. As always, the biggest risk to us is us.
I came across this a few minutes ago
https://brownstone.org/articles/moneys-grim-future/
Interesting, thanks for sharing. Generally I really like Brownstone's takes on things. They were awesome WRT covid.
Keys to me seem to be: what are the laws/regs around it, are there other available alternatives to keep it from being the only currency, and of course, no implants. Implant means it's not "your card" anymore in the sense of a debit card, but you, physically, who made the purchase.
Otherwise, everything everyone is saying about CBDCs could also be said of their bank accounts. If the gov't wants to track it today, they can. If they want to "program" it, then can (garnishing wages, e.g.). The vast majority of our currency today is already electronic. (I'd also point out the things being said today are the exact same things people said about debit cards when those were rolled out: the end of paper money, no more financial freedom, government going to use it to track purchases and take guns, mark of the beast, etc.)
For fairness of argument, I'd also point out there are lots of valid, good reasons for CBDCs and even to track purchases. Catching drug or human traffickers, for instance. But, also financial/economic ones. Lots of bad as well.
I tend to look at tech as tech. It's a tool. Someone is trying to solve for a real problem (just as currency itself was someone's solution to the problems with bartering); and someone else is going to try to use that solution for harm. Like a hammer, it's what we do with it that matters. It's legal to use a hammer to pound nails and such; it's illegal to use it to pound someone's head.
If it were possible to remove, on the banking side, the human element CBDC's would be more efficient; humans introduce the potential of abuse. As we noted, cash should work with the system but shallow people have a need to try and control others, that's a concern. Cash, or lack there-of, opens that door.
Well, we're all focusing on the retail side, which is a tiny portion of the reason financial institutions want CBDCs. The retail (consumer, aka us) side is an almost insignificant amount of $$$ to be a consideration. Financial institutions want CBDCs b/c of the greater efficiency and how much money that saves them/makes them on large dollar institutional level transactions, international transactions, and so on. That's why I say they are happening and there is good reason for it (in addition to legitimate use in policing gangs, drug/human traffickers, etc.)
But, like I said, the bad actors in gov't, NGOs, "philanthropists," and so on are going to try to take advantage of it and use it for the types of things people are rightly worried about. It would be nice to remove the human element, but probably never going to happen.
Mix AI with everyone using a CBDC for everything and you're one step away from hell on earth, IMO. To avoid that, privacy laws - and maintaining alternative forms of currency - should be the primary concerns.
IMO, our biggest threat is our populace. It concerns me that so many millennial and gen Z folks don't seem to have even a concept of privacy anymore, much less an expectation or a the desire to ensure gov't respects it. So, that would be the main hurdle in ensuring the gov't maintains Constitutional privacy laws. As always, the biggest risk to us is us.
Anyway, thanks for the conversation!