Just Say No to Central Bank Digital Currencies
There&#x27;s a pretty big difference between the introduction of a CBDC (essentially just a government bank account + debit card) and the deprecation of cash such that the CBDC is the ONLY way you can transact.<p>And it&#x27;s not like these totalitarian measures couldn&#x27;t be implemented already by legislating banks into complying with them, assuming we get rid of cash somehow. There&#x27;s no difference between &quot;FedWallet has declined your transaction&quot; and &quot;Citigroup has declined your transaction (in compliance with US law).&quot; The article spends a lot of time pretending banks don&#x27;t exist: &quot;[T]here would be no more tax evasion, either, since we have a complete record of every transaction made by everyone&quot; -- banks <i>already</i> keep track of all the transactions that take place.<p>A CBDC alone is neither necessary nor sufficient for implementing the kinds of restrictions the author of this article is worried about. Meanwhile, it actually does have a shot at providing financial services to people with bad credit or in precarious situations. So the article strikes me as kind of hysterical.