“My Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a US CBDC.”
I don’t know if this executive order got much attention, but I take it as confirmation that the war on cash is now official U.S. policy. It’s only a matter of time before the Fed issues a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and pushes for all-digital money, which is the ultimate control device.
If you see what’s in the order (a Davos wish list; good summary here: Executive Order on Digital Assets Establishes Policy Goals for Whole-of-Government Approach to Regulation | Insights | Greenberg Traurig LLP) and think through the implications of tying all these issues to your ability to use money, well… draw your own conclusions.
The order even covers “climate change.” (Over your carbon allowance for the month? Ding… your CBDC balance just went down 20%. We’re saving the planet, after all!) From the link in the previous paragraph:
- Energy Policy (by Sept. 5, 2022): A report by the director of the office of science and technology policy, in consultation with other agencies, addressing: (i) the effect of cryptocurrencies’ consensus mechanisms on energy usage; (ii) potential uses of blockchain that could support monitoring or mitigating technologies to climate impacts [sic; garbled diction in original text of order]; and (iii) the implications of the two foregoing issues for energy policy. This report must be updated within a year of submission. [bold italic emphasis added]
Cash – use it or lose it! We may lose it anyway, but we’ll have to find workarounds (refer to Catherine Fitts’s work on the subject).