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A disappointing development to be honest. This is one more way the government can exert control over the people. The downsides risks are horrendous. I haven't

A disappointing development to be honest. This is one more way the government can exert control over the people. The downsides risks are horrendous. I haven't yet read this publication in full, but last year I did read the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee paper on the topic[1]. The title was quite telling: "Central bank digital currencies: a solution in search of a problem?" This was authored by Lord King, the former governor of the BoE, amongst others. It seems the current BoE is taking a different course. [1] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5802/ldselect/ldeconaf/131/131.pdf https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5802/ldselect/ldecon...

garyclarke27 4y ago
More than disappointing - this is terrifying - even worse than China's social credit scoring on New Zealand's Cigarette prohibition. This would enable governments to monitor and control literally every penny you spend or recieve. I wrote a blogpost explaining who money currently works and warning about this development. https://www.onedb.online/blog/what_is_money https://www.onedb.online/blog/what_is_money
- Spooky23 4y ago
  We already have had this with credit cards, drafts in various forms and crypto. All this would do is get rid of the middleman and the defacto tax assessed on all commerce, both direct or indirect through sale of data.
- f38zf5vdt 4y ago
  It will cause people to stop using government money. There are many other ways to barter and exchange goods. I expect it will only increase tax evasion as less transactions are even reported. It's no surprise to me to see government gold buying on an absolute tear. [1] The powers that be are well aware of the importance of having real physical goods for the sake of trading and maintaining wealth. [1] https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/central-banks-buy-gold-fastest-pace-55-years https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/central-banks-b...
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > government gold buying on an absolute tear China and Russia buying non-dollar reserve assets has nothing to do with “people…using government money.”
  - iamben 4y ago
    > There are many other ways to barter and exchange goods. Genuinely curious - what do you think will happen (and what would be used)? I genuinely can't imagine most of the people in my life (be that older relatives, non-tech friends, whoever) using anything but whatever 'money' is convenient. None of them care the government might be watching, and if they were going to barter for anything they're probably already doing it ("you help me with this DIY, I'll take you for dinner"). FWIW I'm in the UK, so perhaps my perspective is skewed?
    - f38zf5vdt 4y ago
      Whatever is readily available to be converted into digital "cash" when needed will be used. Wealthy people maintain most of their assets outside of cash in property of various types. When they need "on the books" spending, they bring it into the cash economy with on/off ramps. I don't know if the UK is different from much else of the developed world, but here there is a tremendous amount of off-by-book transactions in the largest industries such as farming and construction. I do not think that the disappearance of cash will remove this economy, but it will have to migrate to other assets with similar qualities.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - starkd 4y ago
        Maybe for large significant transactions, but barter economy is next to impossible for consumer goods. If a lot of the economy goes off the books, it will come with greater friction between transactions, less overall liquidity.
        4y ago
- Spivak 4y ago
  > New Zealand's Cigarette prohibition Is brilliant and the only way to realistically ban cigarettes without screwing over entire generations who are already addicted to nicotine. Let's give a real example. My great aunt in her late 60s has a 40 year pack a day smoker. There is zero chance whatsoever she would be able to quit before she dies and it would be cruel to try and make her. There is no way you can pick a single date after which smoking is banned for everyone, it will be so loudly, and rightly, fought that it would never pass. I don't want to live in a world where a not insignificant percent of the population simultaneously goes through nicotine withdrawal. Because I've seen my friends quit and patches and gum don't keep you from being miserable. If you don't think cigarettes should be banned, fine. Valid stance. But if you think they should this is the way.
  - thinkingemote 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    The problem with fine-grained approaches like this is that they are much easier to get passed: people are much more willing to restrict the freedoms of other people rather than themselves. For a ban like that to be ethical, it would have to have been voted on by the people it would apply to, i.e., the people below the age cutoff (who in this example, can't vote at all).
    - LadyCailin 4y ago
      They can vote to repeal it later, it isn’t a permanent thing. Unlike fucking up the planet, which is.
      - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
        Sorry, did I miss something? The "fucking up the planet" thing seems to be a non-sequitur, unless you're suggesting that people smoking are fucking up the planet, which doesn't seem like it's the motivation for the bill as much as "stopping people from fucking up themselves" is. Regardless, I disagree with the line of reasoning that because it can be repealed it's okay to pass it in the first place. The core problem is creating laws that artificially inflate their support by making them only apply to some sub-group. Passing laws that only restrict a minority due to practical reasosns is bad enough. For example, cities' anti-camping laws basically only apply to the homeless, because no-one chooses on a whim to camp in downtown Los Angeles. That's not great, because its a tyranny of the majority situation, but at least in theory the general populace has to weigh the loss of their ability to camp in downtown against the pros of not having homeless camps in downtown. In a situation where the law explicitly only applies to the minority, especially a minority that no one in the majority could ever eventually belong to, the majority get to have their cake and eat it, too, leading to artificial support for your bill. If you can't find the political support to ban cigarettes outright, back-dooring democracy is not the right way to do it.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  The government already has high degrees of insight into and control over the money of most people in the UK. Most people in the UK (in my experience, at least) couldn't care less about the day to day privacy implications of banking, it's not on their radar. The suggestion that this would enable the government to monitor more might be strictly true because it enables new types of monitoring, but that is already practically true in every way for most people. I find it difficult to understand why a digital pound is anything more than an incremental improvement (or worsening from your perspective). What does a digital pound enable the government to do that would interfere with the everyday person's life, that isn't already possible? (Also, cigarette prohibitions and social credit scoring are hot button issues for people who believe in the sanctity of individual rights but they're not at all related in the context of this discussion. There's nothing terrifying about a cigarette prohibition to most people, especially in the UK, where we've literally had various cigarette restrictions imposed over the years to the point where a NZ style prohibition would probably not even register for almost everyone.)
  - realce 4y ago
    So your opinion is that the UK gov't has plenty of terrifying control over people's bank accounts, so a little bit more is a-ok?
    - phphphphp 4y ago
      My point is that it's hyperbolic to describe a digital pound as terrifying. A person may take issue with modern day banking granting the ability for people to be surveilled, and they might take issue with the UK's PAYE system which requires employers report their employee's income to the tax authority in real(ish) time... but that's nothing to do with a digital pound. A digital pound is a small incremental change in the context of privacy, and so ranting and raving about a digital pound being terrifying is the wrong target. People could waste years of their lives ranting and raving about the horrors of a digital pound, and convince the government to abandon all plans... and nothing about the actual privacy of day to day people would change.
      - 4y ago
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  To me, it's less terrifying than Facebook or Apple monitoring and controlling every penny I spend or receive.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    Facebook can monitor but they can not yet take away your money. The bank can / government can.
    - riffraff 4y ago
      but the bank and the government already can, nobody keeps their life savings in cash. It's literally small change that they cannot already trace.
      - FpUser 4y ago
        This gives them even more instant control. Being raped does not mean wanting to increase ways of raping one
starkd 4y ago
This is indeed a scary prospect. However, let's be frank about the benefits of such a currency: better control over counterfeiting, financial convenience with low cost transactions, etc. If we can ensure anonymous 3rd party transactions, there could be enormous opportunities.
- tastyfreeze 4y ago
  > better control over counterfeiting Remember, it is only counterfeiting if you do it. It is "good" monetary policy when the government does it.
  - olddustytrail 4y ago
    Assuming you live in the UK or the USA, all your money is created by the government (though usually indirectly through commercial banks). It's counterfeiting when you try to pretend your own currency is government produced.
  - Finnucane 4y ago
    yes, it is not counterfeiting money when the agency legally authorized to create money does that.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - tastyfreeze 4y ago
      The effects of me printing dollars and the government printing dollars are the same. They just don't want me cutting in to their profit. The US government is only authorized to coin money. That is making coins out of metal.
      - Finnucane 4y ago
        Party like it’s 1799, dude!
- 4y ago
globular-toast 4y ago
So I assume you get paid in physical cash? And you pay your rent in physical cash? Or perhaps you have a mortgage which, of course, was lent to you as physical cash which you delivered in a wheelbarrow to the previous owners of your house? Unfortunately 98% of the money we already use is digital and controlled by the private banks. What's worse, the government or private banks? You could argue that we go back to physical cash only. Good luck with that. Or you could argue that we move to trustless decentralised digital cash like Bitcoin. Most of us who were in favour of that have given up at this point. Government controlled digital money might just be the least worst option we have at this point.
- MarcoZavala 4y ago
  [dead]

garyclarke27 4y ago

More than disappointing - this is terrifying - even worse than China's social credit scoring on New Zealand's Cigarette prohibition. This would enable governments to monitor and control literally every penny you spend or recieve. I wrote a blogpost explaining who money currently works and warning about this development. https://www.onedb.online/blog/what_is_money https://www.onedb.online/blog/what_is_money

Spooky23 4y ago
We already have had this with credit cards, drafts in various forms and crypto. All this would do is get rid of the middleman and the defacto tax assessed on all commerce, both direct or indirect through sale of data.
f38zf5vdt 4y ago
It will cause people to stop using government money. There are many other ways to barter and exchange goods. I expect it will only increase tax evasion as less transactions are even reported. It's no surprise to me to see government gold buying on an absolute tear. [1] The powers that be are well aware of the importance of having real physical goods for the sake of trading and maintaining wealth. [1] https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/central-banks-buy-gold-fastest-pace-55-years https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/central-banks-b...
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > government gold buying on an absolute tear China and Russia buying non-dollar reserve assets has nothing to do with “people…using government money.”
- iamben 4y ago
  > There are many other ways to barter and exchange goods. Genuinely curious - what do you think will happen (and what would be used)? I genuinely can't imagine most of the people in my life (be that older relatives, non-tech friends, whoever) using anything but whatever 'money' is convenient. None of them care the government might be watching, and if they were going to barter for anything they're probably already doing it ("you help me with this DIY, I'll take you for dinner"). FWIW I'm in the UK, so perhaps my perspective is skewed?
  - f38zf5vdt 4y ago
    Whatever is readily available to be converted into digital "cash" when needed will be used. Wealthy people maintain most of their assets outside of cash in property of various types. When they need "on the books" spending, they bring it into the cash economy with on/off ramps. I don't know if the UK is different from much else of the developed world, but here there is a tremendous amount of off-by-book transactions in the largest industries such as farming and construction. I do not think that the disappearance of cash will remove this economy, but it will have to migrate to other assets with similar qualities.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - starkd 4y ago
      Maybe for large significant transactions, but barter economy is next to impossible for consumer goods. If a lot of the economy goes off the books, it will come with greater friction between transactions, less overall liquidity.
      - 4y ago
Spivak 4y ago
> New Zealand's Cigarette prohibition Is brilliant and the only way to realistically ban cigarettes without screwing over entire generations who are already addicted to nicotine. Let's give a real example. My great aunt in her late 60s has a 40 year pack a day smoker. There is zero chance whatsoever she would be able to quit before she dies and it would be cruel to try and make her. There is no way you can pick a single date after which smoking is banned for everyone, it will be so loudly, and rightly, fought that it would never pass. I don't want to live in a world where a not insignificant percent of the population simultaneously goes through nicotine withdrawal. Because I've seen my friends quit and patches and gum don't keep you from being miserable. If you don't think cigarettes should be banned, fine. Valid stance. But if you think they should this is the way.
- thinkingemote 4y ago
  [flagged]
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  The problem with fine-grained approaches like this is that they are much easier to get passed: people are much more willing to restrict the freedoms of other people rather than themselves. For a ban like that to be ethical, it would have to have been voted on by the people it would apply to, i.e., the people below the age cutoff (who in this example, can't vote at all).
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    They can vote to repeal it later, it isn’t a permanent thing. Unlike fucking up the planet, which is.
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      Sorry, did I miss something? The "fucking up the planet" thing seems to be a non-sequitur, unless you're suggesting that people smoking are fucking up the planet, which doesn't seem like it's the motivation for the bill as much as "stopping people from fucking up themselves" is. Regardless, I disagree with the line of reasoning that because it can be repealed it's okay to pass it in the first place. The core problem is creating laws that artificially inflate their support by making them only apply to some sub-group. Passing laws that only restrict a minority due to practical reasosns is bad enough. For example, cities' anti-camping laws basically only apply to the homeless, because no-one chooses on a whim to camp in downtown Los Angeles. That's not great, because its a tyranny of the majority situation, but at least in theory the general populace has to weigh the loss of their ability to camp in downtown against the pros of not having homeless camps in downtown. In a situation where the law explicitly only applies to the minority, especially a minority that no one in the majority could ever eventually belong to, the majority get to have their cake and eat it, too, leading to artificial support for your bill. If you can't find the political support to ban cigarettes outright, back-dooring democracy is not the right way to do it.
phphphphp 4y ago
The government already has high degrees of insight into and control over the money of most people in the UK. Most people in the UK (in my experience, at least) couldn't care less about the day to day privacy implications of banking, it's not on their radar. The suggestion that this would enable the government to monitor more might be strictly true because it enables new types of monitoring, but that is already practically true in every way for most people. I find it difficult to understand why a digital pound is anything more than an incremental improvement (or worsening from your perspective). What does a digital pound enable the government to do that would interfere with the everyday person's life, that isn't already possible? (Also, cigarette prohibitions and social credit scoring are hot button issues for people who believe in the sanctity of individual rights but they're not at all related in the context of this discussion. There's nothing terrifying about a cigarette prohibition to most people, especially in the UK, where we've literally had various cigarette restrictions imposed over the years to the point where a NZ style prohibition would probably not even register for almost everyone.)
- realce 4y ago
  So your opinion is that the UK gov't has plenty of terrifying control over people's bank accounts, so a little bit more is a-ok?
  - phphphphp 4y ago
    My point is that it's hyperbolic to describe a digital pound as terrifying. A person may take issue with modern day banking granting the ability for people to be surveilled, and they might take issue with the UK's PAYE system which requires employers report their employee's income to the tax authority in real(ish) time... but that's nothing to do with a digital pound. A digital pound is a small incremental change in the context of privacy, and so ranting and raving about a digital pound being terrifying is the wrong target. People could waste years of their lives ranting and raving about the horrors of a digital pound, and convince the government to abandon all plans... and nothing about the actual privacy of day to day people would change.
    - 4y ago
grumpyprole 4y ago
To me, it's less terrifying than Facebook or Apple monitoring and controlling every penny I spend or receive.
- FpUser 4y ago
  Facebook can monitor but they can not yet take away your money. The bank can / government can.
  - riffraff 4y ago
    but the bank and the government already can, nobody keeps their life savings in cash. It's literally small change that they cannot already trace.
    - FpUser 4y ago
      This gives them even more instant control. Being raped does not mean wanting to increase ways of raping one

starkd 4y ago

This is indeed a scary prospect. However, let's be frank about the benefits of such a currency: better control over counterfeiting, financial convenience with low cost transactions, etc. If we can ensure anonymous 3rd party transactions, there could be enormous opportunities.

tastyfreeze 4y ago
> better control over counterfeiting Remember, it is only counterfeiting if you do it. It is "good" monetary policy when the government does it.
- olddustytrail 4y ago
  Assuming you live in the UK or the USA, all your money is created by the government (though usually indirectly through commercial banks). It's counterfeiting when you try to pretend your own currency is government produced.
- Finnucane 4y ago
  yes, it is not counterfeiting money when the agency legally authorized to create money does that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tastyfreeze 4y ago
    The effects of me printing dollars and the government printing dollars are the same. They just don't want me cutting in to their profit. The US government is only authorized to coin money. That is making coins out of metal.
    - Finnucane 4y ago
      Party like it’s 1799, dude!
4y ago

globular-toast 4y ago

So I assume you get paid in physical cash? And you pay your rent in physical cash? Or perhaps you have a mortgage which, of course, was lent to you as physical cash which you delivered in a wheelbarrow to the previous owners of your house? Unfortunately 98% of the money we already use is digital and controlled by the private banks. What's worse, the government or private banks? You could argue that we go back to physical cash only. Good luck with that. Or you could argue that we move to trustless decentralised digital cash like Bitcoin. Most of us who were in favour of that have given up at this point. Government controlled digital money might just be the least worst option we have at this point.

MarcoZavala 4y ago
[dead]