4 ms·

Because there are many Americans who are small gov and against excessive taxation. A CBDC is "too far" for a lot of people who believe that.

by lbotos 3y ago

bluescrn 3y ago
Imagine being paid in a ‘programmable’ currency that your employer (or government) decides cannot be spent on alcohol, meat, or fossil fuels. Meanwhile, wealthier people get paid in ‘unrestricted’ currency.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  That already exists today, food stamps/SNAP/EBT for low income and dollars for everyone else I'd just as soon give everyone dollars via UBI
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Honestly, if governments paid out all social benefits in a demurrage currency which they accept for tax payments, they would save a lot of money because the velocity and therefore fiscal multiplier of a demurrage currency is very high. Christian Gelleri made this proposal to solve the Greek crisis: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3144910 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3144910
  - realce 3y ago
    Your employer doesn't pay you in food stamps, they pay you in money you can use to buy anything you need in the entire world. The government provides coupons that allow you to buy food which is remediated to the seller in dollars. The authority and funding to provide that service is something that voters can impact or change. These are very different things, not "that already exists" at all.
    - digging 3y ago
      > they pay you in money you can use to buy anything you need in the entire world. This is an primarily American phenomenon though and it's only really true because of the dominance of the US and US petrodollars over global society. It's probably not easy to spend Turkish lira in Madagascar, for example. Yes there are banks which will exchange approved currencies, but that's one step removed from being paid in a global global currency as you imply.
      - astrange 3y ago
        "Petrodollars" are completely unimportant. They just mean Saudi Arabia's financial reserves, and KSA is not a large country so it wouldn't matter if they abandoned the dollar. It already doesn't matter that we stopped Russia from trading in dollars. If anyone ever mentions petrodollars, CBDC, or crypto to you, they are crazy and I recommend stealing their wallet. (Since they're into crypto they're used to it.)
        cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        The populist right's obsession with currency -- pointing fingers at state banks and currency systems and money lenders and so on -- is a product of their unwillingness to point fingers at real corporate sources of power & control in the world. In large part because they're sympathetic to them (or outright funded by them in some cases.) At best this kind of stuff is a harmless ideological pressure release valve for a discontented middle class / small business / entrepreneurial layer squeezed from above (esp after COVID). At worst it veers into outright authoritarian & xenophobic politics and often blends in some anti-Semitism. Starts with rants about Bretton-Woods and the next thing you know you're hearing about the Rothschilds. There was a whole wing of this stuff ascendant in the 1930s (in western Canada we had "Social Credit", for example) whose ideological purpose was to displace left wing populism and anti-capitalist politics with an explicitly pro-capitalist highly social conservative narrative which pinned blame for problems on "international banking" and, ultimately, Jewish people. The latest flavour is obsessed with talk about "petrodollars" and cryptocurrency, and then you scratch a little and there's the face of Sergei Lavrov or Marie Le Pen hiding under the paint. The world is f*cked and unjust but not for the reasons that these people go on about.
  - maerF0x0 3y ago
    afaik food stamps/SNAP/EBT is a charitable thing though, right? ie, the recipients are not trading labor for it, right?
    - maerF0x0 3y ago
      cannot edit, but would like to say I actually prefer we give out UBI, in a tracked manner, as well. "cash" they can spend on anything, but with data collection so we can do society improving retrospectives on how it was spent.
- hrdwdmrbl 3y ago
  A CBDC does not necessarily need to be implemented with that capability.
  - bluescrn 3y ago
    No, but big centralized power tends to crave ever more power, control, and surveillance
- Spivak 3y ago
  I mean if we're talking that level of societal breakdown they would just use the system we already have for tracking semi-restricted purchases which is scanning and reporting your government ID. Then you can enforce meat and fossil fuel rations with no way to buy yourself around it.
- ke88y 3y ago
  I view this type of thinking as the conspiratorially minded's version of "trying to solve social problems with technical solutions". If there were political motive and will to implement such a system, it could be done without a CBDC and certainly without modernization of ACH (heh). Conversely, if there's not political motive and will, then the presence of a CBDC doesn't change that fact.
- treyd 3y ago
  Why would they want to do that? How would either your employer or the fed have the grounds to justify doing that?
  - hellojesus 3y ago
    Look at what happened with the Canadian protests and banking restrictions. Many are concerned that cdbc will allow the gov to create carbon rations that are enforced by disallowing purchases. Cash is fungible while regulated digital currency isn't.
    - treyd 3y ago
      But how could something like a carbon ration possibly be implemented? They'd have to retrofit every PoS system in the nation to classify sales and tag payments with that information. This would already be possible using the existing settlement infrastructure, nothing unique to how a CBDC would work. Plus, if the goal is to limit carbon emissioms, it's more of a liberal market-shaping attitude that mainstream economists have to simply tax carbon heavy activities rather than invent new and unpopular technological measures to force it to happen. Same applies to the fears about limiting meat consumption, etc.
  - johnny22 3y ago
    it's what they do with foodstamps already, is the point. I don't know whether that'll atually happen, but that's the theory.
  - bluescrn 3y ago
    Something along the lines of ‘We face a climate emergency that is even more serious than the Covid emergency, we have to do this, this is about saving lives’? (I’m not in any way a climate denier, just a huge pessimist when it comes to attempted solutions)
- zirgs 3y ago
  Payment processors like VISA can already block payments that they don't like. Even if they are completely legal.
Mistletoe 3y ago
You are already starting to pigeonhole people with your stereotype. I'm as liberal as they come and I find the thought of a CBDC to be an unimaginable Orwellian nightmare. A boot stamping on the face of civil liberties and privacy forever.
- kvetching 3y ago
  Maybe if our democracy wasn't broken this wouldn't be an issue. The government is supposed to be ran by us, but it's been taken over by bureaucrat cosmopolitans & multi-national corps who have a distinct will to power.

Because there are many Americans who are small gov and against excessive taxation. A CBDC is "too far" for a lot of people who believe that.

by lbotos 3y ago

Because there are many Americans who are small gov and against excessive taxation. A CBDC is "too far" for a lot of people who believe that.

bluescrn 3y ago

Imagine being paid in a ‘programmable’ currency that your employer (or government) decides cannot be spent on alcohol, meat, or fossil fuels. Meanwhile, wealthier people get paid in ‘unrestricted’ currency.

candiddevmike 3y ago
That already exists today, food stamps/SNAP/EBT for low income and dollars for everyone else I'd just as soon give everyone dollars via UBI
- imtringued 3y ago
  Honestly, if governments paid out all social benefits in a demurrage currency which they accept for tax payments, they would save a lot of money because the velocity and therefore fiscal multiplier of a demurrage currency is very high. Christian Gelleri made this proposal to solve the Greek crisis: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3144910 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3144910
- realce 3y ago
  Your employer doesn't pay you in food stamps, they pay you in money you can use to buy anything you need in the entire world. The government provides coupons that allow you to buy food which is remediated to the seller in dollars. The authority and funding to provide that service is something that voters can impact or change. These are very different things, not "that already exists" at all.
  - digging 3y ago
    > they pay you in money you can use to buy anything you need in the entire world. This is an primarily American phenomenon though and it's only really true because of the dominance of the US and US petrodollars over global society. It's probably not easy to spend Turkish lira in Madagascar, for example. Yes there are banks which will exchange approved currencies, but that's one step removed from being paid in a global global currency as you imply.
    - astrange 3y ago
      "Petrodollars" are completely unimportant. They just mean Saudi Arabia's financial reserves, and KSA is not a large country so it wouldn't matter if they abandoned the dollar. It already doesn't matter that we stopped Russia from trading in dollars. If anyone ever mentions petrodollars, CBDC, or crypto to you, they are crazy and I recommend stealing their wallet. (Since they're into crypto they're used to it.)
      - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        The populist right's obsession with currency -- pointing fingers at state banks and currency systems and money lenders and so on -- is a product of their unwillingness to point fingers at real corporate sources of power & control in the world. In large part because they're sympathetic to them (or outright funded by them in some cases.) At best this kind of stuff is a harmless ideological pressure release valve for a discontented middle class / small business / entrepreneurial layer squeezed from above (esp after COVID). At worst it veers into outright authoritarian & xenophobic politics and often blends in some anti-Semitism. Starts with rants about Bretton-Woods and the next thing you know you're hearing about the Rothschilds. There was a whole wing of this stuff ascendant in the 1930s (in western Canada we had "Social Credit", for example) whose ideological purpose was to displace left wing populism and anti-capitalist politics with an explicitly pro-capitalist highly social conservative narrative which pinned blame for problems on "international banking" and, ultimately, Jewish people. The latest flavour is obsessed with talk about "petrodollars" and cryptocurrency, and then you scratch a little and there's the face of Sergei Lavrov or Marie Le Pen hiding under the paint. The world is f*cked and unjust but not for the reasons that these people go on about.
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  afaik food stamps/SNAP/EBT is a charitable thing though, right? ie, the recipients are not trading labor for it, right?
  - maerF0x0 3y ago
    cannot edit, but would like to say I actually prefer we give out UBI, in a tracked manner, as well. "cash" they can spend on anything, but with data collection so we can do society improving retrospectives on how it was spent.
hrdwdmrbl 3y ago
A CBDC does not necessarily need to be implemented with that capability.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  No, but big centralized power tends to crave ever more power, control, and surveillance
Spivak 3y ago
I mean if we're talking that level of societal breakdown they would just use the system we already have for tracking semi-restricted purchases which is scanning and reporting your government ID. Then you can enforce meat and fossil fuel rations with no way to buy yourself around it.
ke88y 3y ago
I view this type of thinking as the conspiratorially minded's version of "trying to solve social problems with technical solutions". If there were political motive and will to implement such a system, it could be done without a CBDC and certainly without modernization of ACH (heh). Conversely, if there's not political motive and will, then the presence of a CBDC doesn't change that fact.
treyd 3y ago
Why would they want to do that? How would either your employer or the fed have the grounds to justify doing that?
- hellojesus 3y ago
  Look at what happened with the Canadian protests and banking restrictions. Many are concerned that cdbc will allow the gov to create carbon rations that are enforced by disallowing purchases. Cash is fungible while regulated digital currency isn't.
  - treyd 3y ago
    But how could something like a carbon ration possibly be implemented? They'd have to retrofit every PoS system in the nation to classify sales and tag payments with that information. This would already be possible using the existing settlement infrastructure, nothing unique to how a CBDC would work. Plus, if the goal is to limit carbon emissioms, it's more of a liberal market-shaping attitude that mainstream economists have to simply tax carbon heavy activities rather than invent new and unpopular technological measures to force it to happen. Same applies to the fears about limiting meat consumption, etc.
- johnny22 3y ago
  it's what they do with foodstamps already, is the point. I don't know whether that'll atually happen, but that's the theory.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  Something along the lines of ‘We face a climate emergency that is even more serious than the Covid emergency, we have to do this, this is about saving lives’? (I’m not in any way a climate denier, just a huge pessimist when it comes to attempted solutions)
zirgs 3y ago
Payment processors like VISA can already block payments that they don't like. Even if they are completely legal.

Mistletoe 3y ago

You are already starting to pigeonhole people with your stereotype. I'm as liberal as they come and I find the thought of a CBDC to be an unimaginable Orwellian nightmare. A boot stamping on the face of civil liberties and privacy forever.

kvetching 3y ago
Maybe if our democracy wasn't broken this wouldn't be an issue. The government is supposed to be ran by us, but it's been taken over by bureaucrat cosmopolitans & multi-national corps who have a distinct will to power.