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Voters Hate CBDCs. Why Do Governments Keep Pushing Them? | Peter St. Onge

Governments worldwide are trying to replace cash with CBDCs, and people worldwide are starting to wake up, but we need a lot more.

A CBDC is a government-run crypto-token that replaces the national currency with a tracking ledger—a list of who owns what—that lets government surveil, control, and mandate every dollar you spend.

They could prevent you from buying the wrong thing, whether raw milk or gas stoves, or self-defense. They could stop you from donating to the wrong person, as we saw with the Canadian Truckers. They could even force you to buy whatever a government bureaucrat tells you to.

On top of the Soviet-style surveillance state, a CBDC is an existential threat to the banking system, to the US dollar and would give central planners push-button control over every element of your life.

https://mises.org/wire/voters-hate-cbdcs-why-do-governments-keep-pushing-them

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Discussion

LibertyGal 2y ago

Government doesn't care what people want. Those in government want control and nothing will give them more control than a CBDC, so it will be pushed hard.

Unfortunately, as much as most people don't want it, if the government starts giving out entitlements and other handouts (what people consider "free" money), most people will jump in with arms open wide in order to get their money. Once people are used to using the CBDC, they will remove the ability to use other currencies including the plain USD. It will be too late to do anything about it at that time. I do think precious metals and bitcoin will help and be a workaround at least for a while. It is hard to know longterm.

Undisciplined 2y ago

I'd say it's a safe bet that their money will function worse than Bitcoin. The CBDC will have demand for all the reasons you note, plus being required to use it for paying taxes and a few other things, but there will be persistent global demand for Bitcoin which means continued development.

In the long run, reality wins, which means fiat fails.