Posted on 03/24/2020 7:09:09 PM PDT by rlmorel
Like many Americans, I am astonished and outraged at what the Democrat Party has attempted to do with the Coronavirus Relief Bill. I am not a fan of bailouts, but this situation is unprecedented, and I am inclined to go along with a bill to help people and businesses affected by this. And there are many.
When I heard the list of things that had been inserted in this bill by Nancy Pelosi and her ilk, it made my blood boil. Then, when I began looking closer, the range of things seemed bizarrely disconnected, as if they had taken their entire leftist toolbox and dumped it into the bill. Everything from voting to anti-corporate pap about the racial, sexual, and ethnic composition of corporate boards. Even tens of millions of dollars for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
But two things really stuck out. The $10 billion for a write-off of Post Office operational debt, and the Digital Dollar.
What were those two things doing in a bill like this?
Dan Bongino has occasionally discussed the concept of electronic currency over the years, and did so again today. (You can watch his podcast here, this link takes you right to the point he begins to discuss the Digital Dollar proposal.)
I admit to being somewhat ignorant on these matters, but I understand the gist of it and will try to express his view here, if I don't butcher it too badly. On his website, he has a link to a Forbes article about this Forbes: Coronavirus Stimulus Offered By House Financial Services Committee Creates New Digital Dollar)
Basically, this is a proposal to create a "Digital Dollar" ostensibly to help get money from whatever is passed to the citizens who will receive it. I imagine they would also pump it up saying paper money is a transmission vector, so we should get rid of it. They would throw that in, I suppose.
The rest of this conversation regarding the Digital Dollar is about debt. Government debt, and how to be able to spend more money without taking it directly from people in taxes.
In Dan Bongino's explanation, he points out that the government wants to take your money, spend it, and they don't want to have to pay for it. No surprise there. They like to use taxpayer money to buy power, etc. You can pay for government programs and goodies via direct taxation, but Americans don't like to be taxed. The other way to get rid of that debt is to monetize it via inflation.
This kind of makes sense. If you borrowed $100 back in 1960, paying it back in 1960 would have been more of a burden than paying that $100 back today sixty years later. Heck, you could pull out carry around cash in your wallet and pay it today. Inflation makes that $100 worth less, and as he says, inflation is great if you have debt. So I get that analogy.
Lower interest rates gets more money into the economy and makes debt represent less value. If interest rates are low, people are more likely to spend their money and with more dollars chasing the same amount of goods...voila. Inflation.
But what if you drive interest rates negative?
If you keep your money in a bank, with low interest rates, you don't get any return. If interest rates went negative, it would cost you money to keep your money in the bank. You would be inclined to spend your money to keep from losing it.
Or...
You would take your money out of the bank. As he points out, they tried this in Japan and a few other places, and that is exactly what happened. The Personal Safe industry skyrocketed with people taking their money out of the banks and keeping it in their safes! When the money is removed from the financial systems and placed in your safe, they can't take that money, and you end up defacto making money while the other people with money in the banks are losing theirs.
In summary, negative interest rates are an attempt to force consumers to throw their printed money into circulation, increasing the number of dollars chasing the same amount of goods to purchase, and inflation goes up.
What does this have to do with a Digital Dollar? If you have electronic currency...in the Federal Reserve, tied directly to you, in electronic form...YOU CAN'T TAKE YOUR MONEY OUT OF THE BANK AND TAKE IT OUT OF CIRCULATION! YOU CAN ONLY SPEND IT!
"...The Federal Reserve banks themselves would also make available a digital dollar wallet to any U.S. person eligible for the payments as well. Additionally, the U.S. Postal Service would aim to help unbanked individuals and/or those without proper ID to establish their identity be provided a digital dollar account, and would set up ATMs for customers to access their funds..."
There is a lot to unpack in that one excerpt.
I am interested in hearing from other conservatives on this subject. I am pretty much a comparative dunce with respect to economics (although I have read nearly every Thomas Sowell book in an effort to learn more) and the concept of a digital currency at one point in my life sounded like a great idea.
Kind of like some of the liberal concepts young people hear that sound great, but as you get older and more experienced, you realize those concepts are aimed directly at young or ignorant people.
And so it is for me with digital currency. I enjoy using Apple Pay, but that is not "digital currency". It is a safer way of using your banked real currency than a credit card. You still have that real currency behind something like Apple Pay or other forms of purely digital transaction.
But when your money is completely electronic, you don't "own" it. There is an overseer that you do not control.
Fixed assets may come to rule.
There is Money and then there is money.
She needs to be expelled and arrested.
What was abortion funding doing in the original House version of the Bill? Who in their right mind proposes money to continue to kill babies in the same Bill that's supposed to be focused on saving lives?
Truth is some 90% of all money only exists on a ledger. Just look at your banks statement of total assets vs cash on hand.
“There is an overseer that you do not control.” No, but with digital currency they’ll control you.
Demorats are globalistic and fully support a world order and central world governance.....not surprissing they’d be promting a Digital Dollar because the seats at that table will depend on revenue flow they bring with them.
Two words “Democrats purpose”. That right there is reason enough to fall out and draw ammo.
Whatever funding the Democrats propose in Bills, you can count on their pockets being eventually lined with some of that funding money.
While this makes sense, there is a lot more to it than that. This would start us down the road of complete government monitoring and control of our financials. When fully enacted then it would put us into the cashless society. And if we don’t behave then we can be cut off. Not to mention the possibility that using such a currency might require at some point the use of certain “markings”.
Time to buy a larger mattress.
You didn’t mangle it. This idea is totally new to me and I get it.
Nasty, greedy idea!
The Dems prove themselves to be more evil every day than you thought they were yesterday.
There you go.
.
666
Digital money is advocated in “The Velvet Moneywrench” by John Muir, also author of “How to keep your Volkswagon Alive for the Compleat Idiot,” yes, the original! It is a holistic & green description of a takeover of North America. https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Monkey-Wrench-John-Muir/dp/0943734398/ref=sr_1_1
Just like the “Harrad Experiment” outlined their intended changes to sexual relationships, the Monkeywrench shows wider intended changes.
“But when your money is completely electronic, you don’t “own” it.”
Especially when you have “incorrect thoughts” like most posters on FR.
What the hell were ANY of these things doing in there. If President Trump and the Republican Party do not drive the nails deeply into this perfidy during this election cycle, they don’t deserve to win.
I’m not expert on this issue, but wouldn’t digital dollars be vulnerable to ransomware?
My brother and I were talking about electronic currencies one night as we drove home, and the concept of using a hand print for purchasing. As we passed a lonely gas station, we both had the immediate vision of some guy, with outstanding parking tickets or something like that, putting his hand on the screen to purchase gas, and having a capture bracelet clamp down, holding him there and notifying the local police for a pickup!
Heh, we shook our heads...nope. No electronic currency and hand imprints for us!
As for those parking tickets, they won’t arrest you. They’ll just take the money out.
Physical money is freedom. Digital money is slavery.
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