Ron Desantis has clearly expressed his strong concerns against CBDC.
The IMF also held a CBDC forum. It appears that political parties will have to deal with whether their government should issue CBDCs.
Ron Desantis held a billboard exposing the Risks of CBDCs and how it would ban anyone in Florida using CBDCs
“The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”
“CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program…targeted policy functions. By programming a CBDC, money can be precisely targeted for what people can own and what [people can do.]”
Is the DeSantis ideas that a CBDC would be used to limit what Americans purchase completely inaccurate?
New York Times piece, one by Jeanna Smialek and Linda Qiu, that states:
“[DeSantis] has alleged without evidence that the Biden administration is about to introduce a central bank digital currency — which neither the White House nor the politically independent Fed has decided to do — in a bid to surveil Americans and control their spending on gas. He has quoted the Fed’s Twitter posts disparagingly.”
The article goes on to reference Wharton’s Peter Conti-Brown as saying, “While Mr. DeSantis’s Fed-bashing is not new, some of his remarks have strayed into misinformation.” Unfortunately, the article never explains exactly what Conti-Brown alleges is misinformation. The article does, however, omit the fact that Daleep Singh, a former Biden administration official, recently told the Senate Banking Committee the administration “was in active pursuit of a digital dollar.”
Regardless, DeSantis’ Twitter posts argue that the Congress must authorize the Fed to launch a retail CBDC. DeSantis argues that “unaccountable institutions” cannot impose a CBDC without such legislation, a perfectly reasonable reading of the Federal Reserve Act. Perhaps implying the Fed is an unaccountable institution is disparaging, but many pragmatic people believe independent agencies should have less discretionary authority precisely because the folks running those agencies – unlike members of Congress – do not face the voters.
More importantly, DeSantis’ Twitter posts rightly called out the Fed’s use of the word ideally in the following context:
“The Federal Reserve has made no decision on issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) & would not do so without clear support from Congress and executive branch, ideally in the form of a specific authorizing law”
This kind of statement looks very much like a mild version of Fed speak, and it comes after former Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard refused to directly answer whether the Fed could launch a CBDC without new legislation. The Fed referred to its official stance, released in January, noting that “The Federal Reserve does not intend to proceed with issuance of a CBDC without clear support from the executive branch and from Congress, ideally in the form of a specific authorizing law.”
the Fed’s website says the central bank “would only proceed with the issuance of a CBDC with an authorizing law.” Of course, Powell has also indicated the Fed does have the authority to launch a wholesale CBDC. Either way, the Fed’s FAQ website is not a binding document and Jay Powell will not be at the Fed forever.
In the meantime, the Fed has been conducting pilot programs through its district banks and studying exactly how to implement a CBDC. A growing number of consultants and former government officials are helping them, and multiple governments have already launched their own CBDCs, fueling a sense of urgency among U.S. officials who fear missing the boat.
More broadly, CBDCs are not “just a different form of money.” (Smialek and Qiu grossly oversimplify this issue.) The level of control that the government could exert over people would be limitless if money is purely electronic and provided solely and directly by the government. A CBDC would give federal officials complete control over the money going into–and coming out of–every person’s account.
عبدالرحمان زمین پیما
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آرمان جعفری
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