Central bankers are moving swiftly to develop and introduce digital currencies worldwide.
"It’s not a matter of experimentation, they already have these systems ready to implement," Brandon Smith noted in an April 11 analysis for the Discern Report.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is set to debut its instant transfer program, called “FedNow”, in July. The fed program is not a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) "but it is an intermediary step towards instituting CBDCs in the near term," Smith wrote.
"Most have no idea it's happening. Some who do know are willfully ignoring it. But as CBDCs rush toward becoming a reality, it's time for us to do what we can to stop them or prepare," Smith wrote.
JD Rucker, host of The JD Rucker Show on Apple Podcasts, noted that Central Bank Digital Currencies "will be extremely dangerous and represent the next step toward complete centralization of the world consolidated under a single tyrannical government. What most seem to be missing is that CBDCs are not the endgame; I’ve seen stories from multiple news outlets claiming that to be the case. The reality is the 'endgame' is depopulation and complete control. To get there, the powers-that-be will need ONE Central Bank Digital Currency. As we watch dozens at various degrees of readiness being rolled out across the globe, we have to understand that bringing them all under one umbrella is necessary for the globalist elite cabal to win."
In his analysis, Smith noted that the "Orwellian nature of CBDCs cannot be overstated. In a cashless society most people would be dependent on digital products for exchanging goods and labor, and this would of course mean the end of all privacy in trade. Everything you buy or sell or work for in your life would be recorded, and this lack of anonymity could be used to stifle your freedoms in the future."
How exactly could global elites running a cashless society stifle freedom?
"For example," Smith wrote, "say you like to eat steak regularly, but the increasingly authoritarian government decides to list red meat as a health risk and a 'climate change risk' due to carbon emissions from cows. They determine by your purchase history (which they have full access to) that you have contributed more carbon pollution than most people by eating red meat often. They declare that you must pay a retroactive carbon tax on your past purchases of red meat. Not only that, but your insurance company sends you a letter indicating that you are a medical risk and they cut off your health coverage."
Governments could use the digital currency system to track all of the products you consume and services you use and "create a psychological profile on you," Smith added.
Your profile would be used to determine your social credit score, just as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities are doing in China today.
"Maybe you refuse to purchase an annual mRNA booster shot, and the tracking algorithm makes a note of this," Smith wrote. "Now you are under suspicion for being 'anti-vax' and your social credit score plummets, cutting you off from various public venues. Maybe you are even fired from your job."
In Smith's worst case scenario, "economic access is the greatest oppressive tool."
With Central Bank Digital Currencies in place and no physical cash in existence, "your savings will never be truly yours and you’ll never be able to hold your purchasing power in your hands. The means of exchange would be bottle-necked by the banks, and governments would have the option to freeze your ability to transact. If one day you get angry about a particular government policy and openly call the system corrupt on social media, they can simply shut off your option to transfer your digital money to others until you submit, or die."
Smith noted that, in investigating CBDC programs and the speed with which they are progressing, he came across an program called “Project Icebreaker” being run by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
The BIS, Smith noted, "is a globalist institution with a clandestine past known as the 'central bank of central banks.' It is the policy making hub for most of the central banks in the world. If you ever wondered how it was possible for so many national central banks to operate in tandem with each other instead of acting in the interests of the countries they reside in, the BIS is the answer. In other words, organizations like the Federal Reserve are not necessarily loyal to Americans or to American officials, they are loyal to the dictates of the BIS."
BIS describes Project Icebreaker "as a foreign exchange clearing house for Retail CBDCs (retail CBDCs are digital currencies used by the regular public and businesses), enabling the currencies to be traded from country to country quickly and efficiently," Smith wrote. "This is accomplished using the 'Icebreaker Hub', a BIS controlled mechanism which facilitates data transfers for an array of transactions while connecting banks to other banks."
In his investigation, Smith found the Icebreaker Hub functions in theory almost exactly like the SWIFT payment system being used currently by governments and international banks. More than 10,000 financial institutions in 212 different countries use the SWIFT network to transfer funds overseas for their clients. "It is an incredible centralization bottleneck that gives its shareholders considerable power," Smith wrote.
Smith cited Russia's expulsion from the SWIFT network after its invasion of Ukraine. The expulsion "was used as a weapon in an attempt to crash the Russian economy. Russia has found ways around using SWIFT because of their trade relationships with major economies like China and India, but some damage has still been done to their financial structure."
Smith continued: "What if all monetary transactions were centralized through CBDCs and the BIS controlled the hub in which all retail CBDCs are exchanged globally? This is what Icebreaker is."
What if you had to meet certain standards in order to be allowed use of the hub, and the BIS dictates the standards?
"What if the BIS decides that your company needs to meet woke ESG related categories before you can get permission for Icebreaker transactions? Now the BIS has the ability to manipulate social and cultural trends using your business and millions of other businesses as forced messengers," Smith wrote.
Smith added: "For the average consumer that does most of their transactions within their home country this might not sound like a big deal. But, for the business world, a SWIFT-like hub for retail CBDCs could be used to dominate all international trade. Running any kind of larger organization or company would mean bowing to the whims of the BIS."
Eventually, Smith continued, "the BIS, IMF and various central banks will ask the public the inevitable question: 'Why are we bothering with these national currency exchanges when we have a perfectly good bridge currency in the form of this one-world CBDC? Why don’t we just get rid of all these superfluous national CBDCs and have one currency for everyone?' "
Thus, Smith wrote, "total global financial centralization would be achieved. And once you have a one-world currency, a completely centralized and micro-managed global economy and the most vital trade systems in the world controlled by a tiny handful of faceless unelected bureaucracies, why then have nations at all? Global government would be the next and final step."
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