The term has a ring to it that signals support for progressive goals. “Inclusion” is part of the Orwellian trio of terms “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” which, as Dr. Michael Rectenwald writes, means “surveillance, punishment of the ‘privileged,’ sacrifice of national citizens to global interests, and the labeling as ‘dangerous’ and marking for (virtual) elimination those supposed members or leaders of ‘hate groups’ who oppose such measures.” The central banks’ use of “financial inclusion” involves the same reversal of meanings.

Financial Inclusion and Unbanked Households

Consider that a retail CBDC would be like having a bank account with the Federal Reserve, even if it is intermediated by another bank. There is a lot of guesswork about how a CBDC will be implemented, but some say that it will not just be like having a bank account with the Fed, but that it could be exactly that.

Either way, if a CBDC were genuinely aimed at financial inclusion, it would offer something to those who have chosen to forgo a bank account entirely. This “unbanked” population constitutes about 5.4 percent of US households according to a 2021 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) survey. The survey asked each household why they do not have a bank account, and the responses indicate that minimum balance requirements, privacy, trust, and fees are the most significant factors.

Figure 1: Unbanked households’ reasons for not having a bank account, 2021 (percent)

The critical question, then, is this: what does a CBDC offer these households that physical cash and other nonbank financial services (e.g., check cashing, money orders, prepaid cards) do not?

Privacy (or Lack Thereof)

A CBDC undermines privacy. Whatever a central bank might say about privacy protection with a CBDC can be safely dismissed. The Fed paper, for example, says, “Protecting consumer privacy is critical. Any CBDC would need to strike an appropriate balance, however, between safeguarding the privacy rights of consumers and affording the transparency necessary to deter criminal activity.” We should not conflate the characteristics of a CBDC with those of cryptocurrencies in general, which offer anonymity and pseudonymity to their users.

Consider how the IRS recently pried open PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts with transactions over $600. Consider also that the Supreme Court just ruled that the IRS can investigate your bank accounts without notification in some circumstances, including if you are a friend, family member, or associate of someone who owes the IRS.

Beyond taxes, banks also willingly hand over personal information (even without a warrant or formal request) to the FBI. This data, which includes previous firearm purchases, belongs to people who show up at the wrong protest or who were merely in the vicinity as the data is collected based on transactions within a specific geographic area.

The lack of privacy with bank accounts certainly contributes to the distrust people have for banks, as noted in the survey. This shows that “financial inclusion” is a mere buzzword as there is nothing about a CBDC that would gain the trust of unbanked households, who are not excluded from the banking system but actively avoid it.

Fees and Negative Interest Rates

According to the survey, fees are another commonly cited reason for being unbanked. People avoid banks because the fees are steep and unpredictable.

Although there is no certainty regarding how a CBDC would operate, many see that it could finally offer the holy grail of monetary policy: the ability to impose negative interest rates. In effect, this would be a fee for holding a CBDC.

After the 2008 crash, the Fed reached the “zero lower bound” for nominal interest rates. They were unable to stimulate more spending through their interest rate targeting approach. While there were a few outlandish ideas about imposing a negative interest rate on cash, like the idea of Greg Mankiw’s student to remove the legal tender status of all currency with a serial number ending in a randomly selected digit, it is just too difficult to impose a fee on the cash in your wallet or safe.

With a digital currency, it becomes effortless, especially if the use of physical cash is significantly diminished or even eliminated altogether. The monetary policy authorities would simply press a button and deduct a certain amount of CBDC from everyone’s accounts. Think of the spending they would encourage if everybody knew their unspent money would be subject to such a penalty!

Conclusion

The “financial inclusion” rhetoric in central bank papers and speeches on CBDCs is laughable. Presently, people avoid banks because they distrust banks, value privacy, and despise fees. A CBDC wouldn’t help with any of these concerns. Instead of promoting inclusion, a CBDC would become the ultimate tool for financial intrusion and control.

The tyrannical potential is not a secret, even for the army of technocrats pushing for CBDCs. At a recent World Economic Forum event in China, Eswar Prasad matter-of-factly brandished the inevitable weaponization of CBDCs:

And one final note that I’ll make is that if you think about the benefits of digital money, there are huge potential gains. It’s not just about digital forms of physical currency—you can have programmability, units of central bank currency with expiry dates. You could have, as I argue in my book, a potentially better, or some people might say, darker world, where the government decides that units of central bank money can be used to purchase some things, but not other things that it deems less desirable, like, say, ammunition or drugs or pornography or something of the sort. And that is very powerful in terms of the use of a CBDC.

Of course, any moral qualms we have regarding the items he listed are irrelevant. It is clear that the state will use CBDCs to push us toward anything the state favors and away from anything the state doesn’t. Programmable money means programmable citizens.

About the Author

Dr. Jonathan Newman is a Fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD at Auburn University while a Research Fellow at the Mises Institute. He was the recipient of the 2021 Gary G. Schlarbaum Award to a Promising Young Scholar for Excellence in Research and Teaching. His research focuses on Austrian economics, inflation and business cycles, and the history of economic thought. He has taught courses on Macroeconomics and Quantitative Economics: Uses and Limitations in the Mises Graduate School.

Obviously, the central banks will need this epic crash to usher in the CBDC (central bank digital currency) which will be a technological slave system of control. But before that, we could see things that could only come out of the movies.

The dollar has not been backed by gold in a long time and its value is eroding. Debt, currency devaluation, massive speculation, massive currency creation, and intentional government incompetence are pretty much guaranteeing a very bad ending. A number of events have happened throughout the years which has jeopardized the Dollar’s standing. The Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) collaboration has gained steam in creating pathways for business and they have begun to totally bypass the U.S. Dollar.

— The Endgame: Central Bank Digital Currency

Alternatives to the dollar are already in the works. China and Brazil have already reached a deal to trade in their own currencies, ditching the United States dollar as an intermediary entirely, Fox Business reported.

Here are the things we need to be prepared for according to All News Pipeline, once the ruling class finally puts the final nail in the dollar’s coffin:

1. Bank Runs – people are going to want as much as they can out of their banks even though it’s going to be worthless unless you need some toilet paper. Some will attempt to rush and buy precious metals with their money while they still can.
2. Capital Controls – the masters will ban the slaves from converting their dollars into foreign currencies to try to keep the dollar afloat for a few more days.
3. Inflation – it’ll spiral out of control because the dollar will be worth almost nothing
4. Massive Unemployment – businesses will find it impossible to get parts or supplies from other countries, so there won’t be jobs to do.
5. Empty Grocery Store Shelves – food will be a hot commodity. The shelves will empty as people stock up at the last minute with whatever money they have.
6. Public Riots – all of the above will lead to massive violent public riots. People will be depressed and angry, but most will be still too dumbed down to take it out on the ruling class and bankers who control them like marionette puppets. They will instead, destroy businesses and loot whatever they can.

Make whatever preparations you may need or do an audit of your preps. This is inevitable, even though no one knows the exact day that it’ll happen. It’s all spiraling out of control and it is only going to get worse. The crash of the dollar is only the beginning. 

— The Central Bank Digital Dollar Is Coming: Prepare For Totalitarian Domination

— Prepare Now: Events Are “IN MOTION” To Remove The U.S. Dollar As Reserve Currency

Article cross-posted from SHTF Plan.

For years, I’ve been the guy who pushed back against the “Chicken Littles” who have been declaring societal collapse on the horizon. I didn’t flip out over Y2K. I didn’t stock up food and ammunition during the 2008 economic downturn. I didn’t say America was going to fall under Barack Obama. I didn’t buy a year’s worth of toilet paper when the lockdowns started. It’s important to understand this because I’m someone who is generally hopeful. I’m no fan of fearmongers, but things have changed in 2022 and it’s looking even worse for 2023. The sky really is falling on multiple fronts and most Americans seem oblivious.

There are two existential threats I won’t be covering on today’s episode of The JD Rucker Show: rigged elections and the Covid jabs. We’ll talk about them later in the week. Today, I want to focus on three of the economic challenges we’re facing. Watch the show here:

Here are the stories I’ll be covering…

NYISO Warns New Yorkers About “Sharp Rise” in Winter Electricity Prices

Readers have been well-informed that the global energy crisis is finally coming to America this winter as energy bills soar. The latest sign of soaring power costs is a warning from New York’s grid operator.

In a press release, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) wrote that millions of New Yorkers would have enough electricity supplies this winter to meet forecasted peak demand conditions.

While that’s a relief NYISO won’t have to resort to power blackouts this winter, the grid operator warned customers would face “a sharp rise in wholesale electricity prices expected this winter due to several economic and geopolitical factors that continue to impact the cost of natural gas used in the production of electricity.”

Bloomberg pointed out that NYC natural gas prices for January delivery were more than 60% higher than a year ago. Plus, diesel prices are through the roof as fuel supplies in the Northeast are dangerously low. Combine higher inputs to generate power, which means the added costs will be passed onto consumers. [read more]

Homeowners Should Brace for Property Price Drop

Real estate prices have declined over the past several months, but there could be much more to come, data and some experts indicate. The median home price has dropped by about 7 percent since its peak in June. It is still up by about 6 percent since October last year and more than 35 percent up since early 2020, according to data from Zillow, a listing site.

Other market metrics have recently dropped far more precipitously though. Sales volume, for instance, is down more than 24 percent since last year. Construction started on less than 120,000 private housing units in October, down from more than 150,000 in April, according to Census Bureau’s seasonally adjusted data (pdf). Prices of lumber, the most common residential construction material in America, dropped by nearly 70 percent since February and are now roughly at the early 2020 level.

The housing market has been pummeled by the Federal Reserve’s lifting of interest rates this year, which have boosted mortgage rates from less than 3 percent in September last year to more than 7 percent in early November. The rates have since eased to some 6.5 percent. This indicates that the market has yet to reach its bottom.

“We expect a drop of 15-to-20% over the next year, in order to restore the pre-Covid price-to-income ratio,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at the Pantheon Macroeconomics in a note last week.  [read more]

It Is Beginning: 41 Percent of All Small Business Owners Could Not Pay Rent in November

Many experts are now warning that we could see the housing market and the commercial real estate market simultaneously crash in 2023.  If that were to happen, it would put an extreme amount of stress on our financial system.  The only way we will avoid such a fate is if the Federal Reserve starts reducing interest rates.  Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen.  In fact, officials at the Federal Reserve keep telling us that interest rates are going to keep going up.  This is literally a suicidal course of action, because higher rates are going to absolutely crush the economy.

If you doubt this, just consider what is already happening.

According to a new Alignable survey that was just released, 41 percent of all small business owners in the United States could not pay rent in November…

Due to high inflation, reduced consumer spending, higher rents and other economic pressures, U.S.-based small business owners’ rent problems just escalated to new heights nationally this month, based on Alignable’s November Rent Poll of 6,326 small business owners taken from 11/19/22 to 11/22/22.

Unfortunately, 41% of U.S.-based small business owners report that they could not pay their rent in full and on time in November, a new record for 2022. Making matters worse, this occurred during a quarter when more money should be coming in and rent delinquency rates should be decreasing. But so far this quarter, the opposite has been true.

In September, that same survey found that 30 percent of all small business owners could not pay rent. [read more]

Lobbyists Call on the US Government to Develop Digital ID Infrastructure for “Security” Reasons

A group of 10 advocacy organizations, including the Identity Theft Resource Center and the Better Identity Coalition, have called on Congress to pass the Improving Digital Identity Act of 2022, mandating the government to develop federal digital ID infrastructure. The bill has advanced through committees in both the House and Senate, but it is yet to be put to a vote. In the letter, the organizations noted that in 2021, 293 million people were affected by data breaches, and that there has been a 333% rise in losses from identity fraud since 2017.

The letter further notes that the FTC estimated that there was a 3,000% increase in identity theft for public benefits from 2019 to 2020. And, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has identified abuse of components of digital identity, like personally identifiable information, as the main cause of cybercrime and fraud in the country. [read more]

Federal Reserve Set to Introduce Privacy-Crushing Digital Currency That Can Be ‘Controlled’ and ‘Programmed’ by Government Bureaucrats

“Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George said in an interview that inflation is at risk of growing entrenched in the economy, making it difficult for the Federal Reserve to fight inflation without a recession. George said that labor is the driver of inflation now, rather than supply chain or production shortages, and the real challenge for policymakers is prematurely ending rate increases,” private intelligence firm Forward Observer reported in a note to subscribers earlier this month.

An accompanying analyst comment noted: “Fed officials have previously waved off the risk of recession, so this admission is significant. George is now saying the proverbial quiet part out loud, as [Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome] Powell has been engineering a deliberate recession since last year.”

Now, as an engineered recession is upon us, the same Fed will be introducing a digital currency that it can manipulate on behalf of the wishes of the deep state permanent government.

The N.Y. Fed said in a statement: “This U.S. proof-of-concept project is experimenting with the concept of a regulated liability network. It will test the technical feasibility, legal viability, and business applicability of distributed ledger technology to settle the liabilities of regulated financial institutions through the transfer of central bank liabilities.” [read more]

1.8M Chickens Slaughtered in Nebraska as Bird Flu Pecks Away at Food Supply

Another 1.8 million chickens were ordered to be culled in Nebraska after agriculture officials analyzed yet another bird flu outbreak on a farm. The latest culling comes after 50 million birds have been slaughtered nationwide to try and contain the ongoing outbreak according to AP, so who knows if it’s actually true.

Fortunately the Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) issued a report, which adds that this is the 13th farm in the state to suffer an outbreak this year. According to the report, 6.8 million birds have been killed in Nebraska – the second-most behind Iowa, which has killed 15.5 million. After the affected flock is culled, the NDA will establish a 6.2-mile control zone around the affected premises. [read more]

100 Million Dead Birds Are Just the Beginning, Because This Pestilence Is Far From Over

Did you know that an extremely vicious virus that is currently sweeping across the globe has already killed more than 100 million birds?  If you haven’t heard about this yet, don’t feel bad, because most people in the general population don’t know about this either.  Like so many of the other nightmares that we are facing right now, the mainstream media continues to downplay the bird flu crisis and continues to insist that authorities have everything under control.  But of course the truth is that they don’t have this outbreak under control.  Flocks are being steadily wiped out all over the planet, and prices for turkey, chicken and eggs just keep going higher and higher.  If the bird flu spreads even faster in 2023 than it did in 2022, it won’t be too long before we have some pretty serious shortages on our hands.

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, it was being reported that the official death toll in the U.S. has now reached 50.54 million.  That makes this “the worst animal-health disaster in U.S. history”…

More than 50.54 million U.S. birds have died in what is the worst Avian flu outbreak in U.S. history, according to data from the Department of Agriculture, Reuters reports. It also marks the worst animal-health disaster in U.S. history.

But it is perfectly “normal” for tens of millions of our turkeys and chickens to be wiped out, right?

Unfortunately, this pestilence is not just limited to the United States.  In fact, the UK and the European Union “are also suffering their worst avian-flu crises”…

Losses of poultry flocks sent prices for eggs and turkey meat to record highs, worsening economic pain for consumers facing red-hot inflation and making Thursday’s Thanksgiving celebrations more expensive in the United States. Europe and Britain are also suffering their worst avian-flu crises, and some British supermarkets rationed customers’ egg purchases after the outbreak disrupted supplies.

We have never seen anything like this before.

According to CNBC, the number of dead birds in the EU alone has reached “nearly 50 million”…

Governments across Europe have culled bird populations to limit the spread of avian flu. Almost six million birds have been killed in the Netherlands since October 2021, while Spain, Bulgaria, Denmark and France have also been badly affected.

Nearly 50 million birds have been killed in Europe this year as countries try to contain the disease, according to the EU’s Food Safety Agency.

Actually, that figure is a bit old, but I was not able to find an updated one.

But if you take that number and add 50 million from the United States, that gives us a grand total of approximately 100 million dead birds, and that doesn’t even account for the remainder of the globe. [read more]

Pray, Prepare, and Hope

It’s easy for Americans who are awake to what’s happening around us to do two things. First, we can become extremely concerned about the future. This concern manifests in different ways for different people. Some get angry. Others experience anxiety or depression. Many sit back and hope for the best. Others run for the hills. No matter how it manifests, the faithful who have read their Bibles know that this temporary life is just a stepping stone to something infinitely greater. Hard times were prophesied, so whether things get worse or if we’re given a reprieve and judgment has not yet come, we should pray and remain hopeful.

The second thing that happens is we look around and wonder why so many around us seem completely oblivious. It’s not just Democrats, leftists, or atheists. Even many if not most patriotic and faith-driven people seem to be underestimating the abysmal state of affairs in this nation. They know it’s bad, but they seem to believe it’s not THAT bad. This is why it’s imperative that the faithful and the patriotic spread the word. Don’t just drop a link on Twitter or Gab, though that would be nice. Email it. Talk about it in person. Please do what you can to help people wake up and do what they must to prepare.

Some may say it’s not their problem. I would argue that the more people who are aware and taking actions to improve their own situations, the harder it will be for the powers-that-be to achieve their evil goals. We need allies. But remember one thing above all else. Whether it manifests for us today or after we’re gone, our greatest ally is our Creator. Do all things for Him.