(Natural News)
There has been extensive discussion in the past couple of years within alternative media circles about the dangers of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs); a currency framework very similar to blockchain based products like bitcoin but directly controlled by central bankers.

(Article by Brandon Smith republished from BirchGold.com)

CDBCs are a threat that some analysts including myself have been writing about for more than a decade, so it’s good to finally see the issue being addressed more in the mainstream.

The economics of enslavement

The Orwellian nature of CBDCs cannot be overstated.

In a cashless society 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. Basically, everything you buy or sell or work for in your life would be recorded, and this lack of anonymity could easily be used to stifle your freedoms.

For example, say you like to eat steak regularly, but the “green” 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 now 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 now a risk and they cut off your health coverage.

Other products you might consume and services you use can be tracked to create a psychological profile on you, which could then become a factor in determining your social credit score as they do often in China.

Maybe you refuse or forgot to purchase your annual mRNA booster shot, and the tracking algorithm makes a note of this. 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 the worst case scenario, though, economic access is the greatest oppressive tool.

With CBDCs in place and no physical cash in existence, your savings will never truly be yours and you never be able to hold your purchasing power in your hands.

The means of exchange would be firewalled by the banks. Any (or all) government agencies would be able to freeze your ability to transact.

If one day you get angry about a particular government policy or a stupid thing a politician says, and openly call the system “corrupt” in public? The Bureau of Tolerance in Public Discourse could simply suspend your access to your digital money… Temporarily, of course. Only until you submit and change your tune – if it’s your first offense.

Repeat offenders might be required to attend a Sensitivity Training Boot Camp – at your own expense, of course! With CDBCs, any government bureaucrat could not only prevent you from making any purchases, they could also allow you to only make specific purchases, like a train ticket to Sensitivity Training Boot Camp where you’d spend eight to twelve weeks being “reeducated” in order to regain your rights to buy food.

This is every authoritarian’s dream come true.

Imagine this power even in the hands of a benevolent leader! It would be so easy to nudge citizens to live healthier, more productive lives… (In fact, in China, one of the documented uses of their combination “social credit score” and cashless transactions is denying individuals the ability to buy junk food because they’re considered to be overweight.)

In the hands of a callous, ruthless government? Much, much worse.

CBDCs give government bureaucrats the ability to starve their political opponents with algorithmic precision. It would be a new world of technocratic oppression – allowing ?????????????? or “dekulakization” of individuals or entire regions at the push of a button. At any time, for any reason.

Imagine living under the threat of possible “liquidation” every single day for the rest of your life.

This power that Stalin or Hitler or Chairman Mao could only dream of has only become possible relatively recently. Over the past few years, the combination of powerful computing, unimaginably advanced data analysis and extraction techniques and universal spying devices (also known as “smartphones”) have created the opportunity for autocrats to create the ultimate tool of control and oppression.

That “opportunity” is rapidly becoming a reality.

Project Icebreaker

It’s important to understand that central bankers are moving at breakneck speed to develop and introduce digital currencies. It’s not a matter of experimentation, they already have these systems ready to implement. In my investigations of various CBDC programs and how quickly they are progressing I came across an interesting program called Project Icebreaker managed and developed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

For those not aware, the BIS 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 in the interests of their home countries, 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.

The BIS is at the forefront of the CDBC movement. They’ve funded a vast array of projects to test and refine CBDC technologies for some time. Right now, the BIS estimate that at least 81 central banks around the world are in the process of introducing their very own CDBC.

Now, there are only 195 countries in the whole world, and more than 2/3 of them are pursuing this freedom-destroying, autocrat’s-dream-come-true.

Project Icebreaker in particular grabbed my interest for a number of reasons. The BIS describes the project 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. This is accomplished using the “Icebreaker Hub”, a BIS controlled mechanism which facilitates data transfers for an array of transactions and connects banks to other banks.

Read more at: BirchGold.com