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Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

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Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#131

Post by influxmoment »

lottin wrote: post #119
influxmoment wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because CBDC are the complete opposite of bitcoin philosophy. Bitcoin is about personal freedom and separating state and money. CBDC is about centralised govt control and monitoring

So if you found out that a top pentagon official was working as a military advisor for the Taliban, that wouldn't ring any alarm bells to you. It's completely normal and there's nothing to worry about.

You obviously have your own theory so please go ahead and share it. The bitcoin devs working on CBDCs are a small minority

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#132

Post by rvz »

rajup wrote: post #95
rvz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India's digital payments ecosystem (the "UPI") has been an unparallelled success at the second layer. Hence the reason why the RBI will eventually use UPI to piloting their CBDC on top of it anyway and force all of India to use it. That should scare us all.

> That should scare us all. Why?

This is why [0]. Some board members at the European Central Bank (ECB) are already considering suggesting spending and saving limits on CBDCs including the digital euro and that should tell you where these CBDC pilots are going to go if successful and how very dystopian that would be already.

Oh dear.

[0] https://reclaimthenet.org/digital-euro-spending-saving-limit...

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#133

Post by imtringued »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #105
blackoil wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper money is a small percentage of total money, and a much smaller percentage in terms of actual transactions. Most of the money is already digital.

Paper money still has a very important role, because it can't simply be deleted from your account. That's important, because central banks are considering negative interest rate policy, which would mean your bank account would drop by a percentage each month. This would drive people to spend or invest their money, supporting consumption and inflating asset prices. The reason they can't do that right now is because ma…

>That's important, because central banks are considering negative interest rate policy, which would mean your bank account would drop by a percentage each month.

Imagine the horror of having to pay a parking fee instead. Truly horrifying. How are we supposed to pretend that it is ours anymore and extort payments from other people by blocking all the free parking lots?

>This would drive people to spend or invest their money, supporting consumption and inflating asset prices.

You know, in neo classical economics the idea of not spending your money on consumption or investment or saving your money isn't even considered to be something that even happens (by that I mean in neo classics all saving happens at the bank anyway) So if you are against that then you leave central banks no choice other than to create exponentially growing quantities of money and use inflation to devalue all assets instead of only shrinking the type of balance you have the least of. The poor store most of their value in their body and need to trade their body for money that they spend quickly, only the rich who can block their withheld money from being available and thereby extort interest payments from the rest of the economy.

It is like you are arguing that the current system of exponential debt is somehow the height of morality.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#134

Post by imtringued »

philwelch wrote: post #126
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might, but the central banks don't! It's a recurring theme in published research papers by economists and by the central banks themselves. It's called "breaking through the zero bound" on monetary policy, or "removing the effective lower bound". The tone in these papers is universally that this would be desirable for the central bank, but hard for the public to accept. For example from the Fed: "The Case for Unen…

> The tone in these papers is universally that this would be desirable for the central bank, but hard for the public to accept. Yeah, that’s putting it mildly! Isn’t this basically a wealth tax on the middle and working classes?

A wealth tax on cash...? Are you kidding me? You can literally avoid it by going to the bank to save your money.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#135

Post by imtringued »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #127
philwelch wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tone in these papers is universally that this would be desirable for the central bank, but hard for the public to accept. Yeah, that’s putting it mildly! Isn’t this basically a wealth tax on the middle and working classes?

Yes, on anyone who works to earn a wage rather than owning appreciating assets, basically. I don't know, maybe it won't happen. But the signs are all pointing in that direction, so I'm kind of resigned to it going that way eventually. Probably it will start by restrictions on large cash transactions, and on owning or carrying large amounts of cash. Then fees for withdrawing paper cash from bank accounts. Perhaps reta…

>Yes, on anyone who works to earn a wage rather than owning appreciating assets, basically.

People who work for their wage are utterly dependent on the benevolence of the rich who withhold their money from the market. Withholding money from being spent or saved is how you get unemployment and inequality. If anything people who work for money will appreciate that they are being paid and the people they pay will also appreciate it. The only people who won't appreciate are those who already have so much money they don't know what to do with it.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#136

Post by imtringued »

rvz wrote: post #132
rajup wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That should scare us all. Why?

This is why [0]. Some board members at the European Central Bank (ECB) are already considering suggesting spending and saving limits on CBDCs including the digital euro and that should tell you where these CBDC pilots are going to go if successful and how very dystopian that would be already. Oh dear. [0] https://reclaimthenet.org/digital-euro-spending-saving-limit...

We already live in a dystopia where transaction sabotage is being compensated with more money to sabotage.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#137

Post by imtringued »

FpUser wrote: post #23
m4rtink wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, with most salaries going to bank accounts it's half way there already, isn't it ?

Well you can still take cash out and hide it under the mattress ;)

How to generate unemployment 101.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#138

Post by imtringued »

potamic wrote: post #50
Ekaros wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood this argument. It is not like governments can't tell the banks and payment processor not to accept payments or freeze all funds of certain people. Courts can already order automatic confiscation in cases like bankruptcies and so on.

Friction in a process can be an amazing deterrent and prevents you from abusing power en masse. Whenever there is a cost to doing something, it demands prudence.

The friction is already there and it is mandated by law.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#139

Post by imtringued »

jcadam wrote: post #116
lzaaz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising. Liberals want the government to take money from people to fund itself. A digital currency allows them to do that much more efficiently.

True. I hope you like negative interest rates on your savings account.

Negative interest is supposed to be applied on cash and bank reserves (this includes checking accounts). Not on savings accounts.

The entire point of negative interest rates is to get people to stop holding 70% of their balances at the bank in checking accounts. Because checking accounts cannot be used for loans, the bank creates new money which lands on another checking account which repeats endlessly like some sort of out of control recursive function resulting in a perpetual increase in the M1 money supply.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#140

Post by alkonaut »

kipchak wrote: post #129
alkonaut wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a CBDC would differ materially from cash, which enables anonymous transactions. Anonymous transactions are possible with a CDBC too. For example as outlined in the link I posted in the message above. The idea is similar to Gnu Taler: you withdraw CBDC funds onto some physical "cash card". The amount you can do would be limited, just like the amount of cash you withdraw from a a bank is usually limited. But it does…

I don't disagree it's possible to have a CBDC and anonymity, but based on the fed's statements like the part you quoted it seems like from their perspective anonymity no longer being possible would be a feature.

I don’t doubt that some governments would see it that way (although I do doubt the fed would pull that off).

My argument is merely a) that there is nothing inherent to a CBDC making anonymous transactions impossible b) there are governments recognizing that this is an important feature of their planned CBDC - as they should.

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