Guest Post from Marie Hawthorne at Organic Prepper:
In March, Daisy wrote about FedNow, the instant payment system currently in the works/ The American banking and government systems expect to start using it in July. As Daisy discussed, FedNow isn’t a centralized bank digital currency (CBDC), but it provides the framework for one.
I encourage you to read Daisy’s FedNow article. It will give you a good idea of how digital payments will be initially billed as a convenience, then something we can’t do business without. Read the article, and then imagine digital currency on a global scale.
This is in the works, too.
Worldwide digital currency
On April 10, the Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA) launched its international central bank digital currency. Proponents claim that this Universal Monetary Unit (UMU, Ü) will be used exactly like any other form of digital money.
Side note: DCMA has also been referring to the Universal Money Units as Unicoin. However, since there is a separate cryptocurrency also going by the name “Unicoin,” we’ll refer to this as UMU. (source)
You may be wondering, what is the DCMA? What countries is it affiliated with? Is it part of the United Nations?
As explained in this Redacted video, DCMA is run by bankers and unnamed government officials from around the world.
The DCMA is described as “a world leader in the advocacy of digital currency and monetary policy innovations for governments and central banks. Membership within the DCMA consists of sovereign states, central banks, commercial and retail banks, and other financial institutions.”
On its website, the DCMA states that its mission “is to enable trade globalization through the monetary integration of international payments and settlements while strengthening national economies [sic] monetary sovereignty. The first wave of cryptographic cash was designed for public untrusted networks. The DMCA reimagines the next wave of cryptographic innovations engineered for adoption by central banks, retail and commercial banks, Fintech, governments, and cryptocurrency exchanges.”
Here’s what makes UMU Unicoin different
UMU’s big advantage, what makes this different from individual countries’ proposed CBDCs, is that it can be used for cross-border transfers of money. Offering UMU users discounted foreign exchange rates is part of the plan to encourage adoption. International Monetary Fund (IMF) representatives claim that right now, exchanging currencies between different nations slows down transactions and increases the cost of doing business; they claim that UMU will dramatically speed things up. Like FedNow, they are using the convenience of instant payments, coupled with the promise of the best foreign exchange rates, as a method of promoting this new payment framework.
As of January, 114 countries, representing over 95% of the world’s economy, are exploring CBDCs, and a few have already rolled them out. However, as BeInCrypto noted, the rollouts haven’t gone particularly smoothly, which makes this rollout of a global crypto framework linked to the international banking system somewhat surprising.
Here’s what happened when the Nigerian government tried to force the issue.
China’s use of the digital yuan to enforce its rigid social credit system is well known. However, we can also look to Nigeria to see what can happen when governments attempt to impose CBDCs on the population.
In 2021, Nigeria became the first African country to implement a CBDC, the eNaira. Nigeria struggles a great deal with terrorism and counterfeiting operations; CBDC cheerleaders claimed that switching to digital currency would address some of these problems. Since 35% of Nigerians use cryptocurrencies, government officials assumed that Nigerians would hop right into a CBDC system.
They were wrong.
35% of Nigerians may be comfortable with crypto, but less than 0.5% signed up for the government-issued eNaira. The ones that did download it gave it lousy ratings. No one really wanted it; many vendors wouldn’t accept it.
So, the Nigerian government tried forcing everyone to use it. They restricted cash withdrawals to about US $44 a day or no more than about US $217 a week.
Authorities hoped that this would force people onto the CBDC. Instead, it resulted in chaos. A tremendous cash shortage ensued, and some governors claimed their territories were “on the verge of anarchy.”
Since then, the Nigerian government has slowed down its rush to become a cashless society. They had originally planned to be totally cashless by January. This did not work, and people will be able to use their bank notes until the end of 2023. (source)
No one would call this an inspiring success. But no one seems to want to change courses, either.
Sweden is NOT actually a cashless society.
Mainstream media continually holds Sweden up as an example of a wealthy, functional cashless society, but this is disingenuous. Sweden’s not actually cashless. Yes, most Swedes choose not to use cash, but the government has actually passed laws saying that it has to be available. Why? Because the Swedish government, quite sensibly, admits that digital money is vulnerable to disruption, whether through natural disasters that disrupt the grid or something like an EMP. They know that they need backup currency in case of emergency. (source)
Sweden is investigating CBDCs, just like everyone else. We’ll see where they land. Interestingly enough, their mostly-cashless society is being sold on digital currency for the same reason the Africans are: the ease of cross-border payments. The Swedes have been functioning mostly without cash but also without a CBDC. So why would they want an e-krona? To make international trade easier, and that brings us right back to the UMU.
Things are not going well in the financial world.
Patterns are emerging. Failures abound. Fox just fired its most popular host. Anheuser-Busch slapped its working-class customer base in the face with its hiring of TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney as a promoter. It’s cost the company at least $5 billion.
And then the bank failures! Three out of the four biggest bank failures in American history have occurred in the last two months. Daisy wrote about First Republic failing on Monday. Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank both failed in March. As of Tuesday, several other regional banks started to collapse, as reported by ZeroHedge.
When small businesses go under, bigger establishments win. J.P. Morgan Chase is now the biggest bank in the U.S. As there are fewer and fewer banks to negotiate, implementing new rules (like CBDC) becomes easier because fewer entities need to agree.
The bank bailouts of the past 15 years have been rewarding poor investment decisions and destabilizing the financial system, as explained by Peter Schiff.
We’re at the beginning of another round of crashes, but what is the financial sector doing? As of May 1, the Biden administration will be slapping those with high credit scores with additional mortgage fees to subsidize home loans for people with poor credit. We had a collapse in 2008; it looks like we’re at the beginning of another crash.
And yet we insist on incentivizing poor lending behavior.
Businesses are making poor decisions left and right, seemingly heedless of consequences. Those trying just to make money are being hampered by ESG and CEI scores. It’s like there’s a conscious effort to destroy business as usual.
The more time goes by, the more I suspect that’s the point. As Daisy noted in the FedNow article, widespread bank failures will make people desperate, and desperate people become willing to sign on for “solutions” like CBDCs that they otherwise may not have.
Is this the road to global governance?
Once CBDCs are common among nations, UMU will follow. And UMU will greatly facilitate global governance.
This probably sounds crazier than it should, but we’ve been sleepwalking toward global governance lately. Look at the WHO’s most recent treaty. If this gets ratified, which is very likely, all signers will have given sweeping powers to a huge, unelected group of global bureaucrats. Global currency is just another nail in the global governance coffin.
I don’t think this will happen overnight. I agree with Rebel Capitalist’s recent assessment that this will be a process. Getting everyone onboard with a CBDC will take time, particularly if governments want to avoid social disruption. Nigerians were stripping their clothes off and smashing bank machinery in protest when they couldn’t get cash. I imagine American bank owners would prefer to avoid that.
Adding a global layer of infrastructure is that much more work. But just because it’s five years down the road doesn’t mean we should ignore what’s going on right now. Frameworks are being put in place that, in a perfect world, could conceivably lead to streamlined international business. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
Between Covid, and the Afghanistan debacle, and the widespread dysfunction within the business community, I don’t think it’s far-fetched for anyone to harbor serious concerns about the competence and motives of those in power.
CBDCs are a danger to freedom.
The frameworks being constructed will enable a level of surveillance and control that past dictators could only dream about. We need to call it what it is and do what we can to delay implementation. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz are both calling for CBDC bans. I don’t live in Texas or Florida, but I applaud those politicians for speaking out about it
Most of us probably need to educate friends and relatives about CBDC, too. I’ve been shocked at how many people have no idea that this is in the works. Advertisements for instant payments are all over the place; if most people had better spending habits, this wouldn’t be anywhere near as appealing. If you have teenagers and young adults in your house, talk about finances with them. Solid budgeting skills make instant payments unnecessary. Make the youngsters in your life aware of the costs of constantly doing whatever is most convenient.
Unfortunately, I agree with Daisy in that this is probably going to happen regardless of what we do. However, we can still do our best to starve the beast by minimizing our digital footprints and doing as much as we can on our own or within a trusted network of friends. We don’t have to stumble into the New World Order blindly. We can be difficult.
Two years ago, there was a widespread push to mandate certain medical treatments across the workforce. People stalled, argued, and filed lawsuits. Mandates started going away, and just this month, the U.S. is finally ending its vaccine requirement for foreign travelers.
Do I think this is a permanent reprieve? Oh no. I think medical passports will come back in some other form, for some other disease. My point is simply that dragging our collective feet might buy us a little time.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant for government policies as well as laundry. By spreading awareness about the CBDC and UMU frameworks being put in place, hopefully, we can slow the adoption of these massive surveillance tools.
