Not an episode of Black Mirror (PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)
Should we really be surprised that the Treasury and Bank of England are exploring whether to launch a state-issued digital pound? Sunak, after all, was the chancellor who first floated the idea of backing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) — already dubbed “Britcoin”. Nor was he alone: 11 countries, including China, Nigeria, The Bahamas and Jamaica, have already launched their own digital currencies, while more than 100 others, representing over 95% of global GDP, are deciding whether to follow suit. In the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has launched a pilot programme; the European Central Bank hopes to make a decision about the creation of a digital euro this autumn.
One might think that, amid a global cost-of-living crisis, these bodies would have other, more pressing concerns. But central bankers are never ones to miss an opportunity — and in fractious times like these, uncertainty is the most profitable opportunity in the business.
To understand the sudden rush towards digital currencies, let’s begin with the notion of “digital money”: as flashy as this may sound, it’s nothing new. In fact, fiat currencies are already digital and have been for a long time: in the UK, for example, 95% of all the money in circulation is electronic (the ones and zeroes that make up the money in our bank accounts), and 85% of transactions are made electronically. Online-only banks are also becoming increasingly common. CBDCs are therefore clearly not about making money digital — it already is.
Where a CBDC would change things, however, is that the digital money would be created directly by the central bank, as opposed to commercial banks. Indeed, when people hear the words “money creation” or “money printing” they tend to think of central banks and quantitative easing, but most of the digital money held in our bank accounts is actually created by commercial banks. We tend to assume that banks collect deposits from savers and lend them to borrowers. But that is not how today’s system works. In reality, when a bank makes a new loan, it simply taps some numbers into a computer and “creates” brand new money, which it then deposits into the borrower’s account. The bank’s pre-existing deposits are not even touched; the money is effectively created out of thin air. Instead of deposits leading to loans, it actually works the opposite way: it’s the loans that lead to newly created deposits. In other words, the banks lend money that they don’t own, at a rate of interest.
This creates a number of problems. First and foremost, privately created digital money is always accompanied by debt (since the new money is created in the form of loans). Moreover, it means that to a large degree, private banks — not central banks — control the supply of money in the economy. This gives them the power to create a potentially infinite supply of money, especially through the process of securitisation, fuelling massive credit bubbles (which inevitably go bust). It also hands them control over where this money goes, which is usually to those who are already well-off and can therefore provide the necessary collateral.
There are several reasons, then, why the current system of privatised money creation is problematic, and needs to be radically reformed. But central bank digital currencies will not solve the problem, unless they were associated with a move towards a full-reserve banking system, whereby commercial banks could only lend deposits created by the central bank, thus giving the latter full control of the money supply. This, however, is not currently under discussion. As the Bank of England has made clear: “The digital pound would not fundamentally alter the traditional channels of money creation”.
So what is the point of central bank digital currencies? One of the arguments made by governments and central banks is that they would provide a safe, state-backed digital alternative to private cryptocurrencies, which are highly speculative, extremely volatile and outside the regulatory control of governments. Regardless of what one thinks of cryptos (personally I’m no fan), this explanation makes little sense. People invest in Bitcoin and similar blockchain-based cryptocurrencies precisely because they are decentralised systems beyond the control of governments, and because they hope their value will rise over time. It’s hard to see why those same people would opt for a highly centralised system like CBDCs, which have failed to build on any of the core insights that led to the creation of cryptocurrencies. Most CBDC implementations, for example, will likely not use any sort of distributed ledger technology such as blockchain.
Other arguments offered in favour of CBDCs — that they will help promote financial inclusion, improve transactions speeds and economic efficiency, bolster confidence in the currency, and even help fight climate change — either make little sense or are little more than empty slogans. Why would the 1.2 million people in the UK who don’t have a bank account be inclined to open a “digital wallet”? Why would the latter be less energy-intensive than ordinary bank accounts? And if governments want to lower transaction fees and bank charges, why don’t they simply legislate to that end?
Ultimately, it’s unclear exactly what problems CBDCs are supposed to solve or even what their benefits would be. The potential risks of digital currencies, on the other hand, are all too clear. One issue is that of privacy. CBDCs would allow central banks to monitor, record and analyse all transactions in real time, accumulating sensitive payment and user data at an unprecedented scale. As a report published by the IMF notes, “accumulating so much sensitive data in one place increases security risk by making the payoff for would-be intruders much greater, amplifying the scope and scale of many of the security and privacy threats that already exist in today’s financial system”. Such threats could come from cybercriminals or foreign states — but they could also come from government authorities themselves.
CBDCs, after all, would give governments sweeping powers of surveillance and control, allowing them to instantly punish citizens and consumers for behaviours deemed undesirable, by fining them or even locking them out of their accounts at the flick of a switch — in much the same way as China already uses its “social credit” system to prevent people from buying plane and train tickets for so-called “behaviour crimes”.
This is especially true if we consider that the widespread use of CBDCs could accelerate the transition towards a “cashless society”, a pet project of the World Economic Forum, in which all transactions are monitored and recorded (even though the Bank of England and the Treasury deny that the digital pound would replace cash). Another related issue is that of social manipulation, insofar as CBDCs are “programmable”, meaning that the money can be restricted in the way in which it is used; when, where, by whom — and even whether it can be used at all. This would confer governments a huge degree of control over the spending and consumption habits of citizens — for example to enforce ostensibly “green”, “climate-friendly” and “healthy” choices, or to blacklist certain companies, products and even countries (forget that Russian caviar!).
Now, it’s important to note such tools could potentially be used for positive ends. Theoretically, they could be subject to democratic accountability and control, and could be used to track criminal syndicates and illicit activities such as money laundering, and to reduce corporate tax evasion, rather than to go after ordinary citizens. But the past few years have made it pretty clear that Western states are heavily swayed by the ruling factions of the capitalist class that make up the biopolitical lobby, the intelligence and security establishments, and globalist organisations such as the WEF — factions that have no qualms about using the repressive powers of the state to cement their rule, and discipline the masses.
In this context, it is perfectly normal for people to be concerned about handing over even more power to governments. The latter, let’s not forget, have already resorted to the kind of techno-authoritarian tactics that critics fear digital currencies will be associated with. Last February, for instance, Canada’s “progressive” government froze several bank accounts connected to truckers protesting the vaccine mandates in the country in order “to pressure protesters to leave the city’s streets”. Similarly, throughout the pandemic, Covid passports were used in several countries to deny millions of people access to a whole range of public spaces and services on the basis of their unvaccinated status.
It’s easy to see why many link the plans for CBDCs to the push towards the normalisation of biometrics-based digital IDs, which aim to make the enjoyment of basic human rights, such as the right to freedom of movement, conditional upon the positive scanning of digital passes. It’s tempting, of course, to dismiss such concerns as the product of over-imaginative minds that have watched one episode too many of Black Mirror — if only such policies hadn’t been implemented already.
Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.
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SubscribeWith the truckers protest it became clear that in Canada, freezing bank accounts is both legal and government policy if the Prime Minister considers it desirable.
This is the least of the issues really – the CBDC’s have 1984 as their instruction manual – and it is amazingly more sinister than freezing accounts – they can do that now – there is a darkness to it – you have to go to Revelations 13:16 to begin to grasp how Biblically evil CBDC’s will be in All phases of humanity. But the thing is it Completely re-defines Money – this is financially an entirely new paradigm.
This writer knows little of this topic and does not explain the thing well, or correctly – but another day I will respond as this will be the topic growing like a snowball….and they say – the implant the size of a grain of rice in your hand will soon be your wallet…once the CBDC is here…Direct WEF stuff
P.S. Rev, KJV, 13:16 (section 16…..covid vax, but CBDC 100%) Yuval Harari stuff….You saw the Grammies, haha
‘‘11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
This is the least of the issues really – the CBDC’s have 1984 as their instruction manual – and it is amazingly more sinister than freezing accounts – they can do that now – there is a darkness to it – you have to go to Revelations 13:16 to begin to grasp how Biblically evil CBDC’s will be in All phases of humanity. But the thing is it Completely re-defines Money – this is financially an entirely new paradigm.
This writer knows little of this topic and does not explain the thing well, or correctly – but another day I will respond as this will be the topic growing like a snowball….and they say – the implant the size of a grain of rice in your hand will soon be your wallet…once the CBDC is here…Direct WEF stuff
P.S. Rev, KJV, 13:16 (section 16…..covid vax, but CBDC 100%) Yuval Harari stuff….You saw the Grammies, haha
‘‘11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
With the truckers protest it became clear that in Canada, freezing bank accounts is both legal and government policy if the Prime Minister considers it desirable.
The sad thing is that most people will think this is just fine. The majority of Canadians supported the crackdown on convoy protesters. I think the modern western democracy is going to be extinguished in favour of tyranny without its citizens caring or even noticing.
That tends to happen in an Idiocracy.
That tends to happen in an Idiocracy.
The sad thing is that most people will think this is just fine. The majority of Canadians supported the crackdown on convoy protesters. I think the modern western democracy is going to be extinguished in favour of tyranny without its citizens caring or even noticing.
Privacy is rarely valued before it’s too late.
Privacy is rarely valued before it’s too late.
The control of money is an obsession, that if you just knew who had what money and who they paid you can prevent all crime and money laundering. You can stop people spending money on ‘bad’ things. And since all money can be tracked and traced, someone can take a cut off every transaction (Of course, this happens when paying by card already, but it’s banks that take the cut, not government, and banks who say who you can and can’t pay).
While it gives governments huge control over the purchases of regular people, would it really stop anything? Unlikely. By value, most money laundering is done by seriously wealthy individuals and companies with billions available to spend on tax accountants, hidden banking arrangements, front companies, transfer pricing and off-the-books transactions, and bribes and threats. Give someone a Rolex, or a piece of fine art, or a holiday home, or an academic grant, or access to a plane or a yacht, or a sure-thing stock tip. Payment doesn’t have to be made in coin. Major banks took oligarch money and turned a blind eye as to where that money came from, and where it went.
The same thing happens down the economy too. Supposedly the Rouble in the USSR priced everything, but in practice parallel currencies like dollars, cigarettes, whisky, vodka, and black-market trades kept a shadow economy running. Valuations get manipulated to hide real prices from the state and tax office. Work is traded without paper, and without tax. Money is just a token of exchange. If that token is debased, people switch to another one that better retains value and anonymity.
In Soviet Russia there was a large production economy locally making things and growing food that was quite accessible to very many ordinary people, even if the quality and quantity of the produce was low. Despite an apparent high degree of centralisation, the limits of bureaucratic oversight permitted lots of “leakage” from the official production economy and this leakage fed the black market economy.
In the West we no longer produce or grow most of the staples we rely on. Instead we can only access most goods and food stuffs via multinational companies who have very secure control of inventory. Local manager corruption and petty theft is never going to be able to transfer much of these staples into the black economy.
CBDC is only one half of the vice we will find ourselves in. The other half of the vice is the dependency on a small number of multinational companies to deliver to us from far away the many things we need to survive. CBDC usage will be impossible to avoid for a very large proportion of our consumption.
Capitalism has proven to be far more effective than state socialism at delivering everything. Ironically, capitalism will also be better at delivering state socialism too…
The problem with non-currency forms of exchange is they are largely proximity-based and essential tribal oriented because a much higher level of trust has to be involved in transactions. It slows the economy down and makes it much less efficient. Costs of everything go up.
In Soviet Russia there was a large production economy locally making things and growing food that was quite accessible to very many ordinary people, even if the quality and quantity of the produce was low. Despite an apparent high degree of centralisation, the limits of bureaucratic oversight permitted lots of “leakage” from the official production economy and this leakage fed the black market economy.
In the West we no longer produce or grow most of the staples we rely on. Instead we can only access most goods and food stuffs via multinational companies who have very secure control of inventory. Local manager corruption and petty theft is never going to be able to transfer much of these staples into the black economy.
CBDC is only one half of the vice we will find ourselves in. The other half of the vice is the dependency on a small number of multinational companies to deliver to us from far away the many things we need to survive. CBDC usage will be impossible to avoid for a very large proportion of our consumption.
Capitalism has proven to be far more effective than state socialism at delivering everything. Ironically, capitalism will also be better at delivering state socialism too…
The problem with non-currency forms of exchange is they are largely proximity-based and essential tribal oriented because a much higher level of trust has to be involved in transactions. It slows the economy down and makes it much less efficient. Costs of everything go up.
The control of money is an obsession, that if you just knew who had what money and who they paid you can prevent all crime and money laundering. You can stop people spending money on ‘bad’ things. And since all money can be tracked and traced, someone can take a cut off every transaction (Of course, this happens when paying by card already, but it’s banks that take the cut, not government, and banks who say who you can and can’t pay).
While it gives governments huge control over the purchases of regular people, would it really stop anything? Unlikely. By value, most money laundering is done by seriously wealthy individuals and companies with billions available to spend on tax accountants, hidden banking arrangements, front companies, transfer pricing and off-the-books transactions, and bribes and threats. Give someone a Rolex, or a piece of fine art, or a holiday home, or an academic grant, or access to a plane or a yacht, or a sure-thing stock tip. Payment doesn’t have to be made in coin. Major banks took oligarch money and turned a blind eye as to where that money came from, and where it went.
The same thing happens down the economy too. Supposedly the Rouble in the USSR priced everything, but in practice parallel currencies like dollars, cigarettes, whisky, vodka, and black-market trades kept a shadow economy running. Valuations get manipulated to hide real prices from the state and tax office. Work is traded without paper, and without tax. Money is just a token of exchange. If that token is debased, people switch to another one that better retains value and anonymity.
Nothing and everything is wrong with the statement “We tend to assume that banks collect deposits from savers and lend them to borrowers. But that is not how today’s system works. In reality, when a bank makes a new loan, it simply taps some numbers into a computer and “creates” brand new money, which it then deposits into the borrower’s account. The bank’s pre-existing deposits are not even touched; the money is effectively created out of thin air.”
Money is not a thing, it is a promise. When you deposit money with a bank the bank promises to pay it back. When you borrow from a bank you promise to pay it back. A loan starts as describe – the creation of a loan and a matching deposit – but the moment you spend the loan on something the bank has to pay that third party and it does so with deposits from other third parties. The whole purpose of banking is to allow people to delay spending money they have received and to advance the spending of money they expect to receive. Central banks exercise indirect control by adjusting interest rates to encourage or discourage and by requiring banks to invest a proportion of deposits in reserve assets. Your savings with a bank are safe only if everyone trusts the bank and do not all try to get their money back at the same time. That trust depends upon the bank lending to people they have carefully assessed can repay their loans. It may be possible for depositors to be anonymous but it depends on banks knowing a lot about their borrowers.
My understanding was that fractional reserve banking enabled the increase of the money supply – how is that possible if loans are fully funded by deposits?
“Money supply” is an unhelpful term as it implies money is something tangible. Money is a promise and to every promise there are two parties – the person making it and the person receiving it. A borrower promises to repay a bank and a bank promises to repay a depositor. Reserve requirements for banks limit the promises they can make as a multiple of the capital they have. If you look at a bank’s balance sheet their capital plus deposits taken equal loans made plus reserve assets plus deposits made with other banks for liquidity.
“Money supply” is an unhelpful term as it implies money is something tangible. Money is a promise and to every promise there are two parties – the person making it and the person receiving it. A borrower promises to repay a bank and a bank promises to repay a depositor. Reserve requirements for banks limit the promises they can make as a multiple of the capital they have. If you look at a bank’s balance sheet their capital plus deposits taken equal loans made plus reserve assets plus deposits made with other banks for liquidity.
My understanding was that fractional reserve banking enabled the increase of the money supply – how is that possible if loans are fully funded by deposits?
Nothing and everything is wrong with the statement “We tend to assume that banks collect deposits from savers and lend them to borrowers. But that is not how today’s system works. In reality, when a bank makes a new loan, it simply taps some numbers into a computer and “creates” brand new money, which it then deposits into the borrower’s account. The bank’s pre-existing deposits are not even touched; the money is effectively created out of thin air.”
Money is not a thing, it is a promise. When you deposit money with a bank the bank promises to pay it back. When you borrow from a bank you promise to pay it back. A loan starts as describe – the creation of a loan and a matching deposit – but the moment you spend the loan on something the bank has to pay that third party and it does so with deposits from other third parties. The whole purpose of banking is to allow people to delay spending money they have received and to advance the spending of money they expect to receive. Central banks exercise indirect control by adjusting interest rates to encourage or discourage and by requiring banks to invest a proportion of deposits in reserve assets. Your savings with a bank are safe only if everyone trusts the bank and do not all try to get their money back at the same time. That trust depends upon the bank lending to people they have carefully assessed can repay their loans. It may be possible for depositors to be anonymous but it depends on banks knowing a lot about their borrowers.
“Regardless of what one thinks of cryptos (personally I’m no fan), this explanation makes little sense. People invest in Bitcoin and similar blockchain-based cryptocurrencies”. Oh dear, I suggest the author educates himself on Bitcoin so he will learn not to conflate it with “cryptocurrencies”. Bitcoin is immutable, of fixed supply, and has no CEO. Think about it.
“Regardless of what one thinks of cryptos (personally I’m no fan), this explanation makes little sense. People invest in Bitcoin and similar blockchain-based cryptocurrencies”. Oh dear, I suggest the author educates himself on Bitcoin so he will learn not to conflate it with “cryptocurrencies”. Bitcoin is immutable, of fixed supply, and has no CEO. Think about it.
Ownership of crypto currencies rely upon a “blockchain”, a very cumbersome ledger system distributed across a number of computers who each participate voluntarily, promising to follow an agreed protocol. You have to trust that community to keep their computers turned on and processing changes to the ledger. Ordinary investors have little choice but to go through brokers to buy and sell a crypto currency on their behalf. You have to trust the broker. In theory you can hold your own token, written on a piece of paper or on a memory stick, but you have to keep it safe. If someone else has a copy they can spend it and if you lose it there is no way to recover it. And of course the ordinary investor has no way of knowing whether the token he has been given has already been copied to someone else or is even a valid token.
There are two very different types of crypto currencies – token and stable. The token eg Bitcoin, is a number calculated according to a formula by a “miner” that is then incorporated into the blockchain. What you pay for it goes to the seller not to any sort of fund or investment so if you want to sell it you have to hope there is a buyer who believes he will find a buyer, who believes he will find a buyer who…..
Stable, eg Tether, in principle, has a fixed value and what you pay for it goes into a fund where it is invested in financial assets. It requires trust in the promoter doing what they say they will because there is very little evidence available to you as an investor and no regulator.
Last year BDO reported Tether held assets of $68 billion and a spokesman said they had 1000 clients and the minimum you could deposit was $100,000. The promoters keep any interest earned.
A central Bank crypto currency is an oxymoron.
And since blockchain algorithms are essential verification by majority vote of blockchain participating ledger calculation servers (miners), you have a situation where if the number of voters drops too much fraud becomes feasible. I’ve read theories that governments (many) are working assiduously now to get blockchain servers on line – operating legitimately – so that they might be in a position to exploit this “feature” at some point in the future.
And since blockchain algorithms are essential verification by majority vote of blockchain participating ledger calculation servers (miners), you have a situation where if the number of voters drops too much fraud becomes feasible. I’ve read theories that governments (many) are working assiduously now to get blockchain servers on line – operating legitimately – so that they might be in a position to exploit this “feature” at some point in the future.
Ownership of crypto currencies rely upon a “blockchain”, a very cumbersome ledger system distributed across a number of computers who each participate voluntarily, promising to follow an agreed protocol. You have to trust that community to keep their computers turned on and processing changes to the ledger. Ordinary investors have little choice but to go through brokers to buy and sell a crypto currency on their behalf. You have to trust the broker. In theory you can hold your own token, written on a piece of paper or on a memory stick, but you have to keep it safe. If someone else has a copy they can spend it and if you lose it there is no way to recover it. And of course the ordinary investor has no way of knowing whether the token he has been given has already been copied to someone else or is even a valid token.
There are two very different types of crypto currencies – token and stable. The token eg Bitcoin, is a number calculated according to a formula by a “miner” that is then incorporated into the blockchain. What you pay for it goes to the seller not to any sort of fund or investment so if you want to sell it you have to hope there is a buyer who believes he will find a buyer, who believes he will find a buyer who…..
Stable, eg Tether, in principle, has a fixed value and what you pay for it goes into a fund where it is invested in financial assets. It requires trust in the promoter doing what they say they will because there is very little evidence available to you as an investor and no regulator.
Last year BDO reported Tether held assets of $68 billion and a spokesman said they had 1000 clients and the minimum you could deposit was $100,000. The promoters keep any interest earned.
A central Bank crypto currency is an oxymoron.
“most of the digital money held in our bank accounts is actually created by commercial banks”
Either i) I’m very confused (quite possible), ii) the author is wrong (ditto), or ii) this is very poorly worded, perhaps in an attempt to simplify away details (my bet as to the explanation).
Banks do not get to ‘create money’. They can’t set up an internal account, and just set the balance to 1,000,000. What they can (and do) do is borrow the money (perhaps indirectly) from a central bank – which can just ‘create money’ like that.
Yes, in a sense the bank is ‘creating money’ – but they’ve farmed the job of so doing out to the central bank.
Huh: someone gave me a down-vote, but I have absolutely no idea what I said here that was in any way controversial. I wish they’d had the grace to write a short note explaining what the problem is; if there’s something I have misunderstood, I would like to know. I know that sometimes I will send one, but usually in such cases someone else will have posted a reply that I agree with, so I don’t really need to add an explanation.
There’s something that would actually be a useful improvement to the UI here; one isn’t allowed to register a down-vote if one hasn’t posted a reply.
If banks could lend 100% of their deposits, there could be a infinite spiral of loan creation, because most people put the money they get back in the banks. I think there is a legal minimum loan to deposit ration/bank lending ratio of roughly 85% that keeps things sane.
Huh: someone gave me a down-vote, but I have absolutely no idea what I said here that was in any way controversial. I wish they’d had the grace to write a short note explaining what the problem is; if there’s something I have misunderstood, I would like to know. I know that sometimes I will send one, but usually in such cases someone else will have posted a reply that I agree with, so I don’t really need to add an explanation.
There’s something that would actually be a useful improvement to the UI here; one isn’t allowed to register a down-vote if one hasn’t posted a reply.
If banks could lend 100% of their deposits, there could be a infinite spiral of loan creation, because most people put the money they get back in the banks. I think there is a legal minimum loan to deposit ration/bank lending ratio of roughly 85% that keeps things sane.
“most of the digital money held in our bank accounts is actually created by commercial banks”
Either i) I’m very confused (quite possible), ii) the author is wrong (ditto), or ii) this is very poorly worded, perhaps in an attempt to simplify away details (my bet as to the explanation).
Banks do not get to ‘create money’. They can’t set up an internal account, and just set the balance to 1,000,000. What they can (and do) do is borrow the money (perhaps indirectly) from a central bank – which can just ‘create money’ like that.
Yes, in a sense the bank is ‘creating money’ – but they’ve farmed the job of so doing out to the central bank.
The only purpose of any new currency should be to end poverty, because nothing else matters.
Money is just a counter (indirectly) for stuff. You can play around with the counter system all you want, but it won’t create more stuff. Poverty is a lack of stuff.
Insufficient supply or too much demand. I fear Govts have a plan for the latter.
Insufficient supply or too much demand. I fear Govts have a plan for the latter.
Know any civilizations in the history of this world who have ended poverty? No? Also, poverty is a relative term. Poverty in this country (A person can actually get up to $70,000 worth of FEDERAL government benefits – and more, depending on the state) is vastly different than, say, a sub-Saharan country – where you can actually starve to death..
Poverty is a relative term, yes. Your $70k figure doesn’t factor-in what it COSTS to live in the US. Literal starvation is not likely because food is often available in bins on the street. Where I saw US citizens scavenging for it in all the cities I visited.
And the really curious things is I bet everyone of those scavengers had a cellphone.
That’s because they spent all their money on meth.
And the really curious things is I bet everyone of those scavengers had a cellphone.
That’s because they spent all their money on meth.
Poverty is a relative term, yes. Your $70k figure doesn’t factor-in what it COSTS to live in the US. Literal starvation is not likely because food is often available in bins on the street. Where I saw US citizens scavenging for it in all the cities I visited.
Ah jeezus.
Money is just a counter (indirectly) for stuff. You can play around with the counter system all you want, but it won’t create more stuff. Poverty is a lack of stuff.
Know any civilizations in the history of this world who have ended poverty? No? Also, poverty is a relative term. Poverty in this country (A person can actually get up to $70,000 worth of FEDERAL government benefits – and more, depending on the state) is vastly different than, say, a sub-Saharan country – where you can actually starve to death..
Ah jeezus.
The only purpose of any new currency should be to end poverty, because nothing else matters.