Digital US Dollars

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has come out in favor of developing a digital US dollar.  I am not in favor of it.  The cool thing about cryptocurrency is it is programmable.  I don’t want my fiat-backed US currency to be programmable.  I am a huge fan of cryptos that enable innovation, like Helium ($HNT.X) or Filecoin.  The dollar is already sort of digital already.

There are so many things wrong with this digitization idea as it pertains to freedom and liberty I don’t know where to begin.

Imagine if you went to your doctor and were marked as obese.  Further, imagine socialized medicine which the Democrats desperately want to institute in the US.  Suppose you went to the store to buy some food and your digital dollars were turned off for food that wasn’t approved for you by the government.

Yes, it can happen and anyone that was paying attention during the last fifteen months ought to realize it.

Suppose you wanted to make an investment.  But, suppose the government didn’t want you to invest in that sort of thing.  Maybe it’s an oil well or something like that but it could be anything.  The government could “turn off” those dollars when it came to that sort of investment.

Maybe the government thinks you have enough money and shouldn’t be able to invest.  Maybe the government decides politically you aren’t aligned with it and you shouldn’t be able to invest but lets cronies who are politically aligned invest.

You should be able to dream up some ideas where the government having control of the currency you earned and it being electronic so they can turn it on or off will do great harm to you and society.  It’s one of the reasons China is actively developing a digital yuan.  If you can’t think of anything, read George Orwell’s 1984, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  Then, start imagining.  Remember, they are not “how to” manuals.

Certainly, there are efficiencies that can be gained in back offices, money transfer and other areas of our financial system through the use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.  However, sometimes we have to look at the opportunity costs of those frictions as it relates to freedom and liberty.  We may have to tolerate some friction in order to preserve our liberty.

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