You miss another parallel between the move to centralised printers in university offices and digital pounds, the ability to track each occurrence, easily find deviant behaviour and nudge and punish individuals on arbitrary rules for said deviant behaviour. We have individual weekly print quotas (the limit of which is not made known to us). If we exceed this mystery number we get a shitty email from the faculty manager (the usual petty bureaucrat on x4 an academic salary) asking us why we've exceeded our carbon footprint for the week and asking us to reconsider our printing outputs in the future.
"We have never been in the position in which we now find ourselves, where centralised control over all transactions taking place in the economy is so tantalisingly within reach of central banks;"
This is wrong. You are confusing transactions denominated in pounds with the means of payment. Most of the transactions taking place in the economy, more than 90% of them, are not done with cash and therefore have nothing to do with the central bank. If I pay you £5 by bank transfer, by debit card, by credit card or by cheque, that is not a transaction within the reach of a central bank. A digital pound would have to displace all money held in bank accounts, credit cards and physical cash (there are no proposals to withdraw that if a CBDC is introduced) for all transactions to go anywhere near the central bank, and even then it is debatable what "control" the bank would have.
Spot on, as usual. Those at the BoE who write this guff have enough Economics to understand Gresham’s Law: good money will drive out bad. Consequently, they want Bitcoin etc off the pitch or else it will drive out the junk CBDC they will roll out. We only use the ever-devaluing - because of government fiscal incontinence - Pound because we have no choice.
Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another. In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved. It certainly does not justify the presumption of any group of people to claim the right to determine what people ought to think or believe.”
― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”
― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
The Road to Serfdom awaits us I believe, unless the protests spreading across Europe, including Eire, finally cause our movers and shakers to take notice and stop digging in.
"National conversation"makes my Trustometer go into the red zone- where it has been,with a few exceptions-since 2020.
Nailed it David. All the lies laid out clearly. I would continue to use cash as long as possible as this is putting a stick in their wheel. Plus, I truly think it will be a lot harder than they would like it to be to introduce. No doubt though they will keep trying. The only hedge I would add to your list is having a little bitcoin too. It may not work out but there is no doubt major firms and governments are accumulating this now and if it goes belly up you never know.
Why doesn’t the BoE / Government just ban crypto? It is the pesky newcomer that is giving them a headache. They could easily concoct a story around ransomware, the dark web, UK cracking down on online crime, blah blah. Safety, as ever, being the alibi of tyrants. The public is utterly apathetic. It would relieve the pressure to “do something digital” which they and everyone else knows they will cock-up.
Excellent article Sir.
You miss another parallel between the move to centralised printers in university offices and digital pounds, the ability to track each occurrence, easily find deviant behaviour and nudge and punish individuals on arbitrary rules for said deviant behaviour. We have individual weekly print quotas (the limit of which is not made known to us). If we exceed this mystery number we get a shitty email from the faculty manager (the usual petty bureaucrat on x4 an academic salary) asking us why we've exceeded our carbon footprint for the week and asking us to reconsider our printing outputs in the future.
McG, you really MUST learn to trust the Bank! See .....
https://unherd.com/2024/02/the-bank-of-england-gambled-with-your-money-and-lost/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3
"We have never been in the position in which we now find ourselves, where centralised control over all transactions taking place in the economy is so tantalisingly within reach of central banks;"
This is wrong. You are confusing transactions denominated in pounds with the means of payment. Most of the transactions taking place in the economy, more than 90% of them, are not done with cash and therefore have nothing to do with the central bank. If I pay you £5 by bank transfer, by debit card, by credit card or by cheque, that is not a transaction within the reach of a central bank. A digital pound would have to displace all money held in bank accounts, credit cards and physical cash (there are no proposals to withdraw that if a CBDC is introduced) for all transactions to go anywhere near the central bank, and even then it is debatable what "control" the bank would have.
Spot on, as usual. Those at the BoE who write this guff have enough Economics to understand Gresham’s Law: good money will drive out bad. Consequently, they want Bitcoin etc off the pitch or else it will drive out the junk CBDC they will roll out. We only use the ever-devaluing - because of government fiscal incontinence - Pound because we have no choice.
Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another. In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved. It certainly does not justify the presumption of any group of people to claim the right to determine what people ought to think or believe.”
― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”
― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
The Road to Serfdom awaits us I believe, unless the protests spreading across Europe, including Eire, finally cause our movers and shakers to take notice and stop digging in.
"National conversation"makes my Trustometer go into the red zone- where it has been,with a few exceptions-since 2020.
Nailed it David. All the lies laid out clearly. I would continue to use cash as long as possible as this is putting a stick in their wheel. Plus, I truly think it will be a lot harder than they would like it to be to introduce. No doubt though they will keep trying. The only hedge I would add to your list is having a little bitcoin too. It may not work out but there is no doubt major firms and governments are accumulating this now and if it goes belly up you never know.
Why doesn’t the BoE / Government just ban crypto? It is the pesky newcomer that is giving them a headache. They could easily concoct a story around ransomware, the dark web, UK cracking down on online crime, blah blah. Safety, as ever, being the alibi of tyrants. The public is utterly apathetic. It would relieve the pressure to “do something digital” which they and everyone else knows they will cock-up.