Bigworld, The current US dollar is almost completely digital already, and most dollars are merely digital entries on computers, with no physical existence as notes / coins, much less with any backing in gold/ silver, etc. So we already have the digital aspects of a CBDC. With the full CBDC, the difference is that all financial transactions go through the central bank itself, and they can 'switch off' any individual's CBDCs, and thus have complete control over the public's behavior. Get out of line and they just switch off your money. That's the case in China right now with their CBDC -- if someone opposes the govt in any way, they just limit or 'switch off' their use of money. Over there they start off by limiting your ability to travel beyond a certain radius of miles, limit what you can spend, etc, and ratchet up the 'punishment' until your behavior complies to whatever the govt wants. It's total behavioral control, so it's no surprise that over 100 countries are developing their own CBDC for domestic use.
The difference with the US dollar is that it's not only our domestic currency within the US, but is also the world's main reserve currency, and is the basis for US world dominance, and the US' 'exorbitant privilege' and power. Having a US dollar CBDC would work fine for domestic use within the US, but isn't going to work as the world's reserve currency role, especially with the new gold-linked BRICS currency available as an alternative. So presumably the US finance schemers will need a dual currency system -- one currency for domestic use (CBDC), and another for global use as the world's reserve currency. We had that to some extent under Bretton Woods (1944-71), where the dollar was backed by gold internationally, but was unbacked / fiat within the US domestically.
This may be what the US Fedsters have in mind again -- a 2 tiered system for the dollar. But the international side isn't going to work. What foreign central bank will continue keeping their reserves in unbacked / fiat dollars when they could instead use the BRICS currency that is backed by gold? These central banks could also just use gold itself, which is happening right now -- foreign central banks are ditching their dollar reserves in favor of gold bullion, and later can move into the BRICS gold-linked currency when it's available.
This is a disaster for the US, so what is the plan to stop it? Catherine Fitts describes the global dollar reserve system as a 'Banking / War' paradigm --> the US creates the money, and forces the world to use it via the US military. When a country tries to use something other than US dollars, that country is destabilized, economic sanctions are placed, the leader removed, and if necessary the US military goes in. But this is no longer working, and countries are leaving the US orbit in droves, in favor of the mega rival China-Russia-BRICS.
So what is the plan to turn this around, or have the finance ghouls already given up on the US? Catherine Fitts describes how in the late 1990's, the finance oligarchy essentially gave up on the US, and proceeded to remove / steal over $20 trillion from the US Treasury between 1998 and 2015 (mostly via the Pentagon). She has the original govt data to prove it.
So the decision to bail on the US apparently goes back over 25 years ago, but what is the status of that process now? Outfits like Blackrock came to dominate, and are used as vehicles for asset stripping. But what is the current plan, and how does the CBDC fit into it, beyond the obvious domestic aspects. CBDC could be very useful as a domestic 'capital control' to limit money from leaving the US during a dollar crisis, but it isn't going to help internationally, and could actually trigger the loss of confidence in the dollar system that they (US) are trying to avoid.
Anyway, lots of questions, but as investors we need to have some idea what's coming so we can get out of the way, and not get run over by coming events. Other than moving out of the country, all I can figure is to gradually decrease paper investments, and increase hard asset type investments. I'm figuring we have a 3-5 year window before the debt bomb really takes hold, but just a guess. Fwiw, my US Treasury ladder only goes out to July 2028, since bonds should be most vulnerable in a dollar crisis. Will the return of Trump slow or accelerate the US debt bomb, global de-dollarization, etc? Lot of unknowns.
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