Crisis Leads to CBDCs

Life is never boring but we are truly living in extraordinary times.

Almost everything we have 'known' has been turned on its head and that means we all have to adjust to the new world order.

It provides an opportunity for government to implement the adage of never letting a good crisis go to waste.

Who would have thought a Labor government would be announcing a nuclear waste dump for Australia after decades of opposition? It's in response to the move to nuclear submarines, which in itself is a big move for the country.

I hope both of these open up politicians minds to the potential of a complete nuclear industry for this country. It seems silly to allow nuclear power plants in submarines but not on land to power our homes and industry.

It's been fascinating to see some Labor luminaries like Penny Wong, who has campaigned against a nuclear industry and waste repository to suddenly embrace them.

The conviction of a lifetime, abandoned in a moment. That seems to be the state of modern politics.

We're also seeing our existing financial system turned on its ear.

The recent US bank collapses won't be the last.

Many smaller banks believed the low interest rates are here forever mantra and bought low yielding bonds with depositors money. In essence they would pay savers 0.1% while investing your money in bonds yielding 1.5%.

They pocketed the difference.

However, when rates rose depositors saw they could buy bonds for themselves, increasing their yield to around 5%. Not surprisingly they sought to withdraw their money from the bank.

This forced the banks to sell bonds at a loss, thereby destroying their balance sheet.

It's the product of artificially low interest rates, shocking risk management and poor banking administration.

Now, the US Federal government has effectively guaranteed all bank depositors money in the event of a bank collapse. This sounds like a win for consumers but I fear it masks a bigger agenda.

If the US government is guaranteeing all bank deposits, what's the point of having banks for savings in the first place?

At some point, the pitch will come from government that the way to avoid these types of issues in the future will be with a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

I suspect that most people will mindlessly go along with this proposal which is the ultimate form of government control.

A CBDC will be programmable and every movement of money will be trackable.

That means a government could limit your spending or even link your funds to a social credit score. It's real big brother stuff and any move in this direction needs to be resisted at all costs.

Whether protests will be successful isn't known. We've learned that government can do almost anything they want to and can also convince the citizenry that good is bad or night it day.

Given most financial transactions are electronic in nature already, they'll sell this as a minor change.

It won't be.

Instead, it will be the measure that delivers government absolute power over your life.