Is this How they Force a CBDC?

Two Banks in Australia Have Stopped Cash Withdrawals. Are more to Come?

This morning I had a long conversation with my older daughter regarding her future plans. The almost 17 year old wants to finish out her senior year in her old high school in Michigan, but she is not sure what she wants to do after that. She mentioned her interest in Art, Computer Science and Psychology. She asked me if I thought college was worth it.

“I suppose it depends on what you want to do. It was a great learning experience for me, but unfortunately I didn’t learn the most important lesson, which is that getting ahead was all about who you meet there and who you know.” I have been suggesting that she send applications to Universities in Europe as she certainly has the grades for it. She says she is looking into Germany.

I lamented to her how many jobs in disparate industries are going to get wiped out by AI. “I don’t know if you knew this, but the actors and writers in Hollywood are both on strike. Now one of their complaints is that apparently they are offering to pay some actors $130 for one day to scan their image and retain all of the rights to it to use in any film in the future as they see fit. Now thinking of my actress friend, so she used to get paid like $130 per day or so to just be in the background of some production. Now they’re paying $130 one time and done. Do you see the problem there?”

“Definitely.”

“This is huge. It’s going to roil across financial services, writing and editing, visual and performance arts and just about anything that involves the content seen on some screen. So what do all of those people do then? They start asking the government for money, that’s what.” I think the CBDC rollout will coincide with the Universal Basic Income. It makes the most sense.

“So you have to ask yourself what jobs are going to be left which aren’t reserved for a very small group of standout performers. If you were a boy who liked working with your hands, for instance, I would absolutely not tell you to go to college. I would tell you to be an apprentice in a trade. Become a plumber, or car mechanic, or HVAC repairman, or an electrican.”

“Mom I have no interest in working with my hands like that. And Eliza has more muscles than I do.” My daughters are staying together in Michigan right now.

“I know I’m just saying if you were a different person. It’s going to be a long time, if ever, before the AI really catches up to do plumbing.” It’s unfortunate that my daughter has no interest in manly work.

We stayed on the phone for over two hours where I tried to think of what industries wouldn’t be affected. For the time being compliance officers in the bureaucracy are still safe with their paychecks. This would include police and others in the criminal justice system, immigration officers, hospital administrators, public health officials, tax authorities, TSA agents, and anyone else in charge. These seem like jobs that generally enforce the elite’s interests against the rest of the human population.

Healthcare already sold its soul and its emplyees in mainstream medicine will continue to see overcrowded hospitals as a result of the medical conditions caused by their prior interventions. They murdered the world to make a profit and are now trying to sell the cure. Jasmine mentioned that she had looked into the Peace Corps but decided it wasn’t a good idea when she saw the very long list of required vaccines to join. I mentioned the 22 vaccines listed on the US Embassy website as ostensibly required for my husband’s visa to the USA. I was warned against the military by my very military family when I was younger and now I assume it is exponentially worse. Apparently some military recruiters in Ukraine are getting filthy rich abducting young men off the streets to become canon fodder. The money has to be inflated at all costs.

The AI has now figured out how to translate cuniform to English in seconds. How many translation jobs will be lost to AI? Unless it needs an all important compliance stamp that job is no longer protected.

“Actually Jasmine, if they figure out some certifications that bypass the university system all together, even that cash cow is going to be gone.” I told her that I’ve been looking into remote jobs possibly as a psychotherapist of some sort, but all either required a Master’s degree or experience or both. “One did have a certification program you could take.”

“Really? I’ll look into it.”

Nigeria was the first country to introduce a Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC, in September of 2021. It was an abject failure as the eNaira was only adopted by 3% of the population at its height. Monthly transactions on the service fell from a high of about 1 to to 1/10th of one transaction per month among registered users of the system. So even those who dowloaded it weren’t using it for anything.

The IMF stressed the very high percentage of the population engaged in the informal economy. A large percentage of Nigerians also have no access to either electricity or cell phones. In places where the government gives little to nothing for living expenses a CBDC should be difficult to roll out.

But what about in places where a large population is dependant on government assistance? If the CBDC was rolled out as a condition to access your social security, or disability check, or welfare or veteran’s benefits, could you really live without it? What if it was tied to the elimination of cash? The eNaira use did spike when they stopped allowing cash to be withdrawn. Here in Phuket I’ve noticed the elimination of five different ATMs close to our bungalow.

I’m sure the IMF will give it a fancy new name and rebrand it as something else. But the principle remains the same: a dragent tightening around us.

Perhaps I should tell Jasmine to go into farming…

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