CBDC Currency: Creating Shortages With Full Shelves
Of all the areas that economics students need to master, counterfactual reasoning is near the top of the list. Counterfactual reasoning is outlining and comparing the differences and similarities between two alternatives. While everyone uses counterfactual reasoning, such as choosing what to have for lunch, economists look at deeper and more remote consequences. A typical example that students are asked to examine is the effects of price controls — what happens when a price ceiling is imposed below the equilibrium price versus what happens in a free market? The most obvious answer is that shortages develop. People quickly buy as many items as possible while suppliers hesitate to restock.
Shortages are politically unpopular. A cause of permanent shortages is the price ceiling. Price ceilings are often imposed on markets because something even more unpopular is occurring — rapid price inflation. As prices jump up, people want to blame someone for their misfortune. Easy scapegoats are the shopkeepers who are asking for ever-higher prices. Politicians looking to score some quick political points advocate for price ceilings as the solution.
There is a clear causal chain of events. Governments spend more than they tax. As a result, governments turn to money creation to cover the deficit. The new dollars are injected into the economy, which devalues the dollar and moves prices upward. Politicians present price ceilings as the cure to this crisis, resulting in shortages and eventually a political backlash. The politicians try to deflect the backlash and shift blame to anyone else.
But what if this could be avoided? No, I am not suggesting transforming politicians into responsible representatives who “live within their means.” That is clearly a myth. I mean, “what if the backlash could be avoided because no shortages develop?” Some might think that the only way to achieve this is by suspending the laws of economics. Not so. There is a potential solution that is nearly in our politicians’ grasp. The solution is called central bank digital currency.
Beyond the name, what is a CBDC, and is it much different from other digital currencies? Today, most of our currency is digital. Most people use cards or their phones (e-wallets) for most transactions. Only a small fraction (about 10%) of the total in circulation is physical ($2.2 billion in currency versus $20.8 billion in M2).
A major difference between CBDCs and today’s digital dollars is that CBDCs employ blockchain technology. Blockchain technology does for digital currency what the serial number does for the physical note. However, it also goes much further. Not only is each CBDC dollar identified, but its entire history of moving from one account to another is saved. Several other digital currencies, such as bitcoin, have the same tracking feature. The difference, however, is that the owners of the CBDC accounts are known by the central bank while the owners of the bitcoin accounts are anonymous to all. The central bank will know the history of each CBDC dollar and who owns which CBDC dollar at any moment because all the accounts will be centralized under its authority. Each person, nonprofit entity, corporation, etc., will be required to have an account at the central bank.
Blockchain technology used in this way gives the central bank access to the entire history of who owned each dollar, when it was exchanged, and with fairly good confidence, the reason for that transaction. In other words, under a CBDC system, the central bank will know when a particular CBDC dollar originated, see that it was transferred into this specific account owned by corporation X, know that it was transferred in the form of a salary to Mr. Y, and so on. While other blockchain-using cryptocurrencies work similarly, the difference is that the owners of the accounts and the reason for any transaction are unknown. Anonymous cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology as an open ledger that is more akin to everyone looking at the squares of a chessboard (different accounts) and seeing the movement of the pieces (transfers of funds) but not knowing who owns which square.
Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are decentralized, independent and anonymous. Bitcoin accounts can receive bitcoin from anyone at any time, but funds can only be “pushed” out of the account by the owner. No one else, not even the federal government, can “pull” bitcoin from an account. In contrast, the central bank will control access to the CBDC dollars. They will have the power to regulate the flow of funds transferred between accounts.
While this level of control and surveillance by the central bank is ominous, it is essentially taking place today. What the CBDC would do is streamline the ability to investigate anyone’s affairs into a single organization, the central bank. Any amount of friction between snooping authorities is a good thing for privacy advocates, but the reality is that even though these functions are spread across several agencies, the U.S. government can monitor transactions, freeze accounts, directly garnish wages and so forth.
The unique threat found in the CBDC, which gives it a more sinister character, is that it is programmable.
A programmable currency gives the creator tremendous power. Practically anything could be done with such power. Accounts could be frozen. Money could be subtracted from accounts. Transactions could be partially blocked or blocked in total. These accounts could be linked with other data, allowing algorithms to selectively manipulate purchases. It is these manipulations that give the central bank ultimate power.
For example, suppose that an economics professor’s health data shows that his body mass index is too high. The central bank’s algorithms may allow the purchase of fresh fruit but deny the purchase of an apple pie. Alternatively, the algorithm might look at the smog index for the city and thus limit the amount of gasoline purchased in that area for that week. Besides being able to micromanage everyone’s day-to-day transactions (which is already Orwellian), more powerful interventionist policies could be enacted.
Let us return to the earlier situation of politicians overspending. When the government covers a budget deficit through money creation, the money is injected into the economy at specific points. As the new money spreads through the economy, prices rise, but they do not rise simultaneously or uniformly. Some prices rise more than others. These economic distortions are called Cantillon effects. The rise in prices for many popular consumer goods will generate political backlash. Those in power will look for a way to deflect the blame and find a solution to show that they are “doing something.”
Obviously, the correct solution is to stop expanding the money supply, but since this choice would require fiscal discipline, the chances of this decision are remote. Throughout history, price controls have been repeatedly enacted to stop rising prices. Placing a price ceiling on certain items prevents the price from rising; however, it also creates unintended consequences. When the price is held below the equilibrium price, the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied, and shortages emerge. Shortages are also unpopular. Often, politicians try to shift the blame to greedy corporations, but with a CBDC, the game can be changed.
What if instead of allowing shortages to emerge, the amount of spending on particular items could be throttled down? Just as easily as preventing a person from buying an apple pie, the central bank could prevent transactions of specific items that are in short supply. During the initial months of the covid scare, people panicked and stocked up on toilet paper. The resulting shortage persisted due to a breakdown in the supply chain. What if instead of letting panic buying persist, the central bank had the power to step in and throttle down how much toilet paper a household could have purchased?
Those who advocate for the CBDC will claim that this power to selectively throttle demand would be highly beneficial for all society. Maybe in this singular instance of a toilet paper shortage, they might be right. However, we live in a dynamic world and not one-time happenings. The history of the Soviet Union showed that there were specific stores that were full while others were empty. The special stores were full because they restricted access to “the right people” and to those with hard currencies.
Similarly, the CBDC also restricts buyers. The restrictions might be as severe as only allowing party members in good standing to make purchases, or it might be a kinder, gentler repression such as limiting how much a household can buy per month (rationing). Despite the injection of new money into the system, the result is that prices will be held down. Price indexes will not record significant increases, and price inflation will be “solved.” And while the shelves will be full, very few people will be able to complete their desired purchases. Their purchases will be denied, and the consumers will be without recourse.
We will have shortages with full shelves. The politicians will be able to continue deficit spending and to create money to cover their profligacy. The buying public will be angry and frustrated but will not know where to focus their anger. No immediate solution will be recognizable because it requires thinking through several layers of economic theory. No election slogan will sum it up, not even “end the Fed.”
But wait, there’s more! As Ludwig von Mises demonstrates in “Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism” and “A Critique of Interventionism,” interventionism is not a stable solution. Mises presents the example of a milk market where a price ceiling is imposed. The price ceiling leads to a milk shortage. The politician asks why the farmer has reduced the amount he produces to which the farmer replies that he has cut production because his costs are too high. The politician “fixes” the farmer’s problem by placing a price ceiling on a major cost — animal feed. However, this price ceiling leads to a shortage of feed. When the feed producer is asked why he has reduced his output, he argues that he must because the price of fertilizer and pesticides are too high. The process repeats.
Each intervention produces undesirable secondary consequences. Instead of admitting an error and reversing the policy, these effects propel the politicians to enact new interventions to solve these new problems. Interventionism leads to the expansion of state power and control over different sectors of the economy. The enactment of a CBDC will, too, create unintended consequences. The effects of the various algorithms will spur more interventions until eventually the market is completely dominated by the government.
The best policy is not to start down this path. The best policy is to recognize that the so-called cure is worse than the disease. Improving our counterfactual reasoning skills are necessary to protect markets from governmental encroachment. Each citizen must become a student of economics and explain the alternate paths that are set before us. We mustn’t waste time because we do not have a moment to spare. The technology to implement a CBDC exists today.
MESSAGE TO DEEP STATE MINIONS: Don’t Follow Your Orders, Come Out With Your Hands Up & Join The Resistance
Joy Behar Says Trump Being Narcissistic, Unchristian By Telling RNC Crowd God Was Watching Him During Assassination Attempt
Vile “View” host Joy Behar told her audience Donald Trump was being “unchristian” when he informed Thursday night’s RNC crowd he believed God was watching after him when he was shot in the ear by would-be assassin Matthew Crooks on Saturday.
Joy Behar: “When something like this happens to you, like this assassination attempt, and you say something like ‘God was watching me,’ that is a very un-Christian thing to say because it’s very narcissistic.” pic.twitter.com/R4E7m8XISm
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 19, 2024
She began her bizarre rant by explaining she was raised a Catholic and considers herself “a Christian girl.”
“When something like this happens to you like this assassination attempt and you say something like ‘God was watching me,’ that is a very unchristian thing to say because it’s very narcissistic,” Behar said.
Continuing, “The View” host claimed Trump’s comment insinuated God wasn’t watching over Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the Trump rally shooting, or the people at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Behar went on, “It’s like, ‘Oh, God was watching me and not them.’ There’s something very disturbing about that.”
“God should have pulled the plug on that mic yesterday,” chimed in Behar’s co-host Ana Navarro.
Navarro also insinuated she wished the bullet had hit Trump in the mouth.
VILE: Ana Navarro says she wishes Trump was sh*t in the mouth. pic.twitter.com/Xyep60w5g0
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 19, 2024
Segments like this are why the daytime talk show is known as one of the biggest propaganda arm of the globalists.
Choose One: Law Enforcement At Trump Shooting Was Either Incompetent Or Complicit
Within minutes of the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, observers were asking how the assassin managed to gain a clear shot of Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show Grounds near Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, the question remains unanswered, but many allegations about the shooting have emerged. For example, multiple sources plausibly contend that both local police and the Secret Service had spotted the armed shooter—on a nearby roof with a rangefinder and a gun—several minutes before the shooting occurred. Law enforcement officers and agents chose to do nothing.
Videos of the event show bystanders vocally warning both police and federal agents of the shooter’s presence. Again, law enforcement did nothing. The New York Post reports that a “counter sniper team” staffed by local law enforcement were actually inside the building below the shooter himself. Again, law enforcement officials couldn’t be bothered with controlling access to this roof which offered an ideal position for a potential assassin.
Meanwhile, a variety of former snipers and those with anti-sniper training—i.e., former Navy SEALS and Green Berets—noted repeatedly in both social media and mainstream media outlets that it would be impossible for any competent law enforcement agents to so blatantly botch security in this way.
New information continues to flow in but virtually all of it forces us to one of two conclusions: the police officers and federal agents at the Butler rally were either (1) disastrously incompetent or (2) complicit in the assassination attempt.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the truth of the matter given how little information we have right now. Certainly, the Secret Service (USSS) will not be providing any honest assessment of the situation. Local police will close ranks to protect themselves and their jobs—as is standard practice. We can expect investigations to go on for years with law enforcement officials stonewalling Congress every step of the way. Moreover, FBI agents will likely be called into conduct much of the investigation, and we know how that will go. As Thomas Massie wrote a few hours after the shooting, the FBI is “The same bureau that investigated the Las Vegas shooting and the January 6th pipe bombs is now investigating the attempted assassination of Trump. …This is also the same bureau that raided Mar-a-Lago. … I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of this soon.”
Option 1: Law Enforcement Was Complicit in the Assassination Attempt
Local law enforcement—namely, the Pennsylvania State Police—and the USSS partnered up to screen the area for weapons and for potential areas from which an assassin might operate. Clearly, neither of these agencies performed these tasks properly. The Secret Service’s failure is especially damning given that the agency’s primary mission—apart from investigating counterfeiters—is to protect their assigned subjects from assassination.
So, was the USSS intentionally “forgetful” when it came to securing the area? Was the slowness of the USSS’s agents in confronting the shooter part of a conspiracy to “allow” the assassin access to Trump? At this point, one can only guess, but we do know there are many reasons to suspect the idea. After all, the Secret Service is your typical federal agency, and its members are your typical federal bureaucrats who do quite well for themselves under the status quo. They have every reason to oppose any political figure who is seen—rightly or wrongly—as one who threatens the current establishment in any way. After all, it became abundantly clear during the Trump years that FBI agents had no qualms about illegally spying on Trump. FBI agents also cooked up the narrative of “Russian collusion” in an effort to cripple the Trump administration.
It’s easy to see why federal agents would be opposed to a Trump presidency. Federal agents enjoy large salaries, high levels of prestige, and the promise of a long, cushy, well-funded retirement—all paid for by taxpayers. There’s good reason for USSS agents to actively oppose any candidate seen as a significant threat to the status quo. Moreover, federal agents handling presidential security are part of the Washington, DC culture. They are, to use modern parlance, “swamp creatures.”
Yet, one might question the “complicity” charge on the grounds that it would be exceptionally difficult to keep an assassination conspiracy quiet among any sizable number of law enforcement agents. That’s true enough, but in this case, it would only be necessary for those in positions of leadership to be part of the conspiracy.
The conspirators would only need to ensure complacency and a reluctance to speak up among the rank and file.
This is not hard to achieve. The conspirators—assuming they are in positions of leadership—could simply ensure that the event is understaffed or staffed with less-experienced agents who rely on more direction from above. Then, the conspirators need only issue orders to stand down at critical times, and to hem and haw long enough to allow “the plan” to play out.
Moreover, experience has shown that law enforcement officials are not ones to speak up against the powers that be. Federal agents in this case would be shielded from prosecution by a friendly Justice Department. Meanwhile, local police are largely bought and paid for by the Department of Homeland Security which funnels billions to state and municipal police departments.
We should not expert much at all in the way of whistleblowing or critical thinking from any state law enforcement personnel or from any lower-ranking USSS agents. Recent years have made it abundantly clear that state and local police are far more concerned with keeping their jobs and pensions than with opposing even the most blatantly immoral or unconstitutional assaults on the people.
After all, how many police officers resigned in protest during the covid lockdowns? During that period, police were tasked with closing churches, arresting churchgoers, and closing down private businesses for the “offense” or peacefully assembling or engaging in commerce. Police arrested mothers who visited playgrounds closed for fear of a virus. Police beat up ordinary people who didn’t wear masks.
Through it all, we heard only a tiny number of police voices protesting these assaults on the Bill of Rights. It is apparent that most police officers were willing to carry out virtually any order from their government masters.
So, it would be pure naivete to think that any local law enforcement officers would oppose any of the USSS’s questionable orders that might have come down on July 13. In other words, USSS officials were free to do whatever they wanted.
Option 2: Law Enforcement Officers Were Incompetent
The other option is that the USSS and local police really are just incompetent. Laziness, of course, is a type of incompetence, and it is entirely possible that the unguarded roofs, the lack of concern about the assassin’s rangefinder, and the general slowness of response were all motivated by mere laziness. Of course, it is also possible that law enforcement was not lazy so much as it was simply too ignorant to even know the correct way to control access to the president during the rally.
The “incompetence” narrative rose to near-comical levels on Tuesday when USSS director Kimberly Cheatle claimed that the rooftop on which the shooter perched was left unguarded because the roof was too dangerous for agents. As Cheatle put it, “That building in particular has a sloped roof … so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.” (According to the New York Post, it was local police who were responsible for securing the building.)
Clearly, the building was not secured from “inside” or anywhere else, and it is laughable that the USSS would think this explanation about a dangerously sloped roof would deflect criticism of the agency.
But, what if Cheatle is telling the truth? What if the decision to leave the roof unguarded was simply a byproduct of incompetence on the part of the USSS and local police? This would certainly jibe with the dogma of “officer safety” that is so prevalent among law enforcement agencies nowadays. After all, we saw this philosophy at work at the school shootings at Uvalde and Parkland. In both cases, police elected to run away and hide rather than confront a shooter who was slaughtering children. Police looked to their own safety first.
It’s not beyond belief that USSS brass might decide that it would be overkill to put personnel on every roof, especially when it’s hot and uncomfortable and potentially dangerous up there. It wouldn’t be the first time law enforcement officials substituted safety and ease—for themselves—in place of public service.
“Mistakes Were Made”
For obvious reasons, the USSS itself has decided that the “incompetence” narrative is preferable to the “complicity” narrative. We can expect law enforcement officials to die on the “incompetence” sword since to admit complicity would rock the foundations of the regime’s legitimacy. Thus, claims about the “slopey roof,” although humiliating, will be offered as evidence that the USSS and local police “did their best” but failed. In other words, we will hear that “mistakes were made,” but it won’t happen again.
This is complicated by the fact that law enforcement officials can’t even claim that no one was seriously hurt in the assassination attempt. Spectator Corey Comperatore was killed, and two others were critically injured. Federal and Pennsylvania law enforcement officers are to blame for allowing that to happen.
But don’t expect any heads to roll. Indeed, if this story follows the usual narrative that accompanies federal screw-ups, we can expect higher budgets for the agencies that fell down on the job. After 9/11, for example, the CIA and FBI, who utterly failed in their jobs that day, received more taxpayer money as a result. No one lost their jobs, and there was no accountability. With the possible exception of Cheatle herself, it’s extremely unlikely that anyone at the USSS or the Pennsylvania state police will face so much as an official reprimand.
Image source: US Secret Service via Wikimedia.
MESSAGE TO DEEP STATE MINIONS: Don’t Follow Your Orders, Come Out With Your Hands Up & Join The Resistance
Shock Video: Woman Shoots Baby in Stroller in Philadelphia
Authorities are searching for a woman who shot a baby in a stroller in Philadelphia this week.
The shocking incident unfolded on Thursday in the City of Brotherly Love.
Surveillance footage released by the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) appears to show a woman engaged in a dispute with another person pushing a stroller on a sidewalk.
2/2 Closer view pic.twitter.com/Pjikb1ytMd
— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) July 19, 2024
The suspect fires three rounds at point-blank range as another person flees the scene on foot, video shows.
“On July 18th, 2024, on the 4000 block of Meridian Street, a seven-month-old child was shot once in the leg by a suspect described as a heavy-set black female with long dreadlocks,” PPD explained in a press release.
Wanted: Suspect for Shooting Incident/Victim in the 15th District [VIDEO] https://t.co/JevDr7M3gr pic.twitter.com/ayK9emFxnR
— Philadelphia Police Department (@PhillyPolice) July 19, 2024
It is unclear if the person pushing the stroller was struck during the shooting.
The suspect remains on the loose, according to the latest available updates.
PPD is asking anyone with helpful information to submit an anonymous tip.
InfoWars has been documenting the surge of crime across the United States, including carjackings, ‘street takeovers,’ smash-and-grab loot mobs, home invasions, and physical attacks on innocent victims.
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Alex Jones said After Trump Shooting the CYBER ATTACK will Begin
Since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump Saturday, Alex Jones had been predicting the next crisis will be a cyber attack.
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Biden Versus Lettuce: Livestream Pits Embattled Prez Against Head of Produce
With scores of Democrats urging Joe Biden to “pass the torch” and exit the 2024 race, a new betting market is asking bettors to predict whether he will outlast a head of lettuce.
Similar to a 2022 stunt guessing whether former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss would resign before a head of iceberg lettuce spoiled, prediction market platform Polymarket on Thursday launched a livestream with Biden’s photo sitting next to a head of lettuce and a countdown clock.
Will Biden outlast the lettuce?
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) July 18, 2024
10 days. The countdown starts now.https://t.co/8GecLvoO3m
“The shelf life of a head of lettuce is 10 days – Will Biden outlast the lettuce?” the Polymarket site states.
The guessing game comes as rumors swirl Biden, 81, is receiving pressure from all sides to withdraw his bid for the Democrat Party presidential nomination, with reports Friday claiming his family has already begun discussing a possible exit plan.
In Truss’ case, she resigned before the lettuce wilted.
The betting market will close on July 28, but as of writing the lettuce is winning.