Unlike decentralized digital currencies like Bitcoin, central bank digital currencies (CBDC) like those that the FedNow infrastructure was built for will give the Federal Government authority over every aspect of your life.
As a programmable means to settle debts for goods and services, the Government will be able to set expiration dates on CBDCs. In other words, the Government will be able to force you to use your savings when they want you to use your savings. The Government will be able to dictate what you can and cannot buy with your money.
Theoretically, the Government will be able to take your money or block access to your money at will. If you get a traffic ticket that you may not even know you got (traffic camera redlight infraction, speeding ticket from sensors embedded in the road, etc) authorities will be able to simply take that money from your account. Whether you need that money for food or rent now and intend to pay that ticket on your next payday it will not matter to an artificial intelligence (AI) or even some bureaucrat who has yet to be replaced by an AI. That will have (and most likely) the authority and power to take your food or rent money at will. You will not have complete control over the money for which you worked so hard.
I used to say "What's coming is coming". Now I say "What's coming is here." because we have reached (or are damn close to reaching) the point from which we cannot return. Currently, the Government is conditioning us all to switch to their CBDC. We've already transitioned to cashless forms of transportation in the form of automated tolls on the road. Amazon is trying (and currently failing) with a system where you don't even need to check out you groceries. You simply walk into this Amazon store, grab you items and leave and somehow the cost of your items is deducted from your account. As for direct actions to convert to a cashless system run by the government, an increasing number of national parks are no longer accepting cash as payment for any of their products and services. Read the following article which details this unconstitutional change. https://www.travelandleisure.com/national-parks-going-cashless-7488450 This seems to defy the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." Yet our government is doing it and in the same way our current leaders ignore the law that states only the U.S. Congress can declare war in behalf of America, no one will enforce or hold any party or parties accountable for the infraction.
Thinking about the lack of enforcement and accountability of those we elect to lead, is there any at all? Most members of Congress are guilty of their version of insider trading... If you write the laws that impact the securities of which you trade, you're going to beat the World's best financial advisors and hedge fund managers every time. If you're the son of the Vice President or President, you can smoke crack, avoid jail mandated for everyone else by your father and get a $50,000 a month job in a foreign country, in a field of which you have no knowledge.
So, given that crap rolls downhill, if the top job in the land (is there one higher than the Presidency?) is corrupt, it's probably that every job beneath it has a greater potential for corruption.
Oh well, my only hope now is that whatever empire rises on the heels of the American Empire's demise expresses more benevolence and it's people more vigilance than that expressed by the the United States of America and it's people, respectively.
