Philadelphia CBDC Experiment

07 Jun 2020 by rate3

The curriculum on macroeconomics in all countries (without ideological exceptions) are based on the fundamental assumption that govs supposed to be the sole 'guardians' of the "World's economic stability" and through their 'monetary and economic policies' mediate between the 'predatory behaviour' of big corporations and rudimentary instincts of the populace. Naturally, the great majority of economists are now feeding from govs hands and it shows in their works.

So it was absolutely 'historically inevitable' that in May 2020 four 'visiting scholars' produced their "Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Banking for All?" working papers for 'Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Research Department', which main epithet is, basically, lets build the One Big Beautiful Central Bank, where all of us will hold their accounts (represented, as you've guessed, by CBDC) in order to assure a "socially optimal amount' of 'deposit monopoly', 'maturity transformation', 'banks equilibria' and, even, of 'bank runs'.

According to the 'researches' it would be perfectly fine 'mathematically' speaking and highly desirable from the point of view of 'social ethics' if FRS would transform itself into the global super-monopolist in retail banking sector. Of course, authors have never used those words in their text but, instead, keep insisting that this 'world's new financial order' will still be 'competitive' allowing, at the same time, to by-pass the increasingly non-functional 'trickling down' mechanism.

It's difficult not to notice a glaring similarity of the proposed 'model' to the type of 'Central Banking', which was pioneered by the Soviet Union and then replicated in so many other 'socialistic experimentations' all around the world.

'Gosudarstvenny bank SSSR' or 'Gosbank' (or the State Bank of the USSR) was founded in October 1921 and was used 'primarily, as a tool to impose centralized control upon industry in general, using bank balances and transaction histories to monitor the activity of individual concerns and their compliance with Five-Year Plans and directives.' (wiki)

The only difference with our authors' 'proposition' is, that their 'system' will, potentially, allow to directly control not only 'individual concerns' (banks) but all individuals as well. Of course, we shouldn't worry too much about all that scaremongering, because, you know, protecting our constitutional rights and freedoms are always the first and foremost priority of our governors, right?