Connecting the dots: Digital currency, ESG policies, and social credit system

One way to identify the tyrannical ambitions of big government and the destruction of liberty is to connect the dots between digital currency, ESG (environment, social, governance) policies, and the coming social credit system like the one used in Communist China.

Back in January, I wrote a piece about big government and big banks joining forces to create a digital currency that can be used to routinely and covertly manipulate how people spend their money because digital dollars are traceable and programmable. Once fully implemented, government and the Federal Reserve will be able to create digital dollars whenever they choose with rules and restrictions built into their design, literally putting every single cent of our money under government control to be spent (or not spent) as Big Brother sees fit.

On a practical level, this means that a digital dollar can, for example, be crafted to restrict fossil-fuel use; it can also be programed to enact de facto price controls by preventing users from spending more money than government thinks they should on particular products.

This particular aspect of digital currency has received a boost courtesy of the ESG agenda. What is ESG?

ESG is a political tool used by progressives to advance Leftist ideology in businesses and financial institutions. From requiring NASDAQ-listed companies to appoint board members based on race and sex, to requiring greenhouse gas emissions to be reported, ESG is destroying our free market and threatens both American interests and our cultural fabric of freedom, choice and liberty.

ESG policies are a thinly veiled attempt to radically transform corporations into social justice warriors. Pro-ESG businesses support the Left’s “woke” culture war to redefine gender, promote critical race theory, and cancel conservatives. (Emphasis mine)

Using digital currency to enforce ESG requires one more thing: a social credit system.

China’s CBDC (Digital Yuan) is tied to the country’s vaccine passport and social credit systems. Experts in the tech industry tell us that the digital platform used to create vaccine passports is the same platform used in China’s “social credit system.” Some of the areas tracked in real time by China’s “social credit system” are (via New Horizons):

• Medical history
• Social media posts and internet search history
• Bank accounts and credit cards
• Residence, employment, and criminal history
• Relationships and religious activities
• Political activity

This information is fed to a central database in real time to create a “social credit score” used to reward or punish citizens. Those with a high score are able to participate freely in society while those with a low score are prohibited from traveling, borrowing money, keeping a job, or even getting their children into school.

China doesn’t only track spending habits; it controls them, the ultimate goal of digital currency.

We were treated to an example of how this works late last year when the Council of Europe announced plans to launch a digital currency and ban cash payments above 10,000 euros under the guise of fighting terrorism and money laundering. Sounds nice until you realize that their digital euro comes with spending limits, giving the European Central Bank the ability to restrict how people spend their money.

Big government and big bank talking heads in America claim that a central bank digital currency is necessary to “liberate” people from the constraints of greedy bankers and governments. What they don’t tell you, however, is how the state can centrally harness your economic power and regulate it in ways that would mark the rise or strengthening of authoritarianism (via Exposing Their Lies):

In part at least, this is a way to regulate the otherwise elusive truly decentralized version of cryptocurrencies. Because of the nature of cryptocurrencies that are based on blockchain as a ledger that records every transaction, governments would have unrestricted and easy access, and “command and control” over when, how, and what people do with their money.

Beyond simply keeping an ever-watchful eye over what citizens are up to, governments would also be able to decide on more radical and in immediate terms much more damaging moves, such as cutting people off from their money.

But imagine if that form of currency were the only one available? The unprecedented level of financial mass surveillance itself would be almost insignificant compared to the potential damage done by replacing all other forms of currency, including fiat money, and cash as one of its manifestations, say critics. (Emphasis mine)

The loss of privacy and liberty that comes with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) is so obvious that heads of the United States (US) Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB) were forced to admit that CBDCs will not be anonymous (via ReclaimTheNet.org):

During an appearance at a Banque de France (Bank of France) event, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said if the US were to pursue a central bank digital currency (CBDC), it would be “identity verified” and “not anonymous.”

“We would be looking to balance privacy protection with identity verification, which…has to be done, of course, in today’s traditional banking system as well,” Powell added.

The President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, acknowledged that privacy was one of the main concerns Europeans had about the European Union’s (EU’s) proposed CBDC, the digital euro. Despite these concerns, she confirmed that “there would not be complete anonymity as there is with…bank notes” when using the digital euro.

“There would be a limited level of disclosure and certainly not at the central bank level,” Lagarde added. (Emphasis mine)

The creation of a digital currency has been a top priority of the Joe Biden administration. Last year, he issued an executive order instructing a long list of federal agencies to study digital assets and to provide reports about their use and proposals on how to regulate them.

Biden’s executive order also required digital currency to include ESG policies, including the mitigation of “climate change and pollution” and the promotion of “financial inclusion and equity.” His executive order mentioned “financial inclusion” five times along with “equity” and “climate change” being mentioned four times each.

Based on the evidence, we have every reason to believe that digital currency, the ESG agenda, and a social credit system will be used to create a surveillance state capable of giving big banks and big government full control over you, your money, the economy, and every aspect of American society.

 

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David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.

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