Central Banksters' Digital Controllers (CBCDs)
A look at the near-future dystopia, where we survive the blast and are left in Orwell's nightmare
Joel Bowman, surveying the scene from Buenos Aires, Argentina...
Welcome back to another Sunday Session, that time of the week when we employ a bit of satire and whimsy (and a healthy dose of medicinal Malbec) in order to forget the fact that our elite overlords are catapulting us headlong towards nuclear winter...
Dear readers will forgive an extra dollop of farce in today’s musing. The more immediate the threat of extinction, the more absurd these Sunday pages will become. Promise.
But even if we DON’T all perish in a mushroom cloud later this week, we’ve other things to worry about... like a total loss of privacy, confiscation of our savings, Chinese-style social credit scores and various other forms of insidious, relentless, “permission-based” life on earth.
Perhaps nowhere do these curtailments to our liberties merge quite like the dystopian near future promised by Central Bank Digital Currencies or, as we shall henceforth refer to them in these pages: Cartel Banksters’ Digital Controllers.
So grab your tinfoil hats, dear reader, and take a stroll with us through the kind of post-privacy purgatory that would make Mr. Orwell himself turn in his grave...
On CBDCs... or “Cartel Banksters’ Digital Controllers”
By Joel Bowman
“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you.”
~ Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“I’m sorry, sir/madam.”
The cashier gives you that I-wish-I-could-help-you-but-actually-I don’t-really-G-a-F look before, grudgingly and at your polite request, scanning your biochip for a third time.
“Umm... declined,” he/she/they declare, matter-of-factly. “Again.”
Impossible, you think to yourself. There are plenty of funds in there. And pay was directly deposited on Wednesday. How could this be?
The year is 2028 and a regular, ersatz coffee is still only $137 Digital Equity Dollars (DEDs). Although, with prices rocketing at the rate they’ve been going up lately, it’s hard to keep track...
You suspect your sullen, blue-haired baristex is smirking, but it’s difficult to tell behind the twenty-something’s triple masks and pinball machine-like assortment of interlocking facial piercings. Mobilizing one sickly, soy milk fed arm, they motion to your midsize sedan, parked outside.
“That thing yours?” they inquire/accuse. You nod, puzzled.
“Well, maybe that’s your problem. Ever considered an EV? Or a bike? We’ve all gotta share the planet, you know?”
Visibly disgruntled, Blue Baristex signals something to the others waiting in line behind you; some hip hand gesture you’ve seen Gen Me doing but still don’t quite grasp. You turn to see half a dozen 300lb body positive blobs staring angrily back at you, muttering something about “shared sacrifices,” “green spaces” and “healthy, planetary cohabitation.” One of them adds something about Eurasia, with whom you’ve been at war since... well, forever.
Continued below...
A Beast in Beta
If Central Bank Digital Currencies don’t have you worried, you haven’t been paying attention. CBDCs (or as skeptics and weirdos, who don’t implicitly trust the government’s each and every daily diktat, might refer to them: Cartel Bankster’s Digital Controllers) promise to deliver your savings, your privacy and your health... not to mention your freedom of movement, association and even speech... directly into the grubby mitts of the world’s sociopathic elite.
While there are many forms of CBDCs currently in various “beta trial” stages around the world, they are essentially all versions of the same thing: Tokens in a digitized payment system directly controlled by the feds.
Unlike free market digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, which exists on a distributed blockchain, has no central issuer, and which derives its price solely based on market factors, such as supply and demand (and is therefore, by definition, not fiat), a CBDC boasts none of the upsides cryptocurrency enthusiasts tout. Instead, the system hands governments and their central banking cartels, with which they work hand in glove, direct control over your money.
And unlike physical fiat notes and coins, which are largely anonymous and can therefore be used to settle voluntary transactions privately, CBDCs are visible to government actors, including central banks, and can be directly credited (or debited) from a users’ accounts at the whim of the issuer. Goodbye privacy.
Of course, monopolistic governmental control of a nation’s money supply (including everything from its issuance to the very price of credit itself) is nothing new. It’s a power elites have used and abused for millennia, going all the way back to the very first sovereign default, on the Island of Delos.
But coin clipping is tres paseé. This is the digital age, after all, when people voluntarily invite TikTok and Bored Apes and OnlyFans into the palms of their hands, so to speak. Why would a rapacious nation state go to the trouble of manipulating the physical world to its advantage when it could simply lure sleepwalking citizens into the metaverse, where money is contingent on obedience and “funds” can be credited (or debited) with the click of a mouse?
Here’s UK Prime Minister (then Chancellor of the Exchequer), Rishi Sunak, to explain CBDCS to you like you’ve just graduated from finger-painting class and will soon be allowed to use actual brushes.
A few key excerpts, for those dear readers who don’t like being spoken to as though they’ve recently undergone a transorbital lobotomy and were therefore unable to suffer the entire video...
“Governments and central banks across the world are working together...”
“Issues that people care about... energy efficient...”
“All part of a wider story... the reshaping of our economy... and the way in which people interact with money and payments...”
“An important step change in the global policy conversation...bringing money and finance into the 21st century...”
“Your” Money
In short, the government will soon be controlling “your” money and you will be thankful for their selfless, inclusive, equitable, diverse, carbon neutral, anti-racist, energy efficient service. What’s not to like?
Moreover, when it’s packaged as a whizz bang modern convenience, a must-have techno-gadget for doe-eyed millennials and moralizing tut-tutters on a deluded crusade to “save the planet,” there will be almost no need for “enforcement.” People will actually demand their governments get on board. Really.
An article in The FinTech Times carries the following headline:
Banks Are Under More Pressure Than Ever To Implement Carbon Impact Tracking
That’s not pressure from the all-seeing nation state, mind you... but from flesh and blood human customers, who are presumably suffering from a severe lack of governmental oversight and invigilation into their private lives. According to the article...
Three-quarters of mobile banking customers in the UK want full insight into the carbon impact of their spending, according to the latest research of Cogo, a New Zealand-based carbon management solution provider.
Forget Personal Trainers... Say Hello Personal Trackers!
Already MasterCard is working with Swedish FinTech firm Doconomy to “help” users track their carbon spending and curb their noxious, all-too-human behavior.
“We all need to come to terms with the urgency of the situation and rapidly move towards more responsible consumption,” lectured Nathalie Green, CEO at Doconomy and Chief That-Narc-Nobody-Invites-To-Parties-Anymore Officer.
“With DO Black there is [sic] no more excuses,” railed Green. “Through our collaboration with UNFCCC and Mastercard, DO will enable people to do their part to contribute to the carbon reduction goals of 2030 and onwards.”
And lo! Just like that, banks everywhere are offering tools to “incentivize” and “guide” your filthy, carbon-drenched actions, so you can self-monitor your human footprint and generally be a better, more compliant workerbee. With “progress” like this, owning nothing and being grateful for it is just a step away!
Here’s Doconomy’s MasterCard version...
And here’s another, from Doconomy partner Klarna, showcasing their nifty personal tracker...
And this one, from British bank, NatWest...
And here’s Barclays Bank, with a not-so-subtle nudge toward a future in which you’ll travel to the well by bike or on foot and teach your children to do likewise...
WrongThink Alert
Hmm... a citizenry demanding their governments monitor their every payment, track their every movement, measure their every mile, every calorie, every purchase...
... coupled with that same government’s ability to directly control, monitor and even “switch off” your personal savings in the form of a CBDC. Golly gosh, whatever could go wrong?
We saw during the Great Covid Panic of 2020 that private companies were more than willing to freeze customer funds when they contributed to the “wrong cause.” Recall the GoFundMe debacle, when the crowdfunding platform froze millions of dollars in donations from depositors who dared pledge allegiance to the Canadian trucker protests...
Is it really that big of a stretch to imagine a government sequestering your savings for the alleged crime of wrongthink? Perhaps you engaged in “hate speech” (“hate” being defined as broadly as possible so as to include anything that questions the statist quo.) Maybe you voted for the wrong candidate or made an off color joke before it was known to be “offensive.” Perhaps you invested in some non CBDC money, like gold or cryptos. Or even read an article published by those renegade non-conformists over at Bonner Private Research. Or maybe you trespassed on your monthly carbon quota, thereby incurring the wrath of a mentally unstable teen Swede and all her globalist WEF henchmen. Which brings us full circle, back to our little conspiracist vignette...
Continued, from above...
Driving home from AmeriCoffee, through your caffeine-free hellscape, you turn down Greta Thunberg’s hourly Better World Radio address and begin to put the pieces together...
It’s the end of the month. You’ve been commuting to work as usual, plus running a few extra errands for your neighbor (who developed a mysterious heart condition sometime after their 14th or 15th Covid-23 booster shot). Still, you should have plenty of Carbon Offset Notes (CONs) in your FedFreedom Account, and yet...
Ah, ha!
The realization hits you like a McBug Burger combo meal hits your outdoor long drop (indoor plumbing, racist privilege that it was, having been duly outlawed shortly after gas stoves, in the Agrarian Reform Act of 2025; all part of World President Schwab’s Great Reset).
Turning onto George Floyd Memorial Highway, you begin to tally up your CONs...
As usual, you traveled cross-zone four times during the past month; twice for Earth Day (the first and third Sunday of every month); once to attend your regularly-scheduled Ministry of Truth Public Reeducation Hearing (that Matt Taibbi rogue had it coming, they said, what with his antiquated notions of a “free press” and whatnot); and once to take the kids (2 and 4yrs old) to their compulsory Gender and Sexual Expression Festival (sponsored by Disney Co. and Netflix, lately merged to become DiCFlix).
So far, so normal... but what about the trip to your folk’s “going away” party? You’d forgotten that the Greener Pastures facility, inspired by the selfless, “surplus population” work of Yasuke Narita, lies outside the 15 minute zone. That’s a triple CON penalty right there, easily enough to put you over your monthly quota...and the likely reason your DED account was frozen.
You decide to check your Liberty Status with your onboard ChatPC and receive the following response:
Thank you for your inquiry, Citizen #200022011001122200220
Unfortunately, your account has been temporarily suspended due to a breach of the People’s Planetary Emergency Act, Section 9.21:33RiP. Your vehicle has been remotely commandeered and will now assume secure self drive mode. Do not be alarmed or attempt to exit the vehicle while it is in motion. You will be delivered to the nearest Freedom Zone for Social Justice for processing. Estimate arrival time, 9 minutes...
Crossing over Robin DiAngelo Bridge and turning left onto Ibram X. Kendi boulevard, you try to remember how the world came to be this way. At least you won’t have to make the journey out to Greener Pastures next month, you try to console yourself, through streams of tears. And at least mom and dad won’t be around to see whatever comes next.
Hey, is that a mushroom cloud over on the horizon?
And on that cheery note, we’ll sign off for another Sunday. As always, feel free to like, share and comment on our work below.
Bill will be back tomorrow with more missives from the ranch. Members can look forward to Tom and Dan’s regular research notes on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.
In the meantime, we’re off to enjoy the clear blue skies down here at the end of the world. Whatever you’re up to this weekend, make it worth it.
Until next time...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
Joel...DiCFlix!?! Damnit, boy, give me a warning not to have coffee in my mouth while reading an essay with something as hilarious and unexpected as that. Seriously, I was crying from laughing! And now I’m crying trying to clean up the coffee splatter (and at the ideas of things you mention actually coming to pass). Thank you. I needed a good laugh like that.
I hate that I can only give you one "Like", Joel. You guys need to fix that.