CBDCs, Digital IDs and UBI - A Dark Digital Triad!!

CBDC are digital forms of central bank money available to the public (retail) or commercial banks (wholesale). And, Digital IDs are digital version of the same physical IDs issued to most all citizens in the developed world, and are needed to live a normal life, to drive a car, have a bank account, or to buy and sell. Finally, UBI is Universal Basic Income - government programs where every adult citizen receives a set amount of money regularly. The goal to eventually replace other social payment programs that require greater bureaucratic involvement.Show more

"Central bank money" a liability of the central bank exist as two types (1) physical currency issued by the central bank and (2) digital balances held by commercial banks with the central bank. Retail CBDC are available to the general public and are a direct liability of digital money of the issuing central bank to each person who signs up and has an account with the central bank, not of a commercial bank. Thus, these digital dollars could be directly managed, manipulated, deleted, programmed, or applied negative or positive interests rates - to encourage spending, etc.

Together, retail CBDCs, digital IDs and UBI - universal basic income for those who require that to survive in an economy of permeant inflation may ultimately become entrapped in this combine digital control grid. These three together could be referred to as a "dark digital triad" and worse yet, could all be contained on an individual microchip. Though, some may find such technology convenient, without seeing the obvious dangers. If the ruling class decides a particular person is inconvenient to their goals, they could simply have that person's chip turned off - that person would be unable to buy-sell or transact in the digital economy.