I can buy an icecream anywhere in the world without anybody tracking me. Even with the "wrong" political opinion (even if I would be a trucker in Canada during certain protests).
I cannot do that with CBDC.
No. CBDC (aka: the ultimate totalitarian's dream) is not the same as the current banking system, despite the current banking system also being very horrible for privacy.
* All of the above assuming that cash will be banned and CBDC will be mandatory for everybody.
> I can buy an icecream anywhere in the world without anybody tracking me.
No you can't. Companies like OpenEye and Deep Sentinel offer facial recognition solutions that are targeted at loss-prevention, and these systems are commonplace in the USA. Facial recognition-based consumer analytics systems are also available.
In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a pint of ice cream that you can buy without having a camera pointed at your face. Even the little stand at the beach in the state park near my old place had a camera, and I didn't even have real LTE coverage there.
Privacy comes only from the force of law; not the other way around.
Anyways, the whole conversation is a red herring. This is a replacement for ACH, which already exists, and there isn't substantively more information sharing between banks and governments than already exists.
FedNow doesn't allow any more or less tracking than what's already possible through the Fed's visibility into ACH. So for the purposes of FedNow the entire conversation is off-topic.
Anyways, you missed the point.
The anti-new-technology and anti-gov-technology response to privacy and control is misguided. Corporations will fuck you, left unchecked, and governments will fuck you through corporations. There is no technical solution to political problems, and physical cash vs FedNow vs digital currency is a suite of technical solutions.
Trying to solve a political problem by eliminating technology is literally the same thing as trying to solve political problems with technology. The fallacy is in focusing on technology where the actual problem is political.
The problem is political and needs to be treated as such. The solution is building and maintaining political consensus in favor of strong privacy and personal property rights, not carrying around a billfold full of physical cash.
The reality is, supermajority (including me) of people prefer not using cash. Especially up here in the North.
Can’t even recall to ever pulling some out other than some casino entertainment night. I understand all the “freedom” (or whatever one might call it) I’m losing, but the positive sides are much better (never have to care about losing my wallet, much faster transactions, convenience and etc.). Sure, sounds bad on paper, but I haven’t felt any negatives in 10+ years, especially when in practice makes my life easier.
>The reality is, supermajority (including me) of people prefer not using cash. Especially up here in the North.
Unfortunately, in my experience, I'd have to agree with you on that. But it also brings to mind a relevant Samuel Adams quote:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Not as load bearing when you look at the legal limits of cash transactions in countries in Europe. Also not so load bearing when you consider the unconstitutional civil asset forfeiture of the current US.
I can buy an icecream anywhere in the world without anybody tracking me. Even with the "wrong" political opinion (even if I would be a trucker in Canada during certain protests).
I cannot do that with CBDC.
No. CBDC (aka: the ultimate totalitarian's dream) is not the same as the current banking system, despite the current banking system also being very horrible for privacy.
* All of the above assuming that cash will be banned and CBDC will be mandatory for everybody.