by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Mercola:
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- In 2023, 11 countries have fully launched a digital currency while more than 20 more will move toward starting one
- 114 countries, which represent more than 95% of global GDP, are looking into CBDC — up from just 35 countries in 2020
- Finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts details 10 practical steps individuals can take to stop implementation of CBDCs
- Tips include using cash as much as possible and minimizing your use of digital systems, including avoiding biometric technology and QR codes
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
- Doing business with local people and entities you know and trust, and ditching large, multinational banks in favor of trustworthy local banks or credit unions will also help
Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, are government-backed digital currencies issued by a central bank. They’re being rapidly rolled out to bring about a new economic transaction system that could lead to a new form of modern-day slavery.
CBDCs are promoted as digital tokens that can simplify monetary policy and bring about convenient cashless societies. They’re also sometimes said to be similar to cryptocurrency1 due to their digital nature, but there are important, and major, distinctions.
While cryptocurrencies are decentralized and allow anonymous transactions, CBDCs are centralized and can track every transaction. They can also be controlled by the powers that be — meaning all your CBDC assets could be taken away or turned off by a central power, and there’d be nothing you could do about it.
CBDCs Are Part of the Plan to End All Currencies
Finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts — publisher of The Solari Report2 — warns that a slavery system, steeped in the ideologies of transhumanism and technocracy, is being created right before our eyes. The complicated, “messy” plan used the pandemic to engineer a total remake of world currencies and our entire way of life.3
Comparing the move to herding sheep to a slaughterhouse, Fitts explains how the pandemic lined people up to depend on their governments for protection from an invisible enemy (COVID-19) and then used fear to keep people from living what once was considered a normal life.
The herd mentality includes encouraging debt entrapment to the point that people become desperate for any type of cash flow that can help them meet their day-to-day living expenses, until they willingly give up their rights in exchange for any relief offered to them.
In The Corbett Report video above, you can hear Agustín Carstens, executive director of the Bank for International Settlements, describe the chilling truth about CBDCs. Corbett describes the Bank for International Settlements, by the way, as the “central bank of central banks — the apex of the financial monetary pyramid, identified by Carroll Quigley in ‘Tragedy and Hope’ — and others as the capstone of the Pyramid of Power.”4 Carstens says:5
“We don’t know, for example, who is using a $100 bill today. We don’t know who is using the 1,000-peso bill today. A key difference … with the CBDC is central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability. And also we will have the technology to enforce that.”
CBDCs Instrumental for Social Control
CBDCs are an integral part of a social control system. By removing paper currency and replacing it with CBDCs, your ability to engage in transactions can be monitored and turned on and off. What could this look like in your day-to-day life? British activist Maajid Nawaz put it into simple terms, likening CBDCs to vouchers instead of currency — vouchers that have a finite limit for certain purchases, and once your quota is met, you can’t obtain any more:6
“They want to replace fiat paper money with digital money as a competitor to Bitcoin and crypto money, right?
But instead of being decentralized currency, it will be controlled by a government … So instead of having a bank account with … HSBC or Bank of America, you’ll have a bank account directly with — in the American context, with the Fed — in the UK, directly with the Bank of England. You have a personal bank account, and you’re given digital money in that bank account.
… This money that you will earn from work, instead of having paper money, you have this digital money. It’s programmable so that you can’t buy certain foods, or if you do something that your employer doesn’t like … you won’t be able to spend your money. In other words, it’s not money, they’re vouchers.
They’re like food vouchers. And they can be programmed. So that, like the Chinese social credit system, if you try and use them on a certain thing, it won’t work. Say you want to buy a burger, and they want you to buy a box … if you start to try and buy unhealthy meat, it just won’t work … you tap your card, you can’t buy the thing, because you’ve met your quota that month, for burgers.”
“We’re talking about a world where most people are under 24/7 surveillance and then their financial incentives and their financial power are related to how well-behaved they are,” Fitts explains. Corbett uses parking tickets as another example of how CBDCs may come to dictate your every move:7
“Do you remember that parking ticket you forgot to pay last month? Well, your central bank issued CBDC, it remembers, and it will just subtract those funds plus a late payment fee from your account when you’re not looking.
Got caught supporting the wrong fundraiser or the wrong political cause, like the freedom convoy in Canada? Don’t worry. In a world of CBDC transactions, you wouldn’t have even been allowed to donate to that cause in the first place because your wallet wouldn’t let you.”
Let’s say, for another example, that you miss an appointment to get a vaccination. The system will know and your access to banking might be cut off until it registers that you got your shot. According to Fitts:8
“It is essential to understand the proposals underway. In my opinion, CBDCS (central bank digital currencies) are an essential part of the ongoing financial coup d’état which — if successful — will end constitutional government and human liberties in the U.S. and G7 nations. You need to take this seriously.”
10 Actions You Can Take to Stop CBDCs
Implementation of CBDCs is moving ahead, fast. In 2023, 11 countries have fully launched a digital currency while more than 20 more will move toward starting one. All G7 nationals are now actively developing CBDCs, including the U.S. Further, 114 countries, which represent more than 95% of global GDP, are looking into CBDC — up from just 35 countries in 2020.9
However, widespread CBDCs are not yet inevitable. “It is important to recognize that there is a great deal that each one of us can do to take action,” Fitts says. “In a highly leveraged financial system such as we have, a single individual counts for a lot.”10 In response to the many requests she’s had from people wondering how to stop CBDCs, Fitts compiled these 10 top actions.11
1.Use cash — Fitts recommends using cash as much as possible — and not frequenting shops that don’t accept it:12
“Walk out on establishments that refuse to accept cash. When using remote facilities where cash is not possible, use checks if you can. We understand from one subscriber that check companies are scrambling to fill the orders of all of the bank customers who have requested checks recently. Whether the indicator is banking statistics or anecdotal reports from our subscribers, cash use is clearly rising.”
In addition to using cash, Fitts recommends keeping a stash of cash on hand, safely stowed in several locations. “Think small, and start thinking about all the ways you can spread your cash around and put it in different places, including outside of the banking and brokerage system,” she says, “but also how you can use your cash to permanently lower your expenses and permanently lower your risk.”13
Think like a squirrel does when stashing away acorns for the winter. You want to have your cash spread out, in “little pots all over the place.” This starts with keeping cash on hand in your home, ideally in a fireproof safe. Then you can expand to a safe deposit box at a bank, a small, local bank or investing in silver and gold coins.
2.Embrace analog — While some digitization is OK, an entirely digital system is at risk of being manipulated and controlled by a central power. Fitts recommends minimizing your use of digital systems, including avoiding biometric technology and QR codes. “Get invasive surveillance systems out of your home. Use hard-wired Internet connections, not Wi-Fi … While you are at it, refuse to use or support vaccine passports,” she says.14
3.Do business with people you trust — Focus on finding people of integrity with whom to conduct business. Even if it costs more, Fitts says, it’s worth it. “In the end, fraudsters and others who contribute to unhealthy systems through their own greed or lust for power cause untold losses. All those little expenses related to transacting with integrity can end up being lifesavers …”15
Corbett refers to this as “freedom cells” and recommends joining with a small group of eight or so other people, then connecting to other groups, engaging in a local exchange trading system or using some form of community currency. This “will facilitate actual productive economic activity if we arrive at the Mad Max apocalyptic scenario … or the government coming down and cracking down on dissent to the point of taking you off the payment grid,” he says.16
4.Choose a small, local bank — Ditch large, multinational banks in favor of trustworthy local banks or credit unions. While you’re there, let bankers know about the dangers of CBDCs. The Solari Report even has a template letter17 you can use to inform your bankers about the downsides of CBDCs. It reads, in part:18
“It strikes me that creating a different, yet centrally controlled fiat currency that can be created from thin air and manipulated by unelected central bankers does not promote U.S. financial stability or provide citizens with consumer and investor protections — except in the sense that totalitarian governments can be financially stable through the power of taxation without representation and the ability to micromanage and regulate the spending of families and small enterprise.”
5.Finance friends, not enemies — While limiting the number of online and digital financial transactions you make, avoid supporting credit card companies and financial technology (fintech) firms intent on expanding digital IDs, vaccine passports and CBDCs. Instead, focus on making financial transactions with like-minded people and entities.
“Financing your local farmer or farm distribution service may not look like a great money-maker,” Fitts explains, “but it means you will have a better chance of not being cornered into eating insects and lab-grown meat.”19 The idea is to establish of form of survival currency that allows you to eat, maintain shelter and survive in a worst-case scenario.
“When you are in a survival situation,” Corbett explains, “where you were literally scrambling to provide food for your family… let’s start from that point of the survival currency. What can I do to facilitate exchange with people in my area, who I want to exchange with, but we don’t have access to these dollars or pesos, or whatever.”20 Examples of survival currencies, which each have their own pros and cons, include precious metals, cryptocurrencies and bartering.
6.Ask state officials to support financial freedom — Fitts recommends asking your state legislators to start a sovereign state bank that protects the right to free financial transactions. She explains:21
