On Monday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made public a plan that is reportedly intended to resist the possibility of the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration implementing a dystopian new central bank digital currency.
Critics of the idea of a central bank issuing its own digital currency warn that such an asset, which would be controlled by the Federal Reserve and pegged to the value of the dollar, would open the door for the government to spy on private persons and exert more authority over them without their consent.
DeSantis introduced a piece of legislation that, if passed, would make it illegal for the state of Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code to acknowledge any kind of digital currency issued by a central bank, whether it is the United States Federal Reserve or a central bank in another country.
Countries all across the world, including China, Australia, Japan, India, Russia, and South Korea, are investigating central bank digital currencies at the current time.
The many instances in which the financial system has been leveraged by public and private actors to oppose certain political perspectives, including those that are frequently held by conservatives, have been noted by skeptics of central bank digital currencies.
Specifically, these skeptics have noted the many instances in which the financial system has been leveraged to oppose certain political
For instance, the emergency powers of the Canadian government were invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in order to freeze the personal and corporate bank accounts of individuals who participated in protests against vaccination requirements in the previous year.
Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, has stated that he is open to the idea of a central bank issuing its own digital currency. Powell also stated that he is truly unsure as to whether or not the advantages would exceed the drawbacks.
DeSantis is one of the first major Republican figures to make an issue out of the potential abuse of digital currencies by authoritarian governments.
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