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Sunday, October 22, 2023

The man who wants to become Speaker of the House, per a YouTube item from a month ago rages against the possible digital dollar. Presumably credit card firms applaud, and contribute to the man's party. And to the man's secure Minnesota district reelection.

Behind the rhetorice opposing a CBDC, and the poor being allowed some federal form of banking services when the private sector ignores them, are the interests of the providers of private banking and credit - served indirectly by other worded Emmer rants.

This video

As with read between the lines; hear between the words. 

Whose benefit gets served if Emmer has his way? When he supports leaving a status quo intact. 

Whose pecuniary agenda got us that status quo?

Make a guess. Trump may have an opinion on Emmer, but that should not matter either way. Trump is merely a private citizen with opinions and bluster.

Listen to the man, Emmer, himself. Judge his words.

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Have a look at who is funding this Rep. This Rep having one of the most secure Republican-voting districts in America, where he's burying Dem opponents time and again, election after election, with his overwhelming vote majorities. He does not need the large raised amounts of money in district; he has it and a leadership PAC, and he's a contender for Speaker among his Republican peers.

Open Secrets - 2018

Open Secrets - 2022

Guess why. Why he's in leadership and why he gets so much campaigning money to manage and distribute via the PAC to other Republican campaigns. (Connected questions.) Why else would such a man as Emmer be taken seriously?

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The bill this gentleman talks of is online here.

Relevant to this post, this snippet:


 In a Sept. 20, 2023 press release Emmer asserts:

My bill ensures the United States digital currency policy is in the hands of the American people – not the Administrative State – so that it reflects our American values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness.

American values. American values. This is what the future global digital economy needs. If not open, permissionless, and private – just like cash – a central bank digital currency is nothing more than a CCP-style surveillance tool that can be weaponized to oppress the American way of life.

If China embraces it, you know it’s something worth standing against in this country.

Of interest, the man's criteria, "If not open, permissionless, and private – just like cash – a central bank digital currency is nothing more than a CCP-style surveillance tool that can be weaponized to oppress the American way of life."

 What the gentleman omits saying is that even if a digitial currency were to be "permissionless and private - just like cash," which he defines as saving grace, the prohibition of individual Fed. accounts is absolute and universal, apart from any other consideration. Poor people outside of the present private banking system, excluded from it by the bankers, have no saving grace. 

Sec. 3 of the bill seems to allow the government to allow citizens to use other services of a bank apart from digital currency, such as the present Social Security or other program payments to citizens to be done via direct deposit into a designated private bank's account for such a citizen. But the government cannot directly "offer products or services" to individuals. Intermediation is required. Banks are allowed direct deposit rights, re their accounts for individuals, benefiting the banking industry while the government saves cost of paper check issuance so it is a win-win for government, banks, and individuals who are privileged by the banking system to have accounts.

No existing banking ox is gored, but the government explicitly may not bank individuals. That is the Emmer outcome. 

Why banks should be shielded by Emmer from government competition is something to ask Emmer about. I see no sensible reason for it, but the banking lobby has its separate reasons for things, where even sensible things which lessen or threaten to lessen its cashflow from intermediation between citizens and their money should, in their view, be verboten.

Read the full bill text, and figure out whether it serves VISA and MasterCard by excluding federal competition; i.e., whether it, in effect, is anticompetitive as one would not expect from a "let there be an open competitive market efficiency" Republican or Libertarian politician (free of lobbying considerations). 

Instead, per Emmer aims and bill provision, are VISA and MasterCard entrenched?

That is the question. 

_________UPDATE_________ 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/21/1076645/is-the-digital-dollar-dead/