Podcast personality, Joe Rogan, slammed the idea of an American central bank digital currency, or CBDC, declaring that if a digital U.S. dollar was forced on Americans, it would be “checkmate” and “game over” for the country.
Rapper Post Malone appeared on “Joe Rogan Experience” on Aug. 8, in which the subject of CBDCs came up.
There is fear among commentators that power-hungry bureaucrats would be easily able to manipulate people’s livelihoods to suppress any dissent without restraint by shutting bank accounts with a push of a button.
Last year, President Joe Biden instructed the federal government and Federal Reserve to lay the groundwork for a potential new U.S. digital dollar.
The order further directs the Treasury Department, Office of the Attorney General, and Fed to work together to produce a “legislative proposal” to create a digital currency within 210 days, about seven months.
The Fed, at this time, has stated it has no plans to issue a digital dollar soon and would let Congress make that decision.
Social Credit Score Fears
Post Malone joined Mr. Rogan to speak about the state of the U.S. financial system, which then turned to a discussion on the potential abuse of power that could come with CBDC use in the United States.
When asked by his guest about what he thought about the CBDC that the Fed and the Biden administration have been working on, Mr. Rogan responded: “No way. That’s what I think. I think that’s checkmate. That’s game over.”
Mr. Rogan described a scenario in which the government could tie the use of CBDCs to one’s social credit score and warned that Americans could easily be cut off from their finances by federal officials for violating the rules.
“Because if they apply that to a social credit score, if they decide somehow or another that you need some social credit score system and it’s for the benefit of society, and they outline that, they can track your behavior and your tweets and all your things […] They just decided you [expletive] up, and the rules are the rules,” he said.
By Bryan Jung
