Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has issued a warning regarding the Federal Reserve’s new Fednow system and the potential risks of central bank digital currencies leading to financial slavery and political tyranny. He additionally warned: “We should not be blind to the obvious danger that this is the first step in banning and seizing bitcoin as the Treasury did with gold 90 years ago.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Warns about Fednow and CBDCs
Lawyer and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the Federal Reserve’s Fednow system and central bank digital currencies in a tweet on Wednesday — the same day he filed paperwork to run for president in 2024. He is President John F. Kennedy’s nephew and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s son.
“The Fed just announced it will introduce its ‘Fednow’ Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in July,” he wrote, elaborating:
CBDCs grease the slippery slope to financial slavery and political tyranny.
Fednow is the Federal Reserve’s real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system for instant payments. However, the Fed’s CBDC development is separate from Fednow, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month that the central bank’s CBDC work is still in the early stages of experimentation.
“While cash transactions are anonymous, a CBDC will allow the government to surveil all our private financial affairs. The central bank will have the power to enforce dollar limits on our transactions restricting where you can send money, where you can spend it, and when money expires,” Kennedy’s tweet continues. “A CBDC tied to digital ID and social credit score will allow the government to freeze your assets or limit your spending to approved vendors if you fail to comply with arbitrary diktats, i.e. vaccine mandates.”
“The Fed will initially limit its CBDC to interbank transactions,” Kennedy noted, warning:
We should not be blind to the obvious danger that this is the first step in banning and seizing bitcoin as the Treasury did with gold 90 years ago today in 1933.
“Watch as governments, which never let a good crisis go to waste, use Covid-19 and the banking crisis to usher in a new wave of CBDCs as a safe haven from germ-laden paper currencies or as protection against bank runs,” the presidential hopeful concluded.
Numerous voices have cautioned against the federal government launching a CBDC, including U.S. Representative Tom Emmer, who introduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance Act in February. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz recently submitted a bill to prohibit the Federal Reserve from developing a direct-to-consumer CBDC, and Florida Governor Ron Desantis put forth a proposal in March to outlaw the use of CBDCs as money in his state.
Do you agree with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about Fednow and the risks of the government launching a CBDC? Let us know in the comments section below.
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