This is the Kader Daily podcast for Wednesday, June 7th,

2023. I'm Caleb Brown.

The move toward an American-style Central Bank digital currency is

currently slow, but it's also highly uncertain.

What does the Constitution tell us about the potential plans to roll out a new currency, perhaps

without any explicit congressional permission.

Christina Skinner, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School

joined Cato's Norbert Michelle to discuss the risks of a CBDC arriving without constitutional permission.

Norbert, to what extent do people who are promoting or advancing this notion of Central Bank

Digital currency, CBDC, to what extent are they arguing that this is a mere extension of the dollar that we have now?

Well, we do hear a lot of people say that. They say things like, oh, it's just a new

version of the dollar. It's just a new digital version of the dollar or an updated digital

money. And that's just not really true. It's much more than that.

It's I look at it as a change in ownership because if you talk to the if you talk to people about the technicalities, it's a little weird, but it's a change in ownership in the sense that it is a true, not just a technical, a true liability of the Central Bank in the sense that it literally owns it.

It's theirs. It's theirs to do what they want with it. It's no longer something that the private

sector can use as they see fit unless they're given it an explicit okay to do it. That's different

from the paper money that we use right now which is technically a

liability of the Fed but it really doesn't matter because it can be used for

anything that's right it it's it's not tethered and it's not tethered in any way to the government.

That's right. Once it's out there, it's out there.

You can pass it from person to person without any extra, okay, or authorization.

Christina, there are, we're going to talk about the Constitution today.

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