“It would really be foolish to try and eliminate the paper currency because we will lose a significant advantage if that happens,” said Gulf Coast Bank and Trust President Guy Williams during a recent conversation with WWL’s Newell Normand.
They discussed the Federal Reserve Bank’s “exploration” of digital currency – including some talk Normand mentioned of the bank implementing a digital currency as early as July.
“That would be premature,” said Williams. “The federal government never does anything quickly. What has happened is – there is a digital currency that’s in use right now in China. It’s called the digital yuan, and it basically replaces paper currency. There was an interesting headline that after a multi thousand-year experiment, China abandons paper currency.”
The Federal Reserve Bank’s board is directly accountable to Congress.
Williams also said that, if the Fed did decide to implement a digital currency, it would not eliminate paper currency.
“That would that would really create turmoil and it would actually be negative for the U.S.,” he explained. “One of the things that we get for free right now is that people all over the world that are nervous about their country or the future or their economy, take... real money and buy U.S. dollars and just put them under the mattress or put them in a vault or put them in a safe somewhere. So, they’re, in effect, giving the United States a 0% interest loan because they’re nervous about their currency.”
Furthermore, he said that the nation would lose an advantage in financing debt by doing away with cash. That is a concern right now in the Capitol as lawmakers continue to argue over raising the debt limit.
Normand and Williams also covered the debt ceiling issue and more. Listen to their full conversation here.
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