The Threat of Financial Transaction Control
Written on 16 May 2025.
The Threat of Financial Transaction Control
By Catherine Austin Fitts The Solari Report, May 07, 2025
Note: Catherine has given this presentation to her state legislators. Please feel free to take it and send it to your state officials, state legislators, and your bankers and other financial professionals—please ask your leaders to tell you how they intend to protect your financial transaction freedom.
Originally published February, 2024
The U.S. Federal Reserve and allied central banks are implementing profound and potentially dangerous changes to the financial system. These intentions are no longer hidden; they are openly discussed by central bankers themselves.
Three videos, each under a minute, illustrate how central banks are planning to use Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to gain total control over money, and by extension, the lives of individuals.
Central Bankers' Vision of Control
The first clip comes from an IMF panel in October 2020, featuring Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS, which serves as the central bank of central banks, has sovereign immunity and counts 63 member banks including the U.S. Federal Reserve.
"Our bank deposits are not ours—they are an expression of central bank liabilities."
Carstens openly states that with CBDCs, central banks will have the ability to track, surveil, and centrally control when, where, and how money is used. According to this vision, the banking system becomes not a place for economic freedom but a tool for enforcing external authority. He implies that even residents of U.S. states can be subjected to external financial control without local jurisdiction.
Programmable Money: Bo Li at the IMF
Bo Li, formerly of the Bank of China and now Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, outlines the potential for CBDCs to be "programmable."
This means that rules can be embedded in money itself:
- If rules restrict movement, money could be disabled outside a geographic area.
- If rules prohibit certain purchases, money simply won't work for those items.
- Political resistance can be punished financially: accounts can be frozen, transactions blocked.
"Just turn off the bank accounts of anyone who doesn’t comply. Turn off their electricity and Internet while you’re at it."
This is not theoretical. The infrastructure to do this already exists, and its logic has been tested in political crises such as the Canadian trucker protests.
Neel Kashkari on the Dangers of CBDC
Even within the Federal Reserve, there are voices of caution. Neel Kashkari, President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, questioned the rationale for introducing CBDC at a 2023 Columbia University panel:
"Why would the American people be for this?"
His question is rhetorical but vital. If the system is so open to abuse and surveillance, why implement it at all?
From Finance to Control Grid
The message is clear: CBDCs represent a shift from free-market financial systems to controlled, monitored grids. The same tools used to maintain fiscal discipline can be weaponized against dissent.
- Canadian truckers had accounts frozen.
- British politicians have been "de-banked."
- Health freedom advocates have been removed from banking services.
These are warnings. If a population's ability to transact is conditional on obedience, it is no longer free.
Call to Action
Citizens must demand answers:
- How will your state protect transaction freedom?
- What safeguards are in place to prevent financial weaponization?
- Will your banks and legislators commit to refusing CBDC control grids?
The centralization of digital finance must not become the architecture of tyranny.
Resources
- Financial Transaction Freedom website
- The Solari Report's Substack
"Catherine Austin Fitts, once a Wall Street exec and HUD official, helps you navigate opportunities and risks in today's global financial & political landscape."