Agustín Carstens

Agustín Carstens    (central banker, economist)
Born	9 June 1958 Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality	Mexican
Alma mater	Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology, University of Chicago
Member of	Group of Thirty
Interests	• cryptocurrency • Money/Central bank digital currency
BIS General Manager  BIS/General Manager In office 1 December 2017 - Present Preceded by Jaime Caruana A five year term  Governor of the Bank of Mexico In office 1 January 2010 - 30 November 2017 Preceded by Guillermo Ortiz Martínez  Mexico/Secretary of Finance and Public Credit  In office 1 December 2006 - 9 December 2009  IMF/Deputy managing director In office 1 August 2003 - 16 October 2006 One of three deputies reporting to the director and the board

Agustín Guillermo Carstens became BIS General Manager on December 1st, 2017.

Carstens explains the advantages of the planned Central bank digital currencies: "every bill can be tracked"

Career

As BIS head, Carstens stated in 2018 that Bitcoin was "a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster" and indicated that there would be a crackdown on the currency. He was mocked by adovcates of cryptocurrencies "for merely representing the interests of national fiat currency monopolies in quashing potential competitors" and his report contained numerous factual errors.

 

A Quote by Agustín Carstens

Page	Quote	Date
Central bank/Programmable money	“We intend to establish the equivalence with cash and there is a huge difference there, for example in cash we don’t know who is using a 100 dollar bill today ... the key difference with the CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use regarding that expression of central bank liability and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”	October 2020

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
WEF/Annual Meeting/2008	23 January 2008	27 January 2008	Switzerland
WEF/Annual Meeting/2009	23 January 2008	27 January 2008	Switzerland
WEF/Annual Meeting/2015	21 January 2015	24 January 2015	Switzerland	Attended by a lot of people. This page lists only the 261 "Public Figures".
WEF/Annual Meeting/2016	20 January 2016	23 January 2016	Switzerland	Attended by a lot of people, both leaders and followers
WEF/Annual Meeting/2020	21 January 2020	24 January 2020	Switzerland	This mega-summit of the world's ruling class and their political and media appendages happens every year, but 2020 was special, as the continuous corporate media coverage of COVID-19 started more or less from one day to the next on 20/21 January 2020, coinciding with the start of the meeting.