Let’s be honest: cash is a pain in the ass.

But it’s under your complete control at all times (assuming you haven’t been pickpocketed).

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), otherwise known as Fed Coin or Biden Bucks, are under the government’s control. So when people come up with all sorts of dystopian scenarios against Biden Bucks, those scenarios shouldn’t be dismissed as alarmist nonsense.

Yesterday, I interviewed my friend, economist, and Rude contributor Thorsten Polleit. He wrote the warmly received Rude edition titled “Biden Bucks? How About World-Widen Bucks!”

Our team is doing its best to edit the interview so we can release it next Tuesday, November 14th. Thorsten thoroughly answers, explains, and illuminates points on Germany, America, and gold.

Here’s a little nugget: Thorsten is an economist who participated in the 2023 Precious Metals Forecast Survey of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). He gives his gold target price for the end of the year and why he hasn’t changed it.

I’ll send you the link once it’s posted on the Paradigm Press YouTube Channel.

This piece borrows heavily from an article I wrote back in 2021. But oddly enough, it was prescient then. Now, it’s downright spot-on!

Central Bank Digital Currencies: What’s in Your Wallet?

Old friend and Rude reader Trav sent me an interesting email yesterday that I almost dismissed offhandedly.

When you've been a right-libertarian for many years, you’re naturally ahead of the curve, as libertarians are a vigilant, fearful, pessimistic bunch.

Many arguments, caveats, and banana peels they saw coming decades ago are now just entering the mainstream.

Travis sent me this Doomberg article, which talks about the impending USD digitalization.

Libertarians for ages have hated all sorts of elimination of cash or central bank digital currencies because governments can theoretically just turn off wallets.

This is not a far-fetched scenario, in that as early as June 2021, the Bank of England asked ministers to intervene in digital currency programming.

The digital currency can then be programmed to be spent only on essentials or items the government or employer thinks are “sensible.”

This is an affront to anyone who knows civilization was built on the foundation of private property rights.

What’s Yours is Mine

Think about these things:

If the government knows that you got caught driving while intoxicated once, are you ever going to be able to buy alcohol again with your central bank-issued digital currency?

If you abused prescription drugs at one point, will you be able to buy them later on, even if you're completely over it, with your central bank digital currency?

Are you ever going to be able to purchase marijuana?

Are you ever going to be able to do anything that you want with your own money?

This is an assault on private property.

A government would be able to turn off your medium of exchange, thereby prohibiting you from buying what you want.

Your wealth is the sum of your lifetime’s income minus all the costs. Your money is all about how you wield your wealth.

I have been privy to these arguments forever.

One Ring to Rule Them All

Thorsten Polleit, an excellent German economist of the Austrian School, has called the impending central bank digital currencies "The one ring to rule them all."

From Polleit’s speech at the Property and Freedom Conference in 2021:

However, the One Ring of Power stands for the particularly evil idea of creating a state of states, a world government, a world state; and the creation of a single world fiat currency controlled by the states would pave the way toward this outcome.

Knowing the globalizers inside the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, Washington, London (despite Brexit!), and the European Union, you could see that as an endpoint.

What if one government sticks a prohibition on you? Can you, say, book a plane ticket?

Will you be able to put your digital currency in whatever bank in the world?

And if you stick it in the bank, will your home government monitor your transactions from afar?

We can see that the IRS wants to monitor all bank transactions over $600.

We've also seen via Bloomberg that China has ordered HSBC, Manulife, and AIA to prohibit withdrawals for Hong Kongers leaving the territory to resettle in England.

On the surface, that’s because they have British national overseas passports, and the Chinese government doesn't recognize them.

But the real reason is they don’t want billions of dollars withdrawn in Hong Kong and deposited in London.

This was another thing libertarians were way ahead of the curve. Because what happens when Social Security genuinely runs out of money and can't print anymore?

They will start seizing retirement accounts, which is why I smartly put mine offshore years ago.

If you can do that, please do so.

You never, ever know when that day will come, and in the great words of Andrew Henderson of Nomad Capitalist, "You'd rather be three years early than one day late."

What About Cryptocurrencies?

This bolsters the argument for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, which are beyond government control.

Again, the arguments that Bitcoiners put forward 12 years ago no longer seem fanciful, even to the mainstream.

That’s because government actions speak for themselves.

This is another reason why at least part of your portfolio should be in cryptocurrencies. Because when the rush to buy cryptos genuinely happens, crypto will roof it.

We’re still in the early adopter stage, so you have some time.

Bitcoin and Ethereum lead the way now, although who knows what'll happen with these newer digital currencies coming up?

Friedrich Hayek was a proponent of the denationalization of money and putting money in the hands of where it should be, which is the market.

Money is subject to the laws of supply and demand, just like everything else, and should be out of government hands.

Of course, everyone alive today has not lived through a regime where the government did not control money, so that's an entirely foreign concept.

Unfortunately, far from denationalizing money, we’re going in the complete opposite direction, where governments will be able to control every purchase that we make.

It’s paramount that if you value your freedom, you avoid this scenario at all costs.

So prepare yourself, start looking at crypto, start getting your pension offshore, if it isn't offshore already, and beware of what your government is doing in terms of digitalizing its currency.

And, of course, put part of your portfolio in gold. Once Powell cuts, asset classes like crypto, gold, and stocks will outperform.

Sorry for the grave tidings, but the “utopian” future governments promise us seems pretty dystopian.

Have a great day.