Guest Post by John Stossel
House members summoned Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to Washington, D.C., and grilled him — harshly — about his plan to create a new currency, Libra.
“Why should we trust you?!” asked Congressman Mike Doyle.
I liked it when Zuckerberg said, “I actually don’t know if Libra’s going to work, but I believe that it’s important to try new things.”
He was right. That’s very important.
The Libra would make it easier to transfer money anywhere in the world. It also promises stability. Its value would be based on a basket of currencies from different countries, which would protect Libra owners from inflation in any one country.
It’s an idea that deserves a try.
But it may never be tried because the clueless politicians’ threats of punitive regulation scared off many of its supporters.
Politicians want to crack down on Libra “because they’re threatened by it,” says tech reporter Naomi Brockwell in my new video. “This is going to be competition for the U.S. dollar. Government doesn’t like competition.”
Governments also like to control any money that we might use.
“Want to send money to Russia to a family member; it’s going to be censored. You want to send money to a relief effort in Venezuela; it’s going to be censored,” says Brockwell. But if you use a cryptocurrency like Libra or Bitcoin, “your money will get through. That’s an incredibly powerful tool that gives people the freedom to spend their money where they want to spend it.”
Bitcoin is harder to stop than a currency like Libra would be because Bitcoin doesn’t emanate from one company or government mint. There’s no one owner of Bitcoin or most other cryptocurrencies.
“It is the first currency that is decentralized,” Brockwell points out. “That’s why it’s still around, because they haven’t been able to have these hearings, haven’t been able to call the CEO of Bitcoin and say, ‘cease and desist!’ There is no server to unplug, no company to shut down, no CEO to throw in jail, so it persists! That’s really exciting.”
Digital currencies “live” on thousands of individuals’ computers, so no government can stop them by pressuring any one company.
That’s a reason they’re valuable.
When Bitcoin started, it was worth virtually nothing. But two years ago, the price of one bitcoin reached $19,891. Then it crashed to $3,192. As I write, the price is $9,390.
That volatility deters many people from using Bitcoin as money, but to those of us who don’t trust governments, Brockwell points out: “It is the only suitable money for free people.”
Of course, many disagree.
“I think it’s a gigantic classic pump and dump scheme,” says investor Peter Schiff. “There’s nothing to give Bitcoin value.”
It’s “a bubble,” vulnerable to attacks from governments. “They can get banks and financial institutions to make it very difficult for Americans to use it.”
Schiff doesn’t claim we should count on dollar bills because he doesn’t trust politicians either. He suggests people buy gold to hedge against politicians’ irresponsibility.
“Gold has worked for thousands of years,” says Schiff. Unlike Bitcoin, “gold has actual value. A huge industry needs gold: jewelry … consumer electronics, aerospace and medicine.”
I’ve hedged against the dollar by buying both gold and Bitcoin. My Bitcoin investment did better. But Schiff says I’m a fool if I don’t sell it now.
I don’t know which way prices will move. But I know that it’s good to have alternatives to government-created currencies. The dollar’s value is only backed by politicians’ promises. I sure won’t trust those.
Even when currency is stable, government can use its power over currency to censor people.
“The government decided that they didn’t want WikiLeaks to receive donations, so they froze transactions,” observes Brockwell. But they couldn’t stop Bitcoin.
She says government has had “a monopoly on the money supply for a very long time, and now consumers finally have a choice. You can send bitcoin peer-to-peer to someone on the other side of the world almost instantly at very low cost, and it can’t be censored. That’s incredibly powerful.”
It is.
Alternatives to government monopolies are very good things.
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Money needs to be something tangible, something real. Currency, on the other hand, is purposely something conceptual that can be manipulated by the powers that shouldn’t be.
Bitcoin is a currency. Gold, oil, wheat, etc are money.
What I never hear mentioned is the elimination of national currencies and currencies in general. The metals producers should get together and coin “money” for circulation denominated in the WEIGHT of metal. A gold coin could be struck with 100 stamped into its face denoting 100 grams, for example.
Prices of everything would be set as G:S:C so a typical car would cost 945:50:0 meaning 945 grams of gold, 50 grams of silver and no grams of copper. The units could actually be whatever could be agreed upon. No one would care if the gold was minted in the US, Russia, or on mars.
This would eliminate currency arbitrage, exchange rates, central banks and would mean that government is out of the “money” business. Price inflation would be a market force, not the whim of some banking cabal. Deficit spending with central banks monetizing the debt would be impossible. Wars would be less likely as now they need to be paid for in cash G:S:C, not thin air “currency”.
Credit card companies could store all the metal an individual or company owns and we can all use plastic as a convenience with the option to withdraw any part of OUR metal any time we want. No more fractional reserve banking.
The idea of allowing some gov’t crypto or corporate crypto to base its value on a basket of currencies that in and of themselves have no intrinsic value is plain stupid.
This was tried recently. The individual, as far as I know, is still being held against his will unconstitutionally. But hey! Issue all the gold coins you want!
So, whats bitcoin backed by?
1’s and 0’s
Faith, smoke, mirrors and a promise I will still love you tomorrow.
Electricity
Like gold (but not as good), it’s another anti-dollar. The goal is to circumvent slave dollar hegemony.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/watch-you-are-slave-property-corporation-called-united-states-america
An absolutely fucking brilliant idea, John!
Let’s give Mark “I would sell my mother to Satan for a couple of shekels” Zuckerberg the monopoly power to make HIS virtual currency. Nothing to back it but trust in his “good name”. Just wow.
Could be turn out to be the greatest and final incarnation of the demonic international banking cartel whose founder, Mayer Amschel infamously is quoted as saying:
https://www.azquotes.com/author/21034-Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild
Free Jew-splaining on this one.
Just ask.
Fuckerburg is just another jew manifestation of the banker class.
Some good points to consider.
The jury is still out, in my courtroom of judgement on Bitcoin and cryptos, even with their anonymity and other benefits.
Yet I’m still on the sidelines, watching that game.
But, Facefuck, its leader, and their bed partners will never be trusted again, See? Aye! Hey!
Libra is another control and surveillance program, imo.
The controller’s noses are too far up our collective asses already.
They WILL collect.
Fees, Data, and more.
So, opt out, if it gets hatched.
NFW, will I participate, if I can exert my own control.
Hell, online banking is really an inefficient, primitive version that’s already been promoted and exerting influence.
Proof: transactions > $10k are met with questions, invasions of privacy, and mandatory alerts to alphabet agencies, under the auspices of preventing tax evasion, money laundering, and terrorism funding.
But, it’s plunder, in disguise.
So to that effect, I see Bitcoin and cryptos’ allure.
But, what happens if / when the grid goes down?
All currencies of exchange must rely on dominant faith in its value and purchasing power agreements.
The $ USD?
Just the most favorable horse at the moment, headed toward the glue factory.
Got Au or Ag? Items for barter?
A stash of prep?
A gulch location similar to Galts?
Ducks in a row, baby.
Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.
-Andy Dufresne,
“The Shawshank Redemption”
Red sed it too.
I might have erred w the source, Pecky. Thx for the vid link correction.
Merci.
Nah, they both sed it.
The jews won’t allow it…
This is the model Wikileaks should have used, and may be the future of journalism because of the governments 1st amendment tyranny. If Wikileaks did this, Assange would be a free man today.
What’s even better is an alternative to government.