{"id":76586,"date":"2023-01-07T01:15:11","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T09:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=76586"},"modified":"2023-01-10T09:26:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:26:53","slug":"black-coffee-7-jan-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id76586-black-coffee-7-jan-2023.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: The Future of Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I’ve got another busy weekend ahead of me, so let’s get right to this week’s commentary …<\/p>\n

Money is a mechanism for control.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– David Korten<\/strong><\/p>\n

The desire for gold is not for gold; it is for freedom and benefit.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? For only the third time since 1926, both US stocks and<\/strong><\/em> bonds lost money<\/a> in 2022. How rare is that? Well … the only other times that happened were way back in 1931 and 1969.<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Looking a little closer, US Treasury 10-year notes returned negative<\/strong><\/em> 16.5% – that’s the worst return on record<\/a>. And over the last two years the 10-year note has returned negative<\/strong><\/em> 21%. As for stocks, the only two sectors generating positive returns in 2022 were energy (+65%) and utilities (+2%). And although it’s early, 2023 seems to be on a similar trajectory …<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Then again, for as bad as the stock and bond markets faired, the cryptocurrency sector was even worse<\/a>. In fact, cryptocurrencies were utterly decimated, with half of the top 10 crypto funds from 2022 now either bankrupt, missing in action, or both.<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> And although cryptocurrencies now find themselves on the back foot, central banks are still pushing a similar ledger technology known as the CBDC. But unlike cryptos that utilize a distributed ledger, CBDCs use a controlled ledger managed by the central banks – and the governments they serve. To date, 12 CBDCs are in use<\/a>, 17 more are in limited beta-test pilot programs, 33 are in development and 39 are still in the research phase. In the US, the Fed has advanced beyond the research phase, and they’re now actively developing and testing prototypes.<\/p>\n

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(h\/t: r\/WallStreetSilver u\/boxofusedleftsox)<\/p><\/div>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Meanwhile, macro analyst Matthew Piepenburg is warning that CBDCs will most likely be introduced during the next monetary crisis, thereby allowing the government to convert your dollars to these digital central bank Frankenstein coins “while simultaneously keeping a percentage for themselves to pay its debts. And given that the entire world is over $300 trillion in debt, one can bet that a massive debt restructuring<\/a> – akin to a global bankruptcy declaration – is inevitable. CBDCs are thus being rolled out beforehand to make this theft more efficient.” Then again, CBDCs will<\/strong><\/em> be super convenient. So there’s that.<\/p>\n

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(h\/t: r\/WallStreetSilver u\/onetroyounce)<\/p><\/div>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> In the meantime, the world’s central banks will continue to push the “convenience” of their fraudulent fiat CBDCs<\/a> to the public, while ignoring the fact that they can expire, thereby preventing them from being used for long-term savings. Those same central banks also fail to mention that because central banks don’t have to worry about bank runs, CBDC holders are extremely vulnerable to involuntary incremental confiscation over time via negative interest rates. Even worse, CBDC transactions aren’t private – and any citizen who challenges government policies could, theoretically, even have their CBDCs frozen. Imagine that.<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Of course, central banks are happy to extoll the virtues of CBDCs for public use – something they would never do for gold. Even so, they continue to hold the yellow metal in their vaults. In fact, last week Russia\u2019s finance minister announced that their National Wealth Fund (NWF) doubled its maximum<\/a> permitted allocation limits to 60% in Chinese yuan and 40% in gold. Historically, the NWF held US dollars, yen, euros and pound sterling. Today, it holds none of these currencies – it does, however, hold thousands of tons of gold<\/strong><\/em>. Talk about a de-dollarization signpost.<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Most investment analysts have been educated to believe that gold is not money. Instead they think that cash notes issued by a central bank is money. But as macroeconomist Alasdair Macleod observes, all fiat currency, including the US dollar “very clearly has counterparty risk<\/a>, minimal though that usually is, and it’s accounted for on a central bank balance sheet as a liability. Under any definition, these are the characteristics of credit and matching debt obligations.” Very true, Alasdair. Very true. Now can you please explain this?<\/strong><\/em> (h\/t: the Honeybee)<\/em><\/p>\n