The final crushing of American liberty… The real danger of FedAccounts… It’s time to “de-financialize” your life… In the mailbag: “Sticks and stones may break your bones”…
A world in which federal bureaucrats constantly watch, monitor, and record every aspect of your financial life.
As the mainstream press obsesses over another tell-all book about life inside the White House… here at The Daily Cut, we’ve been raising the alarm about plans to obliterate the last shreds of financial privacy left to you.
It’s what Bill Bonner Letter coauthor Dan Denning warns could be the “final crushing of American liberty.”
And as you’ll learn in today’s essay, it’s why Dan says you should “de-financialize” your life right away. In other words, make sure to keep part of your wealth stashed outside of the financial system.
Under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), you must report overseas bank accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). It’s a bureau within the U.S. Department of the Treasury that collects and analyzes the nation’s financial transactions.
If you deposit, transfer, withdraw, or exchange currency worth $10,000 or more, your bank automatically alerts FinCEN with a “currency transaction report.”
And you better not deposit, transfer, withdraw, or exchange currency less than $10,000. If your bank thinks you’ve done it to avoid FinCEN reporting, that could be a felony called “structuring.” (You may recall that former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert spent 13 months in a federal prison after he was found guilty of structuring.)
You see, there are growing calls for central banks to take over all functions of the private sector banking system.
This may sound far-fetched. But as we told you yesterday, that’s what the Swiss voted on in a referendum over the summer. And liberal U.S. think tank The Great Democracy Initiative (part of the Roosevelt Institute) has called for something similar.
Also over the summer, it proposed a radical change to the banking system – “FedAccounts.” Instead of banking with Wells Fargo, Citi, or Capital One, you’d bank directly at the U.S. Federal Reserve – America’s central bank.
If we all banked directly with the central bank, they argue, there’d be no need for feds to insure bank accounts. Nor would there be any reason to worry about private sector banks going bust and putting your savings at risk.
But according to Dan, FedAccounts would deal a hammer blow to the free-market economy. And he’s not mincing his words…
This is the perfect recipe for socialism or communism… and the extinguishing of whatever financial freedom is left in America.
Give central bankers complete control of the money supply, and you can forget the free-market economy. It would hand government central planners carte blanche to pursue all sorts of interventionism.
Just picture it…
The next financial crisis strikes. This time, interest rates are on the floor. There’s not much cutting the Fed can do. So it slaps a negative interest rate on accounts of more than $100,000.
To further “stimulate” growth, it then tops up smaller accounts with newly created dollars – so-called helicopter money.
After all, voters love nothing more than financial giveaways. Dan again…
A FedAccount system would also make “universal basic income” – aka free money for all – a lot easier to deliver. The central bank would simply update your account each month with $1,000 or whatever.
That’s why FedAccounts will end up being politically popular here in the U.S. Most Americans know next to nothing about the money system or how it works. And they love the idea of free money to change their lives.
But as followers of Legacy Research cofounders Bill Bonner and Doug Casey know, money that’s unmoored from the real world can do more harm than good.
De-financialization has been Dan’s rallying cry since he joined Legacy Research last year. It means making sure you don’t have all your wealth trapped in your bank or brokerage account.
Dan recommends you keep about one-third of your wealth in hard assets – things you physically possess.
The bulk will be made up by real estate you either own and live in or rent out and generate income from. But collectibles – stamps, classic cars, rare coins – are also good options.
This is where you can get creative with your investing.
As Dan told Bill Bonner Letter readers (subscribers can catch up here) he found an old Navajo rug in a storage unit rented by his late father. He showed it to a Native American art dealer, who reckoned he could fetch close to $5,000 for it if he ever wanted to sell it.
If there’s one recommendation that cuts across all the analysts here at Legacy, it’s that gold is real wealth – as opposed to the financial or digital kind – and should be part of every portfolio.
And now is a great time to be a gold buyer.
As we told you here and here, a number of contrarian indicators have aligned that signal higher prices ahead.
The conversation in today’s mailbag shifts to last week’s topic, “How to Escape the Digital Prison.”
To lead, one reader shows why “snail mail” isn’t as secure as it seems…
A little more enlightenment for all the readers. The thought to switch to snail mail [from Patricia M. in the September 6 Daily Cut] is not as good as you think.
The USPS offers a service to email you a picture of every piece of mail or package that will be delivered to your mailbox or post office box for free. With this, the government knows every piece of mail you get, every subscription, every flyer, political flyers etc.
I tried it and the photos have amazing clarity. Now you know why they will never shut it down no matter how much money it loses every year. Sign up and see for yourself – you might as well know what they can see.
– Jeff L.
And another notices something strange about how Google sorts their email…
Ironically, I only saw this message when randomly checking my automatic Gmail junk folder. Keep up the great work, guys.
– Sol T.
Finally, reader Paul W. exercises his Constitutional rights when it comes to Big Tech silencing “hate speech” (catch up with our August 29 dispatch)…
What your anti-readers do not seem to understand (because the state and media themselves either also don’t understand or intentionally try to disguise) is best stated in the old adage (that I learned from my mother as a child and took to heart): “sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you!”
It is true that for psychologically immature humans (certainly including young children), the receipt of words or even the reading of certain words which they think are directed at them, even from a stranger, can indeed lead to them feeling hurt. However, since this does not happen to all such people, this is clearly a product of the mind, rather than something forced upon them.
I don’t know anything about Alex Jones and had never even heard of him before his banning (which shows how easy it is for any immature person who might be hurt to avoid that – simply do not read or listen to him). Private mega-companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google certainly have the entitlement to refuse service to whomever they wish and for whatever reason they wish, but if that reason does not relate to the use of coercion by the banned person then I will also act on my entitlement to refuse to use the services of such social media (or any other company who acts similarly, for that matter).
– Paul W.
Do Big Tech companies have the right to silence whomever they wish, and for whatever reason? And if not, how should one fight back?
Let us know at feedback@legacyresearch.com…
Regards,
Chris Lowe
September 11, 2018
Lisbon, Portugal
P.S. On Thursday, October 18 at the Legacy Investment Summit, I’ll join Bill Bonner, Doug Casey, media personality Glenn Beck, and Emmy Award winner John Stossel for a roundtable discussion about the very themes we cover here in the Cut.
We’ll focus on helping you survive what we’re calling “the assault on ideas,” and it’s pivotal that you attend. You simply won’t get our unfiltered insights anywhere else.
Space is limited, but there’s still time to book your seat at the conference. Click here for more details, including how your attendance will save you $1,000.