The Importance of Free and Open Societies
Say No to Authoritarianism and CBDCs
This week, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Jorge Jraissati, Director of Alumni for Liberty, a division of Students for Liberty.
Students for Liberty has over 10,000 members in 139 countries, and it promotes the ideals of classical liberalism as a counter to authoritarianism, which can come in the form of far-right fascism or socialism. (And sometimes socialism turns into far-right fascism (see Hitler; the Nazi party was socialist party.)
Through the organization as well as through his work as a researcher, lecturer and writer, Jorge travels the globe relentlessly, spreading information about the importance of free markets and free minds.
Why does he does this?
Well, he grew up in Venezuela under the Chávez and Maduro regimes, and while he had to flee the country for fear of persecution, he’s committed to one day returning to his homeland help repair all the damage that’s been done by the authoritarian regimes that have run the country for over two decades now.
Fun fact: Jorge and I used to literally live down the street from one another in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and he studied English at one of the schools at which I taught there. Crazy.
He’s also committed to not letting what happened in Venezuela happen elsewhere (hence all the traveling).
I very much enjoyed both meeting Jorge two weeks ago at the event at which I spoke in DC and recording this interview with him.
I hope you get as much from the interview as I did.
The Human Rights Foundation’s CBDC Tracker
On Thursday, I attended an event hosted by PubKey and the Human Rights Foundation at which the dangers of CBDCs — Central Bank Digital Currencies — were discussed.
The Human Rights Foundation in conjunction with the Cato Institute recently created a CBDC tracker, which lets you track which countries are implementing CBDCs and/or how far along countries are in developing CBDCs.
But what is a CBDC?
It’s a form of digital national currency through which central banks can have complete control over and insight into your financial life.
Using CBDCs, every transaction you make can be monitored and surveilled. And access to your funds can be cut off with little more than a few keystrokes.
If that doesn’t frighten you, just imagine a politician you don’t like — someone like Donald Trump — cutting off funds to anyone who opposes him.
CBDCs have the power to make the world dystopian very quickly.
As writer Norbert Michel put it in the headline for his Forbes article on the topic: “Central Bank Digital Currencies Are About Control — They Should Be Stopped”
The Bitcoin Halving Is Coming
We’re only 9,000 blocks away from the Bitcoin halving.
Blocks?! Halvings?!?! Why do you use these technical terms with me when you know I’m not a nerd like you, Frank?!?!?!
I know these words might be confusing to you. That’s why I wrote the piece! READ IT:
Bitcoin halving countdown: What does it mean for bitcoin’s price?
Also, here are two caveats to what I wrote in the piece:
Past performance of bitcoin’s price action is not a guarantee of future results.
I believe we’re in the middle of a melt-up in markets, which will end with a financial crash much larger than what we saw in 2008. I foresee this crash happening some time in either Q2 or Q3 this year. Will share more on this in a future edition of the newsletter. If you’d like to learn more about how I’m positioning my portfolio in response to this, become a paid subscriber to the newsletter and get access to the newsletter’s “Markets” section.
US Dollars Funding Annihilation in Gaza
While I’m immensely saddened by what’s happening in Gaza, I don’t comment on it much because I’m the farthest thing from a scholar on conflict in the Middle East.
But I read the following article last night, and it made me sick:
“Opinion: I’m an American doctor who went to Gaza. What I saw wasn’t war — it was annihilation” (Los Angeles Times)
As the headline states, the piece was written by an American doctor who went to Gaza to work in a hospital. In it, he describes the horrors of the genocide that the Israel, funded by the US, is carrying out in the region.
One of the last lines in the piece stuck out to me:
“As an American, I think of our tax dollars paying for the weapons that likely injured my patients there.”
It did so for two reasons:
I feel the same way.
Saying our tax dollars are funding this genocide isn’t entirely correct. More below:
While some of this genocide in Gaza is being funded by American tax payers, some percentage of it is being funded with more debt. This means we’re putting US children in further debt to pay for the murder of the Palestinian people.
When I read the line from the piece I highlighted, I thought of something the Chief Strategy Officer for the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein, once shared in an interview.
He described how, during World War I, the US government would actually share with Americans what their tax dollars purchased for the war.
For example, they’d be told that their taxes went toward purchasing a portion of a tank.
But now, in an age in which we metaphorically put wars on credit cards, we don’t do this anymore.
Imagine receiving a message from the US government that read: “You’re tax dollars paid for 1,000 sniper bullets that were put through the heads of Palestinian children.”
Or imagine the US government asked you for your bitcoin (money that actually retains value) to fund this genocide.
If either of these scenarios were the case, you’d probably look at this annihilation in Gaza very differently.
But so long as we can finance infinite war through infinite debt, little will likely change.
My Appearance on Coin Exams
I was recently interviewed by a crypto YouTube channel based in Indonesia — Coin Exams.
In the interview I spoke about how governments will inevitably have to recalibrate as Bitcoin becomes more ubiquitous.
Note: When I mention “crypto” in the interview, I’m referring to stablecoins, which many who are experiencing high inflation in developing countries currently rely on to preserve their wealth. The only native crypto asset that’s actually money is bitcoin.
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