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My client told me yesterday that years ago, he and his wife traveled from Alaska back to his childhood home to accept an award for excellence in dentistry. Home for him was LA—not that LA—Shreveport. The ceremony was in New Orleans.
The plan was to borrow one of his sister’s cars in Shreveport and drive to New Orleans. Before they drove off, he asked his buddy if he needed anything.
“Would you mind picking up some alligator meat?” he asked.
“No problem.”
Driving home from New Orleans, they took a left into the swamp, walked into the store, and said he was there to pick up alligator meat for his friend. The old Cajun came back, slid it across the counter, and said how much it would be.
My client turned to his wife, who said to the man, “We’re going to pay with a traveler’s check.”
“What’s a travelin’ check?”
“It’s like money,” she said.
“Ma’am, I don’t accept anythin’ that’s like money. Just money.”
And that’s about how Your Survival Guy feels about digital dollars: If it’s only like money, you can have it.
Action Line: Keep it simple and Survive and Thrive with me.
In a November working paper on the benefits and risks of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), Nicholas Anthony and Norbert Michel of the Cato Institute come to the conclusion that the purported benefits of CBDCs don’t live up to scrutiny. They write:
CBDCs have the potential to radically transform the American financial system and all signs point to that transformation being to the detriment of the American people. A U.S. CBDC poses substantial risks to financial privacy, financial freedom, free markets, and cybersecurity. Yet the purported benefits fail to stand up to scrutiny. CBDCs have certainly made central banks the talk of the town and thrown a splash of life into an otherwise dense policy field. But there is no reason for the U.S. government to issue a CBDC when the costs are so high and the benefits are so low.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
