Did You Know?
Did you know cryptocurrency can affect your family’s health, happiness, and personal fortunes? Did you think, like me, that if I didn’t buy any crypto, I wouldn’t be in any personal financial danger from it? However, there are a few ways crypto can rock our world:
Most obvious: Buying crypto is a risky bet compared to investing in stock in companies. Until 1971, the U.S. dollar was backed by the gold standard. Since then, it has been backed by “the full faith and credit of the United States.” When you buy stock in a company, you are buying a share of the products they manufacture that people need, such as Tide laundry detergent. When you buy crypto, there is no product or gold backing it up. It is called fiat money and has no intrinsic value; its only worth is whatever someone decides it is. Those who establish and sell crypto make most of their money off the high fees they charge when they sell it. Buyers, however, can be hurt by drops in crypto prices.
Dangerous lack of regulation: The United States was established with checks and balances on our dollar and banking to make us less vulnerable to corruption of our economy. The current administration has vowed to end regulatory oversight of crypto, and the missing guardrails allow us to go off track. Crypto setbacks cause people and other nations to doubt our financial stability. More doubt has led to less investment in the US, market chaos, higher interest rates, massive national debt payments, layoffs, and subsequent downturns in our general economy. American workers and employers pay the price, as they did in 2008, when so many jobs and homes and retirement savings were lost. It’s impossible to realize your own American Dream when there is no congressional oversight and no regulator protecting your savings and investment in a home or small business.
Subtle crypto creep: Have you been working a while and investing in a retirement IRA plan or maybe a plan at your work? Many of the most trusted financial organizations are now selling crypto investments and derivatives, some of which are showing up in retirement plans. Therefore, you could be invested in crypto without realizing it. It’s time to check and establish your own guardrails with the plan manager.
The declining U.S. dollar makes us less powerful and secure, crypto volatility is causing financial instability, and AI is starting to impact our jobs and neighborhoods as well. It’s time to elect representatives at the local, state, and the Federal level who will stand up to the big monied interests and restore a more level playing field for everyone. It’s time to restore full faith and credit in the American Dream for the many, not the few.
Marian Hill