<p>Government people don’t like gold. <br /><br />Actually, I should rephrase. Government people love gold. But they don’t like you to have it.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Because people with gold are harder to control.</p>
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<p>UK Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy gave us a glimpse behind the curtain during a summit on responsible gold sourcing hosted by the London Bullion Market Association and the World Gold Council. Lammy intended to warn the audience about the dangers of illicit gold. Instead, he revealed exactly why a lot of people want to own the yellow metal.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Unlike cash, gold does not need a bank account, a password, or an internet connection.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>OK, David, I’m already sold!</p>
<p>Of course, in Lammy’s mind, that’s not a feature. It’s a bug. When you have real, hard money, the government can’t track what you spend. It can’t freeze your bank account if you do or say something unapproved. Oh, and it’s much harder to tax you.</p>
<p>Of course, the government people will tell you they just want to track the bad guys. What they don’t tell you is that they have a different definition of bad guy than you or I. We think of a bad guy as a murderer or robber. In the eyes of the government, you are a bad guy if you do anything to undermine or challenge its authority. Own the wrong kind of gun, go to the wrong rally, or even say the wrong words, and you suddenly become a bad guy. </p>
<h2>The War on Hard Currency</h2>
<p>By the way, this is the root of the so-called <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/09/26/israel-considers-limiting-ownership-of-gold-and-silver-eliminating-large-denomination-notes-in-war-on-cash-003491">war on cash</a>. Governments would love to do away with cash and force all our transactions into the digital realm. This would set the government up with surveillance capabilities that would make Orwell blush.</p>
<p>Imagine if every transaction were digital. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest purchase from the government’s eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to get a coffee wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As <em>Bloomberg</em> put it in an article published when China launched a digital yuan pilot program in 2020, digital currency “<em>offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.</em>”</p>
<p>The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases. <em>Bloomberg</em> described just how much control a digital currency could give Chinese officials.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The PBOC has also indicated that it could put limits on the sizes of some transactions, or even require an appointment to make large ones. Some observers wonder whether payments could be linked to the emerging social-credit system, wherein citizens with exemplary behavior are ‘whitelisted’ for privileges, while those with criminal and other infractions find themselves left out. ‘China’s goal is not to make payments more convenient but to replace cash, so it can keep closer tabs on people than it already does,’ argues Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can't do that when people are using gold.</p>
<p>Simply put, a society without hard currency would ultimately give the government complete control of your money. And that means significant control over <strong>you</strong>. Virtually every action you take would be subject to government scrutiny.</p>
<p>Gold is worse than cash in the eyes of a government person because you can spend it virtually anywhere in the world. You may have a hard time finding someone who will accept a peso. You may even have trouble spending a dollar. But you will be hard-pressed to find anybody anywhere who would accept gold as payment. Its value is recognized around the world, from Times Square to the depths of the African jungle.</p>
<p>Now, you might think I’m promoting a way for you to skirt the system and engage in illicit activities. That’s not my point at all. That’s what the government people want you to hear. My point is that sound money is freedom. I don’t own a gun because I want to commit crimes. I own a gun to protect my family if things get hinky. I don’t own gold because I want to engage in criminal activity. I own gold because if things do go sideways, I want to be able to protect my financial health.</p>
<h2>Fiat Money Supports Big Government</h2>
<p>There’s another reason government people don’t like gold. It limits their power.</p>
<p>Fiat money benefits governments because they can expand the money supply at will. Money printing and debt monetization enable government borrowing and spending that would be impossible in a sound money system. Without fiat money, governments would be much smaller, less powerful, and less intrusive. </p>
<p>This is precisely why <a href="https://moneymetalsexchange.medium.com/understanding-roosevelts-1933-gold-confiscation-123a87919fa6">President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to take all of the gold out of the public’s hands</a>.</p>
<p>And while fiat systems benefit governments and their cronies, it hurts regular people. As governments print more money to fund their programs and enrich the political class, it steals the purchasing power of everybody else. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that fiat money facilitates big government and erodes individual liberty.</p>
<p>Economist Ludwig von Mises believed it was imperative to understand this aspect of the fiat money regime. He said<span> </span><a href="https://medium.com/@JoshuaDGlawson/love-mises-to-pieces-the-rising-fascination-with-austrian-economics-sound-money-precious-metals-2c51a676c405" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sound money is a bulwark for liberty</a><span> </span>in the same sense as constitutions and bills of rights.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can shield yourself from this relentless monetary depreciation by saving in real money – gold.</p>
<p>So, don’t listen to the political class. You <strong>do</strong> need gold. Don’t let them gaslight you into thinking otherwise.</p>
