Trust in a "digital economy"

Gaining trust is one thing, retaining it is even harder. History teaches us that once trust is lost, fortunes usually disappear shortly thereafter. We may be at such a crossroads now with the most popular man-made currency ever. As Margaret Thatcher was once purported to have remarked, “When you have to remind someone that you are a lady, you’re not”, which brings us to the fate of the U.S. Dollar…

Trust a winner who believes in a higher power.
The world was very different in 1944 than it is now. The United States of America was “The Arsenal of Democracy”. “God fearing” Americans were leading the free world in the triumph over the evils of Fascism demonstrating a noble, yet friendly sense of humility and service. It probably seemed easy to trust a country made up of such down to earth “citizen soldiers” as David Ambrose once called us. On the front of every Silver Certificate and sliver coin in circulation at the time were the words “In God We Trust”. Being “the land of the free” it certainly didn’t seem to matter which god in particular you trusted while spending those dollars. It was more of a reminder, even to those of us that had not been in combat, that there was more to our multifaceted and colourful lives than that which passed in front of our noses.

Up to then Americans had been used to a strong vision usually backed by strong, believable leadership. Slogans like “Manifest destiny” had been replaced by “making the world safe for Democracy” yet we still acted liked we believed them deep in our souls. We had always been a spiritual country with “God on our side” and now we had proof; we won The War!

With this as a backdrop, the famous “Bretton Woods agreement” was signed in 1944 effectively substituting the U.S. Dollar for gold as the de facto reserve currency of the world. The United States didn’t need much marketing and spin to sell the Dollar at Bretton Woods as everyone clamoured to be on our team. By the way, can you remember or more importantly, do you care who the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank was during this glorious time?

With all these factors supporting it, the world was now invited to buy U.S. Dollars. Since they were trusted to be “as good as gold”, the rest of the world began buying them, with vigor.

The Digital Age.
Not long after the Bretton Woods agreement; the first Sperry Univac computer was invented.
With the invention of the Univac Computer, the digital age was born. It wasn’t too long before someone figured out that you could “make” money with computers.
It wasn’t too long after that that the financial community realized that you could “create” electronic money with computers too!

What Inflation and Deterioration have in common:
There seems to be, or at least feel like there is a strong correlation between the explosive creation of electronic money and the deterioration of our unified trust in our leaders’ vision and spirit. Indeed, inflation seems to affect more than our money! Many old-timers will tell you that during the depths of the depression in the 1930’s it was very rare that anyone locked their doors, as the thought of getting robbed was probably as foreign to them as an average house costing $250,000.00!

Everyone was “in it” together. There was a “golden” sense of family and community that the United States of America radiated out to the rest of the world and everyone else desperately wanted to be part of that club. From Bretton Woods onward, the price of membership was now in Dollars.

Pretty soon digital currencies were born and of course, the daddy of them all was the “Almighty Dollar”. If you are reading this article you have no doubt an understanding of what the monetary inflation curve has looked like since “Bretton” Woods and its parabolic rise since the subsequent invention of the PC and the Internet. But have we lost something less measurable yet, possibly more valuable on the way?

How we measure a loss of spirit or a loss of Trust
The answer is that you don’t, but it is fairly easy to sense or read about in the papers.
One just has to look around to observe that the USA of 2004 is not the USA of 1944. For example, according to one study at the time, biggest problem facing public high school in the 1940’s was the chewing of gum during class. The vision of “Making the world safe for Democracy”, for those who still care, seems to have been replaced with either “The Worlds Police Force” or closer to home, “Shop till you drop”. Does “Shop till you drop” touch your soul like “Manifest Destiny”?
Have you had the “pleasure” of going through an airport in “The land of the Free” recently?

Non- Americans are smart and getting smarter:
From a “rest of the world” perspective, it is now beginning to be rather evident that through its mixed messages, American Leadership along with our collective consumer behaviour are squandering the trust other fellow humans bestowed upon it in those heady days after World War II. We have created, borrowed and spent more “fiat” money since than probably existed since the beginning of civilization. The Dollar, whether in paper or electronic form, is a mere shell of its former self. According to the Federal Reserve itself, ironically entrusted to maintain the value of it, the dollar has lost over 95% of its value since the Fed came into being. The mantra of a “sound Dollar” has been replaced by “no money down and 0% financing” and people in the rest of the world are beginning to wake up to its ramifications.

More importantly, the spirit backing the “greenback”, regardless from which God it came, seems to have been replaced by needs of self serving politicians, finance people and the Federal Reserve itself. It is becoming blatantly obvious to at least many well educated non-Americans that politics and greed seem to have once again replaced down-home human spirit and values. There are more and more well educated and well travelled non-Americans. It is interesting to note that in Europe over the last 10 years, questions about the best sights to see and the best places to shop have been replaced by American political and monetary inquiries. Also, at least in Europe, more of them are expressing an open disinterest in visiting the United States.

"Maggie" in a new context:
Remembering Maggie Thatcher, we see that despite all the spin by politicians and even Sir Alan Greenspan himself, or maybe because of it, Europeans have created the Euro, Arab nations are both contemplating buying oil in Euros and creating a gold Dinar and the Chinese have opened a gold exchange. Now possibly even the Bank of Japan itself is exploring ways to lessen their dependency on the U.S. Dollar. Abroad, blind trust is giving way to a “cover your ass-etts” awakening. What happens when fewer and fewer people want more and more Dollars?

Looking at its steady price rise, one of the avenues being explored by all is gold. Luckily, pure gold is still one form of money no government or bank has ever been able to manipulate. Even after more than 5000 years of use as money, gold still doesn’t need the reminder of “In God We Trust” to help retain its value.

Nowhere on a piece of gold will you find the words “promissory note”.
Even though some might also add that it is also the only form of money created by God, one thing most of us can agree upon is this; Gold and its sister Silver are the only assets used as money that are not backed by a liability. It might be time to once again remind ourselves of that all-too-human slogan about “promises are made to be broken.”

So until personal integrity and earning trust become not only leadership issues but leadership requirements it would seem to be prudent to save some gold. It would also be worthwhile to compare what is being stated by our leaders to the responses generated in subsequent world events. Its all about relationships!

Question Authority:
The more we question authority, the more we coach our leaders and ourselves to be truthful, the more we retain and exercise our freedom of choice. With our help, our leaders can again become personally accountable to serving “We the people” instead of just enjoying their elite status. Then the rest of the world may again be inspired to look up to us who are blessed to be citizens of “the land of the free”.