Insurance With a Little Shine

Everyone knows that all investments carry some amount of risk. This ranges from highly speculative cryptocurrencies to low return bonds with far lower risk. One area that people do not assign enough risk to is insurance. Insurance is supposed to be a safeguard against risk, so it seems odd to recognize that it also can expose people to a great amount of risk. Insurance companies can often go out of business and even the most stable insurance companies will be of little help during a radical societal regime change. Insurance denominated in a specific currency is only helpful if that currency is accepted. A society without rule of law will damage the ability of insurance companies to protect their assets or hold other businesses accountable to promises made in times of stability. Numerous shocks can destabilize the economic and governmental systems of a society enough to make the insurance that someone paid for almost worthless. However, gold provides a convenient alternative to insurance that allows durability through a wide range of unanticipated situations.

While it may seem far off, a descent into a regime of totalitarianism is always likely, as evidenced by its popularity throughout human history. No polity is ever fully safe from the threat of a violent authoritarian takeover. Current technology means that this sort of regime would have a technological element that could horrifically enable informational overreach. Currency will be one of the first areas of human ingenuity to be fully controlled by the state. While it is already controlled by the state, digital currency, or other totalitarian techniques could make privacy even more of a farce. Those who bought gold before this situation would be empowered to continue doing business with others freely or to move to a different country and still have access to their assets. Fleeing would only be possible for those with some means to fund transportation across borders. A fully state controlled financial system would make this sort of flight unrealistic. The privacy and universal acceptance of gold make it an excellent currency of resistance against state overreach.…