Show Me the Money

Treasury Sec Janet Yellen recently spoke about the creation of a “central-bank digital currency.” It won’t be easy! “Issuing a CBDC,” she said, “would likely present a major design and engineering challenge that would require years of development, not months.”

“A digital dollar,” she added, “will make it easier to debase, inflate, and confiscate individual accounts based on the needs of the state.”

Okay, I made up that last paragraph. But these days you could say that from a Davos stage and the chattering class would nod in approval. Yes! Imagine if digital dollars were the norm in 2018 and we could’ve amassed a database of everyone who bought a MyPillow! January 6 could’ve been prevented if we’d had a list of everyone with a predilection for seditionary bed furnishings.

This is why I like cash. You know, the paper stuff that gives you the illusion of value, because it has numbers and presidents on it. I carry cash in a money clip I got from my dad. It’s made of gold, so even when you’re broke, you’re not. When I tap that metal binder in my pocket, I think, “I am a free man whose financial decisions are not subject to the scrutiny of the state! If an Iranian EMP takes out the electrical grid and the ATMs go down, I’ll be able to buy pizza for lunch while everyone else swipes their card with panicked confusion. Hah! Stand aside, you digital slaves, and let a real man flush with fiat currency that has no intrinsic value show you how it’s done!”

Mostly I like cash because people have to steal it from you in person, the old traditional way. I’ve had two credit cards stolen this year, remotely. My fault, I suppose — I did the two things experts warn about: (1) I had credit cards, and (2) I used them. Big no-no. You’ll be at a coffee shop and you might have a public conversation that exposes you to identity theft. Such as:

“I always have this recurring nightmare that I’m at Heathrow Airport and they ask what you’re coming for, and I say, museums and birding, you know, looking for tits and grouse and such, and I get that look, and it turns out birding now requires an AG-45 permit, so why did I even say that? I’m not going to be birding. I don’t even bird. So my visa is invalid! I’m put on the plane that goes right back to the States, the American Express or whatever, and I wake up and my heart’s pounding.”

You said it! Visa! American Express! Someone a few tables away overheard and discerned your number by looking at your hands, which held the card once. Within three minutes someone in Bulgaria is buying ice cream with your card.

Okay, it might be more complex. A few months ago I was in New York and made the mistake of putting my card into a train-card kiosk. Bad financial hygiene, that. By the time I got to my hotel someone in Thailand had attempted to buy a dress and Bitcoin on my card, so I had to call the bank to tell them that I was not really swanning around in Bangkok splurging on crypto. Well, not today.

The most recent example was probably due to a data breach at a site where I used my card. I’m sure the site said it was protected with NSA-level encryption that made Fort Knox look like a child’s street-corner lemonade stand, except of course the kid actually has lemonade and Fort Knox is probably full of cobwebs and empty cardboard boxes. The site was breached by someone who sent an email to the chief of online security:

“Hello to those, how are you? Your Amazon account has been uplifted. Too undo the suspension, please touch with us as soon as the time. Click on this link to continue.”

And the link is something like www.ezCrime.com. The person clicks, the miscreants get access, they download the credit-card database, crack the password in two tries, and go hog wild. Or, as they might put it, pork feral.

When I got an alert on my phone telling me I’d just dropped two grand at an online electronics retailer, I canceled the card, but I still got messages alerting me to the ongoing fraud. The thief made two more requests: He bought a plane ticket, and then he spent $78 at Taco Bell.

I scanned the news wires for a Delta flight that was forced to land because of toxic fumes, but no luck.

You always ask the credit-card customer-service rep the same question: How did this happen? They can’t say. It just does! Mountains rise, empires fall, card numbers are stolen, and the Earth rolls round the Sun plowing its celestial furrow. Have a good day.

What you want to hear: “Our fleet of stealth drones has identified the location of the thieves and will soon launch a special flensing missile that inflicts a hundred paper cuts, and it will be followed by another smart munition that sprays a gallon of lemon juice. You shall be avenged.”

Anyway. “Digital dollars” just seems like a way to combine credit-card fraud with virtual bank robbery. No thanks. The good news: If Yellen says the government is years away from doing it, it won’t roll out until 2052. I won’t worry until someone in government says, “If you like your paper dollar, you can keep your paper dollar.” That’s when it all goes under the MyMattress.

Oh, I’m going in the database, aren’t I.