“Conspiracy Theory: The belief that certain events or situations are secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful forces with negative intent.”

— From The European Union’s Guide to Identifying Conspiracy Theories

Dear Reader,

“I owe every single person who I’ve called a conspiracy theorist,” reads a comment on YouTube, “ an apology.”

“All conspiracy theorists are owed a huge apology,” chimes in another. “Unbelievable.”

They’re commenting on what we can only think is President Biden going off-script during an address to the Business Roundtable. “Now is a time when things are shifting,” Joe spaketh. “We’re going to — there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.”

Now, it’s not really a shocking statement, is it? Unless, it simply reveals the president himself is a conspiracy theorist.

The way he said it, too, was odd, like it’s a foregone conclusion. You might think he’d be emphatic about a mission to lead the new order, but what came out was more of a mumble; like the prospect of a New World Order is, well, boring.

“We’re at an inflection point in the world economy,” the President prefaced the comment, “not just in the economy, in the world.” Then, channeling our Session with Mark Moss, “one that occurs every three or four generations.” Biden then references a “secure” meeting with one of the top military “people” during which he was reminded that “60 million people died between 1900 and 1946.” Ho, hum.

Ostensibly, this top military “people” is also up to speed on the Fourth Turning and the Kondratiev Cycles that we’ve been conspiring to understand as we scribble away on these daily missives.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Sometimes, the lede just falls into place. We’ve been discussing crypto’s role in the new global economy. Unless we do something about it, Dr. Saifedean Ammous fears a world run by central bank digital currencies like Fedcoin. Saif was our guest on The Wiggin Sessions this week.

“What we saw in Canada,” with the government dinging the bank accounts of people donating their own money to the striking truckers, “is a prelude to what’s going to happen increasingly all over the world.” Saif worries:

That having access to money, being able to eat, being able to feed your kids is going to be contingent on political obedience. And I think it’s going to go even further, I think. And in The Fiat Standard, I described this in detail because I look at the genesis of the fiat standard over the last century.

In the extreme, he believes a government-sponsored digital currency will give policymakers the power to decide what you can and cannot buy. Imagine another pandemic-style lockdown where the government doesn’t just order stores and restaurants to close, but prevents anyone from spending cash on things deemed “non-essential.“

But Bitcoin will allow people to break free of that system. Dr. Ammous explains:

The interesting thing about Bitcoin is that nobody controls it; the money supply is fixed and nobody’s able to censor transactions. Nobody can censor transactions, nobody can change the money supply. And those are the two reasons why central banks exist: central banks exist to censor your transactions; to prevent you from making transactions and to inflate the money supply to finance government spending.

If you watched our Session yesterday, you know that Saif thinks Bitcoin is the latest stage in the evolution of real money. He connects the dots from seashells… to gold… to the cryptocurrency… and more — explaining why Bitcoin is destined to be more than just a speculative investment.

One of the keys is Bitcoin’s pre-determined scarcity — something even gold can’t claim. Saif explains the technology that dictates Bitcoin’s supply, which will eventually end at 21 million coins in 100 years. Until we hit that limit, the number of Bitcoin will grow at 2% per year, far below the current inflation rate, making it the perfect decentralized alternative to the fiat system controlled by central banks.

Saifedean’s view of a new world order powered by technology is a far more ominous prospect than the president let on. If you haven’t had a chance, you can see the complete Wiggin Session jam with Dr. Saifedean Ammous, here. It’s definitely worth it to understand the evolutionary role digital currencies are likely to take.

In short, they will redefine what money is as we know it.

Follow your bliss,

Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Wiggin Sessions

P.S. On a lighter note, yesterday we invited comments anytime you find a mistake in our prose. Much to our chagrin, the missive contained a few, as reader Lowell L. points out:

First, you referred to St. Peter’s as being the 16 seed. In fact, they were the 15th seed when they beat the 2 seeded Kentucky. In the first round, the two seeds always add up to 17 as 16 plays 1, 15 plays 2, 14 plays 3 and so on to number 9 playing number 8. This is because there are 16 teams in each region. Which brings us to the other glaring error you made. You referred to St. Peter’s, Kentucky and Purdue as all being in the same conference, the East conference. In the tournament, the four areas are referred to as Regions, so they are all in the same Region, the East Region, not conference. You did say you’ve never been interested in basketball so these mistakes are not too surprising and are easily forgiven.

Hope this helps in improving your basketball I.Q. Good luck to your son and Purdue, although I do tend to like the underdog Peacocks in this case.

I like the symmetry. I now know 100% more about college basketball than I did on March 16. Did you know this madness has been going on since 1939? I feel like we’re providing a public service for the hoops-impaired.

And thank you for your well-wishes towards Purdue. Maybe their “bigs” will prevail under the basket. Although, I suppose, if Purdue doesn’t make it through on Friday, I’d be obliged to root for the Peacocks moving forward. Assuming, of course, that fair bit of civility still applies.

Your thoughts? Let us know at WigginSessions@5minforecast.com

P.P.S. Tomorrow we’ll be posting a Session with Byron King, our go-to expert on foreign affairs… military history… legal matters… natural resources… and more. Among other things, we talk about Russia’s motives for invading Ukraine and what the ongoing sanctions will mean for your wallet.

Byron is easily one of the best storytellers I know. So I think you’ll enjoy hearing what he has to say.