Welcome to this last post regarding The Portability Triad. In case you missed Parts 1 - 4, feel free to check them out on this very same blog. In this post we will talk about portable wealth.
Portable Wealth
What Is Wealth?
The concept of wealth is often misunderstood. You might see a person who drives a brand new Mercedes, lives in a huge house, and wears expensive clothes, but that does not mean they are wealthy. They probably have a higher paying job, but close to all of that income could be consumed for maintaining that lifestyle. They could be accumulating little to no wealth, or even worse, sliding farther and farther into debt. Wealth is the accumulation of assets over and above liabilities. Income is not wealth, but wealth can create income. Investopedia defines wealth as:
the measure of the value of all the assets of worth owned by a person, community, company, or country. Wealth is determined by taking the total market value of all physical and intangible assets owned, then subtracting all debts. Essentially, wealth is the accumulation of scarce resources. [src]
The next time you drive around an expensive neighborhood with expensive cars in the driveway, ask yourself: am I looking at real wealth, or am I looking at the illusion of wealth? More often than not, what you are seeing are the trappings of an over-leveraged income. It is not true wealth. As a matter of fact, you might have zero debt and only a dollar in your pocket, and have more wealth than many people since their wealth can be measured in large negative numbers.
What Is Portable Wealth?
If you had to flee from your home, and had to start a new life with only whatever wealth you could carry with you, you would want that wealth to be as portable as possible. In other words, portable wealth is simply accumulated wealth that is easy to transport, store, and protect.
Restrictions to portability of Wealth
Wealth held by a custodian, such as a bank or brokerage relies on the permission of that custodian to move around. As we talked about in my previous post, if you are using a bank account to receive payments, you are at the mercy of both the company initiating the transaction, as well as the receiving bank. Depending on your local laws, your bank could arbitrarily freeze your ability to access your funds based upon a long list of reasons. Depending on the reasons, it could take days, weeks, or even months assuming your assets or not seized. Wealth in the form of real property, such land, buildings, etc. are among the least portable forms of wealth, yet one of the most common ways that Americans store wealth.
Precious Metals
Precious metals, such as gold and silver have been the de facto standard for portable wealth for thousands of years. For the average person, it is only practical to carry around or store a small amount. Precious metals in motion are vulnerable to loss, theft, or seizure. Still, I think it is a good idea to have at least some percentage of my wealth stored in precious metals. One of my favorite ways of accumulating precious metals is by purchasing jewelry from Mene. [Referral Link Here] I especially like platinum. It is so much less flashy than gold, yet still allows one to carry a decent amount of wealth on their person.
Are Cryptocurrencies The Ultimate Portable Wealth?
Not until cryptocurrencies were developed could a person transport huge amounts of wealth in a way that is practically immune to theft or seizure. A wallet seed key could potentially be memorized or stored in plain sight using stenography, allowing the bearer to carry a massive amount of wealth without so much as a penny in their pocket. While this is less important in most developed nations, in financially unstable countries such as Venezuela or Sudan, the ability to escape with wealth intact is just incredible. Cryptocurrencies represent the opportunity for huge geographic wealth transfers from inhospitable countries to hospitable ones. Do these attributes make cryptocurrencies the ultimate portable wealth? My answer is no.
Knowledge Is The Ultimate Portable Wealth
At last we come full circle. In Part 1 we described portable skills as being the most essential part of the Portability Triad. Skills require knowledge, therefore you could view knowledge itself as a form of wealth. Once you obtain knowledge, nobody can ever take it from you. There is no private key for knowledge, there is no safe that can be cracked. You can sell your knowledge at any time, and the supply is infinitely renewable.
The right kind of knowledge can save your life. Need an extreme example? After World War 2, about 1600 scientists, engineers, and technicians were brought to the US from defeated Nazi Germany. [src] Some of these individuals were card carrying members of the Nazi Party, and even used concentration camp labor during their projects. Despite this, a government felt that their knowledge was valuable enough to ignore these evil deeds and put them to work. This happened despite some of them being accessory to unforgivable crimes. To be clear, this example is not a blueprint, but it does illustrate the value people can place on the right kind of knowledge. Don't be evil, even if you are a rocket scientist!
Thanks for reading. I welcome your comments and input below.
