Looking ahead at how the economies of the world will look once the heat has died down on the Covid-19 impact, some notable names have weighed in on what key governments could do. This has led to advice from the likes of Bitcoin believers Ray Dalio and MicroStrategys Michael Saylor.
The United States and other countries could “impose prohibitions” on Bitcoin as part of “shocking” tax changes, investor Ray Dalio has warned. In his latest article on LinkedIn, Dalio — a recent convert to Bitcoin as an investment opportunity — laid out a bleak future for the US. investors.
A new Tax era
Dalio has said that because of the coronavirus pandemic, bonds have become all but useless when it comes to preserving wealth. This is not good news for governments as they attempt to claw back some of the huge amounts of debt created as its response. The US government could plan to raise taxes — and the impact could be much worse than many realize.
“If history and logic are to be a guide, policy makers who are short of money will raise taxes and wont like these capital movements out of debt assets and into other storehold of wealth assets and other tax domains so they could very well impose prohibitions against capital movements to other assets (e.g., gold, Bitcoin, etc.) and other locations,” he summarized.“These tax changes could be more shocking than expected.”
As a result, the environment for those with savings will end up feeling less attractive than ever.
The United States is becoming “inhospitable to capitalism,” Dalio said — and to guard against the consequences, investors should embrace a “well-diversified portfolio of non-debt and non-dollar assets along with a short cash position.”
Bitcoin to the rescue？
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said that Bitcoin is the answer in his own response.
“I agree with (Dalio) that bonds no longer work as a treasury asset,” he wrote on Twitter. “Respectfully, Bitcoin is the obvious solution, and much more practical than ‘a well-diversified portfolio of non-debt and non-dollar assets’ in ‘Asian emerging…markets.’”
“I also believe that one should be mindful of tax changes and the possibility of capital controls,” Dalio concluded.