Watch and listen to U.S. Money Reserve's Patrick Brunson talk about what ransomware is and how it can affect you and the digital banking system the way it affected JP Morgan Chase a few years ago. To avoid this, Patrick Brunson advises to invest in physical, tangible assets which cannot be digitally hacked.
How Ransomware Can Hit Close to Home- Video Transcription
Patrick Brunson: 00:00
Good morning. Thank you for tuning in to daily market insights. Today I wanted to talk about something a little different. Reason being as over the course of the past couple of weeks, crypto currencies and ransomware have been big headlines in the news. Just yesterday, Jim Cramer on his show on CNBC, was talking about ransomware and how it's really affecting the country right now and many of its, uh, of its businesses and banks. I was looking into this and ransomware's pretty serious. The reason why Americans need to be aware of it is because the majority of our money as it sits in the banking system, it's all just digital numbers on hard drives and computer systems. It's not like the early 19 hundreds where all of our money was stored in a vault in the back of a bank. Most money in circulation and in the banking system is not $100 bills stacked in vaults anymore in the drawers at a bank.
Patrick Brunson: 00:55
It's only about one point $3 trillion in actual circulating paper cash around the world. Well, if you look at all the money that's just in checking and savings accounts for more than 320 million Americans. Just in checking and savings accounts, it adds up to over $8 trillion. If you look at the money that's in retirement accounts like IRA's, 401ks and annuities, it adds up to over $24 trillion. And to think that there's only one point 3 trillion in actual paper money in circulation, this is a big topic. So what is a ransomware? Well, frankly, it's a virus and what it does is it can go into a computer system or the network of a company or a bank, and it attaches itself to all the files in the system. And then, it encrypts all those files to where it basically renders that company or that bank completely useless and it paralyzes the company until that bank or that company pays a ransom of say, $5 million in bitcoin.
Patrick Brunson: 02:03
That is- It's just absolutely crazy how anybody can be affected. By this, I mean, just two years ago, JP Morgan Chase was hacked. The news didn't make a big deal about it because they didn't want to scare consumers, but over 20 million of their, of their customers at JP Morgan Chase, their information was out there. I mean, it's crazy how easy these banks can be hacked now that they're all completely computerized. So the question you have to ask yourself, if this happens to your bank, whether you're in a community bank or a Wall Street bank, wherever you have your money, let's say it happens to the stock market, how will that affect you? You put your debit card in an ATM machine, type in your code and no money comes out because your bank has been attacked. This is one of the reasons why, you know, people need to have a certain percentage of their wealth protected outside of the financial system, outside of this digital financial system.
Patrick Brunson: 03:01
When you have a percentage of your wealth in a tangible asset that's protected in your control in your safe at home, it helps you sleep a little bit better at night knowing that these things are happening and they're happening more consistently. Just in the last month or two over 15,000 companies and banks were affected by this ransomware. Just an insurance company I found out was basically paralyzed for over 30 days. Can you imagine people getting in car wrecks or needing to go to, you know, doctor's appointments and their insurance company can't foot the bill, so we really have to start being more aware of these things and making sure we're protecting ourselves from these things because it's going to happen and it's going to start happening more frequently and pretty soon it could hit very close to home. So make sure you're protecting yourself and a percentage of your money.
Patrick Brunson: 03:53
Outside of this digital financial system. Cryptocurrencies, a lot of people have been moving money in and out of those areas as well. Personally, I don't see it as a currency but more as a security, but it's been extremely volatile as well. So at the end of the day, if you want to put yourself into a good tangible asset, that's an alternative asset as opposed to a digital currency. Gold and other precious metals have served as that alternative asset for several decades now. So I hope you enjoyed what we talked about today. If you have any questions about any of this, you can comment in the section below. Also, we still have our fiscal states of America report, so if you click on the link or call the number, you can get your copy. I just spoke to a firefighter out of the state of New York. He's going to be retiring in two years and more than 99% of his liquid net worth and how he plans to retire is dependent upon the state of New York and their financial stability.
Patrick Brunson: 04:50
However, he didn't know that millions of residents are leaving the state of New York, which is going to leave billions of dollars in losses that the state of New York is going to receive in resident taxes. So technically there's a big chance that that could interrupt his pension fund. In the event that he retires and relies solely on that pension. Rhode Island, they're another state. They're the very first I believe that was actually put into a situation where they had to cut many of the pensions for many of the retired state workers. You can find a lot of information about that in this particular report, the fiscal states of America, so get your copy. We also have our 2018 annual report coming out very soon, so you can get that as soon as it comes out. If you want to click on the link below, we can get you reserved for that particular copy as well. As for today, that's all. Again, if you have questions, please comment in the section below and thank you for watching daily market insights.