Fix the Money
We have it good in the United States. Shocking right? Living under one of the biggest empires in history has its advantages. We are reaching a point in time where this system is being called into question all across the world. Especially in countries where people can’t access basic banking, and countries where citizens are subject to unjust governments inflating away their life savings to fund wars. It’s hard for us to see a need for change when none of this brokenness is affecting the average American consumer, but we are being protected from this brokenness by our governments economical (military) dominance. In the US, they tell us our economy depends on citizens being able to consume due to our lack of exporting goods, other countries leave their citizens by the wayside to focus resources on exporting goods in exchange for USD (which rarely reaches the citizens responsible for resource production). Through military dominance we have forced many other countries to use our dollar standard for trade, and we’ve weaponized this standard by taking away a countries ability to use the SWIFT system (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) which basically acts as an economic nuke.
"Here's a number - every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?”
Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert (The Big Short)
So countries over time asked themselves, "why drop a nuke? we could just F*** with their economy”. It’s less expensive than almost every other form of warfare, harder to see, and by controlling elements of education and media, they can keep understanding of currencies, finance, and micro/macro economics nebulous and confusing, to ensure the people don’t realize the reality of what is going on: THE MONEY IS FKN BROKEN!
When the US dollar started out, it was directly exchangeable for gold, known as the Gold Standard. Eventually, in 1971, we “temporarily” paused the US Dollars exchangeability for gold, we have never gone back to the gold standard. If you are wondering why we left that standard, great question! Throughout WW1 and WW2, the Federal Reserve and Central Bank irresponsibly made more dollars than it had gold (so if everyone tried to trade their USD for gold at the same time, not everyone would’ve gotten their gold). Instead of accepting this mistake and allowing a market crash, we stopped giving people gold for their dollars, allowing unlimited creation of USD backed by nothing. This change was made in 1971 (please check out wtfhappenedin1971.com if you have not). If the government was limited to only having as much money as it EARNS, don’t you think we’d have less wars? Without an infinite money printer, the government would actually have to get the “permission” of the people to go to war, through things like taxes and war bonds. Don’t you see the issue there? While the rest of us have to provide value to the world around us in order to earn USD, those near the “top” of society, and the government itself, can just make money out of thin-air, and spend it “hot off the printer” (they don’t even physically print the money, meaning just a handful of keyboard strokes gives lifetimes of value to people and businesses that may not deserve it) . Does that seem fair to you? What could the solution possibly be.
ENTER BITCOIN!
Don’t stop reading, this isn’t some crypto bro pitch for why you should invest in the currency of the future, this is something that will save the lives of millions. I don’t care if you never buy any in your lifetime, it may be our kids and their kids who will need help in a world where governments can freely pay for wars and whatever else they want, GOVERNMENTS SHOULD HAVE TO EARN IT LIKE THE REST OF US.
We will get to how Bitcoin helps this issue in a second. First, there is two types of inflation, inflation from there being not enough stuff (EX: coffee farmers have a bad yield one season, because those farmers still have to make enough money to feed themselves, they have to charge more money for less coffee, just simple supply and demand right?) and then there is inflation from too much money with not enough stuff (EX: a gov creates $1 million dollars to pay for a war, say there was only $10 million in circulation, by “printing” that $1 mil, they made the other $10 mil worth about 10% less, typically this happens without any voting or awareness from those affected). In Zimbabwe, inflation has reached as much as 98% PER DAY (in 2008) due to how much “printing” their gov did during this period. That means making $10 for a day of work, by the time you got home, it would be worth 20 cents in terms of spending power. All of this due to humans without self control, who look at a system like this and abuse the hell out of it. So, you agree, NO ONE can handle the responsibility of money creation (just look back in history to see countries destroying themselves by making more money than they have earned, diluting metal coins et cetera).
Bitcoin has a predetermined amount that will be created that cannot be changed by any one entity. Bitcoin allows ANYONE to send value ANYWHERE in the world without the need for any third party to give you permission to do so. With only 77,000 lines of code, Bitcoin creates a Peer to Peer system of money, for the people, immune to gov. abuse! Already in 2024 citizens living under tyrannical regimes are using Bitcoin as a way to “opt out” of just waiting for your money to get de-based by the next corrupt leader. No one in those countries cares about the price volatility measured in dollars, one Bitcoin = one Bitcoin. This returns hope for a better future to SO MANY around the world. Being able to save value without theft should be available to everybody, when the unit we use to save (USD) is only ever worth less than the day before, it is hard to have hope to take care of yourself and your family into the future.
I hope this has piqued your interest in what I’m passionate about with Bitcoin. If you are looking to learn more I will put resources below. If you feel passionate about the humanitarian angle of this technology, I encourage you to look into the work of Alex Gladstein (@gladstein on X) who is with the Human Rights Foundation and gives much more compelling breakdowns of the change this tech is bringing to the world, whether governments like it or not. I hope to write more on this topic in the future, so please reach out (email me) with any critiques, questions, etc.
Podcasts (VERY deep dive)
BTC Course (FREE)
written by: SMiCEK
