Gary, your crusade against inequality is spot-on—the rich hoard wealth, wages stagnate, and housing slips out of reach. You’ve nailed how the system’s rigged, profiting off disparity as you did at Citibank. But your dismissal of Bitcoin as a “scam” or “musical chairs” misses its point. Let’s break it down through your lens. You see value in what’s tangible—property, bonds, cash flows. Bitcoin’s different: it’s digital scarcity, forged by energy-intensive mining, not free “points on the internet.” It costs real resources—miners burn electricity rivaling small nations to secure it. That’s not hype; that’s a backbone. You’ve said wealth concentration tanks demand, keeping rates low. Bitcoin flips that script. It’s not controlled by banks or governments printing money for the elite—it’s capped at 21 million coins, a hedge against inflation you’ve seen erode workers’ lives. You fear Satoshi’s a shadowy puppetmaster, selling off a million coins to dupe the masses. Check the blockchain—those wallets haven’t moved in 16 years. No secret dump, no conspiracy. Bitcoin’s transparent; anyone can verify it. You’d spot a scam in derivatives a mile away—apply that here. It’s not a rich man’s toy; it’s open to anyone with a phone, from East London to Lagos, leveling a field you know is uneven. You’re right about speculative bubbles, but Bitcoin’s survived crashes—$20K in 2017 to $3K, now thriving in 2025 with institutional buy-in. It’s not about quick riches; it’s a store of value, like digital gold, for a world you’ve seen fail the poor. You’ve bet against broken systems before. Bitcoin’s a bet for one—decentralized, fair, and tough as nails. Give it a trader’s eye, Gary. It’s not the enemy; it’s a tool.
I wrote this to my State Senator, Dave Sires to express my support for Iowa House Bill 246. You can copy and paste to send to your own senator or state congress person.
Senator Sires
I am writing to express my strong support for House File 246, the proposed bill that would allow Iowa’s state treasurer to invest up to 5% of public funds into Bitcoin. As a constituent deeply interested in financial innovation and the economic future of our state, I believe this legislation could mark a pivotal step forward for Iowa.
The Bitcoin, has shown remarkable growth and stability, with a market capitalization now exceeding $1.9 trillion. This bill would not only acknowledge Bitcoin’s legitimacy as an investment asset but also position Iowa as a forward-thinking state in the realm of digital finance. By investing in Bitcoin, Iowa could diversify its portfolio, potentially benefiting from the high returns that Bitcoin has historically provided over the last decade.
Moreover, this move could attract tech-savvy businesses and entrepreneurs to Iowa, fostering a new wave of economic development and job creation centered around Bitcoin. It sends a message that Iowa is open to embracing new economic paradigms that could keep our state competitive on a national and global scale.
I understand there are concerns regarding volatility and regulatory oversight. However, Bitcoin’s integration into state investment strategies has been explored by other states like New Mexico with their Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act. These examples suggest that with prudent management, the risks can be mitigated while still reaping the benefits of this innovative asset class.
I urge you to:
Support House File 246 in committee votes and on the Senate floor.
Promote education on Bitcoin among your peers to alleviate concerns and clarify the potential benefits.
Advocate for a structured approach to ensure that any investment in Bitcoin includes safeguards against market volatility and maintains transparency in how these funds are managed.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter. I look forward to seeing Iowa take this bold step towards the future. Please feel free to reach out if you wish to discuss this further or require any additional information.
$882 billion (2024 interest paid by the US government) is only 2.43% of our $36.3 trillion debt. All debt being currently refinanced is at 4.33% (the current federal funds rate). If the debt is continued to be refinanced at 4% and we end up paying an average of 4% on the debt, the total interest we will be paying could be as high as $1.4 trillion!
That represents $9,440.83 in interest paid by each of the 153.8 million tax payers, each year!
For this reason, the government has to lower interest rates. The government can’t afford to spend $1.4T on interest each year.
Outlays in fiscal year 2024 were $6.8 trillion—$617 billion (or 10 percent) more than in 2023. In total, outlays were equal to 23.4 percent of GDP in 2024, down from the recent high of 30.7 percent in 2020, but still above the 50-year average of 21.1 percent.
Total Receipts: Up by 11 Percent in Fiscal Year 2024
Receipts totaled $4.9 trillion during fiscal year 2024, CBO estimates—$479 billion more than during fiscal year 2023. Receipts increased from 16.2 percent of GDP in 2023 to 17.1 percent in 2024, just below the average of 17.3 percent for the past 50 years.
Total outlays (spend) $6.8T – total receipts (taxes) $4.9T = $1.9T deficit.
In dollar terms, interest costs reached an all-time high of $476 billion in 2022 and have risen rapidly since then to $882 billion in 2024.
$882 billion is only 2.43% of $36.3 trillion. All debt being currently refinanced is at 4.33% (the current federal funds rate). If the debt is continued to be refinanced at 4% and we end up paying an average of 4% on the debt, the total interest we will be paying could be as high as $1.4 trillion!
That represents $9,440.83 paid by each of the 153.8 million tax payers.
For this reason, the government has to lower interest rates. The government can’t afford to spend $1.4T on interest each year.
We can look at Japan as a canary in the coal mine. While the USA’s debt to GDP is about 120%, Japan’s debt to GDP is over 270%. Japan’s interest rate is 0.25%. That is because their debt is so high that they couldn’t afford to pay 5% interest on their debt. This is the future the USA is headed to.
Below is showing the purchasing power of the Yen to the Dollar.
If you wanted to buy something in the USA in 2020 and it cost $1 it’d cost 110 yen.
If you wanted to buy something that cost $1 in the USA in 2025 it would cost $156 yet.
You need 48% more Yen to buy the same $1 in the USA.
And that $1 has also lost value over 5 years. The USD also loses about 3% of value a year which over 5 years is 15%. So you’d also need $1.15 to buy today what you could buy in 2020 for $1.
So things in the USA are getting more expensive for people in Japan.
I would think that this would result in Japanese people traveling less outside of Japan as the world is getting more expensive for them.
Storing your value in Japanese Yen is a bad idea.
The USD has had a similar trend against gold. You see the same 5 year performance of gold, in USD below.
Gold went from $1,500 to $2,700. You’d need 1.8x as many dollars to buy the same 1 oz of gold 5 years later!
Bitcoin has done even more! It is up 10x vs dollars in the last 5 years. Why is this?
Bitcoin has some base value, that we are unsure of, but on top of that there is the speculative value it has. People are betting on it’s future value.
“ the US government or every government in the world is the largest spender of things and they are pushing the price of things up. For example, all the money that the US spends on buying tanks and airplanes and other things consumes some steel and electronics and such and that pushes the price up when Ford or John Deere or Apple wants to buy steel or electronics for their cars or tractors or phones.”
I like Gary Economics. He has a book and a youtube channel. But his message is just so diluted and garbled and he is blinded by his knowledge that he misses some things.
To start off with, I don’t hate rich people. But this is probably one of the best descriptions of the actual problem with wealth inequality.
And to note, if you have even $50,000 worth of assets, you are probably in the top 10% of the world. So, well this guy is describing the difference between multi-millionaires and billionaires and the middle class he could just as easily be describing the middle class in the USA out paying for services of people in India. For example, many Indian doctors come to the United States and leaves less doctors in India.
Anyway, his whole message is a little garbled all the time. I’ve read his book and listened to enough stuff that I get it but I feel like he’s not that great of a communicator. In general, his argument is we need to tax the rich because they have too much money and push the price of goods up.
If you heard the bit where he was talking about the rich buying doctors services to do cosmetic surgeries instead of normal surgeries that does a similar thing to Medical care costs as we talked about house is getting the monetary premium. So his argument is we need to have the rich have less buying power so they can’t push the price of goods up for the average person
You sent
And he is right to some point. But a thing he misses is that the US government or every government in the world is the largest spender of things and they are pushing the price of things up. For example, all the money that the US spends on buying tanks and airplanes and other things consumes some steel and electronics and such and that pushes the price up when Ford or John Deere or Apple wants to buy steel or electronics for their cars or tractors or phones.
The whole world is at competition for goods and services. This is explained in a great book, Economics in One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt which you can read here for free or buy here.
I wanted to share a few quotes from history to highlight that the control and debasement of money by governments has been an issue for a long time. The faster everyone understands this the faster we can all get on the bitcoin standard for value preservation.
I explain here why we should support the bitcoin experiment. It solves the problem. If it ends up failing for some reason in the future, we need to recreate Bitcoin and address whatever issue made it fail because we need a currency that can’t be debased by governments.
“It is utterly clear to me that the highest priority need of world society at the present moment is a realistic economic accounting system which will rectify, for instance, such nonsense as the fact that a top toolmaker in India, the highest paid of all craftsman, gets only as much per month for his work in India as he could earn per day for the same work if he were employed in Detroit, Michigan. – Page 112 Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth, Buckminster Fuller
F.A. Hayek in 1984: “I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
“Under the energy currency system the standard would be a certain amount of energy exerted for one hour that would be equal to one dollar. It’s simply a case of thinking and calculating in terms different from those laid down to us by the international banking group to which we have grown so accustomed that we think there is no other desirable standard.”
Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on goods imported to the USA from Canada and Mexico. I am hoping to do a small experiment tracking a few goods from each country to see how their prices change as well as a few similar goods in the USA as a baseline to compare to track inflation.
I know that John Deere 6E tractors are imported from Mexico, 1 oz Gold Mexican libertads are also imported from Mexico and 1 oz gold Canadian Maple leaves are imported from Canada. I am interested how the price of these goods changes over the next years.
I am also going to track a few things that are made in the USA.
One will be a John Deere 8R that is manufactured in the USA and also 1 oz Gold buffalos and 1 oz Gold eagles.
Bitcoin recently breached the $100k price per bitcoin on December 4th 2024. It has retreated slightly but has continued to hover between $90k -$108k/bitcoin.
Historically bitcoin has had a performance of 3 positive years followed by 1 negative year. While you can’t expect history to repeat itself, it might!
Looking at the below chart you can see we are on track to repeat that performance so far. While not shown 2024 was also a great positive return year for bitcoin so we have 2 years of positive returns. 2025 would be the 3rd year.
Due to that expectation I fully expect bitcoin to have a good performance in 2025. It is also possible that it has a negative year in 2026 if it continues to follow the historic trend.
Of course it is also possible it has a negative year in 2025! We could break the trend.
We could also break the trend and see that we have a positive year in 2025 and 2026! The future is unknown and unknowable!
When people ask me if they should buy bitcoin now I say that they obviously don’t understand bitcoin. If you don’t understand it then I would say “No” you probably shouldn’t buy it. What I tell people is to continue to learn more about why other people buy it.
Learn about “What problem bitcoin solves.” I have written 2 articles about that here.
We, every person in the world, is in a fight with their own government to keep as much of the value they create as they can. The government explicitly taxes you, which we can debate but at least it is obvious. But the government also stealthy steals value from your bank account or savings via inflation and money printing that you have no control over.
Bitcoin is not an investment. Bitcoin is a store of value. The value you create. Bitcoin is an agreement between people who create value in the world that they will trade their value for other value. The value you create and store in Bitcoin cannot be debased or inflated away by any government by money printing. I’ve also created a list of great resources to learn more about bitcoin here.
What I generally recommend people to do is to buy just a little bitcoin so that they will start creating a little interest with themselves. This is how I did it. I bought just $100 and then that made me interested to learn more about what I had bought and why. You should not plan to sell the bitcoin you buy. This is true for most investments, in my opinion. You should only be investing money you are ready to have invested for 5+ years.
You shouldn’t try to time the market. You aren’t smart enough for that and neither am I.
Just buy things that you understand and continue to do research.
I hope with my bitcoin advocacy to help people think more long term.
Why do I spend so much time thinking about bitcoin?
Why do I spend so much time trying to get others to understand bitcoin?
I have thought about a lot of other things in my lifetime. I am a mechanical engineer. I like making thing work. I am a philanthropist. I am a humanitarian. I care about making others’ lives better. I have worked at businesses and nonprofits that have helped make the world a better place. I have thought about how to create businesses and nonprofits that make the world a better place.
Through it all, I keep looking for ways to make the world better.
Bitcoin is the best way I have found to make an impact on EVERYTHING! It has become clear to me through all my reading and interacting with people and companies and nonprofits and thinking about issues that at the very base, fiat money is inherently causing a lot of problems in the world.
Fiat money is unfair.
The government causes as many or more issues than it solves by creating inflation through money printing. This is both in the USA and all other countries.
I talked with a friend who was supporting a business in Sri Lanka. The business would dye clothes with natural processes. The point was to help people get a job that otherwise wouldn’t have access to a job. But the Sri Lankan economic crisis happened and the business failed. It made me think about the base infrastructure of all our economies. If the currency fails many businesses fail. A stable currency leads to long term planning and thinking. The fact that all countries have money that is steadily losing value leads to short term thinking. The rush for analysis of quarterly returns for public companies adds to this short term thinking, but steady inflation, caused by government money printing is a major contributor to the short term thinking. I wondered, what is the point of developing businesses if they will fail due to factors outside your control?
That is why I am so passionate about bitcoin. It fixes these short term problems. This is a problem is many countries around the world.
People in many countries can’t save in their local currency because they lose value so fast. In the USA we recently had 1 year of 8% inflation and everyone went crazy!
I fully expect that increased inflation to come back to the USA sometime in the next 10 years, unless we cut the yearly deficit.
Even if it doesn’t come back for a few years, the way the current system is, fiat money, there is always steady inflation (3%-4%) which still incentivises short term thinking.
I hope with my bitcoin advocacy to help people think more long term.
Below is a list of videos, a PDF and some books I have put together to recommend for anyone who wants to learn about bitcoin. The list is most sorted from top to bottom by shortest or easiest to read to longer and more in depth towards the bottom.
The world feels like it’s heading in the wrong direction—rising costs, declining standards, and growing instability. The root cause? The corruption of our money.
The Bitcoin Paradigm Shift: A Beginner’s Journey to Understanding BTC (2025) – shortest video I can find yet that explains it well!
The bullish case for Bitcoin – Vijay Boyapati ~ 2 hour book read – link below to buy
The Saylor Series- with Robert Breedlove -You only need to listen to about the first 1 hour of each interview where Michael Saylor is talking. The 2nd half is Robert Breedlove summarizing what Michael said. Not necessary to listen to.
The Saylor Series What is Money – Book – summary of the above podcast. This is shorter than the podcast.
EXCLUSIVE: TESLA’S $1 Billion Bitcoin Bet Pays Off | Cern Basher – A great summary of why Tesla (or any company) should buy more Bitcoin.
Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better- Lyn Alden
I am a big believer in the future of Tesla as a business and the positive impacts they will have on the world.I wanted to put together a quick reference for the catalysts I see coming in the next 2 years that I can quickly share with people.
These are ordered from first to happen to furthest away.
Tesla Model Y Juniper Update
New Cheaper Tesla car/vehicles for sale – H1 2025
China megapack factory
Semi production next year
FSD release in China imminent
Robotaxi service – start in Texas and California next year
Optimus bot
Tesla Model Y Juniper Update – This is a styling and hardware update for the best selling car in the world in 2023, the Tesla Model Y SUV. It wasn’t quite the best selling in 2024, likely due to people waiting for the 2025 update. This update should lead to best selling status of this car again and help total production of 2.3 million vehicles in 2024.
New Cheaper Tesla car/vehicles for sale – H1 2025 – Elon has mentioned veiled comments related to cheaper vehicles in H1 2025. These will be able to be built on the same lines as Model 3 and Y. This should help total production of 2.3 million vehicles in 2024.
China megapack factory – The Megapack is a “grid scale” battery storage solution for energy. These are sold often in sits of 200-500 at at time. They cost around $1 million per megapack. The current factory is in the USA, for the USA and rest of world. The China Megapack factory should be in production in H1 2025 and fully ramped by end 2025. These are extremely profitable products.
Semi production next year – Tesla has been testing the Tesla Semi for a while with Pepsi and other companies. The Tesla semi will be much cheaper to operate and more reliable (fewer parts) than a diesel semi. I fully expect electric semi’s to almost completely replace all semi’s in 10 years. The average semi is 7 years old. That means every 7 years most of the semi fleet is fully replaced. Of course there are some older vehicles that remain. Since electric semi’s will be cheaper to operate and trucking is a business large businesses will drive adoption of this more efficient technology, or they will go out of of business and be replaced by companies that do. Tesla semi has driven 250,000 miles
FSD release in China imminent – Up until now, FSD (Full Self Driving) A $8,000 option, or $100/month subscription, has only been available in the USA. Tesla is likely to get approval to start using and selling in EU and China in 2025. This will open up for millions of drivers to pay for that software.
Robotaxi – start in Texas and California 2025 – Tesla has had good progress on its FSD (Full Self Driving) software in the last year. They are planning to start offering a Robotaxi service, using Tesla 3’s and Y’s in California and Texas in 2025.
Optimus bot – Tesla has been working on the Optimus, humanoid Robot, for a few years now. The latest versions are very compelling, being able to walk down a steep slippery slope and catch a thrown ball. These will be offered to do simple work in factories. They don’t need to do 100% of the work people can do. There is a curve of simple tasks they can start on and slowly develop skills and do more and more. Even if they cost $50k a year, they will be cheaper than a fully burdened factory worker who after factoring in health care, sick time, etc costs a company more than $50k a year, even if they are only paid $30k /year. Tesla could likely lease these for “only” $25k/year and even replace half a person.
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