Tag Archives: money

Spain’s Silver, Japan’s Bonds, America’s Deficits: Why Easy Money Kills Real Work And Hollows Out The Middle Class

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(inspired by this episode of Bitcoin for Millennials)

Big idea: Spain found a mountain of silver in Bolivia, spent like crazy, stopped building real industries—and the bill came due. The same thing is happening today, just with money printers instead of mines.

1) The mountain

In 1545, Spanish explorers struck the richest silver deposit in history: Cerro Rico, “the rich mountain,” in what’s now Bolivia.
A city called Potosí exploded out of the rock. At its height, it was larger than London or Paris.
For two centuries, roughly two-thirds of the world’s silver came from that one mountain. Spain looked unstoppable.

2) Easy money, hard problems

So much silver poured into Europe that prices began rising year after year.
For nearly a thousand years, prices in Europe had been flat. Then suddenly, everything—from bread to rent—started costing more.
Historians call it the Price Revolution.

Spain thought it was getting richer. In reality, its silver was just buying less and less.

3) The addiction loop

Spain borrowed against future silver shipments, funded endless wars, and built palaces to show off its power.
Sound familiar? Borrowing against your future is exactly what modern governments do when they run deficits every single year—financing today’s comfort with tomorrow’s labor and taxes.
And those “endless wars”? Spain fought them across Europe. The U.S. fights them across the globe. Different century, same playbook.

4) “Free” silver, “free” money

The silver was basically free to Spain—mined with forced labor that cost almost nothing.
That “free” flow of money metal fueled reckless spending and inflation.

Today, printing money is even freer. No mines, no ships, no workers—just a digital entry at the central bank.
But the result is the same: more money chasing the same goods, rising prices, and wealth concentrating in financial assets instead of productive work.

5) The wage spiral

When silver poured into Spain, mining and trade paid far more than farming or manufacturing.
Workers chased the high wages, and everyone else demanded raises to keep up.
That wage inflation pushed up local costs across the board.

It soon became cheaper to buy foreign goods than to make them at home.
English and Dutch craftsmen could undersell Spanish products even after shipping them across the sea.
Local factories and farms couldn’t compete. Spain’s economy drifted from production to consumption—spending instead of building.

You can see the same thing happening today.
Money printing and easy credit inflate salaries in finance, tech, and government while driving up housing, energy, and labor costs everywhere else.
Manufacturing can’t keep up, so we import the difference.
The result? A strong currency, cheap goods, and a shrinking middle class.

6) The next chapter — Japan

What if the next Spain isn’t America yet—but Japan?
As this interview with macro analyst Roberto Rios explains, Japan is further down the same path:
zero interest rates, quantitative easing, and government debt so large that the central bank must choose between saving its currency or saving its bond market.

For decades, Japan has printed money to prop up its financial system, even buying stocks outright to keep prices from falling.
That free liquidity created an illusion of stability—until inflation returned and the yen began collapsing.
Now Japan faces the impossible choice every over-leveraged empire eventually faces:
protect the currency and crash the system, or print the money and destroy the currency.

It’s the same dilemma America is approaching, just delayed by our global reserve-currency privilege.
The “free silver” of the 1500s became “free paper” in the 1900s and “free digital dollars” in the 2000s. The pattern never changed—only the technology did.

7) The simple lesson

Resources aren’t wealth. Printing money isn’t wealth. Making things is wealth.
When prosperity feels “free,” it’s usually borrowed from the future.

8) Today’s echo

Easy credit. Quantitative easing. Deficit spending.
Each promises painless prosperity—more liquidity, more growth, no trade-offs.
But it’s the same story Spain wrote 500 years ago: short-term abundance, long-term decay.

Spain’s “free” silver built an empire that rotted from within.
Japan’s “free” money is imploding quietly.
And America’s “free” dollar is next in line—just with better branding and digital ink instead of metal.

9) Bitcoin and the Dollar Endgame

What if Japan’s collapsing bond market isn’t just a regional crisis but a preview of America’s financial future?

In the Bitcoin for Millennials episode, host Bram talks with macro analyst Roberto Rios (“Peruvian Bool”), who has been tracking this “dollar endgame” for years.
While most people fixate on Bitcoin’s short-term price swings, Rios zooms out to the structural problem: every central bank is trapped between saving its currency or saving its bond market. Japan is simply the first to hit the wall.

He calls this dynamic financial gravity—the idea that once debt and money creation expand far enough, gravity pulls everything toward a neutral asset that can’t be printed.

Rios’s core argument:

  • The global monetary system has reached a point where debt can never shrink; it can only be monetized.
  • Central banks will print until confidence breaks.
  • When trust in both sides of the fiat balance sheet—bonds and currencies—collapses, capital will flee into something outside the system entirely.

That’s where Bitcoin enters the picture.

While central banks and institutions still view gold as the “neutral” reserve, Rios argues Bitcoin is the superior version of gold:

  • Fixed supply, instantly verifiable, infinitely divisible.
  • Borderless and digital—no vaults, shipping, or intermediaries.
  • Immune to political capture or forced demand (“fiat” in the literal let-there-be sense).

As he puts it, the Japanese bond crisis could actually trigger the biggest Bitcoin bull run ever.
Once Japan’s carry trade unwinds and the yen weakens further, global liquidity shocks will push central banks to print again—reviving the same inflation loop that began with Spain’s silver.
Each cycle of monetary rescue drives more people to seek an exit from the system itself.

From silver to paper to code:
Spain’s “free” silver created Europe’s first inflation.
Japan’s “free” money is collapsing under its own weight.
Bitcoin is the gravity well everything eventually falls into.

Bitcoin, Deflation, and the Myth of “Useless Money” – (People Won’t Spend Bitcoin Because it’s TOO Valuable????)

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A common fear I hear about Bitcoin goes something like this: “If it becomes so valuable in the future, people will never spend it. They’ll just hoard it forever — and that means it can’t work as money.”

But let’s pause. That argument assumes that money needs to lose value in order to be useful — that people will only spend if their savings are constantly melting. Does that really make sense?

People Already Save

In reality, people save no matter what. Even with inflationary dollars, households and businesses don’t spend every cent. They put money aside — but because the dollar steadily loses value, they are forced to search for other stores of value:

  • Stocks
  • Bonds
  • Real estate
  • Gold
  • Collectibles

This isn’t a feature. It’s a problem. The constant need to escape a leaky dollar creates bubbles, misallocates capital, and makes financial life complicated for everyone.

Take housing, for example. When money loses value, homes become more than shelter — they turn into financial assets. People don’t just buy houses to live in them; they buy them as inflation hedges. That means families looking for a roof over their heads end up competing with investors and savers desperate to preserve wealth. Prices get bid up far beyond the utility value of the home, making affordability worse and turning what should be a basic necessity into a speculative storehouse for capital.

Deflationary Money Doesn’t Paralyze Spending

Critics imagine that if money gains value over time, nobody will use it. But people already spend under deflationary conditions — technology proves this. Everyone knows next year’s phone or TV will be cheaper and better, yet they still buy today. Why? Because they value the use and enjoyment now, not just later.

The same applies to Bitcoin. Once mature, it will likely appreciate at roughly the rate of productivity growth (similar to a low-yield bond). People will hold it to store value — and still spend it when a purchase is worth more than waiting.

Flipping the Narrative

Inflationary money forces people into risky, complex alternatives just to save. Hard money that holds or grows its value removes those distortions. Contrary to the fear, deflationary money won’t break the economy — it may actually fix many of the problems caused by inflationary systems.

And here’s the real irony: many critics already suspect Bitcoin could become extremely valuable — that’s why they worry no one will spend it. But at the same time, they refuse to buy any today. They recognize the upside, but fear keeps them paralyzed on the sidelines.

Conclusion

In a Bitcoin world, homes could go back to being homes, not savings accounts. People could save without speculation, spend without fear of losing purchasing power, and invest in businesses for growth rather than sheltering from inflation. That’s not “useless money.” That’s money finally doing its job.

Who Gets the Income? Who Pays the Taxes?

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Data gathered from this link – https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/

When we talk about taxes in America, the debate often gets sloppy. People use “income” and “wealth” almost interchangeably, but they’re very different things.

  • Income is the flow of money earned each year — wages from a job, dividends, or realized capital gains.
  • Wealth is the stock of assets someone already owns — businesses, real estate, stocks, Bitcoin, etc.

Our tax system is built mainly on income, not wealth. And when commentators conflate the two, it clouds the conversation about fairness and policy.

Income Snapshot

In 2022, the U.S. collected $2.1 trillion in federal income taxes on about $14.8 trillion in total income. That’s about 14.4% of taxable income.

Divide that income across all 153 million taxpayers, and the average income comes out to $95,915, or about $47.96 per hour assuming 2,000 hours of work per year. Of course, averages can mislead — the distribution is anything but equal.

The Top 1%

To qualify for the top 1% in 2022, you needed at least $663,164 of income. On average, these 1.5 million taxpayers earned $2.1 million each.

  • Share of income: 22.4%
  • Share of taxes paid: 40.4%
  • Effective tax rate: 26%

The Bottom 50%

The bottom half — about 76 million taxpayers — earned less than $50,339 per year. Their average income was just $21,000, totaling $1.7 trillion across the group.

  • Effective tax rate: ~4%
  • Many pay no federal income tax at all, often due to credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or child tax credits.

Wealth Snapshot

If we shift from income to wealth, the picture looks even starker. As of mid-2025, U.S. billionaires hold over $6.2 trillion in wealth, spread across only about 813–867 individuals.

But here’s the catch: the U.S. government is adding about $2 trillion in deficit spending every year. Even if you taxed billionaires at extremely high rates, it might cover only a year or two of deficits. After that, the wealth pool would shrink — and most billionaires would likely relocate to avoid such aggressive taxation.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t debate fairness, redistribution, or even wealth taxes. But it does mean we need to be realistic about the math.

Why This Matters

The key takeaway is that income and wealth are different conversations. Most tax debates focus on income flows, yet the loudest arguments are often about wealth concentration. If we mix those together, we miss the real tradeoffs.

I’m happy to debate how much each group should earn, or whether a wealth tax makes sense (though I personally think it doesn’t). But if we want an honest conversation, we have to separate what we’re actually measuring.

Because when we ask, “Who should pay more?” the first step is being clear: are we talking about annual income, or about the stock of wealth built up over decades?

Data – https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/

You will notice myd ata is slightly different than from the website. The website continually aggregates so their “top 5%” data includes all the income & people from the top 1% + the 2%-5%.
I have broken it down so you can see how much income is in each bucket. I think my method is much more useful.
It also allows you to see how much income, taxes, average income, is in each bucket.

When the data is aggregated it always is skewed due to the higher amount of income above it.

Analysis of – Geo-Strategy #3: How Empire is Destroying America

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You Were So Close: Where the Anti-Empire Analysis Misses Bitcoin’s Role as the Fix

A year old video titled Geo-Strategy #3: How Empire is Destroying America delivers a sharp, compelling critique of the United States’ transformation from a productive manufacturing economy into a hollowed-out empire addicted to easy money, foreign capital, and speculative finance. The lecturer nails several things before they happened:

  • Trump won
  • The U.S. dropped bombs on Iran (June 21, 2025).
  • Empire—not capitalism alone—is the real structural disease.

So far, so good.

But here’s where it falls short: when it comes to solutions, the analysis stops at nostalgia. It groups Bitcoin in with the broader financialized, speculative mindset of the current era—instead of recognizing it as the clearest path out of the collapsing fiat-imperial system.

What the Video Gets Right

1. The Shift to Financialization Was a Disaster
The U.S. economy went from 40% of profits coming from manufacturing to only 10%. Meanwhile, financial services ballooned to 40% of profits but employ only 5% of the workforce. It’s not a real economy anymore—it’s rent-seeking on a grand scale.

2. Empire Crowds Out Domestic Prosperity
As the video rightly says: the U.S. has 800+ overseas bases, trillions in defense spending, and a growing dependency on foreign goods. Meanwhile, infrastructure decays, wages stagnate, and people struggle to own homes.

3. Easy Money Has Warped the Psyche
He astutely observes that young people have a speculative mindset. They want to gamble their way to freedom because working hard for 40 years no longer gets you a house or family. The fiat system broke the ladder.

4. Empires Collapse from Hubris
Rome did it. So did Britain. The U.S. has reached a point where it can’t imagine losing, but is too bloated and fragile to truly win.

What the Video Misses Entirely

Bitcoin isn’t a symptom of decline. It’s the cure.

Here’s where the logic fails: Bitcoin gets lumped in with real estate speculation, meme stocks, and Wall Street grifting. That’s a category error.

Bitcoin is:

  • Not tied to Wall Street.
  • Not controlled by central banks.
  • Not created through debt.

It is, in fact, everything the empire cannot print, inflate, or manipulate.

If fiat money is what powers the empire’s global dominance and fiscal addiction, then Bitcoin is the tool that cuts the cord. It’s what lets young people store value, opt out of inflation, and build sovereign systems outside elite capture.

The Real Problem: Fiat, Not Just Empire

Let’s go one layer deeper:

  • Empire needs fiat to fund wars, bailouts, and pensions.
  • Fiat needs empire to enforce its global dominance (petrodollar system, SWIFT sanctions, military threats).

It’s a closed loop. And Bitcoin breaks it.

Bitcoin is the only monetary system with no central issuer, no forced trust, no inflationary mandate, and no border. It’s not speculative escapism. It’s the foundation for a post-imperial world.

Final Thought

The lecturer in Geo-Strategy #3 is brave and accurate in his breakdown of how empire is destroying America. But like many critics, he sees the collapse clearly yet misses the exit sign flashing in orange behind him:

Bitcoin isn’t the distraction. It’s the lifeboat.

💵 How Fiat Money Hollowed Out America’s Job Market and How to Fix it

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Intro – Why can’t Americans find good jobs anymore?

Because the U.S. dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency lets us import everything without producing anything.

Fiat money didn’t just change our economy—it hollowed it out.

This article explains how we got here—and why only a return to hard money, like Bitcoin, can bring us back.

There’s a sentence I keep coming back to:

Without fiat, we’d have to export goods to earn gold or foreign currency before we could import.

Quick note: “Fiat” money just means paper money that isn’t backed by anything tangible like gold or silver. Its value comes entirely from government decree (“fiat” is Latin for “let it be done”)—and trust.

That’s it. That’s the whole game.

Donald Trump spent years hammering America’s trade deficit, accusing China of taking advantage of us and blaming past politicians for “bad deals.” But the truth is deeper—and more systemic.

The trade deficit isn’t just a negotiating failure. It’s a structural requirement of the global dollar system.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. has run chronic trade deficits not because we’re dumb—but because we have to. That’s how the world gets its dollars. It’s the price of running the global reserve currency.

Fiat money—and specifically, the U.S. dollar’s role as global reserve—didn’t just change how we buy and sell. It rewired the entire global economy. It made it profitable to consume without producing, and to outsource labor while importing goods with nothing more than printed IOUs.

Let’s break that down.

📜 A Brief History of the Cheat Code

After World War II, the U.S. dollar became the centerpiece of the global financial system through the Bretton Woods Agreement. Other countries pegged their currencies to the dollar, and the dollar was pegged to gold at $35/oz. Global trust was strong—because dollars were redeemable for something real.

But by the late 1960s, the system was already cracking.

The U.S. was printing more dollars than it had gold to back, funding both the Vietnam War and LBJ’s Great Society programs. Foreign nations started to notice. The promise of gold convertibility was still on paper, but the gold simply wasn’t there to cover all the dollars in circulation.

Then came the bluff-calling moment: France sent a warship to New York Harbor in 1971 to collect its gold. The U.S. honored the request—but it was a wake-up call. If one country could demand gold, others would follow—and the U.S. didn’t have enough gold left to fulfill those redemptions.

Rather than continue the outflow—and risk total collapse of the system—President Nixon closed the gold window, ending the dollar’s convertibility to gold and defaulting on the original Bretton Woods promise. He called it “temporary,” but we’re still living with the consequences.

The U.S. had just rugged the global economy—but there was no better option available. All other currencies were fiat too.

And so, by default—not by merit—the dollar remained the foundation of global trade.

🛢️ The Petrodollar Patch

To maintain global demand for the dollar, the U.S. struck a 1974 deal with Saudi Arabia:

  • The Saudis would price oil only in dollars,
  • And the U.S. would provide military protection.

This created the petrodollar system, locking in global demand for dollars—because energy runs the world. Every country that wanted oil had to first acquire dollars.

That meant: even without gold, the dollar was still backed—by oil, debt, and military force.

This gave the U.S. a unique superpower:

  • Print money (or sell Treasuries),
  • Ship it overseas,
  • And receive real goods, labor, and resources in return.

No other nation could do this. And no other empire in history ever got away with it for so long.

🏭 The Fallout: Jobs Go Offshore, But Dollars Still Flow

Because the world kept accepting dollars, American companies could:

  • Shut down U.S. factories,
  • Hire cheaper labor abroad,
  • Import those same goods back to the U.S.,
  • And sell them to consumers who were buying with borrowed or printed money.

The fiat system didn’t make foreign workers cheaper, but it made it possible to use them without consequences.

We stopped needing to earn our imports by making things. We could just finance everything with paper and debt. Capital loved it. Wall Street loved it. Politicians loved it.

But working people? Not so much.

From Janesville to Youngstown, from Flint to the Bronx, the outcome was the same: a slow, grinding hollowing-out of America’s industrial base and middle class.

🏦 Makers and Takers: How Finance Replaced Work

In Makers and Takers, journalist Rana Foroohar lays out how U.S. corporations gradually stopped investing in workers, R&D, and physical capital—and instead prioritized stock buybacks, dividends, and debt-fueled growth.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Many of those companies had to play that game—or risk being eaten alive.

In a fiat system with low interest rates, abundant capital, and massive global competition:

  • Shareholder pressure rewards short-term profit over long-term investment.
  • Stock buybacks boost prices faster than hiring or training workers.
  • Outsourcing and financial engineering became necessary survival tools—not just greed.

This wasn’t just a few bad CEOs. It was a system-wide shift in incentives.
The rise of finance wasn’t a deviation—it was an adaptation.

🤖 You Can’t Skill Your Way Out of This

Today, people are told to just “learn to code” or “work harder.” But what they’re really up against is a global fiat machine that rewards capital over labor, and extraction over production.

That’s why:

  • Degrees don’t guarantee jobs,
  • Effort doesn’t guarantee stability,
  • And “just working harder” feels like treading water.

It’s not that Americans don’t want to work. It’s that the system no longer rewards domestic labor—because it doesn’t need to.

🧱 What Comes Next?

The world is starting to wake up. Countries are buying gold. Some are experimenting with Bitcoin. Others are trying to de-dollarize trade altogether. Trust in the U.S. dollar isn’t infinite—and neither is the empire it props up.

The dollar still works—not because it’s sound, but because there hasn’t been a better option. Yet.

But every empire that runs on paper eventually runs out of trust. And when that happens, the real cost of all those “free” imports comes due.

₿ A Hard Money Future: Why Bitcoin Matters

The only real way to end this game is to remove the cheat code: fiat money itself.

A return to hard money—like Bitcoin—could force the system to reorient around real productivity, long-term investment, and sustainable value creation.

Without the ability to endlessly paper over deficits, businesses would once again have to:

  • Build resilient supply chains
  • Invest in their workers
  • Serve customers over shareholders
  • Plan for decades, not quarters

Bitcoin doesn’t just offer escape—it offers discipline. It turns off the short-term game and invites long-term thinking back into the economy.

💬 Closing Thought

Fiat gave us the illusion that we could consume without producing.
But in the long run, reality has a way of settling the bill.
Maybe it’s time we stopped running the tab—and started building again.

Why I Support Bitcoin: A Personal Journey Through the Global Failure of Fiat

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For most of my life, I’ve worked with businesses and nonprofits trying to make the world better. I’m a mechanical engineer by trade. I like building things that work. But the more I’ve worked across systems, the more I’ve realized something deeply broken sits at the root of almost every failure: fiat money.

A Friend, a Business, and a Broken Economy

A few years ago, a friend of mine was helping advise a small, sustainable clothing business in Sri Lanka. They used natural dyes and traditional techniques to create jobs for locals—especially for people who often couldn’t access the formal economy. It was working. Until it wasn’t.

The Sri Lankan currency collapsed during a financial crisis. Inflation soared. Imports became unaffordable. And the business, despite doing everything right, failed—not because of bad management or a poor product, but because the foundation it was built on—its currency—was rotten.

This is what fiat does. It breaks systems from the bottom up. And it leaves regular people holding the bag.

How Fiat Hollowed Out America

We often think of developing countries suffering from bad money, but the same decay has hit the United States. The post-WWII American economy was built on sound money and a manufacturing base that rewarded long-term planning and production.

That changed in 1971, when Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard. With no monetary anchor, we entered the era of fiat—the era of cheap credit, endless deficits, and quarterly capitalism. Easy money made it easier to offshore jobs , because capital flowed wherever short-term profits looked best. Domestic manufacturing collapsed (such as in Janesville, Wisconsin). Towns hollowed out. Entire regions like the Midwest were gutted for the sake of Wall Street’s earnings calls.

Short-termism infected everything:

  • Companies spent more on stock buybacks than R&D or wages
  • Governments ran up debt with no repayment plan
  • Individuals chased consumption over savings, just to stay ahead of inflation

Economic Hitmen and Empires of Debt

In Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins explains how U.S. institutions loaned billions to developing nations for infrastructure that looked good on paper but benefited U.S. contractors more than locals. When those countries couldn’t repay, they were forced into austerity, resource sell-offs, and geopolitical obedience. Debt became a weapon.

Today, China is doing the same through its Belt and Road Initiative. In Sri Lanka, China took control of the Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease when the country couldn’t pay its debts. In Greece, China’s COSCO controls the Port of Piraeus. In Australia, they secured a 99-year lease on the Port of Darwin, now under review due to national security concerns.

This isn’t charity. It’s colonialism with spreadsheets.

Fiat Money Rewards the Few, Punishes the Many

Every time a central bank prints new money, it steals from savers and wage earners. Those who hold fiat see their purchasing power decay. This is especially cruel during periods of inflation, like the 8% spike in the U.S. in recent years.

Bitcoin fixes this.

  • It has a fixed supply: 21 million coins, ever.
  • It can’t be printed or manipulated by any government.
  • It rewards saving, planning, and long-term thinking.

It flips the fiat incentives:

  • Instead of spending now, you’re rewarded for holding.
  • Instead of inflation eating your wealth, deflation preserves it.
  • Instead of trusting a corrupt institution, you trust code and math.

Why I Share Bitcoin With Others

I’ve read the books. I’ve seen the failures. I’ve lived through broken systems and watched people I care about suffer—not from laziness or ignorance, but because the monetary foundation was cracked.

Bitcoin is the best alternative I’ve found to a rigged, decaying system. It’s not just about investment. It’s about dignity. Agency. Fairness. It’s about building something that can last.

This is why I support Bitcoin. And this is why I speak up.

🛑 You Can’t Outgrow a Debt Spiral — But You Can Exit It (or Reprice It)

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The U.S. won’t grow its way out of a debt spiral — it’ll inflate, debase, and extract.
The real exit ramp is Bitcoin: a parallel system with hard rules, not political ones.
Opting into BTC isn’t about returns — it’s about exiting a rigged game before the math breaks.

Conventional wisdom keeps hoping that the U.S. can grow its way out of a fiscal doom spiral:

“If GDP just grows fast enough, even the most reckless overspending by Congress won’t matter.”

But that assumes we still live in an age of manageable debt, cooperative politics, and sound incentives.

We don’t.

📉 The U.S. Fiscal Reality

  • $36+ trillion in debt
  • $2 trillion annual deficits
  • $1.1 trillion in yearly interest
  • Interest payments now exceed military spending

We are no longer debating whether the debt matters — we’re just seeing how long it can be delayed before the math breaks. Growth won’t fix this. It hasn’t yet, and it won’t now.

So what’s the plan? Inflate, extract, or collapse?

🇳🇴 But What About Norway?

Norway is often brought up as a model of fiscal sanity — and with good reason:

  • Budget surplus in 2024: 13.2% of GDP
  • Sovereign wealth fund: $1.74 trillion (largest in the world)
  • Debt-to-GDP around 55%, but fully offset by national savings

They even run a structural non-oil deficit, but it’s funded by planned withdrawals from their sovereign fund. In short: they spend with discipline and have assets to back it.

So why can’t every country do that?

🚫 Because It’s Not Globally Sustainable

Norway is rich in oil, small in population, and extremely disciplined in governance. They:

  • Save during booms instead of spending
  • Use their wealth fund to smooth volatility, not plug holes
  • Issue debt strategically, not out of desperation

For the rest of the world, especially the U.S., that model isn’t available.

Most countries are net debtors. They’ve hollowed out their productive base, offshored manufacturing, and replaced savings with speculation.

You can’t run a surplus if:

  • Your economy is dependent on imported energy and goods
  • Your entitlement promises are growing faster than your tax base
  • Your political class has no incentive to say “no”

Surpluses require restraint, surplus-producing sectors, and trust — all of which are in short supply.

🧱 So What’s the Real Path Out?

It’s not hoping for a miraculous growth surge. It’s not copying Norway. It’s not electing better managers of a broken system.

It’s opting out. It’s repricing trust.

🔑 Enter Bitcoin.

  • A monetary system with hard limits, not political ones
  • No printing. No bailouts. No “emergency exceptions”
  • Open, auditable, neutral — like a global sovereign wealth reserve for the people

Bitcoin is:

  • An exit for individuals
  • A hedge against sovereign collapse
  • And, increasingly, a foundation for new financial instruments — including Bitcoin-backed bonds.

🧾 Bitcoin-Backed Bonds: Repricing Sovereign Risk

Here’s a future worth considering:

Nations issue bonds backed by Bitcoin reserves, restoring credibility and reducing borrowing costs.

Instead of trusting central banks or political stability, investors trust digital collateral — liquid, auditable, incorruptible.

  • Governments get lower interest rates
  • Investors get higher real returns
  • The system regains trust — not by promising growth, but by tying itself to something outside its control

This isn’t sci-fi. El Salvador is already moving in this direction. Others will follow — especially as debt costs soar and trust erodes.

🧠 TL;DR

  • You can’t outgrow a debt spiral.
  • You can’t copy Norway unless you’re already Norway.
  • You can’t reform a system whose core logic is delay and inflate.

But you can exit.

Bitcoin offers individuals, institutions, and eventually even nations a path out — not to escape responsibility, but to rebuild trust from the ground up.

This isn’t about being early to an investment. It’s about being on time to a monetary exit.

The Fed Can’t Fix Inflation While the Government Keeps Spending Trillions

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The Federal Reserve attempts to fight inflation by raising interest rates, hoping to curb consumer borrowing and slow demand. But this tool misses the mark when the real driver of inflation is government deficit spending.

In 2024, the U.S. government will spend around $6.8 trillion, while running a $2 trillion deficit. That deficit is money injected into the economy without corresponding production—pure demand creation, which stokes inflation.

As this article explains, the Fed can raise rates, but it has no power to rein in Congressional spending. It’s trying to apply brakes while the government is flooring the gas pedal.

And here’s the kicker: with $36.2 trillion in national debt, if interest rates were to return to the 20% levels of the early 1980s, the annual interest expense would hit $7.24 trillion—more than the entire federal budget. That would mean spending 106% of all federal outlays just on interest. This scenario is not only unsustainable—it’s impossible.

Which is why, in reality, interest rates can never go that high again. The debt burden makes it mathematically unworkable. So the Fed is trapped—raising rates just enough to pretend it’s fighting inflation, while the root cause (unchecked government spending) goes unaddressed.

How do we get out of this system as individuals?

Study bitcoin!

The EV Advantage: A Structural Budget Shift That Pays for Itself

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💥 Final Thought First:

Want to cut $80–$100/month from your fuel bill, eliminate oil changes, and future-proof your ride?

This whole post assumes 12,000 miles a year. If you drive more your savings is more!

Switching to an EV like the Tesla Model 3 isn’t just smart for the environment — it’s structurally smart for your budget.

Now let’s show you how.

🔑 A Budget Is Hard to Change — But Your Car Might Be the Exception

You can skip coffee, cancel subscriptions, and still feel stuck. That’s because real savings come from structural budget changes — the kind that permanently reduce your monthly fixed costs.

Your vehicle is one of those levers.

If you’re driving a gas-powered car like a Toyota Camry, switching to an electric vehicle like a Tesla Model 3 can lower your monthly spending in fuel, maintenance, and even time.

⚖️ Same Price, Lower Operating Costs

According to CarGurus: Link here for comparison

  • Average price for a 2021 Toyota Camry: $22,799
  • Average price for a 2021 Tesla Model 3 RWD: $22,677

Despite what many assume, the used Tesla isn’t more expensive than the Camry. The big difference shows up in operating costs over the next five years:

🔋 Used Car Budget Comparison: 2021 Camry vs. 2021 Tesla Model 3 (RWD)

CategoryUsed 2021 CamryUsed 2021 Model 3 RWD
Purchase Price$22,799$22,677
Fuel/Electricity (5yr)$7,031$2,520
Maintenance (5yr)$3,000$1,500
Insurance (5yr)$7,000$8,500
5-Year Total Cost$39,830$35,197

✅ The used Tesla saves you over $4,600 across five years — while offering a quieter, cleaner, and more enjoyable ride.

🔧 The Tesla Advantage

  • No oil changes
  • Lower brake wear (thanks to regenerative braking)
  • Electricity is 3–5x cheaper per mile than gasoline
  • Less time spent at gas stations or service centers

📉 This Is a Structural Budget Shift

This isn’t penny-pinching. It’s transforming your cost base. A typical Tesla owner:

  • Cuts monthly energy costs by $80–$100
  • Reduces maintenance visits and expenses
  • Still gets the same seating and cargo space as a Camry

All without paying more upfront.

📌 Recap:

  • The average used price of a 2021 Tesla Model 3 is equal to the Camry
  • But it costs $4,600 less to own over five years
  • That’s a monthly structural savings of $75–$100

💬 Final Word

Want a better monthly budget without sacrifice?
Then you don’t need to cut your fun—you need to cut your gas.

A used Tesla Model 3 isn’t a splurge. It’s a smarter car that saves you money every single month.

Stablecoins: The Offshore Demand Engine for a Decaying Fiscal Regime

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Over the last decade, stablecoins have quietly grown from a crypto curiosity into a multi-hundred-billion-dollar shadow banking system. Pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed largely by short-term U.S. Treasury debt, they serve as the grease in the wheels of global crypto markets, offshore exchanges, and dollar-hungry economies.

But beneath the surface, something much bigger is happening.

The Dollar Finds a New Buyer

Traditionally, U.S. Treasuries—the lifeblood of American government spending—have been snapped up by major institutions: foreign governments (like China and Japan), domestic banks, and pension funds. But in recent years, these traditional buyers have pulled back. Geopolitical tensions, rising debt levels, and concerns over inflation have made U.S. debt less attractive, even as the U.S. continues running multi-trillion dollar deficits.

Enter the stablecoin.

Today, companies like Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) hold tens of billions of dollars in U.S. government debt to back their tokens. When someone in Argentina, Nigeria, or a Binance trading desk mints USDT, they’re not just getting a “digital dollar”—they’re triggering a real-world Treasury purchase. The crypto user thinks they’re opting out of the fiat system. But in reality, they’re becoming its final buyer.

The Crypto User Thinks They’re Opting Out of the Fiat System

Why do people in Argentina, Turkey, Lebanon, or Nigeria rush to buy USDT?

Because their own currencies are collapsing. Hyperinflation, capital controls, corrupt central banks—these people aren’t speculating; they’re fleeing. To them, the U.S. dollar—even in stablecoin form—is a lifeline. A way to store value. A way to escape the chaos of their local monetary regimes.

But here’s the catch:

They think they’re opting out of fiat. But in reality, they’re just opting into a slightly better fiat—one that’s still built on debt, political manipulation, and unsustainable spending.

The stablecoin looks like freedom. It feels like safety. But under the hood, it’s still backed by U.S. government debt, not hard money.

Ironically, while individuals are rushing into dollars, governments and central banks are quietly opting out—dumping Treasuries and buying gold. China, Russia, and other major players are de-dollarizing their reserves, building gold stacks instead of paper promises.

So while everyday people buy USDT thinking they’re escaping a broken system, they’re actually becoming the last line of support for it.

A Bad Deal for the User, A Great Deal for the Issuer

This system is not just ironic—it’s rigged.

When a user buys a stablecoin, they hand over real money (often hard-earned in volatile, inflation-ridden economies) and receive a token that loses value over time. Meanwhile, the stablecoin issuer uses that cash to buy U.S. Treasuries yielding 5%, pocketing the interest for themselves.

It’s a classic arbitrage:

The company gets the yield. The user gets the illusion of stability.

And what does the company do with the profits?

Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, has been using its surplus to buy Bitcoin and gold.
Yes—they are converting fiat yield into hard assets while their users hold yieldless tokens that depreciate.

Stablecoins aren’t neutral tools—they’re a form of rent extraction on unequal access to dollars. The poor and marginalized, locked out of the global banking system, pay the premium. They provide the capital, but don’t share in the returns. It’s dollar apartheid dressed up as digital liberation.

Ironically, while the wealthy and powerful are exiting Treasuries and moving into gold, the global poor are herded into yieldless tokens that prop up a collapsing system—tokens whose issuers are quietly stacking Bitcoin behind the scenes.

Exit Liquidity for the Empire of Debt

Here’s the twist: stablecoin users—retail traders, global remitters, DeFi participants—are providing exit liquidity for traditional U.S. Treasury holders.

As old institutions reduce exposure to U.S. debt, stablecoin issuers step in, fueled by global crypto demand. The American government still gets to sell its debt. But the buyer has changed. The new buyer is a protocol, backed by offshore exchanges, remittance flows, and millions of anonymous wallets.

This system works—until it doesn’t.

When the Music Stops

What happens in the next crypto bear market? What happens if regulators crack down on stablecoins? If demand for stablecoins dries up, the artificial demand for Treasuries does too. The U.S. government will have to find new buyers—or offer much higher interest rates.

That’s the risk of this hidden system: a shadow Treasury market tied to the most volatile and politically uncertain asset class on earth.

The Ironic Truth

Crypto was born to escape fiat. But stablecoins—its most widely used product—are deeply tied to the health of the fiat regime. They don’t disrupt the dollar. They extend its life. They distribute it further. They help the empire keep borrowing.

In this light, stablecoins aren’t just a tool for freedom. They’re also a backdoor bailout for a bloated fiscal machine, enabled by the very people it exploits.

And if that’s true, the real question isn’t whether the U.S. dollar will survive—but how long crypto will prop it up… while its issuers quietly prepare for the next system.

💡 Want to understand the global mechanics behind this better?
Look up The Dollar Milkshake Theory by Brent Johnson.
It explains how a structurally flawed but globally dominant dollar continues to suck in capital from weaker economies—even as the system cracks.