Why real freedom starts with escaping centralized money
Most people think money is neutral. You earn it, you spend it, you save it. Simple. But what if the money in your wallet isn’t really yours? What if it works more like company scrip than true, independent money?
Let’s take a step back in time — and a step deeper into the system we live in.
🏭 Company Scrip: The Original Trap
In mining and lumber towns of the 19th and early 20th century, companies often paid workers in “scrip” — private money usable only at the company store.
Could you spend it elsewhere? Nope.
Could you build wealth? Not easily.
Were prices fair? Absolutely not.
It was a closed-loop system. One that looked like money, but ultimately existed to control labor and consumption.
🏛️ Fiat Currency: The Scrip Goes National
Now look at the dollar, the rupee, the euro.
These are government-issued fiat currencies. But just like scrip:
They’re created at will by central banks.
They lose value over time through inflation.
They’re political tools, subject to manipulation and control.
And they limit your economic choices to within a system you didn’t design.
It’s still scrip — just at scale. You’re still in the company town. The company just got a flag and a central bank.
🪙 Bitcoin, Gold, and Financial Exit
Real money — money that promotes freedom — should be:
Scarce
Neutral
Borderless
Independent of politics
That’s why people turn to Bitcoin and gold. They’re not controlled by anyone, and that matters.
When your wealth is stored in something you control, your freedom becomes harder to take away.
⚠️ The Real Issue: Agency
The bigger point isn’t about currencies. It’s about control.
Whoever controls your money controls your choices.
If a central bank, a political party, or a single institution can dilute or freeze your money — you don’t own your life. Not really.
Financial agency isn’t just a luxury. It’s a requirement for freedom.
🧠 Final Thought
So yes, your dollars function. But they’re not neutral. They’re managed, manipulated, and diluted — all without your consent.
They’re just fancy scrip — and you don’t own the store.
Elon Musk is on a rampage again—this time, against Donald Trump’s so-called “One, Big, Beautiful Bill.” He’s called it a “disgusting abomination,” a pork-stuffed monstrosity that will explode the national deficit and bury Americans under a mountain of debt. And he’s not wrong.
But here’s the thing: yelling into the void of Washington politics won’t change a system that’s already rigged to print, spend, and inflate its way into oblivion. The real protest isn’t a tweetstorm. It’s opting out.
Elon Tried to Fix It—And Got Burned
Let’s not forget: Elon Musk didn’t start out as a critic. He tried to work within the system. He joined advisory councils, met with presidents, and even offered to help streamline government operations. He believed that innovation and logic could steer the ship of state.
But the bureaucracy didn’t budge. The incentives were too broken, the politics too entrenched. Eventually, Musk walked away—disillusioned and vocal. His recent outburst isn’t just frustration; it’s the sound of someone who tried to fix the machine and realized it’s designed to resist change.
Why Fighting the System Is a Distraction
The U.S. government isn’t going to stop spending. It’s not going to balance the budget. And it’s certainly not going to voluntarily give up the power to print money. So while Elon’s outrage is justified, it’s also futile. The system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed.
The Only Real Exit: Bitcoin
If you’re tired of watching your purchasing power erode while politicians play Monopoly with your future, there’s only one real move: opt out. Buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin isn’t just a hedge against inflation—it’s a peaceful protest. It’s a decentralized, deflationary alternative to fiat currencies that can’t be manipulated by central banks or corrupted by politics. It’s the lifeboat in a sea of fiscal insanity.
Conclusion: Don’t Rage—Exit
Elon’s fury is understandable. But the real revolution won’t be televised—it’ll be verified on the blockchain. If you want to send a message to Washington, don’t waste your breath. Move your money. Buy Bitcoin.
Most of us think of money as the bills in our wallets or numbers in our bank accounts. But money isn’t a physical thing—it’s a system of IOUs. It’s how we track value we’ve created, whether that’s building a fence, baking bread, or writing software.
Here’s the key insight: money itself doesn’t hold value. If it did, you’d want to hoard it. But you don’t. You probably try to get rid of your dollars by putting them into stocks, real estate, or gold—anything to escape inflation.
🧱 A Story About a Fence (and a Broken System)
Imagine this: You build a 100-foot fence for someone. They pay you $100. One year later, you ask them to build a fence for you. They say, “Sure, but now it’ll cost $105.”
Why? Inflation. Your money didn’t hold its value. The effort you gave last year is worth less this year.
And while the U.S. has “low” inflation, other countries—like Argentina—see 100% inflation annually. In places like that, people rush to convert their paychecks into food, bricks, or U.S. dollars just to preserve value.
But let’s be honest: the U.S. dollar and Argentine peso aren’t fundamentally different. Both are government-issued currencies that lose value over time due to overspending and excessive money printing.
⚙️ Enter Bitcoin: Fixed, Transparent, and Decentralized
Bitcoin was designed to fix this exact problem.
There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins.
Each one can be divided into 100 million sats (Satoshis).
Bitcoin is basically a global, digital IOU ledger that nobody controls—but everyone can verify.
Think of it as an open-source Excel spreadsheet that tracks who owns what. But instead of one person controlling it, thousands of computers (nodes) maintain the same list and agree on changes only when a valid transaction is made.
🔨 How Bitcoin Transactions Work
You send a transaction using your app or wallet.
It enters the mempool, a kind of digital waiting room.
Miners select and bundle transactions into a block.
They solve a math puzzle to earn the right to add the block to the chain.
Once added, it’s permanent—and verified by the entire network.
Each block takes about 10 minutes to process. Miners are rewarded with both newly “unlocked” bitcoin (currently 3.125 BTC) and small transaction fees—typically less than 1%, cheaper than credit cards.
🆚 Bitcoin vs “Altcoins”
Bitcoin has no premine, meaning the creator didn’t secretly give themselves coins before anyone else could buy them. Most altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies) do. That makes many of them less like open money and more like disguised businesses.
Ask yourself: What real problem is this altcoin solving?
The answer is likely that the coin is built around a company structure, because it can’t solve the store of value problem. Bitcoin already solved that problem.
💸 How to Buy Bitcoin Today
Option 1: Brokerages
Buy FBTC, the Fidelity Bitcoin Trust, just like a stock or ETF
Available through Fidelity, Schwab, and others
Small fee: ~0.25% expense ratio
Option 2: Direct Purchase
Use apps like Strike, River, or Cash App
You can hold your own Bitcoin (self-custody) or keep it with the app
📈 Why Bitcoin Could Hit $13 Million
There are $750 trillion in global assets.
Asset Category
Estimated Value (USD)
Real estate
~$360 trillion
Equities (stocks)
~$110 trillion
Bonds (debt markets)
~$135 trillion
Broad money (M2)
~$100 trillion
Gold (above ground)
~$14–15 trillion
Private businesses, art, collectibles, etc.
~$20–30 trillion (est.)
If even $273 trillion of that (stocks, real estate, bonds, money supply) flows into Bitcoin, that’s:
$273 trillion ÷ 21 million BTC = $13 million per coin
This isn’t speculation—it’s about monetary premium, the extra value people add to assets (like real estate or art) just because they don’t trust cash.
Bitcoin is absorbing that value because it’s better money.
🧠 Strategy: It’s Not Too Late
A $10,000 investment today could get you 0.1 BTC. If Bitcoin hits $13 million, that’s worth $1.3 million.
Of course, you shouldn’t invest money you can’t afford to lose. But for many, $10K is a small bet with a big upside.
Bitcoin isn’t just about price—it’s about a fundamentally better way to store and transmit value.
🎯 Final Thought: We’re All Fish in Fiat Water
You’ve lived your whole life in a system where money loses value. It feels normal, but it’s not natural.
Bitcoin is a new kind of money: scarce, digital, decentralized, and global.
Once you understand what money really is, it becomes clear: Bitcoin is not just better money—it’s the future of value itself.
In theory, the ChooseFI and Bitcoin communities should be natural allies. Both value independence, long-term thinking, and building a future that’s not dependent on the whims of politicians or corporations. But in practice, there’s an odd divide: the ChooseFI crowd leans hard into index funds and conventional investing, while Bitcoiners are laser-focused on fixing the money itself.
As someone who walks between both worlds, I think it’s time to bridge this gap.
The ChooseFI Perspective: Smart, but Incomplete
The Financial Independence (FI) movement is one of the best ideas to come out of the last 20 years. It’s a rejection of consumerism and dependence on a 9–5 job. It promotes saving, intentionality, and investing in low-cost index funds to build wealth over time.
But here’s where it falls short: the movement assumes the system is stable enough to invest in indefinitely.
ChooseFI thinkers often acknowledge that inflation erodes purchasing power. That’s why they invest. But they rarely ask why inflation exists or what kind of inflation we’re talking about. They trust the market to keep delivering 7% annual returns because, historically, that’s what it’s done. It’s a comforting narrative—but it’s built on the assumption that the dollar is sound money. It isn’t.
The Bitcoiner’s View: Start With the Root Cause
Bitcoiners take the opposite approach. They start by asking: What if the money itself is broken?
If money is supposed to store value over time and across space, then fiat currency fails that test. Central banks manipulate interest rates and print trillions to bail out markets. This isn’t capitalism—it’s financial engineering.
Bitcoiners understand that if the base layer of the economic system is corrupted, then all the “smart investing strategies” built on top of it are sitting on shaky ground. They argue that if we had sound money—money that couldn’t be debased—then saving would be investing. You wouldn’t have to chase yield to stay ahead of inflation.
In other words, Bitcoin doesn’t replace the FI mindset—it completes it.
The Missed Opportunity
ChooseFI and Bitcoin share the same end goal: personal sovereignty, freedom from wage dependence, and the ability to live life on your own terms. But their tactics differ, mostly because of assumptions they make about the system.
ChooseFI says: “Inflation exists, so invest wisely to beat it.”
Bitcoin says: “Inflation exists because the money is broken—so let’s fix the money.”
Both strategies have value. But only one questions the foundation.
And here’s the deeper issue: too many in the ChooseFI world are afraid to deviate from the script. There’s a culture of “stay the course,” which, while helpful during market turbulence, often becomes a dogma that discourages curiosity. I’ve met people in the FI community who understand something feels off—whether it’s the Fed printing trillions or housing prices going vertical—but they suppress those questions because they fear sounding like conspiracy theorists or rocking the boat.
I want to say this clearly: it’s okay to ask questions. In fact, if you’re pursuing financial independence, you should be asking deeper questions—about the money, the system, and whether the rules we’ve been taught still make sense in a world that’s changing fast.
A Better Future: Combine the Philosophies
Imagine if ChooseFI thinkers began to see Bitcoin not as a speculative gamble, but as a form of saving that aligns with their most cherished values: delayed gratification, personal responsibility, and building a more secure future.
If these two groups came together, we’d have something powerful: a community that not only escapes the rat race—but understands why the race exists, who designed it, and how to stop participating in it altogether.
For ChooseFIers interested in Bitcion I’ll point you to a few of my previous articles below.
In the final week of May 2025, a significant number of companies announced substantial Bitcoin acquisitions, marking a notable trend in corporate cryptocurrency adoption. Below is a list of 20 companies that made headlines with their Bitcoin purchases:
Trump Media & Technology Group (USA)
Investment: Plans to raise $2.5 billion to establish a Bitcoin treasury.
I generated the above table using ChatGPT. I have been invovled in all of these communities that are swirling around the same ideas. I wish I could get them to work together.
ChatGPT also generated the below. It’s not perfect but I wanted to publish it because I want to.
offer it to the world
open for critique and improvements.
The Earned World Manifesto
A Declaration for Builders, Not Rent-Seekers
1. The Problem We See
The current system extracts more than it empowers. It rewards proximity to power, not creation of value. It builds systems that entrench dependency, then calls that stability.
We see:
Productivity rising — but wages stagnating
Knowledge abundant — but credentials gatekept
Labor outsourced — but profit hoarded
Currency inflated — but savings eroded
Talent global — but opportunity gated
Work automated — but ownership concentrated
This is not an accident. The rules are rigged — and the game is extraction.
2. What We Believe
🧱 Agency Is Non-Negotiable
Each individual has the right — and the responsibility — to direct their life. Freedom is not given. It is constructed.
📈 Value Should Flow to the Builder
The person who creates, fixes, or risks should own the upside. Rent-seeking is a tax on the capable.
🧠 Education Must Be Sovereign
Learning is abundant. Gatekeeping it is theft. We reject the credential treadmill in favor of demonstrated skill.
💰 Money Must Be Earned and Preserved
Currency debasement is economic theft. Savings must store effort, not melt it.
🔐 Ownership Is the Foundation
He who owns the tool, the platform, the protocol — holds the power. We choose ownership over permission.
3. What We Support
This is not a utopia. It is a direction.
We support:
🔸 Individuals achieving financial independence through disciplined action
🔸 Workers becoming owners, not just operators
🔸 Monetary systems (like Bitcoin) that cannot be corrupted
🔸 Skill-first pathways over debt-fueled credentials
🔸 Systems that reward contribution, not compliance
🔸 Local or global opt-out zones where new rules can be tested
We reject:
Coerced redistribution
Forced altruism
Dependence disguised as security
4. Our Two-Stage Strategy
🛶 Stage 1: Build your lifeboat. Earn freedom through action. Reduce expenses, save in hard assets, develop durable skills, and reclaim your time.
🏛️ Stage 2: Rebuild the harbor. Use your freedom to build systems that don’t demand sacrifice to survive. Not as charity — but as infrastructure for agency.
5. Join Us
We are the builders. The earners. The ones who won’t rent our future.
We will:
Speak plainly about value and power
Share tools, not just tweets
Reward proof-of-work, not status
Create systems where sovereignty scales
If you’re tired of extraction, If you still believe in ownership, If you’re ready to build —
Welcome to the Earned World.
As I was generating the Manifesto, I had a lot of conversation with ChatGPT. Below was a powerful statement it had.
“The current system extracts more than it empowers.”
This means that the rewards of the modern economy are disproportionately claimed by systems, institutions, and owners — not by the individuals doing the work or taking the risk. The value flows upward, while the burden flows downward.
Here’s what that looks like across different dimensions:
💼 In Work
Wages have stagnated while productivity and corporate profits rise.
Most workers trade time for money with little long-term upside (no ownership, equity, or growth path).
Gig work and contract labor shift costs (insurance, risk, taxes) to the individual while stripping stability.
Extraction: Time, energy, creativity — taken for a wage that doesn’t keep up with cost of living. Empowerment: Would mean building ownership, autonomy, or long-term equity from your work.
💸 In Money
Fiat currency loses purchasing power over time (inflation), punishing savers and wage earners.
Asset inflation (stocks, real estate) benefits those who already hold wealth — not those trying to build it.
Central banks and governments distort money supply in ways individuals cannot control or escape.
Extraction: Your savings melt while those close to the money printer get richer. Empowerment: Would mean access to stable, sovereign, permissionless money, Bitcoin.
🏥 In Healthcare
Healthcare is tied to employment — meaning you’re not truly free to leave your job.
Insurance costs rise faster than wages; many avoid treatment due to fear of bills.
Extraction: Your health and security are used to bind you to jobs and debt. Empowerment: Would mean decoupling basic needs from corporate control.
🏠 In Housing
Real estate is increasingly used as an investment vehicle, not a place to live.
Young people are priced out of ownership, forced into permanent renting.
Extraction: Rent drains wealth every month with no asset built. Empowerment: Would mean pathways to ownership, equity, or cooperative housing.
🎓 In Education
Education costs have exploded, leading to decades-long student debt burdens.
The credential economy keeps people in a treadmill of debt just to be “qualified.”
Extraction: You pay to enter the game, and the game changes by the time you finish. Empowerment: Would mean low-cost, high-agency pathways to skill and livelihood.
🤖 In Technology
Tech companies extract your attention, data, and time to sell to advertisers.
Users create content and community, but ownership and profits go to platforms.
Extraction: You are the product. Empowerment: Would mean open platforms, data sovereignty, and user-owned networks.
🔁 Why This Matters
When a system extracts more than it empowers, it means:
The average person gets poorer in power, even if they get richer in consumption.
Stability, dignity, and control are replaced with dependency and precarity.
People become functionaries, not free agents.
Stagnation in the U.S. and suppression in Mexico are two symptoms of the same disease:
A system where capital moves freely, but labor and ownership do not.
Personal sovereignty is the prerequisite for systemic sovereignty.
Entrepreneurship without savings is economic quicksand.
I think there are solutions to a lot of these propblems. But this is teh start of framing for myself to think more about solutions.
I encourage everyone in the communities I identified to read this as well as consider how they coudl work to make their own lives better as well as make the system better.
I want to highlight the 2 step process.
🛶 Stage 1: Build your lifeboat. Earn freedom through action. Reduce expenses, save in hard assets, develop durable skills, and reclaim your time.
🏛️ Stage 2: Rebuild the harbor. Use your freedom to build systems that don’t demand sacrifice to survive. Not as charity — but as infrastructure for agency.
While I believe everyone is capable of building their lifeboat, it is certainly harder for some than others.
Please comment with any thoughts you have to update this. Please feed this into AI and discuss with it how you might make chagnes to or improve it.
Here are a few resources I referenced when thinking about this.
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been diving deep into David Shapiro’s Post-Labor Economics lecture series (linked below — all around 40 min). I’ve listened to each one twice, and then used a mix of ChatGPT, Copilot, and Grok to create four 10-point summaries — one per video. Then I asked ChatGPT to synthesize those into a single meta-summary of the core ideas.
Here are the 4 videos. Each about 40 minutes long.
ChatGPT – Here is a 10-bullet-point meta-summary that synthesizes the key themes and insights from all four “Post-Labor Economics” video summaries:
Automation is Inevitable and Transformative: AI and robotics are displacing human labor across all sectors, making wage-based employment increasingly obsolete while simultaneously threatening consumer demand and economic stability.
Economic Agency is the Core Concern: Individuals require labor rights, property ownership, and voting rights to retain agency. As labor rights erode, property rights become the cornerstone of financial autonomy.
The Demand Paradox: Businesses want to automate to cut costs but still need paying customers. Without jobs, people can’t spend—creating a structural contradiction that leads to economic collapse unless resolved.
Rethinking Metrics: The EAI: Traditional KPIs like GDP and unemployment are no longer sufficient. The Economic Agency Index (EAI) measures household income sources (property, wages, transfers) and highlights the need to prioritize ownership income.
UBI: Helpful but Not Enough: Universal Basic Income is necessary as a safety net but inadequate on its own due to inflation risk, governance issues, and centralization. It must be paired with decentralized, property-based income streams.
Ownership is the New Wages: Future economic resilience depends on expanding access to trusts, wealth funds, co-ops, patron equity programs, and digital tokens to replace lost labor income with ownership-based dividends.
Counties as Innovation Labs: With 3,100 U.S. counties, local governments are ideal sites for experimenting with and scaling post-labor economic models, offering granular data and tailored policy solutions.
Banks as Economic Interfaces: Banks will evolve into the primary economic hubs, managing dividend flows, investment portfolios, and identity verification, replacing the role of traditional employers in financial life.
Guardrails Against Technofeudalism: Preventing elite capture and concentrated corporate control is critical. Transparency, participatory governance, and broad-based ownership are essential safeguards.
Market-Driven, Not Ideological: Post-labor economics distinguishes itself from socialism and communism by preserving markets and private property. Its goal is not wealth redistribution through state control, but wealth inclusion through distributed ownership and market-based tools.
I continued to have a conversation with ChatGPT to understand further.
I asked it “”How does post-labor economics differ from individuals simply investing in the stock market to generate passive income?”
It gave a very nicely formatted response, below.
🧩 TL;DR: It’s Not Either/Or
Buying stocks is one tool — a good one — for individual financial freedom.
But post-labor economics is about designing an entire economy where capital income is as normal, widespread, and accessible as having a job once was.
It’s not just you winning the game — it’s everyone getting a seat at the table.
Great question — and an important one.
🤔 At first glance, post-labor economics might sound like:
“Just buy stocks and live off dividends — problem solved.”
But post-labor economics goes beyond that in a few key ways. Here’s how it’s different from individuals simply investing in the stock market:
🏛️ 1. System Design vs. Personal Strategy
Stock investing is an individual solution — you build capital and income for yourself.
Post-labor economics is a system-wide redesign — it’s about building structures where everyone can participate in ownership, even if they don’t have savings, brokerage accounts, or financial literacy.
💵 2. Barriers to Entry
The stock market requires:
Disposable income
Access to financial tools
Risk tolerance
Education
Post-labor models focus on lowering those barriers by:
Distributing residency-based dividends
Creating local trust funds
Offering non-transferable community equity (you don’t have to “buy in”)
🏘️ 3. Ownership of Local, Tangible Assets
The stock market mostly involves ownership of national or global corporations.
Post-labor economics emphasizes ownership of local assets: businesses, land, water rights, data, energy — things that create direct, community-level income streams.
Owning Amazon stock ≠ owning the gas station, solar field, or rental housing in your own town.
🤝 4. Shared Governance & Resilience
When you buy stock, you have no governance power, unless you’re a billionaire activist investor.
Post-labor structures are built on shared governance — resident voting, dividend boards, and community stewardship.
💬 5. Not Everyone Can or Will Invest
A huge portion of the population has no stock market exposure. About 45% of Americans own no equities at all — and among the bottom 50% of income, it’s more like 10–15%.
Post-labor economics seeks to bake ownership into the system so that even non-investors receive income from capital.
🧠 6. Ownership as Policy, Not Privilege
Stock investing is optional and personal.
Post-labor economics treats ownership as infrastructure — like roads or clean water. It should be available to all by design, not just those who planned ahead or got lucky.
🌐 7. Resisting Elite Capture
The stock market concentrates wealth — the top 10% own over 85% of equities.
Post-labor models try to decentralize ownership — giving communities a stake in the economy before everything gets bought up by private equity or mega-corps.
🛠️ 8. Designed for the Age of Automation
Stock market investing was never intended as a wage replacement for the masses.
Post-labor economics is explicitly built to answer:
“What happens when jobs disappear, but people still need income?”
My next question.
“What mechanisms does post-labor economics use to avoid the tragedy of the commons when assets are collectively owned?”
✅ TL;DR:
Post-labor economics avoids the tragedy of the commons by turning shared access into structured, incentivized, accountable co-ownership.
It’s not a free-for-all — it’s a designed economy, where people are rewarded for taking care of what they collectively own.
Excellent question — and one of the core design challenges of post-labor economics.
The tragedy of the commons refers to a situation where a shared resource is overused or neglected because no one feels personal responsibility. In a post-labor economy — where ownership is distributed rather than concentrated — this is a real risk. But it’s not unsolvable.
Here’s how post-labor economics intentionally designs around the tragedy of the commons:
🧩 1. Move from “Common” to “Co-Owned”
The key shift is from open access (commons) to structured, governed co-ownership.
Think: community trusts, resident shares, dividend boards — where everyone has skin in the game, not just access.
📜 2. Define Clear Rights and Responsibilities
Successful post-labor models include smart governance charters:
Who can vote?
Who maintains assets?
How are profits used?
What happens if you leave?
This clarity prevents freeloading and aligns incentives for stewardship.
💰 3. Tie Participation to Rewards
Dividends aren’t just handed out — they can be tied to local contribution:
Show up to meetings
Volunteer hours
Local residency
Use the service or shop locally
This ensures that ownership feels earned, not distant or abstract.
📊 4. Transparency and Dashboards
Many models propose using public dashboards to show how community-owned assets are performing.
When people see the numbers — usage, revenue, maintenance costs — it creates accountability and pride.
🧑🤝🧑 5. Decentralized Governance Structures
Rather than one central authority, post-labor systems push decisions downward:
Counties manage their own trusts
Co-ops elect local boards
Banks help automate compliance and distribution
Local control = stronger stewardship.
🏦 6. Hybrid Ownership Models
Some assets are shared (like land or solar arrays), while others are individually owned (tokens, local equity).
This creates a blended structure where people benefit both as individuals and collectively, reducing the temptation to abuse shared goods.
🛡️ 7. Guardrails Against Elite Capture
Ironically, many “commons” in the modern economy (like housing or water) have already been captured — just not by the public.
Post-labor models bake in protections: voting caps, local-only ownership, anti-speculation rules, etc.
It’s a powerful framework. Personally, I’m still focused on achieving my own financial freedom — and I encourage everyone to do the same. But once we secure our own foundations, we’re in a much better position to help build a freer, more equitable world for everyone.
“ 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.
Metaplanet – Japanese Public Company Buying Bitcoin as a Treasury Reserve Asset
Metaplanet is a publicly traded company in Japan that has set Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. You can read about it here. You will have to click on their link to their “official disclosure” or you can link directly to the PDF of the official disclosure here.
I highly recommend everyone reads this. It lays out in simple, clear language, the benefits to the company of buying bitcoin as their treasury reserve asset. Most of their reasoning applies to individuals also. I’d like to repost it here directly, but they have requested no reproductions. I have emailed them asking if it’s possible to repost it and will if they allow it. But if not, you can read at the link above. It’s only a 3 page document.
Metaplanet is the first public company in Japan I am aware of that has started using Bitcoin as it’s treasury reserve asset. But it wasn’t the first worldwide and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Finally, El Salvador is the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. It is also committed to buying 1 bitcoin a day. You can follow directly in their bitcoin address.
Again, it was the first ,but I doubt it will be the last.
At this link is a list of all companies holding bitcoin. The above lists are more recent companies and companies that are actively proclaiming that they are accumulating more bitcoin aggressively.
There are about 8 billion (8,000,000,000) people in the world.
According to Kiplinger, globally there are about 59 million millionaires.
59,000,000/8,000,000,000 = 0.007375 = 0.7375% of people in the world are millionaires. So less than 1% of people are millionaires.
If you divided the 21 million (21,000,000) bitcoin among the 8 billion people
21,000,000/8,000,000,000 = 0.002625
0.002625 x $60,000/btc = $157.50
You only need to buy $157.50 worth of bitcoin to get “your share” today.
There are 21 million bitcoin that will ever be made.
There are 59 million millionaires. So it’s not possible for every millionaire to have 1 bitcoin.
If we divide the 21 million bitcoin by 59 million millionaires we get
21/59 = 0.35593220 btc per millionaire.
0.35593220 x $60,000/btc = $21,355.93 if every millionaire wanted to get “their share” of bitcoin and it was only split among millionaires.
If we go down to units of 0.1 bitcoin then 210 million people could own 0.1 bitcoin.
That is still only
210,000,000 people/ 8,000,000,000 people = 0.02625 = 2.625% of people would have 0.1 bitcoin.
0.1 bitcoin x $60k/bitcoin = $6,000 to buy 0.1 bitcoin today.
If I was someone with no bitcoin today I’d think hard about setting a goal of getting to 0.1 bitcoin.
The market capitalization of Gold is $16,590,000,000,000 ($16.59 Trillion) as of 8-11-2024 when I write this. Note that this changes daily as the price of gold fluctuates and as more gold is mined each year.
If bitcoin was to attaining the same market capitalization
$16,590,000,000,000/21,000,000 bitcoin = $790,000 per bitcoin
$790,000 x 0.1 bitcoin = $79,000
If bitcoin was to reach a value of $10 million per Bitcoin then 0.1 bitcoin would be worth $1 million.
Plenty of people have made a prediction in the millions for the future price of bitcoin. You will have to do research for yourself to determine if you think this is reasonable. But I would encourage you to be inquisitive about why people are prediction such a high price for Bitcoin.
This isn’t all to tell you you have to buy bitcoin. But it’s to encourage you to look into why many people think bitcoin has value.
There is not much bitcoin and we are still early as far as world wide adoption. You don’t need to buy much (0.1 bitcoin = $6k today) to potentially have $1 million in the future.
Of course, only buy as much as you are able to lose! Many people are able to have a risky bet of $6k and if it did happen to go to $0 (which is of course a possibility) they’d still be fine.
But if that is not you then definitely DON’T buy bitcoin.
But if you are a person who has sufficient assets, you might try thinking about why so many people have such a high conviction in bitcoin.
MyWheelLife.com 