About The Artist
In a generation that has embraced socialism and many marxist ideas, being a capitalist is the ultimate counter culture.
At a time when so many people of the younger generations consider money evil and “capitalism” the rails for such heinous activity, being a loud and proud Bitcoiner is honourable.
When millions of people, from angry Swedish teenagers to all of Hollywood, are gathering globally to “save” the environment, being a proponent of increased energy consumption to mine truth, is damn near suicide in some circles.
Our featured writer this block is NikCantMine and he is one of a growing number of people in their early twenties who are embracing Bitcoin. In fact, at this point one might say that he is one of the important voices of the zoomer generation, offering hope, emancipation and agency to his cohorts, even if they haven’t found out about it yet.
He is a writer of Bitcoin inspired articles published places like Medium, Citadel21 and Bitcoin Magazine. He is the co-host of BTC Kinder Garden, a Bitcoin zoomer-perspective podcast.
He is a former intern to Marty Bent and an all round nice guy.
Being an young adult at a time when we are about to “celebrate” 50 years of the fiat experiment must be a dichotomous one. On the one hand living in a society where we’re constantly told that we have never been more free and prosperous, while at the same time having the lived experience of seeing how inflationist monetary policies have robbed many people from 40 years old and down of potential upward mobility, a chance to save, to get on the housing ladder and other professional and economic opportunities, broadly speaking.
Personally, I started seeing this trend unfold when I was Nik’s age, 15 years ago and counting. Shudder… Like many of Nik’s contemporaries now, I too misdiagnosed the problem. Everyone sees that the game is skewed in favour of the very few but a skin deep analysis, which I was also guilty off at the time, often leads to “capitalism bad” and to taking the other side of that argument, “Socialism good”. It feels great to be in that corner. Honourable, virtuous, righteous even. A deep dive into what money is, how modern nation state currencies have evolved and been bastardised over the last 100 plus years, takes too much effort and requires a desire for truth over feeling good.
Nik’s feature piece for us is called “It’s The Money, Stupid”, a play on Billy ‘Epstein Island’ Clinton’s now famous quote. Nik is going places. He gets it. In a way it’s patronising to keep referring to his age however the importance of having eloquent, passionate, determined and informed characters of strength across the generations can’t be underestimated.
This is a great piece of writing in any case and I hope you will enjoy reading it, and listening to his great rip with our boy Max, as much as I did.
Nik, we salute you!
THE ESSAY
IT’S THE MONEY, STUPID
Throughout history, we’ve learned that civilization must have certain key aspects integrated into its society for it to survive, and one of those is sound money. Sound money is critical for citizens’ ability to save their wealth and transport it into the future, build strong families, and progress through life. Sound money also keeps the government from growing too big, giving power to the people. Taking away sound money from society is like taking out one of a chair’s legs. It’s not stable and will fall when under pressure.
Different monetary media have played a role as sound money throughout history but it always ends with the same outcome. Hard money gets compromised, taken advantage of, and ultimately destroyed. It’s happened with the Rai Stones on the Island of Yap, it happened with the glass beads in Africa, and it’s happening with fiat currency today. Gold has yet to get compromised the same way as other failed forms of sound money, in terms of money printing. Yet gold is centralized, which resulted in its downfall.
Since gold is centralized, they were able to grab it by the throat and kill it as a monetary media of exchange, allowing them to launch their own currency with effectively no other competition on the market. Ever since the Nixon Shock in 1971, civilization has been slowly crumbling down on the fiat standard.
I strongly believe that humans unconsciously act with incentives related to the monetary system they live under, and the fiat standard is a horrid monetary system that comes with disgusting results. Living under a sound monetary system will incentivize you to live a better life for yourself, while an unsound monetary system has proved to be rather destructive.
Below are 3 important aspects of our lives that have been very negatively affected by unsound, fiat money.
EDUCATION
Have you ever thought why money and economics, one of the most important and relevant aspects of everyone’s life, are not taught to you in school?
I used to think the lack of financial knowledge from Gen Z was inexcusable until I realized, most people no matter their age haven’t got the slightest clue to how money or economics works. I remember having to explain what fiat currencies, soft and hard money were to my COLLEGE professors because of some papers & speech drafts I wrote. I understand finance may not have been their field of study, but come one. That’s introductory level stuff that everyone should know bare minimum.
The state had us from kindergarten through 12th grade, and they refused to teach us how to save money & explain how our economy works. They failed to educate us on arguably the most important aspect of one’s adult life.
Then you come to this horrifying realization that it’s this way by design. They want you to be stupid and uneducated.
“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.” – Assata Shakur.
The government knows that their citizens would be too powerful, productive, and free if they were taught Austrian Economics, how to be financially responsible, and more. If children were taught these lessons then their lives would be completely different. They would take on little to no debt, provide more value to society and be an active member in their community, and overall do what’s best for themselves.
Since schools don’t give you a financial education, most kids nowadays start their adult lives by going into massive debt. When I turned 18, I was getting physical mail, email, phone calls, and text messages from my bank essentially begging me to take out student & vacation loans, and credit cards. That is predatory and they know exactly what they’re doing, targeting a group of young undereducated individuals with the illusion that they’re helping them get ahead in life.
You can learn about money and economics in University, but it’s a waste of time since they teach you bullshit economics anyway. They’ll brainwash you into thinking Keynesian economics is the true way to perform economic calculation, but it’s a lie. Keynesian economics just emphasizes governments and central banks while deemphasizing the sovereignty of their constituents. As we’ve seen with our own eyes these past 50 years, Keynesian economics and easy money doesn’t work and has no longevity in a prosperous civilization.
Student loans in the US are backed by the government, and once you take them out you got to pay them. Universities jack up prices knowing that people will still pay it because of the guaranteed loans. Which the government takes profits from the difference in interest rates and cost of borrowing. They both are in on this ponzi scheme and have a clear profit motive to not properly educate you.
SAVINGS
How are we supposed to save for our future when the odds are all against us?
We were born into a world where our home national currency has no limits to how much it can be printed. Humans innately understand the importance of scarcity and this is a big red flag to many when they find this out. The government tries to hide this fact from most people the best they can so no one asks any questions or tries to exit their system.
You work hard at a job all week and finally get that sweet paycheck. You save that money in the bank for a year, saving for a product or service you want. You’re so close to being able to afford it and you’re happy. Well, guess what? You got played. Because of inflation, that product or service now costs more while your saving’s lost purchasing power. Double rekt.
It’s literally impossible to save value in fiat currency long term. People have to look for more complicated, time-consuming ways to store their wealth. This means that after they risk themselves at a job to earn money, they have to risk their earned money in a complicated investment. Investing is NOT saving. Investing is taking on risk, savings takes on no risk.
With no financial education on how savings or investing works, and the money we manage to accumulate is depreciating every day, then how the hell are 18-year-olds suppose to enter the adult world and do well at all? How are people in their 20s and 30s suppose to raise a strong family? The game is rigged from the start.
FAMILIES
Since families can no longer properly save, it has resulted in some pretty tragic results from what I’ve personally seen.
Families used to be able to survive on a single income, typically from the father. The father goes out into the world to work hard to create and or provide value. This brings in one or more sources of income, to provide for his family. While the wife stays home and takes care of the kids, keeps the house clean, makes food, and does whatever else she pleases.
Over the years I’ve talked to and observed many different families from different financial positions. Something I’ve noticed is that the families who can afford to live like the family mentioned above, are the happiest. It seems most natural and peaceful. The families where both parents are slaving away at a 9-5 where they can’t even watch their kids properly grow up, seem to be more unhappy. This is an effect of the fiat standard.
Single-income families are no longer possible for many households because of inflation, resulting in the mother having to launch a career to help support the family. And even many families today are struggling with 2 incomes. This leads to insane amounts of stress and results in divorce is many cases all around the country. I remember reading a statistic about marriages that end in divorce because of financial troubles (I don’t remember the exact number and I can’t find the exact study) but I vowed to never let that happen to me. I couldn’t imagine being in a spot where my savings being fucked is what splits my family apart.
Plus, creating strong families isn’t a big priority in today’s high-time preference, fiat world. So many single old women growing old and angry at missing out on raising a family in exchange for a long-term career and or more years of partying. This doesn’t apply as much to guys because of well, biology, but this is a conversation for another day. Overall many fiat chasers just seem to be more unhappy not starting strong families today. I see Bitcoiners on the other hand get their finances in order, and start a family and seem as happy as they can be.
One thing I see bad about this is since people today don’t have a family, people don’t have savings or assets, they don’t have anything to protect. They don’t have anything to fight for. They don’t have anything to look forward to. This is no way to move humanity forward. We must get back on track, and Bitcoin is the perfect tool to get us off and running.
ALL IN ALL
Fix the money, fix the world, stupid.
– Nik
Nik Hoffman’s Articles
Lies, Deception And Unnatural Money
“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”
WHY WON’T BITCOIN DIE? BECAUSE YOU NEED IT
