Hedging My Bets

the rule of 72, 'eggonomy', and minting our own money

Claimer: This should absolutely be considered financial advice.

I’m one of those crazy people who doesn’t have faith in the current global financial system to deliver on its promise to keep growing everything, forever. I don’t believe there is a difference between banks and casinos, or that anyone in my generation will ever see a dime of the pyramid scheme called ‘social security’. I’ve never bothered with a retirement fund because I don’t think the dollar will be worth a corn husk in forty years. Corn husks make better compost, and toilet paper.

In financial terms, you could say I’m shorting the dollar and hedging my bets - pun intended. Allow me to explain.

I went to a university and got a degree in business management. At no point in my education was I taught how to manage a business. Though, I do remember a class on designing for-profit prisons efficiently - it’s best to stack the bathrooms on floors to reduce the amount of piping.

Even more baffling, is that in all those accounting and economics classes, I was never once taught a thing about the standard unit of measurement - the dollar. What is it?

Sufficiently answering that question would require a book, one that I’m certainly not qualified to write. So here’s my peasant-level understanding of money¹: banks create money when they make loans. Therefore, all money is debt. Debt, in our society, necessitates an interest rate. Agreeing to pay interest on debt is a promise that the future must be bigger than today (you wouldn’t likely invest in a company that offered zero returns). Therefore, the now transnational financial system must grow, or it dies. And any toddler could tell you that nothing grows forever. But economists and bankers aren’t toddlers, they’re experts with degrees, the prophets of the modern age.

I’m about to throw some numbers your way. I’ve never been fond of numbers and when I see them I usually go running in the other direction. However, I encourage you to stick with me because this just might give you a tool that completely changes your entire understanding of, well, everything about the modern age. It sure did mine.

Straight from the horse’s mouth. All currency in circulation. Say bye to your pension.