by Dr. Jay Lehr and Tom Harris | October 25, 2022 | Economy, Global, Politics
For years, discussion of Bitcoins relegated it to being a bubble akin to tulip mania or some Ponzi scheme. Now we have to admit that it is here to stay. Beneath the layer of charlatans and players is a movement slowly progressing toward a grand vision of the future. A future where money is the means of a flourishing society rather than an oppressive arm of the state.
Bitcoin is a currency that only exists in the internet world and can be used to trade for anything at any agreed value. All transactions are automatically recorded in multiple nodes, this is called blockchain. It cannot be easily tampered with or hacked. There are only 21 million bitcoins in existence. Although its value is volatile, it is believed that the value will eventually become somewhat stable like gold.
Jack Kriesel, writing in Bitcoin Magazine, shed a lot of light on a topic that has been confusing to most of us. Having learned from him much of what we write below, we’ve asked him to discuss it further on our radio show, The Other Side of the Story, this coming weekend, October 30/31, at at 11 a.m. and at 8 p.m. both days in America. Loud radio.
As the odds of Bitcoin collapsing in on itself shrink with each passing day, Bitcoin’s enemies are coming to terms with what its steady progress means to them. Politicians and central bankers now realize that Bitcoin is a serious threat.
Cryptocurrency, like its main representative, Bitcoin, is indeed a threat to government fiat currencies (currency or paper issued without the backing of a physical commodity) and the power it gives to government everywhere. The media has chosen to play up this threat with fear and uncertainty, while followers embrace it as Bitcoin’s reason for existence. In fact, it is a practical means of separating governments to retain money.
In this sense there are two falsehoods that society has always accepted as truth:
1: It is natural for the government to control money
2 – inflation is necessary.
People argue for separating powerful institutions like church and state, but they don’t apply the same logic when talking about money and the state. The impact of money on society cannot be underestimated. It is the means by which people transact value and interact with the economy. Putting this aspect of our lives in the hands of the government, with a history of abusing that power, has never been a good idea.
When the government has full control over money, it has the ability to debase money as its ruling party sees fit. Everyone is aware of the dangers of hyperinflation, but people are unaffected by the ability of a few to arbitrarily expand the money supply. Not only are they not bothered, but many even take it for granted that central banks determine the value of the money they hold. Obviously they consider that this interference in the value of money is necessary to avoid economic collapse.
People seem comfortable with the government stepping in and boosting demand to stimulate economic growth. So they question anything that limits those capabilities. Sound money, like bitcoin and gold, incentivizes saving and planning for the future that government generally opposes. For the government, the motivation for inflating the money supply and thereby weakening the value of a dollar is to get people to spend more money on unnecessary items to achieve apparent economic growth.
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