Oddbean

I like how this St Louis Fed post blames people for banks’ failings. Flip it around. Banks irresponsibly created way more claims for gold than they had gold, kept defaulting, and lost trust. So the government made gold illegal to own for like 40 years. There was no “shortage” of gold in the Great Depression. There was an excessive amount of fraudulent promises for gold, made by commercial banks and central banks. https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2017/november/why-us-no-longer-follows-gold-standard https://m.primal.net/JxGW.jpg

Weren’t people broke during the depression? Exactly where were they getting this tremendous amount of gold that brought the banks down??? It doesn’t even say they withdrew it all in a bank run, it says they stopped depositing. Shady claim, someone should show the numbers lmao

"They wanted something tangible and of value. Gold was a good fit because of its limited supply [...] Fiat money has no value of its own and doesn’t represent anything of value, such as gold" Usually this is where we laugh at fiat money for having no intrinsic value, but that misses the point that gold *also* has no intrinsic value. The only differences between fiat and gold are how easily more of it can be created, and more importantly, *who* can do that: "The U.S. mines a lot of gold, but we’re not the biggest producer,” Wheelock said. “The bigger suppliers of gold would have more control over our monetary policy" The purpose of fiat is not only to enable a cheap money spigot, but to be very specific about who controls it.

Sociopaths come in a full spectrum Although they all lack empathy for the victims of their actions/words, they are not all serial killers. Many become politicians, bankers or even CEOs. The latter group mostly avoid incarceration and seem to be able to convince themselves that if they say something often enough it’s a verifiable truth.

Gold was revalued around 1935 after Executive Order banning the ownership of Gold by citizens in 1933. It was not legal to own Gold again until 1974. Not much news about this because the Media is controlled by the Elites that would rather have you not understand this issue. Nixon took us off the gold standard but we had already printed WAY more money than we had Gold. So 'officially' going off the gold standard and when we actually went off the gold standard are two different things. It was a slow decay. If you study history hard, the downfall of the USA actually started in 1913 - when the Federal Reserve was created. Remember too, 7 world bankers RESISTED the central Bank (for obvious reasons known now) until they were all on the Titanic in 1912 when it sunk. I'm sure it's just another coincidence. Look it up. Once they all were killed, opps - died accidentally - the next year the USA Federal Reserve was created. Regardless of what actually happened or how it happened - 1913 was pivotal. MOST of the innovation in America was in the late 1800s. Steam then oil, electricity, communications - all the things we use today were created during HARD money times! This explains the improvements in standard of living for America. Imagine where we may have been if we would have stayed on a Gold standard! As a more recent comparison, think Apple Computer. In 1992 Jobs created the Newton - and that lead to the invention of the iPhone in around 2005. ALL of Apples business was created during Jobs, Tim Cook is a total loser - done nothing but incremental improvements in the business. BUT Cook gets credit for the massive stock run up. Nation states develop over 100s of years, companies over decades. These analogies are everywhere if you research enough. So to your question about Nixon and the Great Depression - it's hard to understand these HUGE time frames. To summarize: Federal Reserve created 1913. US Gov stole 50% of citizens wealth in 1935. Government continued it's massive spending and control of the people through 1971 including funding nearly EVERY war on BOTH sides for the next 50 years, at which time they had to default, again. After 1971, a race to the bottom funding endless wars, making the Elites filthy rich (Pelosi worth $300 million as a public servant), and robbing the working class of their standard of living. And here we are. #Bitcoin should fix all this if it works (and I think it will).

Anything touching the legacy financial system does not belong to you. Don't let institutions gaslight you into thinking otherwise. nostr:nevent1qqsyrrs0eelsp9vk8p33z05fe2tzmyffxthclal3d7c90cjwn9wug2spz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3qa2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sxpqqqqqqzhdafkt

Those are not contradictory. You can stack and spend. But realistically I think broad-scale medium of exchange usage will take off way down the line when more people hold bitcoin as a store of value and when the tax treatment improves. In the meantime there are Bitcoin hubs and Nostr where it circulates more.