True blessings at first appear to be curses ; true curses at first appear to be blessings. Homeowners think they're blessed when their home price increases, but it's actually a curse because it's a part of everything being priced wrong, and now you can't afford the vacations and adventures and business ideas that previous generations could afford. Being able to print unlimited dollars at first appeared to be a blessing to the US because we could pay foreigners with paper or digits while they sent Americans real things. Now the US doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to supply itself. When the world switches to honest money (it will be Bitcoin), Americans will again think they are blessed because they've accumulated the most of that new money. But again, it will be revealed to be a curse, because without factories and jobs and a real middle class, that saved Bitcoin will be sent overseas to the countries that invested wisely, and in the end the US will have neither the money nor the factories. The history of the Spanish empire shows how it works - they were the richest people in the world, receiving fleets of galleons laden with gold and silver, which they spent lavishly. But the resulting inflation and destruction of industry impoverished them and set the stage for future revolutions and a civil war. The instability lasted centuries, and now, decades after the country stabilized, you can easily find pictures and videos of depopulated or impoverished parts of the once glorious homeland of their empire. Knowing the law of unintended consequences, which is only a subset of what I'm trying to describe, *could* guide American policymakers to avoid this fate... But I doubt it. Even the current American awakening to Bitcoin is not happening fast enough. Policymakers are not grokking it fast enough. Their best intentions are now a heavy load of detritus which covers their eyes. This is imperative : decentralize now, before nature forces a more painful decentralization on you. Move a majority of state and federal laws down to the smallest community, where a more direct form of democracy can adapt closer to real time. Let people farm and work and own property and vote on real issues. Loosen your grip. God's justice is balance, setting things right ; nature's balance is painful. If both kinds of balance become one and the same... you're fucked. We're not moving fast enough.