I have a lot of friends who live on the fringe in one manner or another. People who have found themselves living existences out of necessity or happenstance that are much different than the average American. One of these friends is a true character a guy who at different points in his life, spent years in the offshore banking industry, owned a gold mine high above treeline in the rockies (which he operated with his two sons), ran a construction company and grew large crops of marijuana. He’s kind of like the world’s most interesting man’s smarter cousin. One reason I like him is that he constantly challenges my mind, asking questions and providing insights that aren’t always welcome, but are, however, valuable.
Years before bitcoin came into existence my friend would confound me with his opinions of the dollar:
Him: “It’s debt you're holding that bill represents a debt” .
Me: “I don’t get it? I have it, I spend it, seems like an asset to me!”
Him: “ no it’s a debt instrument that’s what it is! It’s spendable, but it’s created from debt”
Sure enough he was right and the entire federal reserve system is based on loaning money into existence, the dollar is a debt instrument, a receipt for debt owed! This was such a hard idea for me wrap my mind around at the time. I just didn’t get it ! Well I figured it out eventually and watched in the following years as round after round of quantitative easing inflated the money supply, the stock market seemed to go to new hieghts all the time and life for the average Joe just got harder.
My friend believed that the dollar was not only a dubious monetary instrument but toxic.
“I think it’s like a curse, bad karma...It represents someone else’s misery, I don’t want to hold any, I’d rather have my money in other forms of assets” (plant or mineral)
I have to admit that I have come to agree with my friend, I see a dollar and I connect it to all the economic stress I see around me in this crazy, on the edge world we are living in and I wish I could abandon fiat entirely and that is why I’m so fond of cryptocurrency and hopeful that the disruptive nature of it can help us throw off the chains of a fiat, debt based economy.
This is also why I’m so geeked out about Steemit, I’m happy to make some profit from my posts here but I’m more into the fact that I’m not supporting a toxic centralized system (my view of Facebook ) and I can post content without feeling queasy!
I just listened to an interview with Ned and Dan of Steemit on #blocktalk and liked their analogy of steemit to a credit union instead of a bank . Thats a decent way of putting it, we’re all bringing value and creating value, but it all stays within the group, working for the group. That’s why I believe in the long term viability of this genius platform, it renumerates content creators and consumers and the value of that relationship is very real! It may be unrealistic but steemit helps me envision a future where I will have very little need for toxic fiat...it’s almost here, thank you steemit!