34
I've known my wife for just about 10 years. We've been together for almost that long as we started dating a few months after we met. I learned something about her that I didn't know yesterday. Her favorite holiday is the 4th of July. I had no idea. Christmas is great but there's something about summer holidays with family, parties, music, warm weather, and cookout food that is tough to top. I have very fond memories of the 4th of July from my upbringing as well for all of the same reasons as my wife. It has always been a special day. I think that's why we pick favorite holidays as individuals. The funny thing is just like consumerism has bastardized Christmas, the true meaning of Independence Day has been lost through decades of identifying it more with ground beef, shitty swill beer and potato salad than with freedom.
What is freedom?
Merriam-Webster has a great set of definitions for the word "freedom."
- the quality or state of being free: such as
- a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
- b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another
It might seem a paradoxical question but if we compare an average, working US homeowner to a homeless, jobless person sitting on a park bench, who is more free? It isn't an easy question to answer. On one hand, there's the idea that money is freedom. The more money you have, the more free you are. If money is no issue, you can live where you want, do what you want, and just generally live a life free of toil. On the other hand, the reason we think money is freedom could be simplified into the notion that having money frees up your time. If we view it this way, it is actually time, not money, that makes you free. Suddenly the homeless, jobless person from the beginning of the paragraph is looking more free.
Let's expand on the idea a bit. To be free, we must be without necessity, coercion, or constraint of choice. We absolutely do not live in a country that can be considered free if we're using the definition of the word provided above. Sorry. I said. It's true. America is not free. It's probably free compared to most other countries. It's certainly more free than countries like China or Cuba. But it's not as free as it was even just 50 years ago. As Americans, we do however have the illusion of freedom. We think we're more free than we actually are.
We can't drive cars without paying for registration and a government issued identification card. A 5-year-old can't sell lemonade without a permit from the government. A 19-year-old can strap up and die in battle but can't buy a Sam Adams. Even if there is no bank lien on my house, if I stop paying my property taxes the government will seize my home. A man can get choked to death by police for selling cigarettes on the street. Your bank account can be frozen if you start taking out too much cash. The illusion of freedom. What ties us all together in this profoundly unfree system is taxation through USD. It's the money and it always has been.
Our Money is Trash
The United States Constitution has some pretty great lines about what money is supposed to be very early in the text.
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts
United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 10
Did you know that the money we're forced by the state to transact in is actually unconstitutional fiat? The forefathers were pretty clear, legal tender in the United States is supposed to be gold and silver. Nothing more. And for a long time, our money was backed by gold and silver. US coinage was minted with physical silver until 1965. Then on August 15th 1971, President Richard Nixon suspended dollar convertibility to gold. It was officially the end of the Bretton Woods monetary system. I share this story because we never seem to learn from history. Nixon suspended dollar convertibility because of high unemployment and rising inflation. His response was to take a sledgehammer to the monetary standard at the time.
What's happening now? We have high unemployment and rising inflation again. In just a few weeks, it will be exactly 50 years since the Nixon Shock. The petrodollar system is ripe. Not only are foreign investors moving to other reserve assets, but the government and the fed are debasing the shit out of the dollar.
Why am I sharing all of this?
Whether you believe in time or money as the true driver of freedom, "wealth" is a word we can probably use to define either expression. If you have the freedom to buy what you want or spend your time however you want, you are wealthy. If, like most people (myself included), you have to work a job to pay bills and a mortgage, you might be wondering how any of this helps you. Well, if you buy the idea that our money system is on its last legs, this becomes an opportunity.
There are trillions of dollars tied up in US treasury bonds. If the dollar is sacrificed by the powers that be, that wealth is going to end up moving somewhere else. Probably into assets that can't be debased as easily as fiat paper. As you might expect, I believe the beneficiaries of de-dollarization will be precious metals and cryptocurrencies. I personally believe gold, silver, bitcoin, and ether are terrific places to store wealth.
Happy 4th of July.
