The Price of Inflation
Here's a great interview with Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future, that gets to the crux of the problem driving society to the brink at moment; inflationary monetary policy in a world of widespread deflation. I highly recommend you check it out if you have 45-minutes to grow your know.
In short, over the course of the last five decades the world has experienced a massive deflation in the tech sector that has made humanity exponentially more productive and efficient. As computing technology has become more advanced, it has also become extremely cheap to acquire and leverage. This has also led to a race to find the lowest cost to produce these goods, which has led to a decrease in wages. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of the technologies that are coming to market are also replacing jobs. And compounded even further by the fact that companies like Google and Amazon are creating large monopolies as they're able to offer more and more free services.
These things, in and of themselves (outside of the monopolies that are forming), are not bad things. However, when these deflationary pressures caused by technology advancements are paired with an inflationary monetary system, it drives a massive wedge between the haves who own assets like real estate and stocks and the have nots who live paycheck to paycheck. This is leading to a rise in populism throughout the world as people continue to misdiagnose the problem.
It is time to take a step back, realize that these two forces do not bode well when working in tandem and make structural changes to our society. "The current path cannot work." Uncle Marty thinks a sound money like Bitcoin fixes this.
Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to sitting down with Jeff next week to discuss his book, these topics, and how bitcoin plays into all of this moving forward.
Our boy Matt Ahlborg is back with some incredible analysis on bitcoin usage in Latin America. This time around, Matt has turned his focus towards Argentina where volume on LocalBitcoins recently hit an all time high. This is another piece of content that I highly recommend consuming when you get a chance as it gets into the nitty gritty of how Argentines are using their native currency, regulated US Dollars within their system, and black market US Dollars outside of their banking system.
While Argentina's situation is completely different than Venezuela, bitcoin has found some unique niches within the country to help Argentines move money and attempt to protect their wealth outside of the system. Matt also gives some suggestions on the types of Bitcoin products that could help the people of Argentina out if any of your freaks are looking to push the ball forward.
Final thought...
The bay on a gray day is pretty chay.
