Tee Yaps

citizens throughout the world are seeing the crippling effects of inflation. in america the us dollar has been losing value by the day.

this currency that we have does not have any utility on its own. its power comes from our military and our capability of imposing our will on the rest of the world. Fiat currencies, or currencies issues by governments, have no ulility or value on their own. they are not backed by any tangible asset like gold or silver.

lets take a look at how a currency comes about.

throughout history we have seen different forms of currency used for transactions. very few of them have lasted and withstood the test of time.

I will list a few examples of failed currencies.

Rai Stones: Rai stones were used by natives of Yap island. Some of them very large and a lot, small. These large stones, when used in transactions would not be moved. If the ownership of the stone is tranferred to someone new, then the new owner would be announced to the people. The smaller stones were used for smaller transactions.

What gave rai stones their value was their scarcity. They were not easily acquired, they had to be quarried from other islands. They were valued.

…They WERE valued.

When europeans came across the yaps islands, they saw its people had valuable resources they wanted. The europeans did not have much to offer them. But their currency was rai stones. So they traded with the natives in rai stones.

They realized they can use modern tools and forced labor to quarry and transport these rai stones way more efficiently than the Natives.

So the europeans quarried large quantities of rai stones.

and transported them to the yap islands.

and FLOODED the circulating supply of rai stones in the economy. until there were so many rai stones, they were not valuable. they became worthless.

There are other examples similar to this.

Seashells have been observed as a currency in almost all over the world. but they never lasted. People used them for transactions until modern tools made them easily acquirable and able to be transported in large quantities. When the Supply of seashells increased exponentially in these societies they would become worthless.

Another example are Agry beads used in Africa

They were glass beads and they were hard to produce. They were passed down through generations. They were scarce and valuable making it a reasonable form of currency.

When europeans started trade with africans, they were able to mass produce these beads. These beads became known as slave beads. because they would mass produce them and trade them for slaves.

The end result? Europeans recieved valuable goods, and slaves for little to no cost, and africans were left with a collapsed economy and bunch of beads that they could not seem to get rid of.

On a side note, but still related-

Here is a clip of De Beers CEO Al Cook- explaining that lab made diamonds are not the same as real diamonds:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFptYFOtf_G/?igsh=MTh3dXh2bXNkeWM5Yg%3D%3D

He explains that demand for natural diamonds has been reduced due to lab grown diamonds. Lab grown diamonds make it cheaper to buy diamonds. Of course, Al cook, this piece of shit, is upset about this. His company, De Beers at one point controlled 85% of rough diamond distrution. They were a monopoly from the 1880s up until the early 2000s when they got broken up.

Diamonds are not even that rare. De Beers just controlled the supply of them.

Lab grown diamonds became popular in recent years. I hope demand for them increases even more. And the same thing that happened with Agry beads happens with diamonds.

I hope society accepts lab grown diamonds as real diamonds. then i can buy my future wife fat diamond ring for 60-80% of the cost. And if she doesn’t like it, i can tell her shes ungrateful.

okay anyways… moving on

These comparisons with the aforementioned currencies and Fiat currency and are drawn in the book, The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous.

This book was written in 2018.

Let us look at the circulating money supply in the US when COVID happened.

This Data comes from the St. Louis FED. The federal reserve has 12 regional banks. The st. louis fed is one that provides data.

We are going to look at M1 data. M1 is the measure of the most liquid forms of money supply. It represents the immediate purchasing power available in the economy

The following is graph showing m1 data since 1975.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM1NS

zoomed in

We see in these graphs that liquid money supply has been relatively constant up until 2020. In 2020 we see a sharp, meteroric rise in the money supply. We see it multiplied nearly 4X INSTANTLY. and 5x within the span of 2 years. Its unpredented. And it is actually RETARDED.

weve seen historically what happens to a currency when it loses its soundness. it becomes worthless. When the circulating supply is increased exponentially and in a short period of time. The currency loses its value. it becomes less scarce.

We are slowly seeing its crippling effects today. Jobs are being cut. Interests rates staggering at its highs. Rent prices and home prices are astronomical. Groceries are expensive. Fast food restaurants prices are the same as any other sit down restaurant. I stopped getting haircuts. its harder to raise kids. Its harder to live on a single source of income.

Its not even that long ago where one source of income could sustain an entire family. Now it is unimaginable.

A large part of this problem can be attributed to consumerism. We spend recklessly. We have terms like retail therapy now. where you go on a shopping spree to make yourself feel better. People are living way above their means. And we don’t like to share.

Growing up. My household had one tv in the living room. my siblings and i would watch tv together. and I would let them know, in advance, when the new episode of naruto would be premiering. They would know that at this time, the tv is off limits to them. We shared.

When I would sleepover my cousins house and we would play on his playstation. And we would take turns. My younger cousins now will sleepover and bring their entire playstations, and even their monitors with them to the sleepover so they can play alongside eachother.

Traditionally, I feel, in an American household, siblings would share rooms. There would be one family car, the wife would tend to the home and kids. The husband would work. Families would have dinner together. And everything was shared. Responsibilities. Car, TV, bathrooms (everyone wants to have their own now).

Now we want our own rooms. Our own bathrooms. A tv in each room, perhaps in each bathroom too. We want to have our own cars. We eat out. And we don’t even share time together.

This individualistic society makes us spend more than we need to, creating more demand than necessary, and driving prices higher.

to conclude.

Fiat money is shet money. Easily inflated. and manipulated.

Bitcoin is not. |

Fin. thank you for reading.