Op-Ed: Centralization And The Existential Question
Cryptocurrencies moved from speculation to symptom. It’s hard to pin down when. We may as well use the COVID19 lockdown era as the time when cryptos stopped being a ‘speculative asset class’ and moved over to being a symptom of ongoing global socioeconomic implosion.
The root cause of the implosion is centralization – and this has been a long time coming. If you are more into crypto prices – as measured by fiat currency – you are going to love this one.
How can you win a bet on the end of the Western financial system?
Simple – cryptocurrencies!
Unfortunately, this is about a lot more than a Lambo and a villa in Marbella. The collapse that we are in the early stages of will rewrite how we see society, and how we develop as a global human race.
Why AI Isn’t A Big Deal – But The End Of Cheap Labor Is
AI doesn’t matter because productivity was a lie.
If you ask an economist about the modern Western economy – they are going to talk a lot about productivity. It is total bull$hit. The global economy of the last 40 years was built on cheap labor and fairly cheap energy in the global South and East Asia. It is that simple.
Western consumers (remember that word) were able to maintain their standard of living for far longer than would have been possible otherwise because of cheap imports, and relatively low-cost energy. The modern West was no longer a society of producers, and it needed cheap labor in places like China, Vietnam, and Indonesia to keep the USD, EUR and GPB relatively strong.
The rise of cheap AI (looking your way ChatGPT) isn’t a big deal because it can’t impact physical industries. AI won’t make base level labor any cheaper (there is nowhere left to go globally), it won’t make seaborne freight any safer (ask anyone who has to sail past the Houthis about that), and AI certainly won’t fix the wildly corrupt global oligarchy that is entrenched in every major power structure.
Today people don’t see that the level of global centralization we created after the European Renaissance created to biggest social inflection point in world history. Centralization (central planning) is making it harder for people to survive. Because the ‘system’ the central planners are attempting to control is actually multiple, interconnected complex systems, it is well beyond the control of any group – even if they have ChatGPT.
Centralization is dangerous!
When Chairman Mao decided to kill off all the sparrows in China to boost agricultural yields, it had the opposite effect – in a big way. Some estimates say that as many as 70 million people died as a result of Mao’s move to kill off the sparrows, and the terrible impact it had on agricultural production in the coming years.
Centralization creates dangerous crackpots!
In the beginning money was gold. The great thing about gold is that the idea of its value was decentralized. People all over the world thought that gold had value, so wherever you went, you could use your gold as money.
It didn’t matter what some crackpot like Mao said – gold was money.
There was no way for a centralized authority to augment or otherwise impinge on the psychological value of gold. Today the global oligarchy has seized control of the Western monetary system via the central banks – and the value of money is suffering.
The Finest Clothes Are Being Ripped To Shreds
Sorry all you HODL true believers out there – PEPE isn’t amazing. None of the memecoins are. Even Bitcoin – poor Bitcoin – isn’t that great. Bitcoin is an amazing proof-of-concept. That’s about it. The memecoins that are worth billions today aren’t interesting – but they are limited in supply – just like Bitcoin.
The real problem is the state of the global socioeconomic system. The Western monetary system is falling apart – and the world’s biggest default (in known history) is prevented by creating trillions in new debt. That is why Bitcoin is going north of $500,000 USD.
Hell – Bitcoin might go to $5,000,000 – or even higher.
Choose a number you like!
The reason why cryptocurrencies are going higher – yes – even the humble PEPE token – is that the USA is creating $1 trillion in new debt every 100 days, and that amount will go higher. What is true for the US is true across the Western world.
Inflation will bite hard into the US, EU and British monetary zones as unthinkable amounts of new debt is created and spent (currency is debt) into a flagging global economy. Today there is no way to offset the new currency creation via cheap labor. We also don’t know if seaborne freight coming out of East Asia will be cost-efficient in a decade.
The finely tuned global economic machine built by Western interests after WW2 is falling into tatters – it is an expensive problem!
Existential Is A Fancy Way To Say Survival
In plain language an existential crisis is similar to asking “…are we going to f****** die?”
Everyone dies by the way – and all cause mortality (excess deaths) is on the rise.
In this situation we have to question what will survive over the coming years and decades. The US dollar is done. At least as a store of value. It may continue to act as a means of clearing transactions until businesses can get their hands on enough PEPE or CUMMIES to do business in a sound (defined as limited in quantity) currency.
The idea that somehow the world is going to trust a CBDC sponsored by Russia and China is absurd. People in Russia or China may have to use it – but being forced into horrible situations isn’t new to them. Just ask anyone in China about Mao and the sparrows.
The problem is you can’t. And this speaks to the dangers of centralization. The CCP won’t talk about Mao and the sparrows. Most global governments won’t talk about rising all cause mortality. No one seems to want to discuss the COVID19 vaccine deaths.
We wonder if it will be legal to talk about the coming inflation and currency collapse. If it isn’t legal, we assume that it will be lethal. Or as a great leader (not the kind in North Korea) once said – “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00006245
Back then, the USA was on the gold standard (fixed at $35/troy oz).
The post Op-Ed: Centralization And The Existential Question appeared first on Blockonomi.
Filed under: Bitcoin - @ March 11, 2024 9:22 am