Money

Transcribed from my video, with some improvements

# What is money?

It's not what I think you think it is. I will begin with a quote from Ender's Game:

"Then it was over, and he really was hanging by the straps, no gravity anywhere. But because he had already reoriented himself, he was not surprised when Graff came up the ladder backward, as if he were climbing down to the front of the shuttle. [...] The reorientations were too much for some. One boy gagged; [...] But for Ender, Graff's gravity game was fun, And he carried it further, imagining that Graff was actually hanging upside down from the center aisle, and then picturing him sticking straight out from a side wall. Gravity could go any which way. [...] I can make Graff stand on his head and he doesn't even know it."

In space, there is no consistent measure of up-ness. Likewise, in the market there is no consistent measure of value. And money is a tool for storing value.

# Dollars are losing value

I can't say much about anywhere else, but if you're living in Australia, you're getting poorer. You might have hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account, but food prices are rising. Or in other words, those dollars are becoming less valuable compared to food. In fact, those dollars - which moth and governments doth corrupt - are becoming less valuable compared to pretty much everything.

There, that was a re-orientation. Instead of thinking about how much food costs in terms of dollars. You are thinking about dollars cost in terms of food.

# Inflation

Dollars don't hold their value very well because powerful people can make more of them when they feel the urge. This is known as "inflation" because the amount of money in the world is inflated - like a balloon. It tends to cause increased prices because the supply of money has grown, but the supply of goods has not. In other words, there is more money to buy the same stuff.

People who first use the newly printed money (I imagine governments, elites, bankers, etc.) get to buy things at the old price. Basically they get it at a discount that the seller is probably not even aware of. But prices begin to rise as this new money circulates around, and working people like us are left off poorer because we are the last ones to get the new money. Inflation is an evil, nefarious, hidden tax.

# Invest in food?

So maybe you should go convert your savings from dollars to food. Food can't be printed (at least, not without a lot of hard work), and after all, buying food is what money is primarily for. So why even have the dollars in the first place? The answer: food goes bad.

So if you can't invest in food, what can you invest in?

# Egg baskets

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket"
- Some guy

## Living food

Well, you could become a "prepper" and convert some of your dollars into livestock, or a field crops. This is basically living food, which doesn't go bad. A valid investment, but, fair warning, it takes a lot of work to maintain.

## Precious metals

You could convert some of your dollars into gold and silver. Gold and silver can't be printed by powerful people, and not for lack of trying. I'm looking at you Isaac Newton.

But everything is so cheap nowadays that it's a bit tricky to make transactions with these precious metals. A thousand years ago you would use coins of gold or silver to buy a meal and lodging, but these days you'd have to use 0.07 oz of gold, which is roughly equivalent to 500 AUD in 2026.

## Crypto

You could convert some of your dollars into crypto-currency. 1 Bitcoin is worth about 100,000 AUD in 2026, while 1 oz of gold is not even worth $10,000. But crypto-currencies are a lot easier to transact in tiny amounts because the computer does it for you. You don't have to physically slice up a piece of gold (though there is at least one cool company that does exactly this).

Bitcoin and Monero are the only crypto-currencies I would recommend. Any other crypto is probably not worth your time. Bitcoin is what everyone knows about, but all of the transactions are on a public ledger which anyone can see. Monero is built for privacy, which makes governments nervous, because then they can't audit you to confirm that they are taking their share of your prosperity. You can't buy Monero on any exchange that I'm aware of. instead, you have to get Bitcoin, then convert it to Monero.

## Dollars

Obviously you'll want to keep a bunch of dollars around because that's what most people use to transact these days.

# Disclaimer

There are few people (if any) who would consider me to be a financial expert. Furthermore, the government likes controlling the thing that people use to trade (i.e. dollars), which means they may lock down, or even confiscate any other form of money. If it gets to that, just pray for the deliverance of our nation, and that God would have mercy on us despite our failures.

"Every nation gets the government it deserves."
- Joseph de Maistre