Credibility Issues

Bitcoin as an Alternative to Faith in Leaders, Experts and Centralized Institutional Power

No student loan debt forgiveness for you. | Source: Tim Gouw

“It’s almost worth the Great Depression to see how little our big men know.” -Will Rogers

---

This week, the Supreme Court ruled against President Biden’s plan to erase up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower.

Actually, no, wait… Let me rephrase that… Biden’s promise to erase said amount of student loan debt.

Source: The White House

Oddly enough, he must have not checked with the Supreme Court before he made that promise.

It’s almost like he promised a vulnerable group of people something that he didn’t necessarily have the authority to deliver in exchange for their votes. It’s kind of like bribing people — but without actually paying out.

I wrote more on that here:

And it’s as if he just can’t help himself when it comes to instilling false hope regarding student loan debt forgiveness.

Source

Hands down the best response to that tweet:

Source

I’m on the fence about whether or not student loans should be forgiven, but whether it’s wrong or right isn’t the point here.

The point is that leaders and major institutions in the United States are facing some serious credibility issues.

The President of the United States keeps making promises he can’t keep.

The US Federal Reserve along with Biden and his team of propagandists assured everyone that inflation was transitory as it approached 10%, blaming everything other than excessive money printing. And the Fed has been actively fighting inflation for over a year now.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the US economy is “doing well”. I assume she means that this is the case so long as the US Treasury in conjunction with the Fed continue increasing the Total Public Debt Outstanding by $32 billion per day in efforts to avoid financial and economic collapse.

Source

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claims that it still fulfills one of its three missions — to protect investors — when it still hasn’t offered concrete guidance around assets on blockchains, a monetary technology that is now 14 years old. The SEC’s lack of guidance has very much had an effect opposite to that of protecting investors. To be fair, though, Congress is to blame here, as well, as it should have proposed proper regulation for the crypto industry years ago.

The failures of the leadership and major institutions in the US stem a mix of factors. But, to reference the Will Rogers quote I led with, I think the primary factor is that our leaders and “experts” are not as all-knowing as many think they are.

In fact, no leader or “expert” is all-knowing, and many are acting out of self interest.

This is why having a decentralized network like Bitcoin is so important.

A system like Bitcoin puts power back in the hands of individuals so that they can make economic decisions independent of the major institutions that govern so many dimensions of their lives.

And once you start to use Bitcoin, you feel how empowering this can be.

A few days ago, I sent some sats (small fractions of bitcoin) to a contact in Ghana, Kumi Nkansah (see my interview with Kumi below), so that he could share them with people there as he educated them on how to use the Bitcoin network.

While I don’t know firsthand how those people felt when they received some sats (according to Kumi as per the interview above, many of those he teaches end up feeling incredibly empowered and, in turn, compelled to teach others about Bitcoin), I surely felt a high that came from knowing we can send value to anyone anywhere in the world permissionlessly.

With Bitcoin, we can help each other without the need for banks, non-profits, international institutions or intermediaries of any type.

With that said, it goes without saying that the value of bitcoin in fiat terms — especially US dollars — is still quite volatile, so it’s important to consider how much exposure to bitcoin is right for you, especially as the cost of living continues to rise and people have less discretionary income.

So, in the next section, I’ll discuss whether I think bitcoin is overvalued, undervalued or properly valued in terms of USD.

I’ll also discuss how I’ve been accumulating the asset without paying for it.

But before I go there, here are some quick announcements:

The new renaissance capital podcast is now available via Spotify:

It should be up on Apple Podcasts and other podcast platforms soon.

And I’ve started an Instagram page in which I share Bitcoin-related lessons and information.

Follow us at @newrenaissancecapital or by clicking this link.