HODLing to all things of value: time and energy

Inflation, social security, taxation and owning your money

Updated by incorporating feedback and good advices from my lovely and caring readers…

If money is as money does, then money is not as money does not.¹

Hold on for dear life (Hodl) to all things of value. Things of utmost value are your time and energy. My goal for the article is to write enough to make a 2-minute video (eventually) explaining why and how you can ultimately own and control your own money/assets.

Make sure to watch this video - an excellent source of information - for much more information from Isabella.

Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hodl.asp. Image: Daniel Fishel

Disclaimer: The following should not be considered financial advice; consulting with licensed professionals is always wise. Thanks to follower Kim for advising a disclaimer to keep me out of poo with bad guys. Sorry for being defensive. :)

Inflation

Inflation happens when the buying power of your dollar decreases over time. The buying power of your dollar has been decreasing over a short time period recently because of one simple reason: The Federal Reserve (aka: The FED) - a private entity - keeps unsustainably ordering the printing of more bills by the U.S. Treasury that are backed by nothing. The FED controls the money supply, and the Treasury prints the bills, the Government spends the money.

Where one dollar once bought a bag of chips, a candy bar and a cola, now, it doesn’t even buy a stick of gum. This is inflation, and it’s all because of uncontrolled printing and spending of bills, backed by nothing. These bills are literally not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

U.S. Treasury investments are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, meaning they are fully guaranteed and protected by the government’s creditworthiness, but not by FDIC.²

Full faith and credit, eh? Hmm.

Social security

Back in the 1935 day, just around the time of the Great Depression, in order to remedy the dire situation that people faced to get food in their bellies, a system was put into place to take 1% of employer, and 1% of employee earnings, to supplement a Social Security Act. It worked, but nowadays, instead of 1% of your monthly income, it’s closer to 12.5% of your monthly income. It makes up about 26% of all government spending and the U.S. is ~27 trillion dollars in debt to contributors, like you. Not only that, but to put a plastic cherry on dog poop sundae, you get taxed again on the ludicrously low amount of return to you from these ‘borrowers’.

Perspective: If the 12.5% money taken from you was set aside in a very basic savings account instead of an investment of government choice, by the time you would be able to see the returns on this ‘investment’ (if you were still alive), it would be ~10 times higher than what you are permitted to receive as per this system.

You get: 1,800/month.

You should get: 14,300/month.

Ponzi schemes

A Ponzi scheme is when borrowing and paybacks are set up in an infinite and unsustainable loop creating a debt/no-profit-based system. Existing investors are paid from funds contributed by new investors, rather than from profit earned, and so it goes on. When new investors disappear, the scheme collapses, and the money is gone.

Government forces a 12.5% tax on monthly income via a Social Security Act on everyone and calls it a contribution. They lend this ‘contributed’ money to the U.S. Treasury; you get an IOU with some interest. The government spends a lot from these ‘contributions’ on wars and shit. The interest on the IOUs, plus funds from new contributors, are used to pay back the ‘old’ contributors. Oh and yes, then you get taxed on your ‘investment’. Sounds Ponzi-ish to me.

Question: Are Social Security’s finances publicly reported by the Social Security Administration Actuaries?

Question: Have U.S. Treasuries never defaulted? Hmm.

Taxation in U.S.

Taxation of income was also meant to be a temporary way to help us fund WWI. It came out of the Civil War. ~3%, once again, has sky-rocketed to what is now closer to 50% in some countries. Estate tax, property tax, gift tax, and Social Security taxes, carbon tax and any other tax you could think of have been imposed on American citizens and the citizens of the world. What’s next: a breathing tax?

Fun fact: In Canada recently, there was a proposal to impose a ‘rain tax’ - oh excuse me: a “stormwater tax”. You can read about that stupidity here. I have a suggestion for the mayor of Toronto: clean the storm drains.

It seems we need a “Whoa Nelly” moment with regard to having lost the plot with regard to our finances. Cuz you know what? It’s gettin’ hot in here.

Some potential ways to better control your time and energy - which is your money - my humble opinion (not financial advice!)

Bitcoin. An non-centralized (transactions are verified on a Blockchain³ - not by a bank), limited (capped at 21 million - there will never be more than 21M BTC in existence), immutable (transactions irreversible/tamper-proof) digital currency (virtual - needs interweb) backed by your time and energy expenditures.

It’s control and freedom of your time and energy.

No bank or government can interfere with the coins that you earn.

No single entity controls the flow of transactions.

No Ponzi schemes can occur.

No advantage can be taken of you, your time, your energy or your earnings.

That’s as much as I know about this stuff. Learning more daily. Forgive my mistakes. I am a very new Bitcoiner, hodling (buying-and-holding indefinitely.) while the opportunity exists. We can, and we must create a system outside of the system. A network of like-minded people who understand just how bad things have gotten, and how to escape being destroyed by it.

Gold and Silver. These are, of course, the historically sound ways to have real money in your possession.

Farming. Food and water = riches.

I always think bad to the Big Short when I ponder how we got here, and I will this short article end by quoting from this movie:

I have a feeling, in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.

1. https://www.bankingobserver.com/articles/in-america-the-rich-use-a-different-type-of-money-than-the-poor

2. https://www.fdic.gov/resources/deposit-insurance/brochures/deposits-at-a-glance/

3. A Blockchain is basically a chain of blocks that comprise data sets that represent the transactions. Each block is identifiable by a hash which is basically the fingerprint of the block. If they had fingers.