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0 sats \ 13 replies \ @CliffBadger 5 Sep \ parent \ on: The Risk of Reality Distortion Fields BooksAndArticles
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You clearly do not believe the state is an important if not the most important factor in the wealth of nations. I in contrast believe that it is.
Bitcoin delivers the individual superior monetary integrity because it deletes the states ability to issue and thus debase...but that ability that comes with fiat is today a huge factor in the power projection capacity of nation states.
China is rising because it exercises its fiat monetary leverage more responsibly than the corrupt western governments who have been captured by parasitic rentseeking private capital interests.
The real problem is that so few citizens even where they can buy Bitcoin and achieve the monetary integrity it delivers do so- perhaps 1% of citizens in the liberal democracies where bitcoin is legally available do so. Most people are lazy ignorant sheep and will remain hostage to the state- perhaps because they understand the inherent role of the state in wealth creation.
The CCP is only tolerated by Chinese because it has and is creating unprecedented wealth for the modern Chinese citizens. Their prospects are looking brighter than before while the future prospects for citizens of wests liberal democracies look increasingly bleak- but in the west which ever party wins elections it is still the same shadowy bankers who pull the strings.
Bitcoin is not and is unlikely to be used much in international trade- historically the dominant global trader has issued to currency upon which most trade is settled.
Once that was Britain, then the USA, when post WW2 USA was the largest producer of manufactured goods in the world.
Today China is and it is probable that the historical precedent will be followed and China will issue and control the denomination and settlement of international trade- they are already doing this with CIPS and mBridge as USD declines in volume held and used for trade settlement as the US is increasingly seen as a corrupt and declining rogue state that has lost its leadership role and mandate.
Central banks now hold more gold than USDs for the first time since the 1980s.
Gold and Bitcoin will play a role on the margins as SoV/speculative commodities but Bitcoins use as a MoE for international trade is very unlikely to increase to any significant degree - I would love to be proven wrong by this but I am simply applying logic and historical precedent rather than NGU / wishful thinking / hopium.
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The primary utility of money is MoE.
SoV is an important but secondary quality.
If you control trade in manufactured goods and commodities as dominant trade blocs do then you can 'prefer' or demand that settlement is in your currency, as the USA has done with its 'petrodollar' and as all empires have done- because they can.
Trade is the primary driver of wealth.
China now enjoys annual trade surpluses of over One Trillion USD.
USA has suffered chronic trade (and fiscal) deficits for 6 decades.
If you control MoE in trade you have the ability to exclude/sanction opponents- as the USA has done with its SWIFT/Petrodollar hegemony it has enjoyed since the end of Breton Woods.
China naturally seeks to build independent trade payments from the US/USD SWIFT hegemony, and is...via Hong Kong, HSBC, CIPS and mBridge and a rapidly growing stack of gold.
Fiat powers are not much bothered by BTC as a SoV as long as it does not intrude upon their crucial strategic MoE hegemony.
In fact allowing SoV/speculative commodity status for Bitcoin in the west has allowed western bankers to capture a growing proportion of the total BTC issuance and freeze it from use as MoE p2p payments protocol and as time goes by the ability to justify a ban on private custody grows as they could say 'you can still enjoy BTC investment via ETFs'.
BTC moE is banned in most autocracies like China and in the west it is hugely obstructed via tax recording and reporting obligations that follow from its arbitrary classification as a speculative commodity rather than a payments protocol.
see this-
Governments absolutely are responsible for the creation of the conditions whereby private investment can thrive- without good law and order, security and property rights private enterprise is crippled- as you see in so many third world countries where the government is corrupt.
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What you do not accept is that good governments create the conditions where private capital can thrive and invest.
Good governments can do this by -
1- Creating fair and enforced property rights and rule of law.
2- By supporting the development of infrastructure and markets that foster wealth creation while regulating against market capture and cartels and monopolies which otherwise will form.
Without this strategic leadership and provision of secure property rights there is little incentive for private capital to invest- and they will not invest.
It was the British governments strategic development with private interests that built the British Empire- the empire that USA inherited and succeeded when British imperialism became unviable due to the endless warring and division in Europe.
USA inherited the empire and for a time maintained hegemony but today faces the challenge from China where the CCP has built the most competitive productive mercantile economy on the planet.
They allow enterprise as long as it is subservient to the wider advancement of Chinese wealth and prosperity but private capital is kept subservient to the overall project of wealth creation and power projection which they understand is crucial to enduring wealth.
The USA is losing its global hegemony over markets and institutions and protocols and as that hegemony is lost so is the extraordinary wealth and privilege its citizens have enjoyed.
Musk cannot produce EV batteries at the same cost as BYD- BYD can produce EV batteries at almost half the cost Tesla faces- because BYD is operating within the Chinese production and supply chains. Musk was used to help the Chinese market develop and innovate and now he is no longer needed and China can and does produce the best value EVs- this process of cloning and adoption of western tech has been fine tuned over the last 4 decades to the point now where China can and does dominate global manufacturing and commodity supply chains.
Merchants and businesses operate within and behold to the governments and empires and are subject to changes in the structure and operation of empires.
The west has lost the trade war and look like probably losing its legacy advantage in tertiary protocols and institutions- to China.
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Japan has since WW2 been a militarily and monetarily a subservient tribute state to the USA.
Watch Princes of the Yen
China in contrast firstly had to establish secure and true sovereignty which initially was gained from behind the USSR cold war with the west and acquisition of nukes and seizure of Tibet to prevent the west positioning its nukes there.
Only subsequent to the fall of the Berlin wall and death of Mao has China had the national security to develop economically and under Deng they began the process that has since seen the most incredible economic development in modern history.
Mainland China had for a long time since 1945 played it carefully because the USA did not even recognise its legitimacy until the 1970s...instead siding with the Nationalists in Taiwan who were much more compliant to and aligned with western imperialist imperatives.
Before 1945 they had already endured the 100 years of humiliation that followed the briutality of the Opium Wars and the subjugation of China to western imperialism- - read up on the Opium Wars if you want to understand modern China!
Post WW2 the seat on the UN security council was expected by the European imperialists and the USA to be occupied by compliant Chinese Nationalists, not the CCP...but following Hiroshima and the evacuation of Japanese forces who had occupied and enslaved much of China since the early 1930s the Communists under Mao swept the nation and took power with the Nationalists fleeing to Taiwan which the Chinese Treasury gold.
Read some history to understand the past, present and the likely future...its a fascinating pursuit!
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