bitcoin Archives - Page 3 of 4

Awareness Rising

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Awareness Rising

September 25, 2015
Emerald Isle, NC

The S&P closed out Thursday at $1,932. Gold closed at $1,153 per ounce. Oil closed at $44.91 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.14%. Bitcoin is trading around $236 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

Little Maddie took her first unassisted steps this week. Your editor was quietly observing from the glider as she crawled around the back deck, carefully inspecting each nook and cranny in the wood. Suddenly, without warning, her little head popped up and she looked directly at me. There was a strange twinkle in her eyes that I had not seen before. It was almost as though she had just experienced a moment of infinite intelligence, but before I could reckon on it she stood up completely unassisted for the first time and took two steps before easing to her knees. She popped right back up and took three more steps before easing back down to her knees again. Then she looked up at me and laughed hysterically.

I had never before experienced the feeling of unbridled joy that overcame me in that moment.

Later, with Madison calmly napping, I had time to internalize the moment and bask in the joy. As I watched my little angel sleeping peacefully, a strange thought came to me.

If you are going to have highs, know you will also have lows. There are no ordinary moments.

I decided then to cherish every single moment with my little girl. Even when she wants me to read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See to her for the thirteenth time. Even when she is screaming at me from the car seat because she is tired of being couped up. I will cherish it all.

Though I vow to cherish each moment of little Madison’s childhood, I am filled with hope and optimism for her future. I marvel at the opportunities that lay in front of her, and the rest of her generation. Generation Next is the first generation in centuries to arrive on this planet precisely as technological advancement is coalescing with a rising Awareness of human potential. Continue reading “Awareness Rising”

The Great Opportunity for Free Markets

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Great Opportunity

August 26, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $1,873. Gold closed at $1,138 per ounce. Oil closed out at $39.31 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.00%. Bitcoin is trading around $229 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

My last entry suggested that the centralized nation-state model looks to have peaked in the 20th century. I speculated that troubling macroeconomic trends related to government interventions will lead to a “Great Reset” sooner or later – probably sooner – as these massive nation-states are forced to ramp up the printing presses in attempts to service all of their debt and unfunded liabilities.

Today I would like to point out that we are approaching a crossroads and there is a tremendous opportunity for the growth of free markets and prosperity if we can shed the 20th century paradigm of centralization. A great golden age for civilization is staring us right in the face, but few have noticed. Why? Because we have placed too much emphasis on politicians, presidents, elections, and democracy and too little emphasis on individual self-empowerment.

For starters, consider the following advancements: indoor plumbing and electricity, refrigeration, cooking appliances, heating & air systems, local and long-distance transportation, local and long-distance communication, and access to information. Each of these items were non-existent, scarce, or unreliable just one hundred short years ago. Additionally, roughly 40% of the U.S. population was involved in agriculture in the year 1900 in order to produce enough food to meet demand. Today that number is around 2% and food is more available than ever. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available at the grocery store year-round. Also, thanks to technological development, oil and gas are now more abundant and cheaper than ever. This has reduced the costs of production and distribution significantly, and it has created competition for the oil cartels and monopolies that have had a strangle-hold on the industry for decades. Continue reading “The Great Opportunity for Free Markets”

Musings of a Wayward Philosopher

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Musings of a Wayward Philosopher

August 4, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Monday at $2,091. Gold closed at $1,089 per ounce. Oil checked out just under $46 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.21%. Bitcoin is trading around $278 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

We launched the inaugural volume of Musings of a Wayward Philosopher yesterday with relative success. The ebook is currently ranked #1 in Economics>Commerce and #3 in Education&Reference in Amazon’s Kindle store. The paperback is ranked #127 in Economics>Commerce after day 1.

I am slowly learning how to market online, and I must say it is extremely uncomfortable. I started day one of the book campaign off by running a Facebook Ad. I stopped using Facebook personally more than three years ago once I learned that their entire business model was to take your personal information and sell it to the highest bidder. Then I learned they may or may not be handing your personal information over to the Feds for free also. Needless to say, I don’t care much for Facebook and yesterday I paid them to run an ad for me. I’m not too proud about that, but I can’t dispute the fact that it is a medium for reaching a lot of people. Facebook told 7,688 people about my book for me. They may also tell the good folks in our intelligence agencies about my book at the end of this month, I’m not sure. I suppose they are welcome to pick up a copy also.

After setting up the Ad, I spent the better part of yesterday submitting my book to a multitude of online directories geared towards independent authors. I paid a handful of them a few bucks for a guaranteed spot on their feature list. Though tedious, I didn’t mind this method of marketing as much. These directories have built a following of people interested in self-published books and they promise to tell their following about your book for a small fee. That’s a win-win. Continue reading “Musings of a Wayward Philosopher”

Disintermediate the State

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Disintermediate the State

July 15, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,109. Gold closed at $1,155 per ounce. Oil checked out above $53 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.399%. Bitcoin is trading around $293 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

The Greek banks are still closed as I write to you today. Let’s revisit the timeline real quick:

Saturday, June 27: The head of the government’s coalition ally in Greece advised “Citizens should not be scared, there is no blackmail. The banks won’t shut, the ATMs will (have cash). All this is exaggeration.”

Sunday, June 28: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that Greek banks would be closed until Monday, July 6. “The bank deposits of the Greek people are fully secure”, he added.

Sunday, July 5: The national referendum on the EU’s proposed bail-out is held. Greek citizens vote “no” emphatically.

Monday, July 15: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras conceded to a bail-out agreement with the EU consisting of terms very similar to the bail-out Greek citizens voted against ten days prior.

Wednesday, July 15: Greek banks are still closed and there has been talk of a 30% haircut on all deposit accounts in excess of €8,000.

As we can clearly see, the Greek people have been mislead and lied to throughout this entire process. The Greek political class threw the people a bone with the referendum on July 5 to ease some of the discontent and then they proceeded to ignore the results of the referendum entirely. Those of us familiar with laissez-faire philosophy are not surprised by this in the least. Such is the nature of the relationship that exists between governments and citizens everywhere. Continue reading “Disintermediate the State”

When Countries Go Bankrupt

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
When Countries Go Bankrupt

June 30, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Monday at $2,058. Gold closed at $1,179 per ounce. Oil checked out at $58 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.33%. Bitcoin is trading up around $262 per BTC as the Greek crisis continues to play out.

Dear Journal,

I have been musing on the modern credit system in my last few journal entries and, ‘lo and behold, Greece has presented us with a real-time example of what happens when the credit expansion hits the wall.

Panos Kammenos, head of the government’s coalition ally in Greece, appeared on local television this past Saturday. “Citizens should not be scared, there is no blackmail,” Kammenos assured the Greek people. “The banks won’t shut, the ATMs will (have cash). All this is exaggeration.”

The very next day Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that banks in Greece would not open on Monday. “In the coming days, what’s needed is patience and composure,” Tsipras proclaimed. “The bank deposits of the Greek people are fully secure.”

Here are the details of the Greek government’s capital controls:

From Monday, June 29, 2015, banks will remain closed up to and including Monday, July 6
Deposits are fully safeguarded
The payment of pensions is exempted from the restrictions on banking transactions.
Management of credit institutions will announce how these will be paid
Electronic transactions within the country won’t be affected. All transactions with credit or debit cards and other electronic forms (web banking, phone banking) can be conducted as normal
Prepaid cards may be used to the limit existing before the beginning of the bank holiday
From midday June 29, ATMs will operate with a daily cash withdrawal limit of 60 euros per card, which is equivalent to 1,800 euros a month
Foreign tourists can make cash withdrawals from ATMs with their cards without restrictions provided these have been issued abroad
A special Committee to Approve Bank Transactions has been established at the State General Accounting Office in cooperation with the Finance Ministry, the Bank of Greece, the Union of Greek Banks and the Capital Markets Commission. This committee will deal with applications for urgent and imperative payments that can’t be satisfied through the cash withdrawal limits or by electronic transactions (e.g. payments abroad for health reasons). Wages paid electronically to bank accounts aren’t affected.

Continue reading “When Countries Go Bankrupt”

The Fragility of Modernity

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Fragility of Modernity

June 10, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,080. Gold closed at $1,177 per ounce. Oil checked out at $60 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.42%, and bitcoin is trading around $230 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

In my last entry I brought up the concept of ‘Modernity’ and I suggested that it attempts to put life in a box by emphasizing a fear and control mindset. I felt this concept was worthy of a little more discussion this week because our society has been shaped by this fear and control paradigm.

Here’s how Nassim Taleb, author of Antifragile, views Modernity:

We are moving into a phase of modernity marked by the lobbyist, the very, very limited liability corporation, the MBA, sucker problems, secularization (or rather reinvention of new sacred values like flags to replace altars), the tax man, fear of the boss, spending the weekend in interesting places and the workweek in a putatively less interesting one, the separation of “work” and “leisure” (though the two would look identical to someone from a wiser era), the retirement plan, argumentative intellectuals who would disagree with this definition of modernity, literal thinking, inductive inference, philosophy of science, the invention of social science, smooth surfaces, and egocentric architects. Violence is transferred from individuals to states. So is financial indiscipline. At the center of all this is the denial of antifragility… Modernity starts with the state monopoly on violence, and ends with the state’s monopoly on fiscal irresponsibility.

Continue reading “The Fragility of Modernity”

How I Escaped the Rat-Race

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
How I Escaped the Rat-Race

May 28, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Wednesday at $2,123 – almost exactly where it was at the same time last week. Gold closed at $1,186 per ounce yesterday. Oil checked out at $57 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.13%, and bitcoin is trading around $238 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

We are back in the serene mountains of Virginia after a week spent on the gorgeous Carolina coast. Madison’s first beach trip was a success and we enjoyed five consecutive days of low 80’s with a cool breeze. Your editor even squeezed in a half-day fishing trip towards the end of the week after building up Dad points by handling Maddie’s late morning nap time indoors for the first several days so Momma could lay in the sand.

Last week I shared with you my view of the coming monetary crisis and I promised to expand upon what I have done to prepare for it and how I managed to escape the rat-race in the process.

Career is often one of the first items up for discussion when catching up with friends. You know the process: “What are you doing now? How’s that going? Do you like it?”

I find that very few friends tell me they like their job. Most say it is okay or tolerable. Some say they are miserable for one reason or another. Even the ones who say their job is tolerable express a certain sense of anxiety on Sunday afternoons as they look forward to the grind starting back up for another week.

Despite this, most people become addicted to their paycheck because they fashion their lifestyle accordingly. A couple things tend to happen when the paycheck gets bigger: the house gets bigger, the car gets nicer, and the hobbies become a little more luxurious. The problem is many of these things come with monthly payments. The big house comes with a big mortgage and strong HOA dues. The nice car comes with a big car payment and probably a satellite radio subscription. The luxury hobbies might include membership fees of various kinds: country clubs, golf courses, dinner clubs, mega-gyms, etc.

Now there is nothing wrong with any of this unless your goal is to escape the rat-race. If so, you need your paycheck to maximize capital rather than support your lifestyle. The following is the abbreviated version of how I went about maximizing capital so I could leave the rat-race in the dust.

My first step was mental: I crafted a vision of living outside the rat-race as I became more disillusioned with corporate America. I had been working in the corporate banking world for several years by this point and I had worked my way up to a comfortable salary relative to my circumstances. I was contributing the standard 3% match rate to my 401(k) and I was maxing out my self-driven IRA each year as I had been educated to do so I had a decent financial cushion to start with.

I created a spreadsheet to track my monthly expenses and pretty soon I was able to trim the fat and start saving 75% of my net income each month. I didn’t become cheap for its own sake – I still took my fiancé (now wife) out to dinner every Friday – but I did stop all frivolous spending. Though I couldn’t see far enough ahead to envision my day of liberation, I did know that I would be able to break the employment chains in the near future if I amassed a decent pool of working capital.

As my knowledge of Austrian economics grew, so did my appreciation for the precious metals. I began to make periodic trips to the local coin shop to redirect some of my monthly savings into gold and silver bullion. I didn’t originally have an asset allocation model in place so my purchases were somewhat sporadic but I did accumulate a (relatively speaking) decent precious metals base over the course of a year.

Austrian economics also helped me see how the housing bubble was being partially re-inflated by the Fed’s quantitative easing (QE) and zero interest rate policy (ZIRP). Private equity firms like Blackstone and American Homes 4 Rent (AH4R) were taking advantage of this easy money to buy up huge quantities of single family homes in the U.S. to build their rental real estate portfolios. These private equity companies were taking the Fed’s cheap credit at near-zero rates to buy middle class homes which they rented back out to the middle class with a huge profit margin built in. Now there is nothing wrong with reaping huge profits as long as they are honestly gained but there is a major problem with a system that distorts the market economy in favor of special interest groups.

I was bothered by what was going on in the housing market but I also understood that I was powerless to change it. Therefore I did the next best thing – I took advantage of the situation and sold my home to AH4R for a sizable gain. Some of that gain went to pay the real estate agent’s commission and I rolled the rest into a down payment on a 5-acre rural property at the end of a gravel road way up in the mountains which is where I reside today.

My goal for our mountain home was to make it as resilient as possible such that we could be totally self-sufficient for at least six months should hard times befall us. I don’t have room in this entry to go into the specifics, but we accomplished this by securing surplus water, food, provisions, and energy sources. The end result is that I am confident in my household’s ability to be self-sufficient for at least six months should the need arise which means our livelihood is not solely dependent upon consistent monthly income. The cost to maintain this self-sufficiency is pretty negligible after the initial purchases are made.

It took me roughly six months to complete these base self-sufficiency preparations and then it was time to hone in on my finances. I set up a spreadsheet to monitor my asset allocation model and I established the initial allocation ratios: 29.5% cash, 10% precious metals, 15% stocks, 0.5% bitcoin, and 45% real estate.

I was already in excess of my cash and real estate allocation because of my 75% savings habit and my 20% down payment on our 5-acre property so I used the excess cash outside of my IBC policy to bring the precious metals, stocks, and bitcoin allocations up to par.

All the while I was researching how to build location-independent income streams online in my spare time. There are more entrepreneurial opportunities today than ever before in modern history. Thanks to the internet anyone can reach millions of prospective customers with just the click of a button and there are very few barriers to entry. This means all you need to be an entrepreneur is a product that provides value to people in some capacity and a basic understanding of online marketing techniques. It requires very little capital to launch these types of products. More importantly, you can launch these products without needing to obtain permission from the government first in the form of certifications and licenses. In comparison, try to start a traditional brick & mortar business without government permission and see how that experience goes.

So to recap:

• I invested in my own education first by developing a strong understanding of Austrian free market economics.
• I purchased a rural 5 acre property with advantageous financing.
• I made ample water, food, energy, and provision preparations so as to be self-sufficient on this property for at least six months should the need arise.
• I shored up my asset allocation model to spread my capital across several asset classes: cash, precious metals, stocks, bitcoin, and real estate.
• I began to build location-independent income streams online.

I have an entire chapter dedicated to the specifics involved in this process in the 2nd edition of The Individual is Rising which I hope to launch later this summer. I will keep you posted as that progresses.

I will sum up this entry by repeating a common theme here at Zenconomics: life is meant to be lived.

It is up to you to make your life exciting and meaningful – no one else will do it for you. This requires a break from Modernity which emphasizes a fear & control mindset intended to put life in a box and stomp out any potential randomness before it happens. We are all conditioned to live within Modernity’s box so it is difficult to step outside and blaze your own path. But your life may depend on doing just that.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and creating diversified income streams please read “The Individual is Rising: 2nd addition” which will be available later this year. Please sign up for the notifications mailing list at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/.

Of Gold, Energy Stocks, and Bitcoin – Opportunities for the New Year

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Of Gold, Energy Stocks, and Bitcoin – Opportunities for the New Year

January 2, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

Welcome to the first business day of 2015! The S&P opened at $2,055 today. Gold is down to $1,171 per ounce. Oil is down to $52 per barrel. Bitcoin remains rather flat at $315 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.20% today.

We spent our time yesterday going over how fiat money enslaves society and we agreed that this was critical to understand if we are going to have a chance at being financially independent. Wife Rachel said it was a rather dreary journal entry so today we will endeavor to be more positive.

Let’s take a look at some of the financial opportunities we have for 2015.

First, the precious metals are as cheap in dollar terms as they have been in several years. Gold and silver could still drift lower in 2015 but the fundamental case for owning them is as strong as ever. This is a great time to pick up some ounces if you are a little short on your precious metals asset allocation.

Over in the equity markets, energy stocks of all sorts have taken a beating with plummeting oil prices. Fund managers accentuated the crash in energy stocks as they sold at a loss for tax purposes and to show little exposure to the sector at year-end. This is a great opportunity for a contrarian to add some energy exposure to his or her portfolio. It is advisable to be very diligent in this endeavor, however, as marginable producers will be squeezed if oil prices remain this low for an extended period of time. Be sure to go with the companies that can survive at current prices, keep position sizes reasonable, and stick to your stop-losses.

Several notable analysts expect the Fed to launch QE4 the moment the S&P starts to tumble which would send stock prices soaring even further. Some of these analysts think this will occur in 2015. The Day of Reckoning will eventually come for the current fiat monetary system as the Great Reset continues to unfold, but that day is not here yet. 2015 may provide an opportunity to capture gains in the market and convert those gains into hard assets.

Even more speculative is Bitcoin which plummeted from a 2014 high of $939 in January all the way down to its current price of $315 over the course of the year. Maybe $315 is a good entry point, I don’t know. Of course Bitcoin opened 2013 at $13 so maybe it is still reverting back to the mean.

Personally, I am not sure what to make of Bitcoin. Free market advocates are die-hard in their belief that Bitcoin has the potential to rid the world of fiat money by eliminating the need for any middlemen and thus eliminating transactional friction. Free market detractors are pretty adamant in their belief that Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme that will not be relevant for long because it does not meet all of the standard qualifications for hard money.

I am in the middle somewhere – Bitcoin’s functionality fascinates me but I don’t think it eliminates the need for precious metals within the monetary system. I think a small dollar-cost-average approach may be a reasonable method of testing the Bitcoin waters.

Of course there is no room for speculation until you have built a sensible level of resiliency and have a sturdy asset allocation model in place. Having debt cleared out, cash on hand, precious metals for insurance, a back-up energy source, and some food and wine stored in the cellar will insulate you from any storm that comes your way, regardless of how your speculation works out. Throw in good family and friends and you will be in great shape no matter what happens in 2015 and beyond.

What else could you ask for?

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the fiat monetary system please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Real Money

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Real Money

December 4, 2014
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P is buzzing around $2,069, gold is back up over $1,210, oil is checking in just under $67 after OPEC announced that they would not cut production, bitcoin is hanging around $373, and the 10-year Treasury rate is checking in at 2.29% today.

How about those prices at the pump, huh? Some resource analysts think that oil won’t remain this low for long. They point to the fact that several OPEC nations are dependent upon high oil prices to run their social welfare states and suggest that, coupled with increased demand over the coming winter, oil will be forced to climb back up the ladder. Other analysts suggest there are numerous oil companies still profitable at current price levels thus supply will remain strong and oil will hang around current prices for longer than expected.

We can’t know which analysts are right and which are wrong but we do know that numerous well-run resource companies have seen their stock price hammered as a result of oil’s decline while the S&P has continued to escalate up its stairway to heaven. Speculators may see this as the best opportunity to get into resource stocks since 2009. Natural resource prices are especially cyclical – low prices drive marginal producers out of business which reduces supply and leads to higher prices which attract marginal producers back to the industry. Booms lead to busts which lead back to booms. Those disciplined enough to buy the bust and sell the boom tend to do well in the resource sector.

Speaking of natural resources, it is the rejection of real money backed by precious metals that, more than anything, has led to the disturbing macroeconomic trends we have been analyzing recently.

In October we examined fiat money and realized that it has always been a major drain on society when implemented throughout history. We agreed fiat money is any currency that derives its value from government law and regulation and we noted that legal tender laws are what force the public to use the government’s money rather than the market’s money.

The academic economists would have you believe we have a complex and sophisticated monetary system. They would suggest that you cannot possibly understand it so you may as well leave it to the experts. The economists will use strange terminology when discussing the economy in newspapers and on television in order to confuse and bore you. Want to know their little secret?

Our economy operates mostly on fake money.

I know, it sounds ridiculous. How is it fake money if you can spend it? That’s exactly what makes the fake money so insidious – you can’t tell that it’s counterfeit.

I will attempt to explain myself by asking a simple question: where does our money come from?

Take your time, I will wait…

If you said “from thin air” then you are the winner! For the last forty years or so our money has been loaned into existence. The Federal Reserve loans new money to its member banks and to the U.S. Treasury and the new money then eventually finds its way into the general economy. Where did the Fed get this money to lend? It created it! From nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

But wait, it gets better. This same process takes place every single time a bank originates a new loan. Say you go get a mortgage to purchase a new home. The bank supposedly lends its deposits to you at interest to finance your home. But this isn’t entirely true. First, the bank is only required to have a fraction of the loan in reserve – roughly 10%. So if your mortgage is $100,000 the bank is required to have at least $10,000 in deposits to support the loan. But does the bank actually take that $10,000 and give it to you? Of course not! That $10,000 in deposits stays right where it is. It could be spent tomorrow if the depositors took a trip to Vegas. So where does the money come from to finance your home?

Hint: it’s the same answer as above.

So you get $100,000 in fresh new money and give it to the seller in exchange for the house. The seller uses your new money to pay off his mortgage and often there is a little bit leftover. The seller calls this profit and puts it in his account and the economy’s money pool gets a little bit bigger: there is now more money in the system then there was before you financed your house.

The economists use terms like ‘M1’, ‘M2’, and ‘money multiplier’ to make this seem like a complicated system but as you can see it’s pretty simple. It’s just a journal entry and a few clicks of the mouse and… PRESTO!

No one noticed a little extra money sneaking into the system here and there at first. But the rate at which new money entered the system increased dramatically as the money supply grew. Forty years later we are starting to see the ill-effects of exponentially expanding credit-based money. This credit expansion has distorted all aspects of the economy because money is half of every transaction. Financial planning and analysis is extremely difficult if no one knows what one unit of money will be worth from one year to the next. It’s always apples to oranges.

So where did our money come from before the fiat money explosion? Money has taken on many different shapes and sizes throughout history but if you go back just a little bit in modern history, say to the mid-19th century, you will probably find yourself using the market’s choice for real money – gold and silver. A little bit later – the late 19th century or so – governments muscled their way into the money business and, instead of just minting gold and silver coins, they created national currencies but they fully backed these currencies with gold or silver. While fully convertible, the currencies operated much like real money but it didn’t take long for governments to reduce the real money backing. They found this so pleasant, they eventually got rid of all currency ties to real money altogether!

One of the big advantages to using real money is that it tends to maintain purchasing power over long periods of time. You can expect real money today to be roughly as valuable as real money ten years from today. You could actually save this real money if you wanted to! Saving leads to capital formation which can drive steady economic activity without the need for massive credit expansion which always results in booms and busts.

There are numerous other advantages to using real money but wife Rachel will fuss at me for making this post long and boring as it is so we will have to come back to them in a later entry.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on monetary history and real money please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Real History

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Real History

October 15, 2014
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P is checking in at $1,851 today, gold is up to $1,236, oil is down to $80.34, bitcoin is around $396, and the 10-year has plummeted to 2.01%. The 10-year Treasury rate must have been afraid of its shadow this week.

Wife Rachel said my entry yesterday about the history of fiat currency bored her so much she fell asleep reading it. Sorry about that.

I see history as quite fascinating. Not the history that comes in Department of Education approved politically correct textbooks, mind you, but real history. Real history isn’t piecemeal highlights with names, places, and dates to remember; it is so much more important than that. Real history doesn’t show up in textbooks or in classrooms.

Real history is friend Wade’s family letters housed on his family farm in South Carolina. The letters were written by the original owners of the farm – his ancestors – and they have been passed down from generation to generation since. Real history is a five-bedroom brick home sitting atop “town hill” in Covington, Virginia built by my great-great-grandfather after emigrating from Lebanon in the late 19th century and opening a restaurant. This house comes complete with a Lebanese-style tiered garden on the side of the mountain. I can only imagine how many other pieces of real history are out there, passed down from generation to generation and discussed over Thanksgiving dinner.

But what is important with real history? Not so much the names, dates, and places as interesting as they may be. Instead, it is the ideas, values, and lessons that come with real history that are really important. These intangibles, if heeded, are what truly shape the future.

The textbook history tells me Napoleon invaded Russia and his army got wiped out. What do I learn from this? Don’t invade Russia? I will be sure not to make that mistake. Real history tells me great-great-grandfather emigrated from Lebanon, opened a restaurant, and worked like crazy to create a better life for his family. I am a part of that legacy. What do I learn from this? Free enterprise has the power to liberate and elevate individuals, families, and communities. This is a real, actionable lesson that is much more valuable to me than learning not to invade Russia.

Real history is mostly ‘private’ information while textbook history is ‘public’ information. What’s taught in the classroom and what comes on the news is also public information. Our society places a very high value on this public information; we love to hang around the water cooler and talk about it. It is to the point now where we seem to think that public information is all there is. We think the school teaches us everything we need to know and we think the news reports all aspects of all events to us every day.

Our worldview, which determines how we think and act, is shaped by this public information.

The problem is public information is riddled with holes and often less than helpful. “Don’t invade Russia” is sound advice but I was extremely unlikely to do so in the first place. If we value public information then we waste quite a bit of time on things that aren’t very relevant to us at all. Should Ray Rice have been banned? Should I buy Alibaba stock post-IPO? How will the mid-term elections go? Who will run for President in 2016?

Who cares?!

Football is just entertainment and unless you had Ray Rice on your fantasy team his private life probably doesn’t concern you much. Alibaba is the largest e-commerce company in the world and its IPO was welcomed with all manner of press and hoopla. But IPOs are designed for the insiders to get rich by selling their private stock to the public at an inflated valuation. This works best when the media pumps up the IPO story over and over again. You don’t want to be on the public side of an IPO, you want to be on the private side. And the mid-term elections are largely irrelevant as is the presidential election in 2016. No matter who wins the debt will continue to spiral out of control until the U.S. dollar is supplanted from its perch as the international reserve currency… probably by the IMF’s “Special Drawing Rights” (SDR). No amount of campaigning and voting will prepare you for the inevitable; probably best to stop wasting time and start preparing for the Great Reset now.

Public information is similar to the fiat currency we discussed yesterday. Maybe a little bit of it won’t do too much harm but go past that line and you are going to be in a world of financial hurt. So in this humble philosopher’s opinion: focus on real history and private information. The rest is probably just noise.

Hopefully this one doesn’t put wife to sleep. On second thought, maybe it’s for the best.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the Great Reset and regaining individual sovereignty please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.