1/ Did you know, that the Vietnam war was a major contributor to the US going off the Gold Standard (aka the "Nixon shock"), which gave birth to the international fiat currencies system that we know today?pic.twitter.com/aLRVXNeGbF
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11/ All in all, the US spent 168 billion of dollars in Vietnam (roughly 1 trillion dollars in today’s terms), which stressed the already fragile US economy to the limits. To give some context, “billion” of debt was outrageous & “trillion” was unthinkable in those days.
12/ When the US was “forced off” the Gold Standard, where did all that freely printed fiat money go? To fill the massive hole of debt & repay obligations incurred during the war.
13/ In some sense, you can say that the Vietnam war & Nixon’s decision to leave the Gold Standard set up the monetarily irresponsible environment that led to the global financial crisis we saw decades later. Which led to the rise of Bitcoin, an antidote to that irresponsibility.pic.twitter.com/EK01GaeLMw
14/ This isn’t to imply in any way that the Gold Standard was perfect. But at least with Gold, governments’ ability to freely print money is severely limited & the risks of capital misallocation & rising wealth inequality are kept in check.
15/ Vietnam was not the first war that caused a government to print money excessively & bankrupt themselves. WWI & the decline of Roman Empire were other famous examples.
16/ Violence has always had a close relationship with money. They feed on each other. Money is needed to finance violence, and (monopoly on) violence in turn extracts money & begets more violence.
17/ It would be a mistake to overlook this relationship when we think about Bitcoin. Could Bitcoin change the equation?
18/ Would a world run by Bitcoin, with potentially less powerful governments & more individual (financial) sovereignty, be less violent? Or more? Only time can tell.
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