#134 You'll Need To Rob The Bank If You Want Your Money

Good Morning Everyone,

There was an incident last week in Lebanon that is worthy of further enquiry. I’ve spoken about it with many people offline, but hadn’t written about it at all and feel it’s important to do so. It’s important first of all to retrace our steps a little before we do, so we can maintain the thread through time, and obtain a clear recognition of the order of events leading to this most recent situation.

Eight months ago i first wrote about the situation in Lebanon where the local political money was failing. Basic food and energy costs were skyrocketing due to the rapid loss in value of the Lebanese Pound. Some four months later, the situation in Lebanon again hit my radar having descended further in chaos with the Government & Central Bank capitulating and waving the white flag. The Government & Central bank announced they were bankrupt.

Both these letters are worth quickly revisiting if you missed them to get a strong sense of the how the dynamic has evolved over time. Both are linked below.

This sequence of events has lead to the most recent development, where a man has been pushed to absolute breaking point. The man tried to withdraw his money from the bank in downtown Beirut and that request was denied. The man is said to have had $210,000 held with the bank, and had requested to withdraw $50,000 to cover medical expenses for his fathers surgery.

After being denied to withdraw his “own money”, the man took control of the bank with a firearm taking the bank staff hostage in the process. This hostage situation lasted 7hours and was eventually resolved with him being said to be given $30,000 and he exited with no further escalation or injury. Outside the bank the man was being celebrated as a hero for his actions, and offers a glimpse into the level of distain that exists amongst the citizens of Lebanon and the deeply unstable dynamic currently in the country.

The thread below by Joyce Karam covered the situation with many updates if you would like more details.

This unfortunate situation highlights how fundamentally toxic fiat really is. He literally had to rob the bank to get his own money!

This man doesn’t want to have to rob a bank. He simply wants what is his. He had a significant amount of funds, and like most, doesn’t realise the true IOU nature of banking. His father is unwell and he simply wants to support his family. The fact that he could be pushed in such a way where he would be willing to hold people hostage at gun point serves to highlight how pathologically insane this fiat system really is. This is the level to which fiat is corrupting us and the societies in which we are a part.

This system is so morally and ethically derelict at its core. It is programmed into the fiat system at the base layer. Where bitcoin operates based on the most profound truth, fiat operates on falsehoods and lies. It is a system that is predicated on deception. That anyone would consciously choose a system that harms us so deeply is absolutely unfathomable. This man should never have been forced into this situation, nor should any of the beautiful people of Lebanon or any other nation that have fallen victim to fiat. And we haven’t even considered the implications such actions could have on ones family and the higher order effects which could follow.

So many people still cannot see the problem, and thus they cannot see how bitcoin fixes this, but this is going to change. This disease and the symptoms we exhibit as a part of it are not exclusive to Lebanon. Lebanon is just further down the road compared to some others. This is a kind of de-civilization and these symptoms can be expressed in every country that is on a fiat standard. Every country that uses a money with no anchor to physical reality where it empowers a small few to control this technology are over time destined for a similar fate.

But where fiat fails, Bitcoin will succeed.

If this man understood the predatory nature of banking. If he knew about fractional reserve banking and understood that once you hand over control of your money, once you relinquish custody, that it fundamentally ceases to be yours - he most likely would never have given it the bank in the first place. There would have been no need for him to be pushed to the extent he was, and take the level of risk he was forced to take for him and his family. There would have been no violence toward others, and no one would have ever been taken hostage. But when the system of banking works on the surface, it appears to work. It is not obvious that once the broader dynamic changes and we enter adversarial conditions these IOU’s are unlikely to be redeemable. That they become worthless.

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The people of Lebanon are learning this lesson right now, with 80% of the population now living in poverty. At the core of this is a deeply flawed system of incentives. A system we have called money. But this system is doing more harm than it is good. This system is like that of a casino. It is not our system. When we enter the casino we should do so, knowing the house always wins. We can win a few hands, but if we get too powerful the casino management will take over and assume control. They will either capture us and pull the strings behind our actions or they will forcibly remove us from the building. The same is true for fiat and the government.

Bitcoin provides a new system. A system that is built on truth. Not on lies. Bitcoin maintains an ultimate record of truth and of time. A pristine historical record that is indisputable. A record that is no one person or sides opinion, or point of view. It is a system that is no one else’s. It is everyone else’s. A system that empowers you to take responsibility, and to custody what is yours without needing to trust a third party. Without giving that outsider the opportunity to lie to you and to deceive you. A system where your asset is no ones liability. If you hold and use bitcoin in the right way, it can never be taken from you and no amount of violence changes this. It is a system designed for a world where we acknowledge our deeply flawed nature. A world where we seek to illuminate what is real and deploy humility in the face of our failings. A world consisting of a species of mammal with the ever present potential to behave in an adversarial manner.

Fiat empowers those who wish to behave in such a way. It provides a system where those who do so, can be rewarded for such behaviour and this distorts our perception of reality in a foundational way. It blurs the line between what is right and wrong, and short circuits our moral compass and the way in which we orient ourselves in the world.

Bitcoin disincentivizes any such behaviour. It is the antidote to the fiat disease that is currently tearing us apart. It provides us with the most powerful and transformational opportunity. An opportunity to be empowered and take it upon ourselves to assume responsibility and to course correct as a result of its existence. To rebuild and recalibrate our moral compass, and to enable us to reorient ourselves within the world where someone else does not have to lose for us to gain. To embark together on a co-exploration in search of the highest truth and toward a future where we can flourish together. Where we work to serve one another and that allows us to gain the clear recognition of the value of such pursuits, and the sense of meaning is both obvious and profound to all those operating as a part of such a system. It is the mechanism for a better world. One that i want for my children, and my children’s children, and one that they deserve.

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Fiat is predicated on the idea that we can endlessly take from the future, postponing any need to address the implications of such an action and where we can figure out a way to settle the bill at a later stage. The idea that we can defer accountability into the future. And it is a future we may not even be here to reckon with. It offers the potential to completely evade accountability and creates the potential for this to be redirected to someone else entirely. It is a system that not only allows for it, but directly incentives us to do so. It is directly taking from the future of others, and stealing from the very people we care most about. It is the leveraging of our children’s future to enable us to enjoy the present.

Bitcoin holds a giant mirror up in the face of fiat. It diametrically opposes this idea and instead of siphoning from the future, it pushes value into the the future. It assures the future for those we care most about, instead of deferring our decision making to others and to an uncertain potential future moment. It forces us to acknowledge reality in the present and take responsibility for it. A kind of radical responsibility. It forces us to align ourselves with the truth, and orient ourselves in alignment with it. We will be provided the opportunity to be better for having done so.

Fix the money, fix the world.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

AK

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