Is the Dollar Making Our Future Uncertain?

In his book The Fiat Standard, Saifedean Ammous writes, "Money naturally increases the expected future value of deferring consumption compared to a world with no money. This incentivises future provision. The better the money is at holding onto to its value into the future, the more reliably individuals can use this money to provide for their future selves and the less uncertainty they will have about their future lives." - Chapter 7 Fiat Life 

 What do I think about that?

I think its a real thing. Look around and its easy to see how seductive and destructive short-term thinking is in areas like alcoholicsm, drug addiction, obesity, consumer debt, and infrastructure. We know that there are 2000+ year old Roman roads that are still operational yet we, with better technology and engineering, build roads that need to ongoing maintenance every 6 months. The way money is losing its value and the fact that our homes and vehicles are in need of constant repair, our futures seem more and more uncertain, don't they? I wonder if we are willing to address one of the sources of these societal ailments and take an honest look at our addiction to the dollar? 

I believe that the quality of a person and a society mirrors the quality of its money (and vice versa). The zero value debt based nature of paper fiat currencies forces a person into a short-term consumption based way of acting and thinking. Because debt is always trying to destroy itself, the incentive is to trade dollars as soon as possible for anything available (ie consumerism). It’s only a moment away from getting canceled. It’s also no surprise that fiat economies engage in self-destructive behaviors (eg alcoholism, drug abuse, and other short term actions that minimize sustainability. A durable form of money like Gold or Silver begets a society of durable products and long-term wealth. 

There are many people who have thought about this from Murray Rothbard (What Has Government Done to our Money?) to Saifedean Ammous (The Fiat Standard, The Bitcoin Standard) to provide a few trailheads of inquiry. The question I’ve wrestled with though is “what am I supposed to do?” “How am I supposed to build wealth in a broken world/economy” 

To that question I’ve started to understand the power of affirmations and positive thinking. Below are a few affirmations I tell myself to be someone who can accept a higher quality form of wealth and freedom and adopt the mindset of a long-term actor. As applicable, you can repeat these (or your own) to yourself everyday and throughout the day. You don’t even have to know why Cognitive Behavorial Therapy (CBT) works for it to work for you. Just like you don’t need to know how your body digests a protein shake for it to supply protein to your muscles. All you have to do is drink. 

16 Affirmations for Building True Wealth and Freedom 

1. I am capable of making a difference
2. I am capable of making those around me strong, aware, grateful, and successful 
3. I am capable of expanding my vision of what’s possible for myself and others 
4. I am able to identify gifted and resourceful people to help me achieve my goals and motivate their brilliance and eagerness to help 
5. I will maximize my gifts and share them with boldness, courage, confidence to myself, my family, and my community 
6. I am wealth and magnetically attracting my wants and needs 
7. I will be shockingly successful 
8. I am willing to take on any challenge with grace and resiliency 
9. I am capable of thriving in an environment absent an authority dictating morality, value, and definitions of money or wealth 
10. I am considerate of myself and others by practicing expressing my freedom creatively, socially, and politically in my thoughts, speech, and actions 
11. I use my freedom to build wealth for myself and a world of peace and prosperity, free from fear and mindlessness.  
12. I provide bountifully for my friends and family 
13. I can see potential and know how to support its flourishing 
14. I can give new ideas space. 
15. I can entertain new ideas with curiosity, inviting productive thoughts and diolague to my conversations. 
16. I am culturally humble, able to empathize with people from all kinds of backgrounds, environments, experiences, and cultures. 

 Again I think of these affirmations like a meal and you can make a meal for any situation. You just need to be mindful of your intention and plan to “eat” regularly. 

One fun example of the power of affirmations for me happened during a round of golf. I had been telling myself the whole round “I’m really confident with a putter in my hand” and “I’m really reading the greens well today”. On my last two holes I dropped a 41 foot and a 25 foot putt because for the whole round I had been telling myself that I was the kind of golfer who did things like that. Ironically, my playing partners did the opposite. They started off really solid but around hole 7 they hit a few bad shots and said “Now we are playing like who we really are”. Their negative cognition had been working against them the whole round. It was only a matter of time before the wheels started falling off. 

 All this to say… the logic of debt money is short-term consumption and long-term destruction and the logic of gold like money is short-term savings and long-term wealth. We have to recognize this correlation and begin the process of prosperity by affirming ourselves to improve the quality of our character in order to be a society that accepts and desires a prosperous future. 

 Tell me what you think? How do you see the quality of money influencing the quality of society? Do you think there is a better way we can organize our gifts and talents without using such a crummy sort of money like the US Dollar?