Subtle, but fundamental.

Money is a representation of wealth. The wealth must already exist, or the money has no value. A billion dollars has no value to someone dying of thirst in the desert with no water in sight.

In the same way, a map is a representation of the existing terrain. If the terrain doesn't exist, the map is useless, just a figment of the cartographer's imagination.

Or worse, dangerous. If the cartographer marks El Dorado on his map, but sets a giant bear trap there instead, unsuspecting people will follow the map seeking treasure, but instead end up as slaves.

Same with money. The bankers create money with a keystroke, and it represents the real wealth that already exists. Then people who have that real wealth trade it for the deceptively created money, believing money and wealth to be equivalent. And the people who took out the loans the bankers used to create the money now find themselves slaves to the bankers, forced to produce real goods and services to pay back the loan and attached usury. Meanwhile the people who accepted the money in exchange find that it has lost value, and they have to work more and earn more money just to buy back the real wealth they sold in the beginning.

So the beneficiaries end up being the bankers, who collect usury for the service of "lending" money they never actually had to begin with. They use that to buy up real wealth produced by someone who, again, believes money and wealth are the same thing.

Confusing the map and the territory leaves you susceptible to deceptive maps that will send you to places you don't want to go.

Confusing money and wealth leaves you susceptible to deceptive money that will impoverish you in ways you'll never understand.

Bitcoin is honest money. Unfortunately too many Bitcoiners also haven't learned this principle, so they aren't immune to the promises of "something for nothing" that always comes from the aspiring usurers of the world.

More of my thoughts on this issue here

https://open.substack.com/pub/f0xr/p/money-is-not-wealth?r=3i492j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web