Do both. Too many are trying to short cut wealth.

Determine a time frame to be debt free and understand what it takes. As you have fewer debts, you will have more money to buy/save more #Bitcoin.

This is what happened to gold in Germany in the 1930s. Leveraged pretty much wiped everyone that tried it out UNLESS you have a business/job big enough to cover all margin calls.

This narrative is not going away. Expect a LOT more from Goverment controlled law enforcement stating Crypto is 'bad' -

Reality?

Big Government is bad. Causing the crime in the first place.

Criminals create crime, not money. But when the deck is stacked against you, you fight for survival any way you can.

There is a lot of focus on mechanics and deep thought on Nostr.

Young people are just here for the socialization/features and generally don’t really care about the mechanics. I mean, what is free speech anyway? (Joking but they don’t get it yet)

I think we will get there, it will just take some more time.

A great goal is to live on what you make today BUT have ZERO debt. Determine how much Bitcoin you need today (or in X years) to generate that income at a 20% compounded interest rate (be conservative since Bitcoin has returned 30%/year).

After you reach that goal, WORK for X years to pay off ALL DEBT. Then you don't need a job.

Keep a small investment account on the side and LEARN how to invest it wisely in good companies (avoid the stock market trading - it's a fools game - gambling). And NEVER buy a lottery ticket or gamble (it's stealing your future wealth).

Boom - you have a plan.

Example: Need $100,000. That's $500K in Bitcoin. You have $200K in debt. So AFTER you have $500K in Bitcoin you work 2 more years to pay off that $200K in debt. Then you are financially independent if you live within your $100K residual income.

You can figure out how many years it takes to get to your $500K in Bitcoin based on current Bitcoin using the Power Law calculator.

https://bitcoincompounding.com/

Well.....

Hold on a sec...

Reagan gets the credit, but the USSR was in steep decline LONG before Reagan. I want to give Reagan all the credit but he gets 10%.

It is a fact that Centrally controlled economies ALWAYS fail. China will fail. US on it's current path, will fail.

ALL current socialist/communist countries have significantly less living standards than the LESS centrally directed countries! I say 'less centrally' because we have NO democracy or republics left. They have all gravitated to centrally controlled.

So why?

It's the money. The Government controls the the circulation of money so they can ALWAYS print and enrich themselves (and their doners). Then regulate private business to the point of compliance with Government influenced by special interests monopolies).

Historically this always fails, we go badk to hard money (it's been the gold standard) and representitive republics and democracies re-emerge.

Hardest money the last few thousand years: Gold.

Hardest money today: #Bitcoin.

Bitcoin will win - either soon or the next bust in a 100 years!

Never the less, thank you Reagan for finishing off the USSR. Russia should be thankful too (and I think they are).

Most transactions are through a bank. Because banks have to comply with KYC (Know Your Customer) they have access to all transactions with a search warrant for ALL accounts.

There are many stories of peoples accounts being frozen for 'suspicious' activity. I don't think this is the norm. BUT it can be done with the current system in place.

The IRS can take money from accounts, and garnish wages. BUT I think it's quite rare - maybe getting more so but still very rare.

The idea these systems are in place are beyond comprehension to me - why Bitcoin wins with me.

Nothing to see here.

BUT - it's sad so many Americans are so short sighted they don't hold their own keys. They GIVE their money to shysters to 'manage' for them.

History shows this NEVER ends well.

Buy #Bitcoin daily. Move to cold storage every few grand. HODL5+, preferably 10+ years. Enjoy.

In the meantime, learn REAL SKILLS that are useful to people so you can provide products/services to others that they NEED/WANT so you can save more Bitcoin.

This kinda scares the shit out of me.

I always think, "How can someone subject themselves to living like this?"

And then I wake up and realize it's happening in USA too.

Gotcha. It makes sense.

How about #Bitcoin? Preservation of wealth?

Probably like West, few understand. Correct?

We had 5 kids. 4 are engineers (two ChemE's, Materials, and Electrical) and one a teacher for a year turned property owner (25 owns 3 houses).

All killing it.

When someone asks how we did it I say, "Never do ANYTHING for your kids they can do for themselves."

This includes giving them money when they could have a job. They WORKED for everything. NONE of them graduated from College with any debt - one had $50K in the bank when she graduated from college.

Required to read daily K-12, and did a LOT of homework we gave them outside of school (math and reading).

Were not allowed to have a car until they read "Atlas Shrugged" and gave me a rundown what they heard. And I needed to hear the right things or they would read it again.

If I had to name one thing. Raising your kids to make their OWN decisions. In a round about way we are saying the same things. The question is how do you teach discipline and consistency? The answer is never do for a child what they can do for themselves (which is much harder than it sounds). They will fail from time to time and you can't bail them out. It hurts.

I'm sure this is well intended. But now you have to define 'productive farmland' - and an entire Government Agency will need to be created to define that and 'inspect' the grounds for viability.

As with most regulations - they all sound great. Fair. And righteous.

And down the road they are absused, and used by politicians to control people.

People that OWN their land should be able to do what they want with it. If growing crops is most productive for them, fine. If solar is more productive, that's fine too.

Government distorts everything making us LESS efficient. 99.9% of the time (so the benefits of this type of regulation are pretty much non-existent).

Tim - are you in China?

The financial system is locked down in China. Curious to know if this is a way for Chinese to get their money out of China?

Thoughts?

I don't think they can stop it - but if you got caught.... ouch.

Gold was revalued around 1935 after Executive Order banning the ownership of Gold by citizens in 1933.

It was not legal to own Gold again until 1974. Not much news about this because the Media is controlled by the Elites that would rather have you not understand this issue.

Nixon took us off the gold standard but we had already printed WAY more money than we had Gold. So 'officially' going off the gold standard and when we actually went off the gold standard are two different things. It was a slow decay.

If you study history hard, the downfall of the USA actually started in 1913 - when the Federal Reserve was created. Remember too, 7 world bankers RESISTED the central Bank (for obvious reasons known now) until they were all on the Titanic in 1912 when it sunk. I'm sure it's just another coincidence. Look it up. Once they all were killed, opps - died accidentally - the next year the USA Federal Reserve was created. Regardless of what actually happened or how it happened - 1913 was pivotal.

MOST of the innovation in America was in the late 1800s. Steam then oil, electricity, communications - all the things we use today were created during HARD money times!

This explains the improvements in standard of living for America. Imagine where we may have been if we would have stayed on a Gold standard!

As a more recent comparison, think Apple Computer. In 1992 Jobs created the Newton - and that lead to the invention of the iPhone in around 2005. ALL of Apples business was created during Jobs, Tim Cook is a total loser - done nothing but incremental improvements in the business. BUT Cook gets credit for the massive stock run up.

Nation states develop over 100s of years, companies over decades. These analogies are everywhere if you research enough.

So to your question about Nixon and the Great Depression - it's hard to understand these HUGE time frames.

To summarize: Federal Reserve created 1913. US Gov stole 50% of citizens wealth in 1935. Government continued it's massive spending and control of the people through 1971 including funding nearly EVERY war on BOTH sides for the next 50 years, at which time they had to default, again. After 1971, a race to the bottom funding endless wars, making the Elites filthy rich (Pelosi worth $300 million as a public servant), and robbing the working class of their standard of living.

And here we are. #Bitcoin should fix all this if it works (and I think it will).

Read. Read lots of books. Never turn on the TV and if someone else has, try to block it out (very hard).

The reading is not an instant mind change. But over time, you will 'gravitate' from passive engagement in everything to questioning everything (active engagement). Reading is very hard at first because the current education system in USA does not teach independent thought and exploration (but learning process and things).

Over time, reading will change the type of books you want to read - re-enforcing the 'question everything' state of mind.

TWO years later, enlightenment feels extremely good - almost an elevated state of mind as you listen to people talk in the background. May take 3+ years depending on how programed you have become.

You will absolutely learn to control your feelings, and the emotions that drive them - because you will understand where it comes from. As a side note, you will also become VERY heathy (eating the right foods and engaging in healthy activity)!

Totalitarianism creeps in slowly. Most don't see it happening until it's WAY too late.

GREAT book, "Psychology of Totalitarianism"

It basically goes through history, much in WW2, about how and why people followed. Some testimony from soldiers that took those orders, and some of their family background.

Deep dive into their mental state. The BIG fear here is not the oppressed, it's when you get enough people 'executing' orders without a second thought about what they are doing. Our society in the West have created education that teaches process, not thinking (thinking like question everything).

Once rulers have the military completely brainwashed, 7 soldiers can easily control 1,000's of passively educated, likely confused and unaware citizens (50%+ in the West). Good people don't believe (or don't want to believe) their outcome under the rule of bad people.

The rulers today in America have indicted/jailed over 30 of their political opponents and you still have people voting for the Elites that contains the prosecutors, judges, and elected officials responsible. Think about that very deeply. It shoudl scare the crap out of everyone.

Adding this. Also, left out the coming self custody - which could be a monster addition allowing world access to self custody of #Bitcoin (as we all know all 8 billion people can't self custody on chain).

Okay, you can look at it that way. But it's decentralized, community based - it's not centrally controlled and it's also private.

When you say 'custodian' it would imply central control.

How?

Your thinking is flat backwards. The rich are paying for all the schools now. And that's why you are in the situation u r in.

The top few percent pay 50% of all taxes. And they unreasonably influence 'better' districts were their kids attend school at the expense of everyone else.

Your problem is INCREASING taxes increases centralized power and control. This weakens local authority to adapt to change. So you get stagnant, and eventually corrupt districts, as infighting amoung schools grows. Administration gets bigger due to MORE regulations and rules to divide the ever dwindling resources from elimination of innovation through rules/laws. Think - who gets the resources then (yep, those districts that donate the most to political campaigns).

The downward spiral continues until the schools are dysfunctional. The uneducated masses (from these failing schools) call for more taxes and more socialism to 'fix' the problem - not understand it's causing the problem.

Once you privatize ALL education and get Government OUT of the way, you will again drive down cost, and increase quality - like a cell phone. Schools will be incentivized to provide good education at a cheaper cost - well - because that's how you grow!

Based on where we are now, we may need complete failure before a reset. The transition will be very difficult from the point of decay we are in now. We have 5 kids, all started in Montessori school some 30+ years ago. It was bad then, it's far worse today. 4 engineers and a teacher all graduates with zero school debt and all are killing it. We did not comply with public education. I would encourage everyone to work outside the public system - it's going to take generations to fix and fail most students.