Why FiatSucks.

In 1971, Nixon ended the gold standard — the last remaining leash on how much money governments could create. Since then, the arrangement has been simple: they print, you pay. Not directly, of course. Nobody sends you an invoice. Instead, your savings quietly lose value while prices quietly rise, and everyone in charge assures you this is normal and healthy and actually good for the economy.

Between 2020 and 2022 alone, the US Federal Reserve created roughly 40% of all dollars that had ever existed — in about 24 months. Then they expressed surprise that prices went up.

Inflation isn't a natural weather event. It's a policy choice. When new money enters the system, each existing dollar buys a little less than it did before. That gap — between what your money used to buy and what it buys now — is silently transferred to whoever got the new money first.

Put $10,000 in a savings account in 2000. With average inflation, that has the purchasing power of roughly $5,500 today — and that's being generous. You didn't spend it. You didn't lose it. The system just helped itself.

Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon noticed this in the 1700s, which is impressive given we're still pretending it isn't happening. When new money is created, it doesn't appear in everyone's pocket simultaneously. It enters the economy at a specific point — usually through banks, financial institutions, and government spending — and ripples outward.

By the time it reaches ordinary people through wages and prices, assets have already inflated. The rich, who hold assets, get richer. The poor, who hold cash and wages, get poorer. This isn't a bug or an accident. It is a predictable, documented consequence of how fiat money creation works — and it's been happening continuously for 50 years.

When banks take enormous risks with other people's money and it goes wrong, taxpayers cover the losses. When it goes right, the profits stay private. This is the deal. It has a technical name — "moral hazard" — and a more accurate name: fraud with extra steps.

In 2008, the US government bailed out the financial institutions that caused the crisis to the tune of over $700 billion — then watched their executives collect bonuses while millions of ordinary people lost their homes. In some jurisdictions, "bail-in" legislation now allows banks to use your deposits to recapitalise themselves in a crisis. Your savings. Theirs to use.

Try withdrawing a large amount of cash from your own bank account. Notice how that goes. Fiat money in a bank is not your money — it is a liability of the bank, held on your behalf, under conditions the bank and government can change at any time. Accounts get frozen. Transactions get blocked. Limits get imposed. Governments can and do seize funds, block transfers, and cut individuals or entire countries off from the financial system overnight.

Every fiat transaction is logged, monitored, and available to the state. Financial surveillance is the business model of the modern banking system, wrapped in compliance language and presented as consumer protection.

Most people assume money is created by governments and distributed to the economy. The reality is stranger and darker. Most money is created by commercial banks when they issue loans. When you take out a mortgage, the bank doesn't lend you existing money — it creates new money and logs your repayment obligation as an asset.

This means the entire monetary system requires perpetual debt expansion to function. If borrowing stops, money supply contracts. If money supply contracts, the economy seizes. So growth isn't just desirable — it's structurally mandatory. On a finite planet. Forever. The fact that this system has survived as long as it has is genuinely impressive. The fact that people defend it is something else entirely.