It has been a challenging past year, a challenging past few months, with no event more challenging for me personally than the passing of my Mom, our Famo – Heidi Engström.
We gathered on July 29th 2024, with a small group of family by Esbo Domkyrka, where we lay her to final rest. Her brother Kurt Röholm and her mother Lempi Engström are buried in the same grave.
While words can feel inadequate in times like these, here are the words I spoke:
We gather here today to give her final rest, and to remember the life of Heidi, our dearest Mom, our kindest Famo.
Who in life gave so much of her time, her effort so that we could all have better lives.
She showed us how to raise a family, even when she was by herself in the difficult years after the divorce – her number 1 priority was always us, the kids.
And we know that she could be difficult in getting things her way – “ta nu lite mera mat” .🙂. We remember the way she’d say your name “Oskar..Måste du nu… Ville, snälla..”
She had many ways of expressing her love for us: all the blueberry pie, the meatballs & mash, all the veggies and fruits she’d serve – was one way.
She showed her love for nature: tending gardens, picking up trash wherever she went.
Showed her love for family and friends by being very social, remembering everyone’s birthdays and name days.
She is not here with us today in her physical form, but I wish, so hard, that wherever she is now, that she’s happy and at peace.
But I know that us being here together, doing small good things to make the world a better place, that would make her happy for sure.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, my Dad’s dad – my grandpa Vaari loomed as a large figure in my life. He had steely gray hair, always a ramrod straight back and blue-gray eyes that could pierce your soul.
He was born in 1910, when Finland was still under Russian rule, and he had become an officer in the Finnish army in the 1930s. When Finland was attacked by Russia in 1939, he was sent to the front. He was promoted to Major during the war – leading a signaling battalion, and eventually after the war to a Colonel.
When he met me he’d try out how strong I had become. He would squeeze my little hand, and see if I could make his hand hurt or see if I could stand him pinching my wrist.. I don’t ever remember seeing any reflection, any pain in his demeanor – but it was all done in a joking manner, and I have a sense that this was as much tenderness that he could muster, as much that he could allow himself to show.
In the mid-80s we’d spend summers together at country places on some island outside of Helsinki, and my grandpa, my cousin Jonni and I were the permanent inhabitants of these country houses. We’d arrive in June, when the Finnish seawater could still be around 12C and there’d be a chilly wind, spend long glorious summer days there, and we’d leave in early August when the weather would start to cool again.
Jonni and I would spend the days roaming in the forests, shooting bows and arrows, stealing some cigarettes when we could and have a bunch of fun. Our main duties consisted of helping Vaari with his fishing, which he took with utmost seriousness. We’d also cook together, but that was clearly less important to Vaari.
During the day Vaari would prepare the nets or the traps, and in the evening Jonni or I would row out together with Vaari to place the traps. Vaari would be very concentrated on getting the traps in the right positions, and would bark quiet orders to us if we didn’t row the boat to his high standards.
Early in the morning – around 6AM – we’d row out and pick up the traps to see what we’d gotten. Most mornings it was so still and quiet that you could hear the seabirds, hear the fishes splashing, and it felt like nothing else existed in the world.
In the evenings we would always heat up the sauna to a good 80C-90C, and jump in the sea between rounds of sauna. The smell of the wood-burning stove and the vihta (ask me if you don’t know..) are still imprinted in my mind.
As we got older – around 14, 15 we started to get curious about how things had been in the war – after all he’d spent four years at the front, as a commanding officer, so he must have seen some gory stuff? However whenever we’d ask, he’d deflect the question, and eventually go back to his tasks and his fishing gear.
I don’t really have an answer for why he didn’t want to talk about the war, only to say that perhaps he felt it was best to not dig into painful things that happened a long time ago. The thing that concerns me is seeing world events these days – knowing that the generation of my Grandpa has largely left this world, we could be careening towards bigger confrontations as the world is splitting into the blocks of the West (US, EU etc..) and the East (China, Russia, Iran etc..).
Today I remember my Vaari, and wish that he was here – so we could go fishing, and like him focus on taking care our families and this Earth.
And to remind this generation’s leaders of what happened 80 years ago, when nationalistic fervor gripped the moods, and too few people stood up for peace.
Have you ever wondered how some crypto sites can offer ludicrous APRs? Here’s a short primer to dive in – and as this is a primer, some concepts/ background are edited for clarity.
Some of the most promising sites/ tech in DeCentralized Finance (DeFi) are DEXs. A DEX (decentralized exchange) facilitates trading round the clock, every day of the year, without requiring a username or password. You retain custody of your crypto on your own cold wallet hardware (say Ledger or Trezor). Once the transaction is recorded on the blockchain the ownership/ settling of the asset is done automatically – there is no T+2 settlement like in TradFI (Traditional Finance).
Let’s use GMX (on Arbitrum / Avalanche) as an example – if you want to swap say your ETH to USDC, you go to the Trade page and execute your trade just like you would on a centralized exchange:
Now, you may ask yourself – all these centralized exchanges (Coinbase, Binance, Nasdaq, NYSE, GS dark pools etc) – how do they make money? Well, they make their money on trading – pairing Bob who wants to buy ETH for $2000 from Alice, and charging a fee (price difference or transaction fee) for the service.
Imagine that all for example ETH owners, including Bob, could “Pool” their ETH (in a Liquidity Pool), allowing them to earn fees on ETH trades. Essentially the ETH is placed in a ‘vault’ or smart contract that pools your ETH with other DeFi users. Then you as a “Liquidity Provider / LP” earn a good chunk of the fee revenue that accrues to the pool – as a percentage of your ownership in the pool.
Throughout history a centralized/ third party has earned these fees. With DeFi you still custody the assets (you are the only one with the private keys). This is at the core of DeCentralized Finance – getting rid of the intermediaries, and allowing the actual owners of the assets to benefit.
So what kind of rates can earn in these pools? On GMX V2 pools today:
And we’ve heard Ethereum transactions are expensive right? GMX runs on Arbitrum – an ETH Layer 2, and transactions are normally 10c-20c… (and will get cheaper..).
Remember these are new technologies, where some sites/ users have been hacked, you take on smart contract risk, risk of owning the crypto asset etc, but it’s not ‘Fake SBF / Terra Luna’ yield, it is native yield based on fee generation. Always do your due diligence on the sites you use – personally I prefer the larger DeFi sites with a higher TVL (total value locked), higher revenues, clear open-source code on Github for all key functionalities etc…
Finally – this is NOT financial advice, be careful out there 🙂
Taylor Swift isn’t just a music icon; she’s also on the front lines of changing how stars and fans connect. She’s created a passionate community, taken on big music companies, all while being aligned ethically with what’s called Web 3 – let’s dive in how…
Building a Fan Family
Taylor’s fans, the “Swifties,” aren’t just cheering from the sidelines; they’re part of the conversation. She talks to them straight through social media, not just to share music news but to get their take on things, too. Swift’s approach to engaging with her community directly, without going through traditional media or platforms that might act as intermediaries, also aligns with the Web 3 principle of decentralization. This creates a tight-knit fan club – whereas Web 3 technologies can provide the tools for online communities to decide how they want to govern themselves, how the community is built etc.
Cutting Out the Middleman
Taylor’s bold move to re-record her old songs is a game-changer. It’s her way of taking back control and getting closer to her fans without the music industry’s big players calling the shots. In 2019, Swift spoke out against the acquisition of her master recordings by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings as part of its deal with Big Machine Records. She emphasized the importance of artists owning their masters to control their work’s usage and financial benefits. It’s similar to what Web 3 wants to do—cutting out the unnecessary middleman and letting creators sell their art to their most hard-core fans. Imagine owning an NFT, that for example gives access to alternative versions of songs, or allows the owner to receive a share of the song’s royalties.
Music for Everyone
Swift’s ethical alignment with Web 3 is underscored by her advocacy for artist rights and fair compensation. Her public battles against inequitable streaming revenues and ownership rights echo the Web 3 emphasis on fair value distribution and transparency. For example in 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, protesting against its streaming royalties’ distribution model. In the Web 3 world, smart contracts on blockchain platforms could ensure artists receive their due share without the opacity that sometimes shrouds the financial flows of the music industry, or could allow the platforms themselves to be owned by the artists and fans.
Advocating for Fellow Artists
In 2015, Swift wrote an open letter to Apple Music, criticizing their policy not to pay artists during the service’s free three-month trial period. Apple reversed its policy following Swift’s letter, agreeing to pay artists even during the trial. This action reflected a Web 3-type advocacy for transparent and fair compensation models that benefit all stakeholders.
Avoiding scalpers
With tickets to concerts often costing $1000’s of dollars due to scalpers, blockchain-based systems can enforce identity verification and purchase limits at the point of sale. Smart contracts can be programmed to allow only verified users to purchase tickets and limit the number of tickets each user can buy. This reduces the likelihood that scalpers can buy large quantities of tickets for resale at inflated prices.
Challenges to Think About
The music industry is deeply entrenched in its ways, and a single artist, irrespective of their influence, can face significant hurdles in changing the system. Additionally, the Web 3 space is still in its infancy, and its principles, technologies are yet to be tested at scale, especially in creative industries.
Conclusion
Taylor Swift is not just writing anthems for generations but also rewriting the rulebook on how artists and communities interact in the digital age. She’s showing us a peek into a future where music and the internet can be a place where everyone wins, with artists in charge of their own music and fans getting front-row seats to the show.
It was the morning of Wednesday Sep 20th 2023, and we’d gone out for a walk with Jolene at 7.25AM. I had eaten my breakfast (yogurt, chia seeds, flaxseed, blueberries) and taken my morning medicine of metoprolol – a beta blocker, and a baby aspirin. After the heart episode in Finland, these were the medications ascribed to me.
I had regularly felt a pain in the chest/ thyroid – about 5-7 minutes into starting a walk/ exercise, and I had equated it with the beta blocker medicine (metoprolol) kicking in to do its job. I’d take a pause, breathe and after a minute or so the symptoms would go away. We’d walked about 10 minutes or half-way when the symptoms kicked in.
This time the chest pain got worse and worse, until I felt the ICD (intra cardiac defibrillator) kick in. It felt like my whole body was jolted. However the ICD did its job, and my heart rate returned to normal.
The ambulance showed up quickly, and the EMTs were able to confirm my heart was back in sinus rhythm, my EKG was normal. I did feel a little shaky still so we took it slow and drove ourselves to the closest ER/ hospital – at Baycare Countryside.
In the ER
In the ER the staff took us in and did some basic EKG, bloodwork etc. Jolene was with me the whole time, and we held hands as we discussed. Around 9.30AM we started discussing a topic that caused me some distress, and I could feel the familiar chest tightness, and heart racing symptoms start again.
The ICD fired three times, and brought my heart rate back to sinus. I only felt two of the ICD jolts, but each threw my body in the air with the kick.
At this time the staff put me on an Amiodarone drip, and transferred me to the Intensive Cardiac Unit. The next 24h-48h were very stressful, filled with anxiety as I wondered how my heart would perform, whether I would get shocked again.
Medications
Now armed with the additional information we had about the chest pain, Dr Hazlitt – an electro-physiological cardiologist, together with Dr Bruno (internal medicine) put me on two different medications: 800 mg Amiodarone to keep the heart rate down, and avoid fibrillation, and 4 pills of Imdur (Isosorbide dinitrate), which is used to prevent chest pain (angina) caused by vasospasm. It works by relaxing and widening blood vessels so blood can flow more easily to the heart.
The flowchart of issues as we can best tell today is:
I was released from the hospital on Saturday September 23rd, starting another journey of recovery. Even though my body felt battered, and scarred – I felt like a survivor, some-one that had gone through some traumatic sh*t. I’m hoping this tale can be informative and helpful to others who are going through similar or other difficult circumstances. I will write more about the recovery and lessons in an upcoming post.
This is the story of the day I almost died, and how I’m so grateful today to be writing about the event instead.
I’m a 49 year old Dad, IT professional and athlete, living in Tampa Bay, Florida. I’ve generally been healthy all my life, and as written about in my health test, I thought I was doing well.
In July 2023 we came to Helsinki, Finland to spend our vacation, to visit our family and friends. We had Penny & Liam with us, and every-one was excited about visiting Finland/Sweden and in general spend time with family & friends.
On Wednesday July 26th, we spent the day doing sauna, cold water swimming and eating Nepalese food. On Thursday July 27th 2023 – we’d decided with Sam and Liam to go jogging/ workout, so I woke up the boys and we headed out after having a small glass of water to drink.
I felt fine, except some carby bloat from the Nepalese food. Otherwise I was in excellent shape for a 49-year old (or so I thought). We jogged down the slope to Mannerheimintie, I suddenly started feeling unwell and passed out. This has been told to me later:
EVENT
Sam notices me collapse on the ground, panics and then quickly alerts a bystander to call an ambulance. He tells Liam to run to get everyone else.
I’ve been hit with ventricular fibrillation, which reduces the heart to a quivering mass of jelly, unable to pump blood. VF leads to Sudden Cardiac Death, with a mortality rate of 95% after 15 min without resuscitation. As I’m convulsing on the ground, start foaming from the mouth, Sam and the bystander start to perform CPR/ chest compressions. Minutes tick by like an eternity.
The ambulance arrives, and the Emergency medics rush to the scene. They assess the situation and give an electric shock which resets the electrical circuits in the heart. I’d spent about 10 minutes in V-Fib. I’m rushed to the hospital, in a state of shock and confusion. After a couple of hours my state is better, the confusion is lifting, and I’m able to see my family again. I spend 24h in the Cardiac Intensive Care unit, unable to sleep with the noise and beeping around me. I feel scared and anxious as I’m not sure if I will wake up if I fall asleep.
AFTER
The evening of the event the cardiac surgeon performed an angiogram, and found only mild changes related to coronary artery disease, but nothing that would explain the cardiac event.
An MRI was performed on Monday July 31st – with no indications of root cause. On Wednesday August 2nd, a electro- physiological stress test was performed on my heart – also here the heart performed well. This test though is no walk in the park – as you are given electrical shocks and chemicals to your heart, and it feels as if you are relieving the event all over again.
I was also given a neuro-psychiatric evaluation, and thankfully no loss of function/memory/ability was found.
Finally on Thursday August 3rd, an ICD (Intra Cardiac Defibrillator) was operated into my chest. The ICD monitors the heart rate, and in case the heart goes into fibrillation again, the ICD can give an electric shock to reset the heart. I was shell-shocked, very raw emotionally, but at the same time so grateful to Sam, to my family, to the first responders etc.
There are many lessons, and a journey to recovery from this, that I’ll write about in the next post.
I’d wanted to learn about the benefits of cold therapy, to extract the physiological and psychological effects, benefits of getting into cold water, especially as it relates to health benefits, insulin sensitivity etc.
As an intro to this topic – this post covers Professor Andrew Huberman interviewing Dr. Susanna Soberg, an expert in deliberate cold and heat exposure protocols, talking about the science and impact of deliberate cold exposure from this study (Cell reports). The interview also covers the importance of the cold shock response and how to approach a deliberate cold exposure protocol.
FYI – this post has been ‘co-written’ using tools such as:
The study was done in Denmark on a male cohort, and carried out by having participants do winter swimming for minimum two days per week, measuring brown fat activation with an infrared camera, and taking fat biopsies. The study was done in a field setting, and participants were encouraged to do the winter swimming whenever they had time. The relevant ‘minimum viable dose’ was 11 minutes of weekly cold exposure.
Why cold therapy?
Cold exposure can improve insulin sensitivity, which can help to prevent type 2 diabetes.
“ We did see that the winter swimmers had an increased insulin sensitivity. They produced less insulin on all the experimental days. We measured insulin when they were fasting, meaning that they hadn’t eaten in eight hours before the study day. We could see that the winter swimmers had lower production of insulin. Also when they had glucose drinks, the winter swimmers had a faster glucose clearance in the bloodstream. So after two hours, we could see that they had a lower level and the curve went down faster than in the control group.”
Cold exposure can increase brown fat, which is a type of fat that helps to burn calories and generate heat.
“ What happens is that you get adapted a little bit every time you go, like exercise, you get a little bit stronger. So every time you go into the cold water you will feel more comfortable in the cold. You are building your adaptation, which happens on a metabolic level, which is happening via activation of your brown fat.
The mitochondria in the brown fat cells are gonna be activated, you’ll have more of those and they will be more efficient at heating you up because the body expects you to do this again. The capillaries in your skin will also become better at constricting. So you will have a better shield of your body to prepare you for the next time.”
Also your stress response will subside a bit, so you will have a less increase of your catecholamines with time. With time also you have, because of this activation of your brown fat or your muscles, you will have an increase in your metabolism, which will then make your insulin sensitivity better.”
Cold exposure can reduce inflammation, which can improve overall health, mood and cognitive function.
The winter swimmers had lower levels of cortisol at night time – which is beneficial for sleep quality.
And I think it’s very important to think about the cold exposure and the heat exposure as something that lowers the inflammation in the body. And if we can do that, we will have an open door for preventing lifestyle diseases, right? So for type diabetes, but actually also for some mental diseases as well. So as known as depression and anxiety and also Alzheimer’s disease, which are all associated in research, also newer research showing that inflammation increases the risk of depression, anxiety, and Alzheimer’s disease, neurological diseases. So if we can decrease inflammation in the body, we will decrease our modern lifestyle diseases, but also these increasing mental diseases that we see in these modern lifestyle times.
It’s just exposure to temperature, actually just a cold or to heat that is gonna trick our body into a natural state again and reset it where the homeostasis, the balance is lost a bit. So the body is gonna repair itself in that way. And I think it’s beautiful that we can do that just by changing the temperature of our body.
Conclusion
Cold exposure is a safe and effective way to improve health. If you are considering trying cold exposure, be sure to talk to your doctor first and follow any safety tips.
I will incorporate cold baths into my health routines :
Tuesday, after cardio session – 4 minutes total time (2 x 2 min dip)
Thursday, after cardio session – 4 minutes total time (2 x 2 min dip)
Saturday, after cardio session – 4 minutes total time (2 x 2 min dip)
I received a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) about two weeks ago via the Levels start-up. The package arrived a few days after ordering, and the initial setup was relatively easy and painless. I was able to easily export the data from the Levels website.
So how do the results look? The easiest way I can think of to show you the results are using Python (pandas, matplotlib, seaborn libraries) so here we go: (I’m skipping some data wrangling bits here..)
Glucose level distribution as a histogram
Glucose Level Time Series with rolling statistics
Honestly this data has me a bit worried because generally doctors, Peter Attia MD and the Levels program all suggest that fasting glucose should be less than 100/mg/dl…
Also, I wanted to correlate the glucose readings with the time of day, so we can do that eg with a heatmap:
Glucose Levels by Day, Hour in a Heatmap
This chart is really interesting to me because here a number of things stand out to me:
I was in Austin from April 26th to April 28th for a conference, and those days I did a light workout in the morning, and had a light lunch. So clearly a lighter lunch, moving around in the afternoon leads to lower fasting glucose.
I slept really badly Fri-28th-Sat 29th due to a late flight, and clearly a bad night sleep results in a bad fasting glucose.
I generally workout in the afternoon – between 4PM and 6PM, and so higher readings there are not alarming to me.
What strikes me as odd is the differences in the morning fasting glucose -say 5AM to 10AM – varies between 66 mg/dl to 120 mg/dl…The mean is still around 100 mg/dl (which is not great), but I’m surprised about the high variability.
Since I do intermittent fasting (lunch is my first meal) I had generally thought that my morning glucose would be lower.
There is a missing block on May 2nd as I switched the old sensor to the new one – as you have to do that every 10 days. The most painful thing was tearing the Levels patch off my hairy arms 🙂
All in all I’m very happy to have all this data from the CGM/Levels to explore, giving a lot of actionable intelligence – so I will try some life-style, diet modifications soon.
This post is an outline, a template of how I train in 2023.
Disclaimer: I’m a middle-aged male, 6ft 2 in, just under 200 lbs, and my goals are mainly to keep myself healthy for the long-term, and to have energy, vitality for all daily interactions. You can adapt this template to your own needs and always listen to your doctor 🙂
The basic training blocks are focused on either strength or cardio-vascular health, with each training day geared towards adaptions in either one. I train most days, with Sundays being ‘off’. This is a template, and so smaller changes can be made according to how I feel, my shorter-term goals and my schedule etc. Exercises marked e.g. 2A and 2B means they are super-setted, meaning you do one set of A, then one set of B.
Monday – strength focus
Focus
Exercise
Duration
Sets
Reps
% 1 RM
Speed
1. Front Squat
15 minutes
5
2
60%-70%
Strength
2 A) Standing Press
25 minutes
3-4
3-5
80%-90%
Strength
2 B) Weighted Chins
25 minutes
3-4
3-5
80%-90%
HIIT
3. Chins, Dips and Run (done as fast as possible)
15 minutes
3
12
60%-70% – HR 140-160 BPM
Tuesday – cardio focus
Exercise
# rounds
Duration
Comment
A – Assault Bike
3
8 min
Keep HR in Zone 2 (about 13o BMP for me)
B – Jog
3
8 min
Keep HR in Zone 2 (about 13o BMP for me)
Total
About 45-50 min
Followed by light stretching
Wednesday – strength focus
Focus
Exercise
Duration
Sets
Reps
%1 RM
Speed
Explosive push-ups & long jumps
15 minutes
3
3
N/A
Strength
Trap Bar Deadlift
20 minutes
3-4
3-5
75%-90%
Strength
Bulgarian Squat (or RFESS)
15 minutes
3
10
70%
Thursday – cardio focus (alt. yoga, alt. rest)
Exercise
# rounds
Duration
Comment
A – Assault bike
3
8 Minutes
Keep HR in Zone 2 (about 13o BMP for me)
B – Jog
3
8 Minutes
Keep HR in Zone 2 (about 13o BMP for me)
Total
About 45-50 minutes
Followed by light stretching.
Friday – strength focus
Focus
Exercise
Duration
Sets
Reps
% 1 RM
Speed
1. Power Clean
15 minutes
5
2
60-70%
Strength
2A Bench press
25 minutes
3-4
3-5
75-90%
Strength
2B Weighted Inverted Row
25 minutes
4
8-12
65-75%
Assistance
3A Bicep Curl
15 minutes
2-3
8-12
65-75%
Assistance
3B Lying tricep extension
15 minutes
2-3
8-12
65-75%
Assistance
3C Face pulls
15 minutes
2-3
8-12
65-75%
Saturday – cardio focus
Exercise
# rounds
Duration
Comment
1A – Assault bike
2
8 minutes
Keep HR in Zone 2 (about 13o BMP for me)
1B – Jog
2
8 minutes
Keep HR in Zone 2 (about 13o BMP for me)
2 – Sprinting
4-6
15 minutes
Vary shorter and longer sprints, with good amount of rest in between rounds.
Total
About 50 minutes
Followed by light stretching.
Hopefully this gave you some ideas or inspiration how to plan your own training, let me know in the comments if you have any questions.
As I argued in my previous post the financial system is broken, and it shows itself for example as the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer (US gini co-efficient 1990 – 2020). At the root of the financial system is the US dollar, which is no longer backed by anything else than ‘the might of the US army / IRS’, every dollar is an IOU to some-one else.
The message we hear in main-stream media is that spending is driving the economy, that the ‘mighty US consumer’ keeps the economy rocking and that ‘2% inflation’ is something the Fed should target as a worthwhile goal so that the economy can ‘grow’. Hold those thoughts in your head for a moment.
Does that work on an individual level? If one person spends all their money, and doesn’t focus on their earning power or saving anything – will that work? No, you will go bankrupt.
Does that work on a household level? No of course not – that family would end up on the street sooner or later.
Does that work for a company? A company spending tons on fancy offices, employee salaries, growing like a weed. Sounds like WeWork, and we know how well that worked. It ONLY worked as long as the company was growing.
So WHY in the world do we think that that advice, those policies are good for a nation?
The current consumerist, wasteful, opaque, spend it now messaging is due to the demands of constant growth, which is inherent in a debt-based, inflationary system.
We saw a small deleveraging happen in after the Financial crisis and the whole system almost came crashing down – because otherwise the costs of servicing debt will become un-tolerable.
I predict that the inflationary, fractional reserve, constant growth mandate will sooner or later inevitably meet the limits of a finite, resource constrained world. We are seeing overconsumption of natural resources, overconsumption of calories / energy, leading to climate change and chronic indebtedness – both public and private. There is only so much debt that households and countries can take on – this is shown even by mainstream economists like Rogoff and Reinhart.
The alternative is a deflationary currency that incentivizes actors to save for the long-term – to adopt a ‘lower time preference’. A lower time preference encourages actors to plan long-term, postpone immediate gratification and encourages global collaboration.
A deflationary currency that is immutable – such as gold or Bitcoin, have inherent properties that are favorable for bringing about a lower time preference. The Gold standard worked well for a long time, and IMO a Bitcoin Standard would work fine as well.
Imagine a nation where politicians were not able to spend money willy-nilly, and budgets actually had to be balanced? Increases in bureaucracies would actually be questioned, instead of just pawned off on consumers to pay – eg 95% of new hires in health-care since 1990 have not been doctors, but administrators.
Imagine a nation where wars actually had to be paid for, and you would have to raise taxes if you wanted to go to war? Eg in World War I – the first thing the combatants did was drop the Gold standard. We’ve just seen how we can spend Two Trillion $ in Afghanistan, without real oversight or deliberation. How many less wars do you think we would have had, and could be avoided in the future?
Imagine a financial system where savers, wage-earners, pensioners were able to keep their earnings, savings in the base layer money and actually earn yield on that, instead of being pushed into equities and junk bonds in a reckless chase for yield, chase to keep the value of your ‘monetary energy’ intact.
And finally as as an investor which asset would you prefer to build your financial house on? The Fed balance sheet has almost 10x since 2007, and the USD is getting devalued at the rate of $120 Billion per month. Meanwhile Bitcoin is algorithmically set to get scarcer (new BTC rate is halving every four years), and has a cap of of 21M coins by 2140.
