The Bitcoin Standard Podcast
333. The Fiat Trap with Nicolas Cary
- Money as a civilizational force: inflation shapes savings, building, governance, war financing, and time preference across generations
- Academic blind spot on inflation: central bank and government funding of economics research creates institutional disincentive to examine inflation's systemic harms
- Fiat as credit creation: banks "mine" money through lending, not from reserves, which incentivizes mass debt and devalues all existing currency holders
- Wealth preservation strategy for the rich: maintaining large negative fiat balances (debt) while acquiring hard assets that appreciate, rather than holding cash
- Time preference and monetary hardness: softer money (higher inflation) raises time preference and short-termism; harder money enables delayed gratification and long-term civilization building
- Bitcoin as opt-out: hard money eliminates need for constant financial speculation and hedge-fund-style portfolio management to preserve purchasing power