I saw some people freaking out on social media recently about a former Trump official encouraging people to get married and have kids. While I can’t find the posts anymore the message was pretty concise: How dare you, and who is going to pay for this?
For thousands of years adult humans have been pairing up to produce the next generation. For most of that time, there has been no governmental assistance. In the grand scheme of history, there actually hasn’t really been a government at all.
You think things are bad now? Just wait until the Universal Basic Income you want so badly rolls out. What’s the price of a staple good you can no longer get your hands on? When prices can’t adjust lest businesses be accused of greed and profiteering, the only alternative is through adjustments in supply. Shortages are also a cost of inflation; the price effectively becomes infinity. You pay for things now, or you pay for things later. There is no free lunch.
The real question we need to be asking is what do we value? At work, I hear people complaining about money issues, and yet, they drive nice cars, go on nice trips, and frequently party on the weekends. I am concerned that the societal time presence has skewed so far that we risk falling into a period of financial nihilism. Iterated out into the future, the result is the extinction of the human species. No birth rate, no future.
This problem is especially difficult for those with jobs that cannot be done remotely. The dichotomy of where the jobs are but where you can afford to live is stark. And it’s drastically affecting people. A conversation with one of my friends about that was the inspiration for this article. Monetary debasement is not only debasing family values but preventing good people from starting families that want them.
A shift in culture is needed; the bitcoin prescription is the medicinal cure for what ails you.
I don’t contribute to retirement accounts anymore. Not because I don’t believe I will live long enough to enjoy the fruits of my labor, but because I reject the premise that I must wait that long to do so. I have hope for the future that was previously nonexistent, and confidence that I can achieve my goals prior to the ripe old age of 59.5 years old. Even at the (presumed) bottom of the bear market I felt secure, having accrued more savings for my family than we had previously had at the height of our net worth before taking the orange pill.
I have three kids and a wife. We don’t live extravagantly, but we don’t need to. The dichotomy of having enough but always wanting more still exists, but in a different form. We save our time in sats, knowing full well what lies ahead. We look towards the future, and plan on enjoying it together, as a family, with our sovereign, hard-won wealth. Expensive experiences are meaningless if you don’t have someone to share them with. Having kids has made our lives richer. Bitcoin has refocused our efforts.
