This truth really struck home as I read this piece by Dr. Steven Englander, a big thinker and expert in currencies and macro-investing who has worked in the Fed, Citi, Lehman Bros., the OECD, etc.

At the center of his conclusion that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have no real value proposition is that the top Western currencies have no store-of-value problem.  True, the US is not Zimbabwe, or Venezuela, but is a bright person like himself not aware that a dollar or pound is worth a small fraction of itself decades to a century ago?  Somone else could be forgiven for the oversight, but surely someone of the stature of Dr. Englander should know better.  At least when he writes a long and thoughtful piece like this.

Which brings me to, really, my pet peeve.  We all talk about the technical features of this money or that.  Electronic vs. physical.  Inflationary or deflationary.  Even transactional speed and cost.  But truly, the only things that really matter are political.  (That is, after a money satisfies the basic requirements, which is not a problem here.)

And I'm not even talking about how money affects the distribution of benefits to different political constituents, whether it benefits debtors vs. creditors, etc., etc.  That is a good topic for another time.  I'm talking about something deeper.  Money is political in the truest, most precise, and widest sense of the word.  And the political dividing line is not between left and right, but between the top politicians and bankers, and everyone else.

Money determines how much goes to the elites and their allies, and how much goes to everyone else.  In the service of the political goal of maximizing benefits for the former, all things tend to get distorted.  Not only is the economy twisted into producing too many luxuries for the beneficiaries by providing unstable employment to the rest (because, after all, luxuries are bought, or not, at the whims of the lucky.)  All the mainstream commentary we hear, somehow, only reflects what the elites want us to think.

According to what we now have to call mouth-pieces of the elites, somehow, people always chase bubbles, and always get hurt, because they're irrational, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  Central-bank money creation is *never* a driving factor.  No, never.

We're living in a lie, and the earlier we wake up to it, the better.  What officials and mainstream media and academics tell us must sometimes be dismissed with: it's just politics.