For a long time, gold bugs were referencing the above image. In the last decade, they were joined by crypto evangelists. The presented loss of purchasing power is a foundational narrative to recommend alternative stores of value. Despite being factually correct, it misses a boat in what really matters. It's a manipulation by omission.
In an economy, labor sells its skills for money, to trade them for all the things it needs and wants. The money is an abstraction. Goods and services we buy are not. Our well-being, and our standards of living, in a materialistic sense, depend not on how many dollars it takes to buy X, but on how many hours of labor it takes to buy X. Dollars are just an exchange medium.
Additionally, these images don't show the variety of goods and services created over time. We have improvements in medicine, computers, the internet, better housing, airplanes, the list goes on and on. The average folk can buy more today than in the past with fewer hours of labor. Most of these things didn't even exist back then.
That's the true measure of progress and standards of living. Don't be fooled! Don't confuse money and wealth.
For a long time, gold bugs were referencing the above image. In the last decade, they were joined by crypto evangelists. The presented loss of purchasing power is a foundational narrative to recommend alternative stores of value. Despite being factually correct, it misses a boat in what really matters. It's a manipulation by omission.
In an economy, labor sells its skills for money, to trade them for all the things it needs and wants. The money is an abstraction. Goods and services we buy are not. Our well-being, and our standards of living, in a materialistic sense, depend not on how many dollars it takes to buy X, but on how many hours of labor it takes to buy X. Dollars are just an exchange medium.
Additionally, these images don't show the variety of goods and services created over time. We have improvements in medicine, computers, the internet, better housing, airplanes, the list goes on and on. The average folk can buy more today than in the past with fewer hours of labor. Most of these things didn't even exist back then.
That's the true measure of progress and standards of living. Don't be fooled! Don't confuse money and wealth.
Pavel Durov, a billionaire who embraces an all-black wardrobe and is often compared to the character Neo from "the Matrix," funds Telegram through his personal wealth and debt financing. And despite being one of the world's most popular tech companies, Telegram reportedly has only about 30 employees who defer to Durov for most major decisions about the platform. The regulator said it has been undertaking several campaigns to educate the investors to be vigilant while taking investment decisions based on stock tips. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." Telegram has become more interventionist over time, and has steadily increased its efforts to shut down these accounts. But this has also meant that the company has also engaged with lawmakers more generally, although it maintains that it doesn’t do so willingly. For instance, in September 2021, Telegram reportedly blocked a chat bot in support of (Putin critic) Alexei Navalny during Russia’s most recent parliamentary elections. Pavel Durov was quoted at the time saying that the company was obliged to follow a “legitimate” law of the land. He added that as Apple and Google both follow the law, to violate it would give both platforms a reason to boot the messenger from its stores. The gold standard of encryption, known as end-to-end encryption, where only the sender and person who receives the message are able to see it, is available on Telegram only when the Secret Chat function is enabled. Voice and video calls are also completely encrypted.
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