Money is a measurement of resources. You pay someone money when they have goods or services available that you want. In free market capitalism, this theoretically should work out just fine: everyone is a producer and everyone is a consumer. We all do our thing, get paid for our work, and can get whatever we need with the money we receive.
Unfortunately, this idealism doesn't exist in the real world. It costs a lot of overhead and specialization to provide the goods and services that we desire. How many people can build their own car? How many people can provide health care for themselves? How many people can erect their own cell-phone network? No one can do these things alone.
This overhead creates scarcity and centralization. It creates monopolies that put a few people in charge. These greedy sharks project artificial scarcity on the market. They pretend like resources are scarce when they are actually heavily abundant. This tactic enables them to charge a premium for their service, allowing them to rake in ten times the profit that they normally would otherwise. These actions create unacceptable friction.
Prices are not competitive because no one else can enter the market due to the massive overhead. If anyone tries to enter the market the companies that have a corner on it will lower their prices until competition goes out of business or allow themselves to be bought out. Welcome to capitalism.
I'm suddenly reminded of my first serious girlfriend. We lived in ajacent states. We met on World of Warcraft. Oh, yes. Together for a decade. Anyway, before we moved in together we talked on the phone a lot. My dad was generous enough to buy me a, "Nights and Weekends," plan (remember those?). I exploited this deal to the fullest. Every night and every weekend was filled with free service compliments of AT&T.
Well, that must have made AT&T mad because they tried to charge my dad $3000 for one month. I guess they didn't like losing money on the deal they had offered me. My dad had to fight with them for HOURS. They even admitted that I had the free nights and weekends plan. They simply claimed I, "talked too much," even though such language was nowhere to be found in the contract.
My dad should have played hardball with them. He should have immediately threatened to sue them into the ground for everything he could. Instead, he spent hours slowly whittling down the price.
Okay, you can pay us only $2000.
Okay, we'll reduce the charges to $1500.
Fine, we'll remove the main charge, but you still have to pay the taxes and late fees of $800.
This is just a little taste of how these snakes operate. You think we were the only ones being targeted? That would be quite naive. They had this down to a science. Red flag went up when anyone exploited their deal. Bogus charges went out, and prices were slowly negotiated down.
I guarantee you they spent many hours doing cost/benefit analysis on this bullshit behavior. So many statistics, so much work, all in the name of breaking their own deal with their customers. This is the attitude and behavior that is pervasive across the corporate world in general.
LOL, I just now this second got a collection agency settlement in the mail. They've been doing the same thing.
Oh, we'll offer you $2500 for your $3000 debt. One month later: $2000 One month later: $1500 Now: $780
I've already done my homework on this. When they sent me the first notice I already knew that they had only spent pennies on the dollar buying that debt from the credit card company. They lead off with an insulting deal because some people don't know any better and will pay it. Even worse, some people feel bad and feel obligated to pay what they owe. Trust me: you've already paid the price by sacrificing your credit score. Mine used to be over 700 and it was awesome. Now I don't even know how I would be able to move into another place. This is one way people can end up homeless.
I recently went into my bank last week and applied for a secured Visa. That's where I pay them 100% collateral on my credit card and pay them interest on my own money. My credit is so bad I couldn't even get that. This is because they offer you a real credit card after 6 months of making payments, and they have reason to believe that I would not pay them back after giving me this deal. I have to pay off my outstanding debt before I can get a secured Visa and begin to rebuild my credit.
It's very obvious that the collection agency is monitoring this activity, because now they are pursuing me much more aggressively. Maybe one day I'll call them and offer them 10%. I bet they would take it. They might even take 5% if I make it clear I'm willing to play hard ball and continue paying them nothing. Money rules everything.
Collection agencies will never tell you how much they bought your debt for. Why? Because if you knew your mind would be blown and you'd lowball the hell out of them. God bless the Internet! Proving once again that decentralization undermines the establishment:
https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUaq2kzJzbvoWPpNCKGei3GSWrbyd58tEZbvsjARVkv3T/buy%20debt%20pennies%20dollar%20collection.jpg
So maybe I should offer them 2% or 3% for my debt. After all, something is better than nothing amiright? Imagine you are a debt collector and this debt is just sitting on your account; a blight on your value to the company. Wouldn't you rather boost your numbers a little bit rather than get nothing out of it? You have to think like the snakes think to avoid getting pushed through the meat grinder.
This exploitation of the economy has created a slew of problems. Huge companies move overseas to avoid taxes and exploit slave labor. Corporations charge ten times what their product is worth just because they can. Employees are exploited on a daily basis. Money money money. More more more. Exploit exploit exploit.
Well, the world has had enough. The corruption has reached it's apex. The world is so corrupt that it has allowed Bitcoin, an incredibly inefficient service, to take root all across the globe. Where once there were only lies, deception, and a flood of information, now we have a service that offers the full truth and nothing but the truth. This is the value of blockchain. No more lies. No more deception; only truth and transparency.
The blockchain is the foundation of an open source world. We are entering an entirely new paradigm where everyone can actually be a producer and a consumer. With blockchain tech, we can actually initiate a much more pure form of free-market capitalism. Everyone is a producer and everyone is a consumer. Competition from thousands of different sources will be used to find equilibrium in the market. Goods and services will finally cost what they are worth. Artificial scarcity will disappear and abundance will reign supreme.
But what about automation? Automation is going to ruin everything and take everyone's jobs!
Yes, this would be true if we continue down the same path of centralization, but that path leads to oblivion. Automation will free humanity from its invisible chains and provide abundance for everyone. How? Decentralization.
Blockchain is the ultimate form of automation.
What do smart contracts do? They eliminate the middle man and create trustless systems. In essence, they automate out the need to trust someone in power. This is the ultimate form of automation that this planet requires in a world full of corruption and greed.
Therefore, don't worry about automation. A blockchain will come, and you will be invited to join the community. What will this blockchain do? It will distribute all of it's resources produced by automation equally (or unequally as consensus demands) as basic income to the community. And then another blockchain will invite you. And then another, and then another, and so on and so on. You now live in abundance. You can pick and choose which communities you want to participate in. This ensures the Race To The Bottom and zero friction economy.
Whoever is offering the best deal (or is able to trick the most people) will have a thriving economy. Competition will become outdated, and eventually, so will money itself. All that remains will be our reputations. How much do you give society compared to how much you take? This is the merit we will be judged on. This is how power will be distributed: to the people most deserving of it.
Think about how inefficient competition is. Think about how much friction is introduced into our corrupted, broken, and greed-filled economy. Once we eliminate this friction, society will blast off and technology will evolve 100 times faster. The exponential progress will continue.
What is money? Money is a measure of resources. If we automate everything and no longer require human slaves to accomplish all this drudgery, money becomes near infinite. This is why it isn't foolish to make the claim that crypto will hit a quadrillion dollar market cap. Money is going to become so abundant that people will stop caring about it, and they'll start caring about what actually matters: whatever they decide matters (consensus).
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