The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

by Saifedean Ammous

This simple phenomenon explains much of modern economic reality, such as the large number of industries that make money but produce nothing of value to anyone. Government agencies are the prime example, and the global notoriety they have earned for their employees' incompetence can only be understood as a function of the bezzle funding that finances them being completely detached from economic reality. Instead of the hard test of market success by serving citizens, government agencies test themselves and invariably conclude the answer to all their failings lies in more funding. No matter the level of incompetence, negligence, or failure, government agencies and employees rarely ever face real consequences. Even after the rationale for a government agency's existence has been removed, the agency will continue operating and find itself more duties and responsibility. Lebanon, for instance, continues to have a train authority decades after its trains were decommissioned and the tracks rusted into irrelevance.20